Dr. Tamsin Rivers has a problem—several in fact. The city of San Siroco is sinking, and her team can’t figure out why. It’s also happening in her basement, causing the walls to pull down and the stairs to stretch. It isn’t long before a door appears, a door that can’t be opened, at least until it’s opened from the other side by an exact copy of herself. But this doppelganger isn’t anything like her. Where Dr. Rivers is cold, calculating, and distrusting, her double is naive, open, and unsuspecting. So Dr. Rivers does what anyone else would do—locks her in a room and conducts tests on her. But as she runs her experiments, she starts losing her memory as gaps of time disappear. She also begins to suffer a terrifying quick onset of agoraphobia. Meanwhile, the city still sinks, and her bosses are growing concerned about her progress on the matter. Can Dr. Rivers keep it together long enough to solve the mysteries plaguing her?

The Last to Leave the Room is Caitlin Starling’s latest, and it’s a haunting ride of a personal nature that left me curious, spooked out, and a little disappointed. It gazes into the abyss of the self, and stares curiously, losing itself to time and the outside world. Starling plays with the relationship to the self, in service of the self, while forsaking what we might owe to others. And while it doesn’t delve into navel gazing, the story feels like it’s missing some inner world boundaries that would make the horror sharper.

Starling is great at blending the sci-fi thriller elements with the creepier interiority Tamsin experiences. There is a general unease that pervades the entirety of the book as Tamsin seems to travel between rooms, without really seeing the outside world. Whether she is several hundred feet underground, or in the bar of a high rise, everything has a similar claustrophobic quality. Starling is able to convey this sense of sameness without much effort, letting you know you should feel it without pointing it out directly through internal narration. That feeling builds through the book, letting it grip you as Tamsin begins to lose control.

As she begins to forget people and lose track of time, her doppelganger steps in to help out. Most of the time, her outreach feels genuine. Tamsin never lets it get to her though, always trying to remain three steps ahead of her unrecognizable copy, who she quickly names Prime. Everything Prime does is framed as if Tamsin was trying to manipulate her own self. Tamsin views everything with a touch of cynicism, allowing her to make the most calculated, ruthless and selfish decisions that she can. So of course Prime must be operating under the same rules. Starling does a great job building the tension, allowing the reader to start coming to the same conclusions Tamsin is through repeated and odd offenses. This is maintained by Starling choosing to stick with a single perspective, regardless of how mean and contemptuous Tamsin is. It keeps the information load low while ramping up the tension.

But I also felt a little let down by the end of The Last To Leave the Room. A lot of the science fiction elements go unexplained and are somewhat dropped halfway through. I don’t mind a bit of ambiguity, especially when it adds to the horror, but some of it felt incomplete. Instead of a “we’ll never understand the mysteries of the universe,” I got a “swept under the rug” vibe. There is a thematic dissonance that I couldn’t quite reconcile between the doppelganger and the sinking rooms and it left me wanting a little more than I got from them together. Paired with the critical eye towards Silicon Valley tech types, I expected something more biting on the sci-fi front and it just never happened.

Luckily, these feelings only really apply to the science fiction elements, as the bits with Tamsin losing her sense of self are sharp and concerning. As Tamsin lies through every single conflict, her ability to trust even herself degrades. She can’t fix it, any of it, no matter how hard she works and isolates herself to work more, the problem just can’t be solved. Tamsin begins to rely on Prime, allowing her to take on her work when she longer is able to. It scares her to let go, but she can’t do anything else without keeping the charade going. And maybe that’s all she’s ever really been.

The Last To Leave The Room dives into what makes a person who they are. Starling sinks her teeth into a toxic person, and chews on the relationship that haunts her the most, the one with herself. It doesn’t pack as strong a punch outside of Tamsin, but Starling definitely hid some brass knuckles under her lab gloves at the right moments. You will have to jog through some set up, but personally, I felt the examination of the self was worth the less fulfilling moments. The unease and claustrophobia felt lovingly captured, in the ways that Starling knows best.

Rating: The Last To Leave The Room – Open The Door, But With Caution.
-Alex


An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.

