A simple premise that is made a stand-out story by the author’s elegant prose. A must read for anyone interested in commentary on non-consensual sexual encounters and power imbalances in relationships.

I really wanted to love this book but could not get there. Isabel is a likeable character; kind of. She has sex with a guy is one of the few Jewish students at her college. She did not agree to it but also did not say no, nor did she push him away. After feeling like something was not right with this encounter, immediately after she has a normal conversation with this guy (?!). Isabel continues to make one bad decision after another and ultimately has an affair with one of her professors.

I thought this was going to be a better book than it was like, "Testimony" by Anita Shreve. THAT was an excellent book. This was not. This book also coincedentally happened at the same time as the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal. Could that be anymore cliche? Geez. I also did not like there was not part of the book how Isabel was doing in present time.

Did not like it. Cannot recommend it.

Thanks to Daisy Alpert Florin, Netgalley and Henry, Holt and Company for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Already available

Genre: Literary Fiction

Format: Audio

4.5🌟 - I really liked it!

Another great read for the #btwbc! I love a literary dark academia setting, and for me there was so much about this that checked off all the boxes I love!

I was swept away with the writing, storytelling, and as always love a coming-of-age story.

Absolutely fantastic in every way. Captured that hazy time between girlhood and womanhood so well. I also loved the way this story was told in that the present was 1998, but we were given glimpses of the future. Made the story and characters so much more impactful. I absolutely loved every bit of this book with my girlish achy heart.

Truly a remarkable book...it is rich and complex, and the content within is just as beautiful as the cover.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

What a wildly captivating story about growing from a girl to a woman and all the stages in between. This book was a hidden gem for me. I wasn’t sure what to expect going into it and was concerned I would just see another adolescent making bad choices and while that is part of it- it was so much more. MLIY almost feels like a novel in two parts. There is an incident at the start of the book that immediately draws you in and sets the tone for the other choices that were made. While the two main story lines don’t seem immediately connected, they are just different lenses with which to analyze consent. Our FMC has to really dive into what institutes someone breaking your trust and while some incidents seem fairly obvious, others are all about the nuance of life and relationships. It’s hard to tell by the end why the author is fighting so hard to make power differences seem ok or not equal to inappropriate behavior but I’m hoping that this was just to push how confusing it can be. And I hope that every young girl who reads this understands that none of those relationships are ok. I guess I do wish for a clearer understanding at the end of how and why boundaries should not be crossed but that it isn’t your fault when they are.

Daisy Alpert Florin has such a compelling voice, and I cannot wait to see what else she writes.

I honestly chose this book first because of the cover. Isn’t it just super interesting? I wanted to know, who is that??? I felt such a connection to Isabel and loved this coming-of-age story. I was so sad when the book w as over because the writing was so beautiful and I couldn’t help but find the parallels to Isabel and her father to my own experiences. Beautiful, beautiful novel!

Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about this book. Isabel ends up having an encounter with a guy she didn't really consider a friend but more of an acquaintance. She wasn't for sure if she was SA or if it was just relations. This encounter makes her seem foggy with future decision making. She ends up having relations with her married College professor for a few months. She then holds on to it and it haunts her for the rest of her life. I wish it pulled me in a little more emotionally. The writing was great but I need Isabel to have a little more emphasis or emotions.


Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in return for my honest review.

Thank you to Net Galley, the author, and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

When I started reading this, I had a loose idea of the premise and very little sense of what the plot would entail. It seemed like it'd be your typical, trendy "sad girl lit fic" (which I am known to enjoy). And while it's not not that, it's also a really compelling commentary on consent, boundaries, and power dynamics.

Isabel, our story's narrator, is an aspiring writer at Wilder College. It is not longer after experiencing a non-consensual encounter with a fellow student that she embarks on an illicit "affair" with one of her professors. The two might not seem directly correlated in Isabel's mind, but the author hints at as much, given the change in Isabel's behavior and demeanor following it. All the while, the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal is unfolding and is subtly threaded into the background, offering some cultural context into the story's events.

