The Last

This started off SO well, the first 20% with the nuclear bombing and the setup of the characters at the hotel was so gripping and interesting.

Then it just became tedious, as we were still with the characters at the hotel, having the same conversations. There was the odd eventful moment then it went back to tedium.

This was definitely more of a character study, which isn't my favourite, I definitely need a bit more plot and pace in a story like this.

Interesting promise, but nothing to show for it. The end of the world is barely disclosed and the hotel drama revolves around a christian fanatic how murdered a girl. It felt too contextual at times and not suitable for a reader to enjoy.

2 stars because it didn't take up a lot of my time.

Dit was vooral saai en behoorlijk zinloos. Er werden zoveel hints gegeven voor mogelijk intrigerende verhaallijnen, maar er werd uiteindelijk niks mee gedaan. Ik bleef verwachten dat er iets zou gebeuren dat dit verhaal naar een bevredigende conclusie kon sturen, maar dat kwam er gewoon niet. Het einde was een extreme anticlimax en het enige dat me overbleef was het gevoel dat ik mijn tijd had verspild.

I'm not sure it's physically possible to have a nuclear attack this big and these consequences, but okay. I was involved with the characters, even if there were a couple too many, and although I didn't understand what really happened with the murder, I was okay too. But all in all, I think it was a great beginning and an okay development.

I think this was good - it read quickly and I definitely wanted to know what happened, both with the nuclear attacks and the murder mystery. The setting and isolation was really well done. It was a bit... anticlimactic though and the ending was a bit of a letdown. But overall, an interesting concept and fairly well done.

I really hope that if I survive a nuclear holocaust, I don't end up with a bunch of people like the ones in this book. It's an interesting read, but I found so much of the actions of some of the characters unbelievable. Maybe that's the hidden beauty of this book, that the characters act so weirdly to the end of the world, but it didn't quite work for me. Loved the David Icke(ish) character at the end.

Good post apocalyptic fiction!

A historian stuck in a foreign country, in a hotel. in the middle of nowhere when a global nuclear war begins.

An average look into a realistic apocalyptic future

This book had some high hopes. There was potential to build real story and drama between the characters but they just weren't hit. There are some great moments but it ends with a rather loose twist.

It's written well and was good to listen to on audiobook (despite the reader's poor British accent) but it did feel a bit forced to pick up every now and then.

I'd recommend for anyone who's looking for a post-apocalyptic book with very little drama and action but more of a human story.

As a tale of (largely) middle class people bought together after a catastrophe, it's hard not to liken this to a John Wyndham novel or, more contemporarily, Station Eleven. Which is handy, as those are two of my favourites. This has a little bit more grit than either of those comparisons, with more emphasis on the stress and psychological trauma of living in such uncertain times. It's claustrophobic as well, with almost all the action confined to one location, and a pervading fear of the outside.

I enjoyed this a lot. It's not perfect - the murder mystery element feels a bit perfunctory at times, and the ending comes up very quickly, after a plot development that could have seen another few hundred pages added to the story - but it's a good, fast, gripping read.

Three stars for an enjoyable, if unoriginal, post-apocalyptic thriller, let down by an unnecessary and fruitless murder mystery.Spoiler-free review: I received a proof of the book from Viking Books's Twitter account, who described it as ‘an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery set at the end of the world'. Hoping it would capture at least a fraction of the magic of ‘[b:And Then There Were None 16299 And Then There Were None Agatha Christie https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1391120695s/16299.jpg 3038872]', I zipped through it in a couple of days. The descriptions of the hotel and occupants were nicely written, and tension was suitably ramped-up as the protagonist grew increasingly suspicious of his fellow survivors.To mention ‘The Last' in the same breath as [a:Agatha Christie 123715 Agatha Christie https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1321738793p2/123715.jpg] is very kind and also misselling it. It played more like an average episode of The Walking Dead, dealing with the realities of survival after the apocalypse and how the relationships of the survivors are affected. Its biggest downfall is that the murder plot became so irrelevant that it could have been removed to no real detriment to the story. At one point, about 70% through, the murder hadn't been mentioned for so long I had forgotten that it was meant to be the main plotline.I enjoyed the majority of the book, but the way that the murder plot is wrapped up was so rushed and half-baked that I couldn't help be disappointed. Avoiding spoilers, the last thirty or so pages pack in so much that the final reveal has no room the breathe. This wasn't helped by the fact that by this point I had no emotional attachment to the murder victim and that the reveal bordered on ridiculous.Thank you to Viking Books UK for supplying me with a copy.