Really enjoyed this one! I went in absolutely blind because I’d heard NOTHING about this book. This was a little surprising to me because I still see The Luminous Dead mentioned regularly so I couldn’t believe no one had mentioned this coming out.

It’s definitely a weird sci fi horror novel, but was still a fun read. Dr Tamsin Rivers discovers her basement is somehow sinking at an even faster pace than the rest of the city. Shortly thereafter a door appears through which her doppelgänger emerges. From there shit gets pretty wacky.

I enjoyed this fresh take and will definitely read more Caitlin Starling going forward.

Something strange is happening to Tamsin. First, her team at Myrica Dynamic discovers that their city is sinking. Could it be caused by the team’s mysterious secret underground project? More concerning is that Tamsin’s basement is sinking even faster than the surrounding area. Then a door appears, and an exact copy of Tamsin pops out. Even Tamsin’s cat soon has a double. Who, or what, will be the Last to Leave the Room? And how can Tamsin restore her simple career-driven life?

Last to Leave the Room is psychological horror at its finest. It reminds me of the best Twilight Zone episodes. However, those tales always ended with an ironic twist that the viewer should have seen coming. Unfortunately, this book ends more with a quiet whimper. 4 stars for the original plot line and the genuinely atmospheric sense of dread throughout.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a digital review copy of the book.

Starling proves yet again why she is a must read author for me. The Last to Leave the Room is a surreal exploration of a doppelganger. It examines the humanity in characters, the scientific ponderings of what would happen if more than one of you existed, and the marvelous spiral of one's own sanity. If you love either of her previous books than this is a must. If you love nothing books than it is a delightful meshing of the best parts of each one. A complete must read.

I’m not sure I know what just happened, but I mostly enjoyed the ride. This felt a little like House of Leaves and I adored the feeling of impossible, unexplainable things happening early on. It seemed that new twists were delivered every few chapters so it continued surprising me throughout the narrative.

I enjoyed the writing, and the horror was horrifying. The characters were delightfully morally questionable. The obsession narrative was done very well. The pacing was good (I do think a little could have been trimmed from the middle).

I think if I had one critique for the book it would be the sciency bits? I don’t think there was any real scientific explanation for what was going on here so the attempts at explaining it, I admittedly glazed over. Even if there was a scientific explanation there’s no way my brain would have understood it.

The only thing I want to add is that I bounced right off Starling’s earlier book, The Luminous Dead. (Honestly I forgot she’d authored that book.) I think she’s had time to hone her craft now and it shines here. If, like me, you didn’t enjoy that one, I think this one is absolutely worth giving a try to, especially during Spooky Season!

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s press for providing the egalley copy for review.

Last to Leave the Room is an odd book, in a good way. It is quiet and tense and enthralling and mildly boring all at once. At a vague point in time, Dr. Tamsin Rivers works for a company collecting unspecified research data when a door appears in her basement and her doppelgänger comes through it. For most of the book, I had no idea what exactly was going on and the pacing lagged a bit in the middle; however, I pretty much read it in one sitting. Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book!

The beginning of this book is slow, boring, and a little too clinical for me and I didn't like the MC. When the doppelganger was introduced I became interested again, but only a little. I ended up skimming the middle and reading the last two chapters. This book just wasn't for me.

I was really looking forward to reading this book and I’m so sad that I disliked it as much as I did. I had to fight to stay asleep through almost the entire first third of the book. Then I was a little better until the halfway mark, but not by much. I didn’t become truly invested until the halfway point and that, to me, is a huge problem. I don’t like slow burn novels. I don’t like waiting for halfway through the book for it to become truly interesting. It leaves me feeling cheated out of half a book and of time I could’ve spent reading other books that I would have enjoyed more fully.

On the upside, what comes after the 50% mark is really interesting and worth investing in, if you aren’t like me and like a slow burn. After that halfway point I felt like I needed to see it through to the end because there was just too much at stake and I absolutely needed to know how all the characters in this book were going to solve the boondoggle that is the plot.

