Here's what I liked about this book:
-Multiple species
-Different tiers based on intelligence
-Sarya, the Last Human, was raised by a Widow (a spider-like interesting species)
-it takes place in space
-A quest to find out what happened to the other humans
-the interactions between most of the characters

Here's what didn't work for me
-Lots of philosophy and thoughtful discourse from the middle to end (this will be right up some people's alleys, just not mine)
-I kept hoping for more space opera type action

Personally, I like action, a (relatively, at least) straight-forward plot, and some character growth and connection. This was not that book. This would probably be a good book to read with someone else so you can discuss what everything meant and how it is or isn't reflective of our society/world.

Thanks to NetGalley and DelRay for an advance digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I appreciate the opportunity to try a new book/author!

The Last Human by Zack Jordan is a unique debut space opera sci-fi novel. I really enjoyed how this started off, getting to know our titular character and the world of the story. The first fifty percent is a fun romp, but unfortunately the second half just wasn't for me. I almost quit reading at that point, but I figured I was much to far along to just give up then. If you're a fan of the genre, you may want to give it a try.

A roller coaster ride across galaxies, time and space. The characters are well developed and it is a phenomenal read (from a non sci-fi reader), very hard to put down until the very end.

Thank you NetGalley, Zack Jordan and Random House Books for this edition and hearing my honest review. Looking forward to reading more with you
#partner

I received this book through NetGalley.

This refreshingly-original science fiction novel follows a teenage girl, the only human known to exist. She’s been raised by Widow, a spider-like entity from a matriarchal society with a passion for murder. The first chapters hooked me right away with the odd juxtaposition of personalities: the very alien Widow, who has come to love this confounding, revolting human, who is very much a teenage girl who wants to fit in with the myriad of alien species on station, but can’t. She cannot have access to the god-like Network as they do, or even let it be known that she’s human. She’s livening under the identity of another species because humans are known to be scary and extinct.

She lives in anonymity until her school field trip is interrupted by the arrival of a higher intelligence that not only knows what she is, but presents the ultimate temptation: want to meet other humans?

Everything goes wrong from there, of course. This is a book loaded with action and revelations. Sometimes it goes a bit too mind-bendy and the bad guys are a bit too willing to explain in a handy monologue, but the novel held my interest all the way through. Really, it’s a fun romp through space, with a lot of innovative new spins on old tropes.

I read this a couple of months ago, and just had to check reviews because I couldn’t remember the plot (or anything else about the book). That’s never a good sign. Now that I’ve refreshed my memory, I recall that the farther I got, the more I started skimming. Also not a good sign. The pontificating about super intelligences bored me. The omnipotent entity was obnoxious and unrelatable, and honestly, the main character, Sarya, was a little weird. Okay, it’s science fiction, but still, even for SF.

This isn’t one that I’d recommend to fellow sci-fi fans as a must read.

*ARC via netgalley in exchange for agreement to review*

The Last Human had an enthralling start. The book opens with the main character, Sarya, being dissatisfied with her life. She is human, and hiding that fact because humans are a cross between outlawed and regarded as extremely dangerous. Because of this, Sarya's prospects in life are low. It has come time in her life to choose her future, and she hates the future she sees.

So, at the most opportune time in her life, a stranger comes up to her like "I know what you are. Meet me later and I'll take you to your people." As you might expect, things do not go well for Sarya from here.

I really enjoyed the beginning of the book. I really wanted to know how Sarya would get out of the situation she had gotten into, just for being born. The world was interesting, as it was a giant Network of races and other intelligences. There were excerpts from a kind of guidebook, which had footnotes and it was a great way to include a lot of information in a short package. I loved everything.

And then something changed somewhere in the middle of the book. And I just lost all enchantment with the book. It was a series of one ridiculous event and bad decision after another. Typically spearheaded by Sarya who doesn't think things through. Which is a big pet peeve of mine, and this  just kind of rubbed me the wrong way because there was only one major mistake early on that compounded and this was just a lot of mistakes one after the other. I also felt distant with the rest of the characters because they were so cold.

