Judith is 75 years old. She has lived in the town of Bound her whole life. She has never left her house since the death of her brother.
Judith has decided to make an inventory of the items in her home. She realizes that each item, valuable in it's own right, full of family history, is also a story in her life, a legacy. She shares these stories with a little girl, Amaryllis. Amaryllis is her half sister's great great niece.
Judith came from an extremely wealthy white family. Orla, her half sister is her mother's child and the child of a kind black gentleman, Charlie. No one is aware of this affair between her mother and Charlie. Though her father does suspect.
This is a story of twisted family ties. It's about siblings and their rivalries. It's also about secrets. Town secrets and family secrets. I would especially like to point it that it's also about love, loyalty and dedication. Wonderfully written, strong characters and great storyline.

As Miss Judith Kratt nears the end of her life she decides to make a list of all that she owns. As she does she finds that each item holds a story. This was truly a heartwarming, yet tragic, story of the Kratt family. The story alternates between the now and 1929. The reader gets to know Judith, her selfish sister Rosemarie and her nosy brother Quincy as well as her aloof mother and her overbearing father, Father Kratt as the kids call him. Miss Judith's closest friend is Olva and the reader learns quite a bit about her as well. The stories that Miss Judith tells are interesting and lead up to the pivotal moment that changed everyone's life. I was mesmerized throughout the whole book. The author details things so well and the stories are so intriguing that you want to move on just to see what happens. At first I thought the lists at the end of each chapter was unnecessary, but they grew on me. A reminder of what I have already read. This book could have ended with the last chapter, but the author delights the reader with a letter from Olva to her great niece. I loved the authors writing style and look forward to reading more from her.

This was a great read. It is about Judith, now an elderly woman, exploring her past primarily through the use of heirlooms from her home. Judith is the narrator, describing her childhood and the murder of her brother from her youth. Her family once had great ruling over the town through many means, and also through their shop and cotton businesses. Her sister Rosemarie arrives after having fled the town half a century earlier. Upon her arrival, the repercussions of choices and how they reverberate through the years are explored.

“We still have the story. It’s nearly as real as the thing. Maybe more so.”

Judith’s sentimentality with items, and how they have become her entire world, is fascinating. She creates an inventory of numerous items, and as the list grows, you learn more of the story. There is an underlying theme of letting go – items can evolve, gain new stories, and travel elsewhere. There can be a fine line between appreciating your belongings and letting them rule you. The writing is beautiful. It is not a book you rush through or else you will miss the feeling of the story.

I only wish I could have learned a little more about the other characters, and about Judith’s relationship with her mother.

Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for giving me an advanced copy. It was really great! 4/5 stars.

3.75
The protagonist makes a list of family heirlooms, each of which is unveiled in the telling of the story. I appreciated the creative approach to the telling of this story. The setting is 1920’s South Carolina so there is the predictable rampant racism, family secrets and dysfunction along with murders. I found the characters difficult to like and thought the pace moved rather slowly. I probably would have put it down except that I agreed to write an honest review.
Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC.

Genre: Southern Literary Fiction
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Pub. Date: July 9, 2019

This novel has such a crisp Southern voice that I was surprised that the book is a debut novel. Then I learned that the author, Andrea Bobotis, is no stranger to good writing. She holds a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Virginia. Her fiction has received awards from the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest and the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, plus her essays can be found in journals. The author is talented. This story is based in a fictional town in South Carolina (Bobotis is a native of South Carolina) placed in 1989 and 1929. The author interweaves the timelines with flashbacks. Miss Judith Kratt, is a white woman now aged into her late seventies. She is the eldest daughter in the family. The Kratts were once the most powerful family in a cotton town that they owned. Now their once stately home, as well as the town, is falling apart. She lives in her family home with her black companion, Olva. Judith views her relationship with Olva as, part family member, part friend, and part house servant. Judith is writing her last list which is made up of family heirlooms. The writing can be Southern slow but is never boring. In the present, through Judith’s memories, we learn of her family’s dark secrets. Some you will be able to guess. Others you will not.

