I requested this ARC exclusively due to the cover, not realizing it's a teen book--these kids are sixteen--with all the attendant identity crises and poor decision-making; it's worth noting that I don't read teen fiction as a rule. I am not the audience or have teens in my life at all.

Beyond that, the writing here reminded me of the "teen in trouble" exploitation books published in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, starting with the first person, past tense narration; even when I was the purported target audience (they were supposed to scare kids straight, but most people read them as graphic misery porn), they were never my thing.

Beware: alcoholism; drug addiction; bullying/peer pressure; DNF.

The quick set up is that Harper belongs to a group of friends that consists of three boy/girl pairs; she only really likes her own boyfriend and actively dislikes Alex, the BMOC who keeps making creepy passes at her (his own girlfriend notwithstanding), but they still hang out together to drink, make out, and make even worse decisions. Such as burglarizing each others' homes for fun and profit.

Oh, they have ~rules~: they won't steal anything that is too unique or valuable, or that their families can't afford to replace easily, and they are somewhat careful how they dispose of their loot--but of course the reader knows it's bound to end badly sooner rather than later.

Even though they are all from well-off families, in a clearly affluent suburb, with people flying of to Canada to sky or to WDW for a break in the middle of the school year (apparently without academic consequences), the cops will eventually add two and two together if the same group of houses are burglarized repeatedly.

So the natural next step is to move on to burglarize the houses of people outside their circle, and it all goes to hell in a handbasket from there.

One of the reasons this book reminded me of the teen exploitation books of yore is the lack of subtlety in the backstories and characterization; the families may have money, but none of them are happy. The author even has Harper musing about how everything is nice on the surface of their lives, and horrible beneath.

Her older brother has been in and out of rehab for alcohol and drug addiction several times, and her mother spends a lot of time half-drunk or zoned out on Valium or other prescription medication, and her father spends as much time as he can away from the house. The only person Harper really loves is her younger sister Maggie, who is deaf.

They both play soccer, but while their father has plans for Harper's athletic future, he can barely bring himself to acknowledge Maggie's existence; her deafness is too much of a flaw for him. And so, despite being just a few years older than her, it's Harper who makes sure Maggie gets to practices and takes her to her games.

Harper herself is constantly rebelling against everything; she spends a lot of time at school on detention, her grades are nothing to brag about, and her sarcastic attitude keeps most everyone at a distance.

The other members of the clique have similarly dysfunctional families, they seem to have been written to slot into a checklist. There is the aforementioned over-sexed creep, who is also a malicious ass, and his equally vicious, appearance-obsessed girlfriend, Sarah; the creep's nerdy and ineffective cousin, Benji, who has spent his life being bullied by Alex, and his girlfriend, the airheaded Pasley; and Gin, the only non-white character, who has been Harper's best friend since they were in kindergarten, and who is a mostly decent guy who doesn't fit with the rest of them.

The writing is generally lackluster, and occasionally tortured, such as when Harper thinks about her "khaki encapsulated knee"; by the time I reached 40% of the book and the first of them is dead, I was starting to skim-read. Because life is too short, and my reading mojo too fragile, I peeked at the last couple of chapters before giving up.

The Last To Die is a DNF.

As a fan of YA Thrillers, this book by Kelly Garrett had been on my list to read from its spooky eerie cover to the title and the hint that it was a YA thriller. Other than that, I had no idea what the book was about and often I love going into my thrillers blind as it means you get more enjoyment out of the story. The book starts with us meeting Sarah Dietz who is wanting to join an already-formed clique of friends. The friends Harper, Alex, Paisley, Benji, and Gin rob each other's houses and then pawn off items, but they have a burglary code and rules they must abide by. About six months later, Alex wants to take the ante up a notch and Harper and Alex break into a random house and are almost caught. This spurs a decision led by Gin and then Harper, Benji, and Paisley that they want "out". Alex and Sarah exchange words with the four of them and leave. The next day, Sarah is dead and it's supposedly a suicide. Harper knows Sarah wouldn't kill herself and is convinced Alex is behind it and so she starts her little investigation. What happens though when Paisley is the next to die and Maggie- Harper's sister is kidnapped to lure Harper out? Who is killing the females in the group and why? Will Harper be the last female standing or The Final Girl in Horror movie terms? Find out in this YA thriller that fans of Natasha Preston and Natalie D. Richards's books will enjoy.