The question here is... why did the author choose to set this story in the late 90s, during the Clinton administration? I have a few theories on that. The first? Her audience has experienced #MeToo and collectively, as a society, we're having more explicit conversations about appropriate behavior, both in-and-out of the workplace. We're addressing long-standing issues that have occurred in various spheres, both academic and otherwise. Isabel isn't wearing her #MeToo glasses as she'd taking us through these events. While she instinctively senses when things are off, America has yet to experience a cultural shift that would embolden her to call those things out, or even by name.

We see a number of different situations in various contexts that all share a commonality -- inappropriate male behavior is left unchecked. We know that rape isn't such a cut-and-dry label. Consent isn't consent when there is grooming and power imbalances to factor in. Certain things have always had a stigma surrounding them, but now -- in 2023 -- we realize that it goes well beyond that. The Clinton-Lewinsky media circus proved exactly how toxic our understanding of these imbalanced "relationships" were. We saw Monica Lewinsky endure extreme slut shaming at the hands of the media, bearing almost more culpability than the powerful man she was involved with. In this story, we see many instances where inappropriate behavior is overlooked. We see other men complicit in covering up the bad behavior of their friends and co-workers.

While we're not out of the woods yet, some progress in this respect has been made. And the contrast between the conversations occurring in the late 90s and the ones that sprung from #MeToo show that the root elements of this problem have always been there. We're only now holding that inappropriate behavior accountable.

I've read some reviews that didn't care for the way the initial S.A. was depicted and discussed. As someone who is not a survivor or bearing that kind of trauma, I'm not really in a position to say whether it was "represented well" or not. What I will say is that I found the entire novel to be really thought-provoking and, in turn, realistic. As a result of #MeToo, we've collectively had conversations about what constitutes a non-consensual interaction (the Aziz Ansari situation being the first that comes to mind). And I appreciated the level of trust the author put in her audience to make connections and unpack the choices she was making.

All in all, I took a lot away from this. Can't guarantee that would be the case for everyone.

I enjoyed the writing no was able to get into the story alright, but I really didn’t feel strongly towards any of the main characters so I had difficulty empathizing with their struggles. Everything felt just a little off to me, but maybe that’s what coming of age is meant to feel like anyway.

My Last Innocent Year follows a girl named Isabel during her final year at college. After dealing with a negative sexual experience with a fellow student, she soon finds herself involved with her married college professor.

I really, really enjoyed this novel. It delves deep into topics of sex, grief, growing up, and figuring out your place in the world. The writing was very haunting and beautiful. The novel kept me engaged from beginning to end.

I loved this. Devoured it. It felt like a lot of the books I've read about student/teacher affairs and campus politics and confusing sexual encounters, but it was just done so well, it felt refreshing. Need more of this author!!

~ARC provided by NetGalley~

"My Last Innocent Year" lives solidly in a little niche forming in literary fiction that explores toxic, unbalanced relationships in your early 20s. The plot is set against the backdrop of a prestigious, liberal arts college in New Hampshire, where the protagonist is a hopeful writer taking a creative writing seminar during her senior year. She falls into an affair with one of her professors, which brings of questions of consent, power dynamics, and coming of age. Some of these themes are very obvious--especially given the multiple references to Monica Lewinsky--however, the contemplations on adulthood and how men are given license to act childishly set this book apart for me. I honestly wish it was longer and went more in-depth into the mystery and dynamics involved.

If I didn't have to work, I would have finished this in one sitting, because I just needed to live in Isabel's world. I needed to experience her perspectives. I wanted to slip completely and utterly into her life.

My Last Innocent year is a beautifully-written story in the backdrop of the Wilder University's class of 1998's final semester. In particular we follow Isabel as she finds her stride in writing and begins a relationship with one of her professors. Within this novel, we get to experience the universal feeling of the final semester of college, the excitement and the anxiety of being thrown out into the real world for the first time.