And that worldbuilding I praised a moment ago? I grew steadily more and more wary of it. The focus on intelligence is just so weird. The entire story is built on how much intelligence someone has. Not even how they use it. Just what their race has on average, including the robotic help. Everything is categorized based on how smart they are. They rely on their technology for literally everything, and they treat the high tech terrible even though they have feelings and think of themselves like they're, you know, intelligent. Because they are. Like, it felt like bullying. It just really rubbed me the wrong way.

Even those excerpts from the guidebook with the footnotes soured on me. I ended up wondering why they were even there anymore, because most of the time we had already pieced together the pieces from the story.

I know The Last Human will work for a lot of people, it just wasn't for me. If none of what I said bothers you, go ahead and read it! I really wanted to like it and it started out so well. I just didn't like the overall book. I wished more would have been done with the human aspects of the story, since this was what it was about. But the focus was more on the intelligences and the Network that runs the entire conglomeration. I just ended up disappointed in the end.

ARC received from Del Rey on Netgalley. This did not affect my review.

Holy crap - what a ride. One of the things you can get from SF is a real sense of wonder from ideas and the realization that there are things way, way, way bigger than yourself. Despite a somewhat slow (but still entertaining) start, this book is that sense of wonder distilled, purified, and then slammed directly into your prefrontal cortex. So, wonder-crack? Yes - this book is wonder-crack. Entertaining and perspective-giving with a side of empathy and garnishes of game theory, horror, and humor. Great stuff - this will be on my award ballots.

As far as space operas go this one was a combination of quirky, original, and cerebral.

Sarya, our plucky protagonist, is the last living descendent of the most dangerous species in the whole of the universe: Human. Living on a space station with her adoptive mother, a sentient eight-legged murderous being called a Widow, she soon finds her life upended when a bounty hunter comes to collect her, destroying her home and sending her on an adventure to uncover the truth about her people. What follows is a story about a young girl who's trying to understand her place in the universe. Her purpose. The reason for her (sole) existence. Is she really a monster? Why is she here? How did she come to be the last of her kind? What, if anything, can she do about fixing it?

There's also a broader hierarchal commentary at work here that has everything to do with intelligence and technology, with the connectivity of minds. Think existentialism here. Think cosmological continuity. Think about opposing forces of fate and free will, array and disarray, individualism and community.

Truthfully, the best way I can describe this book is to say that it's a midline cross between Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the Illuminae Files. Humor abounds in the way aliens/AI are represented whether that be through a "sub-legal" rebellious spacesuit named Eleven or a chaos-obsessed megamind called Observer. There are literal "mind-blowing" laugh out loud moments in the plot, between characters, which makes the intergalactic ride a lot more fun since it's basically starburst pandemonium after starburst pandemonium. (Re: Sarya's always being yanked, sucked, tossed, submerged, or transcended this way or that way.)

All that said, I had trouble fully immersing myself in this because I couldn't orient myself. Couldn't quite find my footing amid the world and the characters I was supposed to be imagining. Things grew to be a little too...abstract. A little too "out there" at times. In other words, it was difficult to ground out a clear aesthetic in my mind of where I was geographically, who these people were (aka: how they looked, where they hailed from, etc.), and what was happening.

Certainly a unique one, though! I've never read anything like it. It's liable to prompt lots of musings about humanity and the role of superintelligence in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC!

In this ambitious space opera we meet Sarya, a young human who is hiding her identity on a station filled with all varieties of alien lifeforms. She must hide what she is because her race, humans, were wiped out of the Universe a millennium ago because they were found to be too dangerous. She is (supposedly) the last human. She has been raised by a creature known as the Widow who is very similar to a black widow spider in personality and body. Sarya's world is shattered by a bounty hunter and a rogue spaceship upon which she is kidnapped that literally shatters the space station she lives on killing her mother and everyone else. There are an assortment of aliens on the ship - can they help Sarya find out her origins and if there might be other humans in the Universe?
This was an interesting read.

