Hello hello and welcome or welcome back to my little bookish corner of the internet. Today I’m sharing with you a review of one of my November reads, The Last Girl. This is a thriller I’ve had on my to be read list for ages, and I’m really pleased that I finally got around to reading it.
Synopsis
When it comes to horror movies, the rules are clear:
– Avoid abandoned buildings, warehouses, and cabins at all times.
– Stay together: don’t split up, not even just to “check something out.…
– If there’s a murderer on the loose, do NOT make out with anyone …
New girl Rachel Chavez turns to horror movies for comfort, preferring them to the bored rich kids of her fancy New York High School. But then Rachel is recruited by the Mary Shelley Club, a mysterious student club that sets up terrifying Fear Tests; elaborate pranks inspired by urban legends and horror movies.
But when a sinister masked figure appears, Rachel realises that her past has caught up with her. It’s time for the ultimate prank to play out …
Review
As I said, this is a book I’ve been planning on reading for a while, and even had it on my wishlist under it’s American name, The Mary Shelley Club, despite owning the UK version. I loved it so much, I wanted it twice, evidently. Luckily I didn’t actually go to the expense of buying it twice, which, I will confess, has happened before.
Rachel as a character is delightfully imperfect, and a realistic teenager; regardless of her trauma making her different from her peers, she has secrets from her mother, she struggles to fit in at school, and she has a bit of a temper. But I like this. I’m a big fan of morally grey characters as it is, but when characters are the way they are because of trauma they’ve been through, it makes them both relatable and understandable, especially when they behave in ways that might be seen as unusual by others.
The rest of the gang that make up the Mary Shelley Club that Rachel finds herself sucked into are a gang of misfits in their own ways too, and watching them start to bond and fuse in their own ways – at times positive, at times negative – is like watching a rose bloom. Rachel feels happier than she has since before her attack. But there’s always a twist to these things, and it starts to go wrong.
I knew it would go wrong at some point because of the synopsis, but did find the build up to that point was quite slow. This was obviously part of building the atmosphere, yet I still think this book could easily have cut out 50-75 pages minimum and it would still have been just as good. I gave it four stars on Good Reads, mainly for the last 100 pages, and I would have marked it as 3.5 stars if I could have. I marked it up because it was a good book, but there was just something a bit lacking. I’d still recommend it if asked.
Thanks for stopping by for this post of a book I’m glad I FINALLY got around to reading! If you’re looking for some other thrilling reads, how about some of the following?
- The Devils Makes Three
- You’ll Be The Death Of Me
- The Devil and the Dark Water
- True Crime Story
- The Girls Are Never Gone
And On She Reads 