It’s actually a really solid plot, too. Let me be clear: All of my problems with this book stem from it being a slow burn. The writing itself is impeccable. Caitlin Starling is a great writer in terms of prose, dialogue, plot, and characterization. Her worldbuilding and research are both excellent. I have a degree in geography and one of my concentrated areas of study is urban planning, so subsidence (the major plot point affecting the fictional city of San Siroco in this book) is a topic I know well, so I was actually very interested in that part of the plot. I’m also a big fan of the folklore surrounding doppelgangers, which was another reason why I was so excited to read this book. I love a good doppelganger book. It’s just too bad that this wasn’t my kind of book.

If you love a good slow burn, I think you’ll love this. If you aren’t the patient type (like me), then this may not be for you. I also think the romance subplot should’ve been cut entirely–not only did it feel like it came out of nowhere, but it didn’t need to be there for the story to work. Cutting it would’ve streamlined the story more and kept that third act a little tighter in terms of flow.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, ideas, and views expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. Personal policy dictates that since this title received a rating of three stars or lower this review will not appear on social media.

Dr. Tamsin Rivers has been tasked with researching why the city has been sinking during her company's experiments. But no one knows her own home is sinking faster. Against all laws of dimensions and physics, her basement is stretching. And with that stretching, a door appears. Tamsin starts to doubt her own mind... was the door there before and she just doesn't remember? She becomes obsessed with this phenomenon, especially when the door finally opens and an exact doppelganger of herself appears only with a sweet personality. But the more time she starts to spend at home with this replica, the more of herself and her memory she starts to lose... and the more she starts to wonder where that mysterious door leads.
I had some trouble getting into this book at first especially with the unlikable Tamsin. But just like the city I started sinking into the strange and ominous vibe of the book. The stranger it became, the more I wanted to find out what happens next until I was flying through the pages.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is the second book I've read by Caitlin Starling and I have to admit that I'm not sure I fully understood either of them. Both of the books I've read of hers are classified as horror novels, and while I would say the first one definitely is this one falls more along the lines of a thriller to me, albeit a sci-fi thriller. Now there's nothing wrong with that, but you're going to alienate some people from reading a book if you label it horror, and you're going to have some angry horror people when they find out it's not exactly horror. That being said for what this novel is I think it does a pretty good job, and there are certainly horror elements in this story. Now, things I liked about this book; I enjoyed our main character, Tamsin Rivers. I have a feeling there will be a lot of people who won't, but she's a rather cutthroat scientist who takes no shit, and I appreciated seeing that. That also made it interesting to watch as she lost herself. The idea of a double was interesting too, and the circumstances around it made the story all the more unique. If I had to say how much I actually understood in the end, I'd say maybe 80%, but the plot was unique and it made enough sense that I was intrigued and not completely lost, so I can't really find any fault there. I think the two things that missed the mark for me were 1) the romance. It felt a little...creepy...gross? idk. I'm not sure I fully understand the need to include a romance, and there was one scene in particular that made me rather uncomfortable with the romance I suspected was going to blossom, so take that as you will. 2) it was a little slow at times. I think it took a good half the book for the double to show up, which seems like a rather long time considering it's kind of the main plot point. But again, super interesting idea, and I do like the underlying ideas that Starling played with, although I have a question or two about the ending that I would very much like answered. All in all a solid sci-fi thriller that I'll be happy to recommend to people looking for Blake Crouch read-alikes as well as just those who want something a little trippy. I'll also certainly be keeping an eye out for whatever Starling comes out with next, because I'm sure I'll have some interest in it.

Free eARC provided by NetGalley and the publisher for reviewing purposes.

This was good and creepy and weird!
Research scientist Dr. Tamsin Rivers is obsessive about her lab, particularly as she discovers her city, San Siroco, is sinking, as well as that a mysterious, unopenable door has appeared in the basement of her own home. Circumstances escalate and become more dire, and a doppelganger (who Tamsin calls "Prime" appears in her home, coming through the basement door. Though at first the duplicate seems obedient and pliable, she begins to take over Tamsin's life. The tension building is great, there are some pretty creepy scenes and some body horror (much like The Death of Jane Lawrence) but the ending feels a bit rushed, and some loose ends aren't resolved as much as I woud've liked, though it's not really left very open ended as I would've expected either.
Overall, I think if you've enjoyed other books by this author, this will be a (mostly) satisfying sci-fi speculative horror. 3.5 stars, rounded up for the creepy vibes.