Often I found similarities in “The Last List” to the novel, “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café.” Both books are narrated by the protagonist in time period changes. They both explore the themes of the segregated south, family, aging, male brutality towards females, and the dehumanizing effects of racism. Still, both tales give the reader demonstrations of female strength while also managing to squeeze in some humor. The character, Judith Kratt is a quirky one. It is fun to read how Olva, who is one year older than Judith, deals with her companion’s eccentric ways.

“The Last List” is obviously racially charged. It is sad to realize that these same racial struggles are still around in the year 2019. It can make on feel weary. Still, the author does a good job of capturing the aspects of what can be called the genteel South and its sweet southern style. But make no mistake, the book is truly about the ugly truth hidden behind those grand Sothern mansions. The “list” is actually challenging the reader to examine the imprints of our memories. And to acknowledge the unfair power that comes from the objects (or once slaves) that we own. Begging the question: Will we ever truly live in a world of equality? The story may read slowly, however it is a page-turner.

Took me a while to get into this book but after a few chapters I was hooked. An unusual formal with a house inventory playing an key part. I found myself reflecting on how objects collected throughout our lives take you right back to those moments when you were there in the present moment with that item and our brain brings that “all singing all dancing” story to life.

Set in South Carolina during a time of financial uncertainty and racial divide still playing a huge part, dysfunctional family secrets are revealed one by one as a family member returns to the home, quite sad in parts but lightened by the appearance of Amaryllis, a small child with her innocence and joy discovering these family heirlooms.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publishers for a pre-release copy of the book.

I loved this book! The story is set in a very small town in the Deep South and is filled with tense, complex relationships, interesting old ladies, their memories, and scheming, small-minded, bigoted men driven to bend others to their desires for dominance. Divided between the late 1920s and the late 1980s, these well rounded characters will pull you along, pushing to to read faster, faster, faster. Reaching the end too soon, I wish I'd read more slowly.

This one gets a rare 4-star rating from me.

Family history revealed through family antiques, The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt shows that sometimes material possessions can mean more and tell more tales than the people that own them. The story goes back and forth between present day Miss Kratt and her making a list of her family's possessions and the stories that surrounds the antiques and her family. When the truth is finally revealed, it's not so much as a surprise as a relief, for the reader and the characters.

Andrea Bobotis.....a beautiful and prodigiously written novel. Captivating read with words that sing page after page. The story unfolds as the peel of an onion.....layer after layer, the closer one gets to the center, the more pungent. The characters are developed with perspicuity. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel. Thank you Netgalley and Sourcebooks for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

I would have liked this better if it was structured differently, and also if I thought any of the characters were likable (which to me they were not). I appreciate the history of the times and the circumstances, but that’s about as far as it went for me, unfortunately. Pub date: July, 2019.

This book is about family secrets, racism and power in a very small town in the south. If you like slowly, drawn out, drama then this is probably a good fit for you. If I had just picked this up, I don't think I would've kept reading it, but since I was supposed to do a review, I kept reading on. Unfortunately it was very slow for me. It really didn't get interesting or hard to put down until about page 165. The rest of the book kept my attention very well, but before that, all the family dysfunction wasn't attractive to me.

I liked this book and how it interweaves past and present to reveal long buried family secrets..
thanks for allowing me to read and review this book to the publisher

There is a lot going on in this novel. Based in a fictional town in South Carolina in the 1920’s the book is racially charged. The struggles then are some of the same struggles we face today.

The prose are beautifully written. The author is an excellent wordsmith, there were many paragraphs and sentences I wanted to highlight and savor. I reread many passages to just sit, absorb and ponder.

The novel delivers us into the lives of the very privileged Kratt family. They came into their wealth, some by inheritance, some by greed and some by unethical business practices. The story is narrated by Judith, one of the surviving Kratt children now in her 70’s.

There are several key players in the book. Rosemarie, Judith’s entrained sister of 50 years. Olva, part family/part servant to the Kratt family. Marcus and Amaryllis, Olga’s relatives. Judith’s father, mother, and brother Quincy who was murdered 50 years earlier. Charlie is also key character in the script, all players are critical and bring depth to the story.

Judith decides it is time to inventory and list the assets in her home, the home she has inherited from her family. The narration and inventory details specifics about each item and its relevance in the family’s history. The chapters go back and forth from current day to 50 years prior. Excellent read. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebook Landmarks for an advanced copy of this excellent book in exchange for an honest review.