I immediately had no idea what was going on in this book. I get that it starts off with who is supposed to be the last human on Earth, but by the third page, I really had no clue what the F was going on.

Shout out of thanks to NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review. This review is going to be short (hopefully) because I just didn’t like this book. There was a lot of potential for me to like it because we follow what is supposedly the last human being in the universe. As she hides her identity we meet the Widow that adopted her. And then many other alien species as she goes off on adventures. My biggest problem with this book was that it focused on the wrong things. Instead of telling the reader anything about what these species look like aside from small things that we sort of have to put together to get the whole picture (giant spiders? Cyborgs? Tiny spiders?) the story focuses on their culture and things other than the physical details. This was interesting, but left me confused in the moment. Character interactions we hard because I couldn’t really picture the characters, even the human. Because she’s hiding with a Widow mother but was she disguised? Or was she just looking human the whole time and no one knew what they looked like?
I just spent most of this book confused. There was a lot going on and so much of it that was just over my head. I don’t want to go into detail about everything that confused me, but there was more than just the characters. Technical things too that were important to the story were a bit muddled. I also didn’t like the main character. She had moments where I liked her but she complained so much and did all the wrong things. I just wanted someone to kill her and be done with it.
Overall, this was a miss for me. I definitely think there are others out there who will enjoy this, but it’s not for me. I did see a few reviews that also mentioned the lack of character descriptions bothering them as well.

3⭐️⭐️⭐️
It begins really well and maintains momentum for over half the book. There are points where I was genuinely and nicely surprised at some of the plot twists. It falls apart slowly, though not completely. It reaches its logical (though incorrect) philosophical conclusion. 
What kept this from being a better review was that the author sacrificed his story for his philosophical musings. What kept it from being worse was how well he began.

This was a NETGALLEY gift and all opinions are my own.

The Last Human has a fantastic premise and started off very strong. However I feel like it lost its way a bit in the middle of the book through the end, less focus on the areas I was the most interested in. Thank you for the opportunity to review.

The Last Human is the story of Sayra, a human being raised by a Widow. The Widow, in this case, is a very large, sentient, eight-legged killing machine. Sayra lives on a space-station where she never really feels like the scariest creature on earth, and doesn't really fit in with the other station inhabitants.
When a bounty hunter comes calling and the station she lives on is destroyed, Sayra must learn where she fits in the larger universe.
The Las Human is a fun ride with quirky characters, and good social commentary on what it means to belong to the universe at large. Recommended for science fiction and YA readers.

This book is a fun yet odd read. The concept is really interesting and the execution of the story was well done. The lead character Sarya, the last human, was raised on a space station by a giant spider named Shiny the Widow. A bounty hunter shows up and then Sarya goes on the run. Lots of action and good characters in solid world building. I enjoyed this book quite a bit!

A friend I trust for recommendations read the eARC and was so excited, I had to read it, too. Sadly, my response isn't as positive. Sarya is the adopted Daughter of Widow, officially classified as barely intelligent, destined to living a bare-bones life. In reality she's Human, the Last Human, and can't possibly exist in this Networked world. Alternating between Sarya's story and the introduction to the Network (which sounds a little like the Borg) the story has some really interesting things that get dropped in favor of moving quickly on to a new plot point. Example? What is a Widow? Example? What was Sarya's life like before the fated field trip? 30% through, it didn't feel as thought there was a reason to care.

eARC provided by publisher.