One of my favourite books of last year was Caitlin Starling’s gothic dream ‘The Death of Jane Lawrence’, so I was very keen to see what her next book would entail. As can be seen from the synopsis it’s certainly different, but both have one thing in common: I didn’t want them to end.

A City, sometime in the near future. A team of scientists, working for The Corporation who virtually run the place, discover that the entire landmass is sinking day by day.

Head of the project is intense and driven Dr Tamsin Rivers, who finds herself somewhat distracted from the imminent emergency (and its loss of prestige and revenue for The Company) because her basement appears to be stretching impossibly beyond the physical boundary of her house. Also a mysterious door has appeared there, just standing in the middle of the floor on its own. It can’t be permanently marked, and it can’t be opened… until it suddenly does, and an exact duplicate of Tamsin emerges.

This could be an episode of The Twilight Zone, in the best of ways. The action is mostly confined to Tamsin’s house, but in those brief moments when she leaves, it feels like an otherworld. The Company representative (and assassin?) is an enigma; the city seems to be heavily automated, with few regular people going about their lives.

Tamsin starts out practical but also callous, which makes it alarming when she starts to buckle under the bizarre occurrences in her own home. Her control is taken away, her own identity - what’s left, if you can’t be sure who you even are anymore? But she also becomes more human, sympathetic as her weaknesses begin to crack her mind.

Caitlin is an astonishing writer. Her work is beautifully written, engaging and so unique - I genuinely never knew what would happen next. The main characters could all be considered villainous at various points, but their motivations are clear, making them both even more awful or relatable, depending which chapter we’re in. Events change smoothly until the reader is as spellbound as Tamsin. Which Tamsin?

I’ve been so eager to write this review since finishing the advance copy that I was kindly sent. Caitlin Starling is already a must-read author, and every book expands her imaginative world.

I’ve been recommending this for months and will continue to do so. Creepy, addictive and remarkable.

I had a fantastic time with this book! I really liked The Death of Jane Lawrence when I read it last year so I was eager to give this book a try and I liked this book just as much. I was hooked by this story from the beginning and was curious about what might be happening to Dr. Rivers. I love that the story left me questioning everything and I found it to be a very entertaining read.

The city of San Siroco is sinking and Dr. Tamsin Rivers is trying to figure out why. Her basement seems to be sinking even more than the rest of the city and a mysterious door has appeared. When she meets her doppelgänger, she does not know what to think but things start to go horribly wrong as they spend more time together. I had a great time trying to figure out how everything fit together. The story kept me guessing until the very end with plenty of twists and turns along the way, including a few really big surprises.

I listened to the audiobook and thought that Xe Sands did an amazing job with this story. I really felt like I was there with the characters experiencing this story. I thought that she did a fantastic job of bringing these characters to life by adding just the right amount of emotion to her reading. I know that her performance added to my enjoyment of this story.

I would recommend this book to others. I found this to be a rather unique story that blended the genres of horror, science fiction, and thriller quite nicely. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more of this author’s work in the future.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Macmillan Audio and St. Martin’s Press.

LAST TO LEAVE THE ROOM has a slow build of uncanny that took a while to really capture my attention. Tasmin Rivers is an ambitious, not quite likeable woman who was a delight to follow. Some of my favorite interactions were between her and Mx. Lockwood—their relationship hinted at something more that kept me wondering when Dr. Rivers really started losing parts of herself.

I would say I like this book now that I'm a few days out from finishing it. The slow build takes some time to percolate, and the more I let myself think about it in passing the more I would say I enjoyed this book. I would recommend this for readers who like an emphasis on psychological horror and unreliable narrators. Be warned of some body horror late in the game though! I'm particularly squeamish for eye-trauma, and a scene caught me by surprise in a nasty way.