We also get to feel the impact of how even at a young age society allows the power structure between men and women to envelope us and force us into acceptance. Isabel is assaulted at the very beginning of this novel and yet she questions if it was actually assault. Her thoughts begin to mature as we get a glimpse at her twenty years later, but her younger self makes excuses for the way men treat, assault and groom women. In the moment, Isabel is unaware that she is being groomed by her professor because the way he sweet talks her through praise of her writing and promising her a life that he knows he cannot give her.

Both the assault and the grooming was reflected on stunningly and truly reminds readers that this behavior is not okay. Womanhood is hard and at times, we wonder if we are actually women or girls in this world. Maybe that has something to say more about society than who we are. In the end, we must ask ourselves, when we look back on everything that happened, what do we tell out younger selves? Do we change the events that happened or do we accept the past and let the rest unravel?

This was a tough read, but in the best possible way. As someone with a background working in academia, I'm always drawn to a novel that takes place on a college campus. Though tragic, I found this novel to be very impactful and realistic - certainly relationships like this happen on college campuses everywhere but it does not make it any less confusing and hurtful. This book will be integral in the many students who are impacted in this way to feel seen and heard and understood,

Isabel isn't the most likable character and the way she treated her father hurt me to my core, but I think she's the right narrator for the book. I'll also say I loved the setting and the time period, but wish it'd drawn more on the parallels between the Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton scandal as the blurb insinuates.

I enjoyed this book a lot! I don’t always go for literary fiction, but I do appreciate a good sad girl, dark academia vibe and this certainly didn’t disappoint. For the most part, I liked the style of writing that felt very intimate to the narrator Isabel and red like a stream of consciousness. Isabel reflects a lot on the context of her emotions and actions in the late 90s as a college student which I found very engaging and helped me to connect with her more. I saw some comparisons to My Dark Vanessa and feel like this book wasn’t quite as salacious or dramatic but I can certainly see some parallels in Isabel’s navigation of the world and relationships around her. Overall, I would recommend this book. It was a fairly quick read but still felt immersive.

An engaging, introspective, coming of age story. I always love a good campus novel so was drawn to pick this one up.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

A beautifully written novel that takes on power dynamics, consent, and more, all in the pre-#MeToo era of the last 90's. I found the language around these tough topics lyrical and excellent, and Isabel is a very compelling protagonist. This book is perfectly situated in time (the backdrop is the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal) and that serves to heighten the stakes throughout. Loved it!

Sigh. What a disappointment.

The premise alludes to an important topic being explored and yet it felt like the author had nothing to say about the story she was telling. The quality of prose is there, but all in all, its as if nothing was said. It is difficult to feel connected to the characters and story, and that should be almost impossible considering that this story is about an experience that elicits an endless number of emotions, thoughts, conversations etc.

This novel added nothing to the conversation of consent, and it was unclear which age group was the intended audience. Perhaps it was meant to be new adult, but even then, this book is just lacking.

I imagine that with Florin's lyrical prose, her future writings may be better, but this was disguised as a story that had something to say when it was really just a pretty cover and no plot, characterization and real voice.

A frank coming of age story; direct and honest. A senior at Wilder College, Isabel, isn't yet sure of her place in the world. She wants to write, but doesn't have much self confidence, easily led by those around her. Enter the alluring Professor Connelly, who seems to be the first to see her potential as a writer. The affair they begin will help shape her into the woman she becomes.

A lot is discussed in this novel: the loss of a parent, rape, extramarital affairs, abuse, depression... the list goes on. But, this is a beautifully written novel, and I found it easy to connect with Isabel. The first person pov, with the protagonist looking back at the past with today's eyes, is perfect for this kind of coming of age story. I think a lot of women will easily relate to this one.