This book seemed a bit all over the place. The first half dragged and the second half rushed. The end just didn't make much sense.

Would you like to read a light YA book that feels like it has kind of a Scooby Gang mentality? Then this is for you. Unfortunately, it didn't fully work for me.

Fun and interesting YA mystery that could be longer!

I like practically everything about this novel - only if it could get more elaborated, pretty please! Main heroine Harper is feisty and intelligent, the premise is very catchy and the group of friends/enemies involved is quite well-observed based on teenager's behaviour. Plus, I like Harper's love relationship.
But...the mystery could be player more smartly, with maybe some red herrings on the way? The plot's internal logic could be much strenghtened by better execution.

But I had fun reading this! And it does not happen with everybook. I have enjoyed this YA muchly and I am very glad for the ride. Catchy read, in my opinion, is better than anything that may fare better academically/critically, but is boring. Boring this is not.

I have been catching up on NetGalley books I was approved for ages ago and this was on the list saying I still needed to read it but at first I was absolutely sure I already had but I had no record on having done so on Goodreads or any of my other tracking methods. I did find out that I had apparently read the first chapter and put it down which made me wonder why exactly I had done that. Basically, I went in assuming that I had tried reading this and decided I didn't like it for some reason I couldn't remember.

Fortunately, I think I must have put it down the first time just because I wasn't in the mood for it and not because it was necessarily bad because this wasn't bad. It was, however, pretty blah.

I would say The Last to Die is like an episode of Scooby Doo. Kind of fun, a little light on any real suspense and with an ending that was a little lackluster but overall kind of enjoyable.

For some reason I had trouble with the tone of the writing in this book, not sure if it was because it was more of a YA title. I found a lot of it to be boring, and I had to skip forward a bit.

This book had a lot of potential. The storyline was very intriguing and had me very invested. The characters were very well worked out and I felt I knew all of them and had my favorites and my did not likes. I was shocked when I looked at where I was in the book and realized that there was just not enough to hash out the story well. It fell off way to dramatically and just ended. Several questions I have were not answered and I am left wondering about several of the characters. It almost felt like the author just ran out of time and wanted to end it quickly. With that said, I did enjoy the story, just wish the ending was a bit more. 3 stars. Thank you NetGalley for the eARC.

This was a good read and something I haven’t read before. The writing was really good, although at times a little slow. I really enjoyed the characters.

Welcome Back! 


This is such an exciting time here on the blog! I spent a lot of time this past weekend making a ton of updates and changes to the blog and I am loving how everything is turning out so far. I have a bunch more changes planned and I intend to keep rolling them out as the week goes on. I am excited to see how the final product looks as I finish bringing the changes to the site in the near future! If you see any new features you like (or any you would like to see) definitely let me know in a comment. While I was working on all of these changes, I was of course listening to an audiobook! I saw this audiobook on my Hoopla and decided to jump on the chance to listen to it, it was only about four hours (meaning I could finish this in one sitting, which is a huge plus for me)!


SPOILERS AHEAD


A group of high schoolers decides the play a game, but this is not your normal game. They decide to break into each other's houses when their families are away. There are only a few rules to the game. Only break into people's homes who are in the group, only 1-2 people at a time will participate in the break-in, and they will only take things that can be easily replaced. The game worked out for a while until one robbery goes wrong and a pair almost gets caught. After this mishap, most of the people in the group decide to stop playing the game. However, one member refuses to let the game come to an end.