Once again blending weird sci-fi and horror perfectly together, Caitlin Starling’s latest novel is not one to miss. With no shortage of complex scientific concepts and theories, Last To Leave the Room is somewhat dense, but always engaging. I cannot honestly say I completely understood everything discussed or the unfolding events in the novel, but reading this caused me to stay up past my bedtime multiple nights as I always needed to know what was going to happen next. The novel also kept me guessing as I made multiple predictions while reading and none of them turned out to be true.

Aside from stimulating my brain through googling scientific terms and having me on the edge of my seat, another aspect that kept me engaged throughout are the characters. Tamsin Rivers is “unlikable,” as she is arrogant, unkind, and places her reputation in the scientific world above all else. However, the novel also serves as a fascinating character study for her and despite her being unsavory much of the time, I couldn’t help myself from rooting for her. Despite her double appearing agreeable and kind, I was constantly wary of her and fearful of what intentions she had for Tamsin. It took a bit longer, but I also came to enjoy Lachlan Woodfield quite a bit, the woman employed to “keep an eye” on Tamsin. I do agree with some readers that romantic subplot felt a little underdeveloped, but overall it didn’t bother me and I liked their chemistry.

Thanks so much to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for review.

TL;DR

Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling is an exquisitely crafted book with big things to say about science that I just could not get into. If you like slow build horror, this might be the book for you.

Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.

Review: Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling

For this review, I’ve decided to break one of my cardinal rules as a reviewer. Rule: If I don’t finish a book, I don’t review it. I do this for a few reasons, chiefly, I don’t feel like I can give a good opinion on a book I couldn’t finish. And I know how hard authors work to create a book; so, I don’t want to disparage that. While reading is declining in the U.S., there is a large enough audience that a lot of people will like the thing I don’t. So, I don’t want to judge a book that people like simply because it bounced off of me. When I don’t like a book, I believe the problem is me. Therefore, I don’t write a review if the problem is me. However, this time, I didn’t finish the book and I believe the problem is me, but I’m going to review it anyway because I liked the small amount that I read. Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling is a book that I will have to try again at a different time. To be up front, I only finished 28% of the novel. In that portion, I found an exquisitely crafted book with timely things to say about corporate science and research. But I just didn’t connect to the story for some reason. It’s a book that I enjoyed but don’t feel a need to pick up again. This makes me feel terrible because I know this is a good book. As such, I plan to return to it at a different time for a new attempt.

Dr. Tamsin Rivers is not a good person. She’s the head of a lab investigating, what seems like a new type of communication. Her experiments take place underground at various points around the city of San Siroco, and it appears that these experiments are causing the city to sink in an unusual way. Rivers set up a lab in her basement to measure the sinking that’s occurring within her own home. The house isn’t sinking, but her basement is stretching. The main floor hasn’t lowered, but the basement floor is much lower. Soon, a door appears, and with its appearance, Dr. River’s behavior becomes increasingly more erratic. She becomes obsessed with the door, and one night, the door opens and someone steps through. It’s her. As far as she can tell, an exact copy.

Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling is a third person novel that follows Dr. River’s as her life seems to unravel because of her scientific discoveries. It’s a slow book, too slow for me, that is exquisitely crafted.

Dr. Rivers

Tamsin is a character that I should be interested in. She’s a high powered, type A personality scientist who chose the corporate grind over academia. All of that rings my bell. She’s chosen her career over any semblance of a personal life, and she’s ruthless in her ambition. She typifies everything that’s wrong with corporate science. Despite all that, I couldn’t find anything that allowed me to connect with her. She has a cat; that’s about as close as I got, and I’m not sure what I missed.

Starling crafted a fine main character. Rivers balances on a knife edge between confidence and self-doubt. She questions the motives of her superiors and wonders if her job is in jeopardy. Starling keeps the reader close to Rivers point of view, and she constructs a believable yet unlikable person. It’s masterful writing. Yet I still felt distant from Rivers. I was cold toward her.

