Last Exit

DNF @ 25%

Purple prose and preachy, annoying characters with vague goals. Ultra squishy magic system.

Tried six times to get into it and it never did it for me. A bit too much random rambling and not enough trying to hook me as a reader in the opening. Was time to move on.

I see what Max was going for, but I don't think filling a checklist a good book maketh.

Talented author, though.

There are a lot of books that I've finished that I disliked or disagreed with or thought were kind of boring, but I feel like even my most hated books usually have at least something I can take away or learn from them that make the experience worth it.

I can count on one hand the books that I actually regret finishing, books that I thought were a literal waste of my time. Last Exit is now public enemy no. 1 on that list.

Repetitive, vapid, hollow, and full of long, winding, navel-gazing, word-vomit prose that ultimately has nothing to say besides the most empty and basic of platitudes.

It's insane to me that a book this obsessed with introspection and inner monologues and growing up and the passage of time could somehow at the same time have such cookie-cutter, replaceable, robotic, one dimensional characters. Characters with no growth, and no arc, and no chemistry whatsoever in a road trip book without anything that makes a road trip worth reading about.

I'm kind of upset that I didn't DNF at 50 pages when I first wanted to, and then every 50 pages thereafter, but I'm a glutton for punishment and an easy victim of sunk-cost fallacy so I persevered. I shouldn't have.

DNF at about 14%.

I really wanted to like this book. But the suicide ideation in the first chapter itself put me off immediately. It's too much of a trigger for me to feel comfortable. I still continued reading but couldn't get into the story anymore. But I have to say that whatever I did read, I found the writing to be very beautiful and I'm sure others who love urban fantasy can appreciate this one better than me.