I was really interested in reading this book. I thought the plot sounded super interesting and that when things started to go wrong we might even dive into thriller type territory. However, things fell a little flat for me in that aspect. I felt like we spent a lot of time building up to the robbery that went wrong and then we had very little time on the action of the plot. Something I did enjoy about this book, was the main group of characters. My favorite characters were the narrator as well as her sister (I honestly wish we got more time with both of them and that the plot had been extended a bit, maybe we got more time with the action). If you are interested in giving this book a try for yourself check out your Hoopla or Libby app through your library!


Goodreads Rating: 2 stars





**Thank you to the publisher for the Netgalley copy

A brilliant thriller book and a must for all thriller fans. Well written and full of shocks and surprises....you need to read this!

***Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***

Started off promising, but in the end I lost interest.

I devoured the whole thing in one gulp. The story follows a group of six bored high-schoolers who rebel against their wealthy parents by robbing each other's homes. The narrator is Harper, a tough, edgy bad-girl. She's not entirely likable at the beginning , but she has her reasons for acting the way she does. As things go awry and the tension builds, her character is forced to grow and confront her own mistakes. I was rooting for her wholeheartedly by the end

Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for this early copy!

Did not finish - I could not connect with the plot or writing so I decided to put it down.

The Last to Die by Kelly Garrett is the story of six rich teenagers who are trying to find new ways to have a thrill. It's the story of what happens when those thrills end and someone is bitter about it. It's the story of going too far and revenge.

A group of friends decides that they want to have a bit of fun so they come up with the idea of breaking into each others houses when they are away on trips. It's really fun and exhilarating at first but it starts to become boring. So they up the ante. Breaking into other people's houses? Maybe. But what happens when someone wants even more excitement and almost gets one of them caught? What happens when some of them decide it's not worth the risk and wants to call it quits? What happens when someone does want to let them quite and ups the ante even more. What happens when the bodies start piling up?

As a little side note, I have absolutely no idea what the cover has to do with the book. I understand the house representation but the fact that it's in the middle of what looks like water with a lone girl looking out the window really confuses me. I normally don't talk about the covers outside of my initial rating in the book information above because authors usually don't get to pick their covers but this cover just.... what?!

In the end, this book was good but it didn't have a real ending and we all know how much of an annoyance that it. We never find out what happens with the biggest plot point of the book and THAT KILLED MY SOUL.

Overall, I gave the book 3/5 stars.

The Last to Die felt like a heist horror story. The synopsis had me hooked immediately and I went into this book with fairly high expectations. I enjoyed what I read but I wasn't absolutely blown away. I did really like the isolated setting and the small cast of characters, but I never really found myself connecting to any of them, unfortunately. I did, however, really enjoy Kelly Garrett's writing and I'd definitely pick up another book from her in the future!

I received an ARC from the publisher, SOURCEBOOKS Fire in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

The Last to Die starts off with a lot of interesting potential but I felt like it fell flat in the end, like the author was trying to finish the book up quickly. I do feel that the author has a good writing style and I would be interested in reading more of her work in the future but this book wasn't really for me.

The mystery was intriguing to keep reading but wasn’t anything to particularly write home about. It was pretty easy to find out who was behind everything even though there were plenty of red herrings.

I loved the setting of this book. A good isolated location with a small amount of characters. Unfortunately I didn’t really like any of the characters enough to care about what happened to them.

I do think this was a strong debut from a promising author that I will be checking out again.

Overall, I didn’t hate the book. I just think I’m growing past YA mystery. I can see this being a really fun and exciting read for teens or people just starting out in the mystery genre.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy.

Unfortunately I do not have much to say about this book, it fell a little flat for me and I had to put it down. I couldn't get into it at all. I may try again after some time but it wasn't for me.

This is a great debut YA novel. Students at the high school level will really enjoy the plot twist and a possible first read of a psychological thriller for this age group.