Themes

Starling deals with some weighty themes in the portion that I read, and, again, these themes are right up my alley. Through Tamsin’s employer, she’s describes a corporation who acts selfishly but uses its public relations to act like it’s acting charitably. Tamsin’s employer renovating the failing subway system of San Siroco and enjoys all the good press and public goodwill from it. However, that’s just a cover so that they can conduct their experiments underground. It’s a perfect example of how corporations work. They spin their acts as charitable, as being good members of the community; yet we all know that corporations only do what benefits them. If a charitable act does not benefit the corporation, it will not perform that act.

In addition, Tamsin’s experiments are causing an ecological and societal disaster. Yet she and the corporation continue to pursue the experiments. Because who cares if we destroy where we live, right? In addition to a commentary on climate change, this also acts as a commentary on science itself. Too often – and especially in light of the science deniers from Covid – people look to the scientific process for the only answers. In truth, science is part of the answer. The pursuit of science simply for itself can lead to horrors. There are examples of this throughout history (see the Tuskegee experiments). Humanity is the end; science is the tool. When we treat humans as a means to a scientific end, horror follows. Rivers and her company are doing this in Last to Leave the Room. They’re placing innocent people at risk to further their own agendas.

Pacing

While this is an exquisitely crafted book, the pacing was too slow for me. Starling takes us through River’s life in detail, and she builds a picture of a character ripe for a decline. It was at about 20% of the way through the book that the doppelganger shows up. Starling takes us through the various experiments that River’s performs on her in more detail than I needed.

For some, this buildup will have been tense and delicious. If you enjoy the sweet torture of delayed gratification, this book might be for you.

Conclusion

Caitlin Starling’s Last to Leave the Room is an exquisitely crafted book that I couldn’t connect with. I plan to revisit this book at a different time to see if it’s just me that’s the problem. I found the writing to be top notch with excellent crafting. Starling’s main character is well drawn. This is a book with a lot of interesting things to say, and if you like slow build up horror, this is the book for you.

3.5 stars
Dr. Tamsyn Rivers is a scientist who lives for her work, especially since she was assigned to work on the top-secret problem of her city sinking with no apparent scientific reason. But she's keeping a secret even from her team - her basement has been growing at the same rate the city is sinking. It keeps stretching and stretching before an impenetrable door appears, and from it comes an exact copy of Tamsyn.

This was an interesting take on doppelgangers that I'm glad I kept with, because I nearly DNFed. The first section of this book dragged with repetitve scenes and fictional science that even this engineer found hard to follow. For the doppelganger being the main point of the synopsis, it seemed to take a long time before she appeared. Anything before then strained my interest thin and could have been slimmed down. It was especially infuriating at that point that she refused to tell anyone else about what was happening. However, everything after was much more fascinating. The most engaging part of this story was by far the interactions between the two Tamsyns and how their scientific minds interact with this impossibility. While the nature of their relationship is predictable, it is no less horrifying. I liked that this addressed the cliches of the traditional doppelganger plot and decided to go against many of them. The last volume in particular I found to be stellar and evened out how I felt about the beginning.

Overall, I'm glad to have another scifi horror to recommend to others. The beginning was a drag, but the ending made it worth the read.

Did you like House of Leaves? Did you like The Echo Wife? What if they had a baby?

Seriously, though, creepy door–loved it. I think it's hard to take such a good premise and actually play it out all the way through with the same level of tension and scariness. This book mostly succeeds, but is compulsively readable the whole way through so whatever little hiccup I felt could have been the result of me speed reading this to find out what happens next.

What a wild reading experience! This book totally a science fiction with a lot of science and tech I did not expect. I had my moments if confusion and head scratching thoughts while reading. The book is very engaging and cinematic in scope. The ending was a real wild twister that I was not expecting. Until next time Happy Reading!

Starling creates a wonderful creeping atmosphere where something is clearly off, although it's hard at first to pinpoint what exactly is wrong, by the time the doppelganger shows up things become clearer but far far more tense. The early parts with the city sinking and the house have impossible geometries brought me back to the things that first attracted me to House of Leaves, and while that ended up being mostly set dressing in both books, I still loved it. Tamsin is a fantastic character, ambitious and morally suspect, she's unlikeable but thoroughly compelling.

Highly recommend for a good spooky season read.