Name: Ryan Mateyk's review of The Last by Hanna Jameson
Item: The Last
Rating: 3
Author: Ryan Mateyk

Hanna Jameson

For fans of high-concept thrillers such as Annihilation and The Girl with All the Gifts, this breathtaking dystopian psychological thriller follows an American academic stranded at a Swiss hotel as the world descends into nuclear war—along with twenty other survivors—who becomes obsessed with identifying a murderer in their midst after the body of a young girl is discovered in one of the hotel’s water tanks. Jon thought he had all the time in the world to respond to his wife’s text message: I miss you so much. I feel bad about how we left it. Love you. But as he’s waiting in the lobby of the L’Hotel Sixieme in Switzerland after an academic conference, still mulling over how to respond to his wife, he receives a string of horrifying push notifications. Washington, DC has been hit with a nuclear bomb, then New York, then London, and finally Berlin. That’s all he knows before news outlets and social media goes black—and before the clouds on the horizon turn orange. Now, two months later, there are twenty survivors holed up at the hotel, a place already tainted by its strange history of suicides and murders. Those who can’t bear to stay commit suicide or wander off into the woods. Jon and the others try to maintain some semblance of civilization. But when the water pressure disappears, and Jon and a crew of survivors investigate the hotel’s water tanks, they are shocked to discover the body of a young girl. As supplies dwindle and tensions rise, Jon becomes obsessed with investigating the death of the little girl as a way to cling to his own humanity. Yet the real question remains: can he afford to lose his mind in this hotel, or should he take his chances in the outside world?

A Novel

The Last

Megan Murray 

Ryan Mateyk

3.5 stars. Promoting this as similar to Annihilation is very bizarre to me, and I was expecting more horror than relationship drama, but this was still a well-written if a bit overlong apocalypse story.

Luke Harkness

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.

Erin Willox

I almost gave up on this book, but I got to the end of it and it was definitely not what I was expecting. I enjoyed the concept but for some reason I struggled with it. I’m very much into the end of the world type of things but this one really didn’t feel like it until the end. There’s not really anything memorable about it.

Jade Lee

** spoiler alert **
           **3.5 Stars** 

I really enjoyed this book as a break from my psychological thrillers (although still had a dark theme 😅) 

I really enjoyed reading from the perspective of someone experiencing life after an apocalyptic event especially in the format of a journal. I also love how Jon wasn’t the perfect person and he had imperfections which made the character more believable and relatable. 

There was a lot of depth to a lot of the main characters but I think in a way I still have more I want to know about them. Like with Nathan and his father who, as you find out at the end, definitely has some terrifying issues but with characters like Tomi, I would have been interested to hear more about her because you could tell she was an interesting and complex character.

Something I would say about the book would be that it followed a murder of a girl which happened around the time of the apocalypse however I feel like the way this was concluded was a tad disappointing because I liked how the book had a ‘who done it’ vibe but it ended up being someone we learnt about later on and it seemed to tie up in to a bow that was a bit too perfect (if that makes sense) 

Overall, I really enjoyed it and it was a super easy read and such a good take on an apocalypse that doesn’t involve zombies, thank god.

