Member Review

The Last City, the second in the post-apocalyptic series that began with The Last She, follows Ara as she reunites with Kaden, and with other characters from her past. Throughout this story, she has beyond survival and is attempting to make sense of the world and the aftermath of "the plague" that took out most of the world's population.

Have you ever had the experience of reading a narrative in which the plot points would be PTSD-inducing, extreme occurrences in reality, but that the characters react to with little if any emotion? Perhaps this can be explained away by the fact that often, in real life, people repress reactions to destructive occurrences that fundamentally alter their lives and relationships. And some characters, just like some people, are more observant than reactive, and process emotions long after an event has occurred.

However, in fiction, this lack of reaction - especially where it's exhibited by every character - can create a distance between the reader and the plot. So while the main character, Ara, begins the Last City will little reactive emotion at the beginning of the story and ramps it up to a bit of reactive emotion by the end, I don't quite buy it. The movie of this book that plays inside my head as I read is cartoonish. Nothing moved me - I did not laugh, and neither did I tear up.

The plot is nevertheless interesting, the twists did indeed keep me reading. But one needs a firm connection to the characters to really be "sold" on a story. I think if Ara and the other characters began the story will bigger reactions to the life-altering plot points and ramped up from there, I would have found The Last City much more compelling than I ultimately did.