The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt by Andrea Bobotis follows this extraordinary idea wherein the protagonist tries to make a list of family heirlooms, and in the process, reveals a story connecting those things and the lives of the characters in general. The story ends up touching a few delicate topics, including family relationships, racism, survival of the fittest, et al.

The book is a crisp read. Although detailed, the author reveals just enough chapter-after-chapter so as to maintain the suspense till the end.

There are easter eggs in the book for the readers. The protagonist mentions a lot of books throughout the story, which can then be added to the TBR as per liking.

Recommended.

Thanks to the author and the publisher for the ARC.

‘Aren’t memories a little like furniture of the mind?’

The fictional town of Bound, South Carolina is the setting for this thoughtful novel. Miss Judith Kratt, now aged in her seventies, lives in in her family home. Olva, her companion, hovers on the border between family and servant. The Kratts were once the most powerful family in town, but now there’s only Judith. Her parents and brother are long dead, and her younger sister Rosemarie left years ago. Judith decides to prepare an inventory of the family heirlooms, the items which have surrounded her. Judith becomes more determined to compile this inventory when she learns that her sister Rosemarie is returning. But Judith quickly finds that this is no simple task. Items have history. Some of those connections are to aspects of a past to which Judith would prefer to forget.

‘Memory and history are bound up with one another. Where does one end and the other begin?’

As Judith catalogues each item, its provenance and place in her family history, she also recalls other aspects of living in the segregated South. As Judith catalogues, her thoughts move between the past and the present. The presence of Rosemarie and that of Judith’s ‘paperboy’ Marcus and his daughter Amaryllis complicate the present, while a tragedy in June 1929 needs to be revisited.

‘Sometimes, all the things must be taken from their boxes before they can be put back again.’

In between each chapter is Judith Kratt’s slowly growing inventory. Each piece identified has a part in the story, each piece has significance. There’s a family history being told through ownership, possession and use. But there are secrets and tragedy as well. Each character has a past, a story.

‘Everything turns into something else.’

I found much to admire in this novel. Miss Judith crept up on me and, in her quiet usually understated way, took me into an unfamiliar world. Ms Bobotis has crafted a novel that which held my attention from beginning to end.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Judith lives in the Kratt family home in the small town of Bound where her father's department store used to be the jewel in the high street. Times and the family fortunes have changed and Judith now lives quietly with an old family servant called Ola. However, she receives a postcard form her long lost sister who decides to pay the family homestead a visit sending Judith into a tizzy about what her sister is after and that prompts Judith to start to make an inventory of the family's belongings, which leads to a slow, long revelation of dark family secrets, told in flashback as the items spark memories.

I wasn't that keen on this book.. I got thoroughly fed of what "Daddy Kratt" said or did and the over egged retelling of the minutiae of life in Daddy Kratt's store in the good 'ole, bad 'ole days. It was the reading equivalent of eating an over sweetened piece of pecan pie. I didn't really like the characters. It didn't speak to me. By the time some of the dark family secrets were starting to be revealed I couldn't have cared less.

"It is an illusion to think siblinghood is immutable; it has cycles just like everything else."

Lovely book, finely crafted. The author, Andrea Bobotis deftly uses Judith's list of family heirlooms to demonstrate the cycles of memory, family relations and complications, the experiences of the era, and the experience of life itself.

Definitely recommend.
Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I did not see this book being as good as it is really. I heard nothing about it, and went in it without any expectations. I love it when you find a gem like this out of nowhere.
It's a very good mystery about a family. It is told from Judith's perspective, who's 75 years old. She goes through the inventory of her house that she lived all her life. And each piece has a story of its own.

It was so well written and I enjoyed the mystery so much. I recommend this book to everyone.
Thanks so much Netgalley and the publisher for this copy.

This book was fantastic. I will read anything else written by the author, Andrea Bobotis. This book is not one you can rush through it needs to be soaked into your bones.

OH BOY OH BOY! This is such a good mystery and a story of family. The good the bad and the ugliness of being part of a family.

The story is told by 75 year old Judith who is taking inventory of the items located in the house that she has lived in all her life. Each piece of furniture has a story to tell.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I recommend this to anyone who wants to read a good ole southern mystery!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for this advanced readers copy!