'BRILLIANTLY EXECUTED...HAUNTING...EXTRAORDINARY' EMILY ST JOHN MANDEL 'A CLEVER, ORIGINAL, SCARILY PLAUSIBLE WHITE-KNUCKLE READ' ERIN KELLY 'READ THIS BOOK!' Amazon Reviewer, Buried in Books Tipped as 'One to Watch in 2019' by The Observer and Stylist, you won't be able to put this thriller by a brilliant new literary talent down. _____________________________ BREAKING: Nuclear weapon detonates over Washington Historian Jon Keller is on a trip to Switzerland when the world ends. As the lights go out on civilisation, he wishes he had a way of knowing whether his wife, Nadia, and their two daughters are still alive. More than anything, Jon wishes he hadn't ignored Nadia's last message. Twenty people remain in Jon's hotel. Far from the nearest city and walled in by towering trees, they wait, they survive. Then one day, the body of a young girl is found. It's clear she has been murdered. Which means that someone in the hotel is a killer. As paranoia descends, Jon decides to investigate. But how far is he willing to go in pursuit of justice? And what kind of justice can he hope for, when society as he knows it no longer exists? _____________________________ 'GRIPPING, AND THOROUGHLY AND FRIGHTENINGLY BELIEVABLE. I COULD NOT PUT THIS BOOK DOWN' JENNIE MELAMED 'DARK, ORIGINAL, COMPELLING' CJ TUDOR 'IT IS JAMESON'S PORTRAYAL, BOTH IMAGINATIVE AND PLAUSIBLE, OF HOW HER CHARACTERS ADAPT TO THEIR NEW LIFE THAT MAKES HER NOVEL SUCH COMPULSIVE READING' TELEGRAPH 'JAMESON DOES AN EXCELLENT JOB OF EXPLORING WHAT NUCLEAR WAR WOULD MEAN FOR US . . . AND WHAT IT WOULD MEAN TO LIVE IN A PLACE WHERE CONSEQUENCES NO LONGER EXISTED' OBSERVER 'STEPHEN KING MEETS AGATHA CHRISTIE IN THIS FANTASTIC AND HIGHLY ORIGINAL NOVEL . . . I LOVED EVERY SECOND . . . THIS IS THE BOOK OF 2019' LUCA VESTE 'A POST-APOCALYPTIC VERSION OF AGATHA CHRISTIE'S AND THEN THERE WERE NONE . . . THE LAST DELIVERS ON ITS INTRIGUING PREMISE AS THE VENEER OF CIVILISATION WEARS AWAY AND A COLLECTIVE SAVAGERY STARTS TO TAKE HOLD' IRISH TIMES 'CHILLINGLY NIGHTMARISH - A GRIPPING READ' SOPHIA TOBIN 'A FANTASTIC SETTING, GREAT CHARACTERS AND A SLOW BUILDING TENSION MAKES THE LAST ONE TO WATCH' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING 'WE DEFY YOU TO PICK UP THE LAST, READ THE FIRST PAGE, THEN PUT IT BACK DOWN AGAIN' STYLIST 'DARK AND COMPELLING' CLOSER 'MUST READS' 'MOVES LIKE A FREIGHT TRAIN WITH NO BRAKES ON AND RACES TOWARDS AN EXPLOSIVE SET OF REVELATIONS' CRIME TIME 'SHOCKING, INTRIGUING AND RAWLY HUMAN. I WHOLEHEARTEDLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK' ONE EMPTY SHELF

Richard Dawson

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 'And Then There Were None', 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 Agatha Christie 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.

Moray Lyle McIntosh

It's an original concept to combine the nuclear apocalypse with a locked-room murder mystery. The suspense of the two genres play well together and increase the fear and claustrophobia of the setting.

The small, varied cast of characters are gathered in a remote Swiss hotel that has managed to escape the ravages of a series of nuclear attacks which have wiped many major western cities off the face of the planet. Their situation is tense and strained as they struggle to adapt the hotel to the needs of a new world and the focus is on the emerging society within the hotel walls, its structure and the new ideas of justice and ethics and personal rights that emerged in their transformed and isolated world.

The narrative is written by Jon, an American historian whose diary-cum-historical-record follows events in the from day to day. He has a strong narrative voice and his opinions, self-deceptions and changing reactions to his situations are delicately portrayed. His reactions and those of his companions feel authentic; their grief, fear, anger and despair, the search for someone to blame. There are some fantastic character interactions that manage so shed some fresh fresh light on the heavily-populated apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic literature.