The Last Human by Jack Jordan is a coming-of-age, space opera tale. It is the prefer book for fans of A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy.
It is a quirky tale about Sarya the daughter, the last of her kind. Her kind being humans. She is raised by an adopted mother of another species. A mother who loves her and will give her life to protect her. Yet, she has a burning desire to know where she comes from and if there is possibly more of her kind still alive.
How can Sarya find out any information about humans when humans are the most feared species in the galaxy? Since she was very young her mother has carefully kept her hidden. No one should know that she exists; especially, since the human race was eradicated over a thousand years ago. Sarya will find out this and much more when a bounty hunter tries to capture her and she is forced to change her view on all she has ever known.
Unfortunately, I never connected with Sarya. I think it was because I found the story was just weird and not in a good way. I struggled to finish it. I put it down multiple times to go on to something more enjoyable. Each time I picked it back up I hoped it would improve. Finally, it got to the point I just wanted to be done.
The writing was good and I liked that it was reflective towards the end. It made me think about humanity and what makes us different and what makes us the same. Also, I thought about race and inequality because these two things came up repeatedly throughout the story. Ultimately, this is what kept me reading even though I never connected to the MC.
I think in hind sight I can say this one was just not my cup of tea. However, I think there are lots of fans out there of this type of story. I also think this would be a great book for a Sci-Fi book club. The story lends itself to a good discuss about cultural and political issues.
I received a free copy, from the publisher, via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This was such an odd sci-fi story! I thought the entire concept and world-building/setup was so unique and presented an incredibly interesting perspective. The characters were well-developed and helped to bring the story to life, which is always important in any story. I have to confess that I didn't connect to this book as much as I'd hoped and I had a slightly difficult time staying engaged. That's not to say that this book was bad or anything of the sort, as it really wasn't and had a great plot, but I just wasn't as excited about it as I'd hoped.
Overall, I've given The Last Human three stars! If you like inventive sci-fi with really unique concepts, I encourage you to check this one out!

I usually do not read science fiction for review. That doesn’t mean I don’t read that genre. I wouldn’t say I like do not like reviewing that genre. So how did I end up with The Last Human for review? Easy, I wished for it on NetGalley and the publisher granted my wish.

The Last Human is the story of Sarya. Sarya is the adopted daughter of Shenya the Widow and she lives on a space station. But, Sarya is also the last of her species, a Human. Sarya’s mother and herself have worked carefully to hide what Sarya is. Everything was okay until a bounty hunter showed up and everything went sideways. The result was Sarya on the run with a spacesuit who can think for itself, an android who is obsessed with death and a super-smart fluffball (think a Tribble) and her protector. When two gods approach Sarya with a chance to make right past wrongs, she has to make a choice. Does she accept what they individually offer? Or does she go her own way?

The plotline for The Last Human was well written and kept my attention. There was a little bit of lag (when Sarya was inside the Observer’s brain), but the author was able to pull past it. There was also no dropped storylines or characters, which was a massive plus for me.

Sarya was an awesome character. She knew that she was Human, and she knew that she needed to keep her Humanity secret. If she didn’t, she would have been killed on sight. She loved her mother, Shenya the Widow, and was devastated when Shenya gave her life to let Sarya escape. She did make some rash decisions, but that only highlighted her Humanity. Her actions at the end of the book were exciting and thought-provoking.

The science fiction angle of the book was wonderfully written. It has been a long while since I read a space opera that I enjoyed. The worlds, the technology, the other life forms were fantastically written. I loved that the author broke the book up into the tiers of intelligence. I also loved that he gave excerpts of the rules and a glimpse into why Humanity was wiped out.

The end of The Last Human was satisfying. It raised a lot of questions for me. Those questions weren’t to do with the book but with the question “Is there life out there.”

This is not a Hard Science Sci-Fi book, more of one where you really have to use your imagination. This did cause me to take a bit longer than usual to become invested in the storyline, but once I did I discovered all the amusing little quips, scenarios and sarcasm that is scattered throughout the novel.

A young Human girl is taken under the wing of a battle hungry creature who adopts her as her child, telling her all the while to never admit she's Human. Of course this little Human wants nothing more to find out if there are more Humans, if she is the last, and why it's so dangerous to be one.

Good Sci-Fi read once you settle into the story.