Unfortunately, the strength of this aspect is undermined by the murder mystery, which is irritatingly peripheral for the majority of the novel. The quasi-mystical, semi-religious themes that emerge poorly from it. They sit uncomfortably for being unevenly, insufficiently developed. Similarly, the personal history of Nathan, the hotel's Australian barman and his stepfather's disappearance was bizarre in the extreme and if its weak musings on fate were the intended purpose of the novel it fell flat and increasingly derailed the story as it drew towards its lack-lustre conclusion which peters out in extremely frustrating fashion. 

There were also some odd moments of ignorance so profound that I simply couldn't believe them. Many of the characters would have been alive when Three Mile Island and Chernobyl occurred and must have known the fear of acid rain during the 1980s and 1990s. The idea that none of these people were aware that rain falling after a nuclear holocaust would be radioactive is utterly ridiculous.

Neva Davies

An interesting look at the end of the world

As an apocalypse novel, The Last is an interesting look into the psyche of survivors as they navigate a new world, while also hoping to see civilization. It's told in first person as we get to know the main character and the other survivors that he spends his time with.

Ruth Parker 

I loved the dystopian end of the world vibes... but the thriller but was almost non existent. I finished this a few days ago and I can barely remember what the end result was for the ‘mystery’.

Pam Sartain

The Last is a very tense, and unsettling post apocalyptic story of survival, and the discovery of a murdered young girl, all seen through the eyes of Jon Keller, who writes 'A Narrative Chronicle of the Initial Postnuclear Months by Possibly the Last Living Historian'.

I did really enjoy this book, and Hanna Jameson worked the tension so well in the book that I spent most of the time wanting to know what happened next, but being worried about what it would be.

Jameson has Jon say in his narrative 'I think it was Stephen King who said that the sum of all human fear is just a door left slightly ajar.' and yes, I'm sure Jameson pulls every trick to get your heart racing and the page turning.

My advice to you is to not read this book whilst listening to any music that might in any way add to the tension, because it really doesn't need it, and I might have completely unsettled myself enough to want some Disney to make it all right again! 

The Last by Hanna Jameson is due to be published on 31st January 2019. Here's the pre-order link from Amazon!

I was given this book for free in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and Viking (the publishers) for this book.

Grace Emilia Machon

** spoiler alert **
           It was fine, I really enjoyed the first 2/5ths but then I was like "oh so we are just going to talk about you pining for an unlikable woman who isn't your wife whilst you take drugs, cool you unlikable man."

Pros
Interesting premise.
good trump jokes
played with troupes in a fun way

cons 
didn't like main characters
needed more mystery
not enough cannibals

Anna Adams

4.5. Really enjoyed this book, even as it spooked me. It made me thing, about the good, the bad, and the banality of mankind. Some people change for the better and some for the worse in adversity. Which probably is what we know about ourselves, but this was a good story, illustrating that, and it kept me intrigued until the end.

Generally an enjoyable read, but left a bit frustrated with sub plots that didnt seem to go anywhere and I didnt really connect with any of the characters.

Megan

really enjoyed this! check out my thoughts in these vlogs:
https://youtu.be/2tAYBFT8L7Q
https://youtu.be/w9WEGg_WXao

Sophie Thorburn

Helen Bright

Robin Howie

Hannah Brennan

Derek Barlas

shellybn

Breaking- Nuclear weapon detonates over Washington. Historian Jon Keller is on a trip to Switzerland when the world ends. As the lights go out on civilisation, he wishes he had a way of knowing whether his wife, Nadia, and their two daughters are still alive. More than anything, Jon wishes he hadn't ignored Nadia's last message. Twenty people remain in Jon's hotel. Far from the nearest city and walled in by towering trees, they wait, they survive. Then one day, the body of a young girl is found. It's clear she has been murdered. Which means that someone in the hotel is a killer. As paranoia descends, Jon decides to investigate. But how far is he willing to go in pursuit of justice? And what kind of justice can he hope for, when society as he knows it no longer exists?

Megan Murray &
The Last by Hanna Jameson

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Megan Murray &The Last by Hanna Jameson

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Megan Murray &
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