Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
I’m sad to say I was really disappointed all around in this book.
Xe Sands is usually one of my favorite narrators and I don’t feel like she did her best on this book.
The book itself I had a really hard time getting into and just didn’t care for it.

It took me a while to get into this book I found it hard at first but eventually I was plugged in and enjoyed it I did think the ending was a bit boring but totally enjoyed the duplicates as I knew I would because I usually love stories like that I also thought the narrator sounded a bit boring and think if it had had a different narrator it would’ve been much better. I didn’t feel like she brought her A game to the book because she read in a monotone way which is boring on spec but to have to listen to it for hours was a chore. I do want to thank the publisher and that galley for my free Ark copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

Last to Leave the Room is a taut, introspective thriller about a woman who's double appears out of a mysterious, unopenable, self-healing door that appeared when her basement subsided -- a phenomenon going on throughout her town, and which she's tasked with studying and may have been involved with causing due to her underground lab in reclaimed subway space for a mysterious agency.

The double, who she dubs "Prime" is at first quite docile and compliant as they navigate their new existence. She has no demands, and has an interesting mix of knowledge and ignorance of the concepts that the original ("Nought") has learned over time -- cooking (or lack thereof with meal replacement shakes and kits), scientific experiment, navigating the outside world, etc.

Over time, they begin to have many identity crises as pressure from work, the city sinking, coexisting, and numerous other things take a toll -- especially with the clinical and overbearing boss who comes by for visits and insists on updates. Nought eventually can't even leave the house, leading to the inevitable and unthinkable.

This is a very creative and thought-provoking novel, with some great meta-awareness of other uses of this trope and how it usually works out for the original. I definitely would have loved to know more about the observation effects in why appearances change in certain ways and the underground world, but this was great.

One note on the narrator/recording was that her words tended to run together a bit and I had to listen at a slower speed than normal to make sure it was clear. Her voice was very familiar from other audiobooks but this was the first time I noticed that issue.

I picked this book up because I enjoyed the author’s previous book The Death of Jane Lawrence; but it was such a departure, being much more modern, the adjustment makes it difficult to get into. However, as I know that the author has a range of genres they write in, I should have read the synopsis more closely. Over all I did like this novel, despite its slow start. I saw that some reviewers disliked Tamsin but, I found her characterization honest and all the more poignant as her reliability falters. During the 3/4 mark, I had to know what was going to happen, I was so absorbed in the story. But I found myself a bit lost in the final chapters.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this audio ARC. If you like Blake Crouch, this is a horror book for you. It felt like a brain f***. It left me feeling tired from all the twists and turns.

A great read!

This was a Booklist starred review in the Horror category, so I requested an advance copy based on that criteria, and the need to read something fast and not-too-involved. I started this on audiobook, but quickly switched over to the digital ARC, since the narrator wasn't doing much for me.

Pros: interesting premise, science-y but not technical enough to blow holes in, kept me reading until the end. Reminded me in some ways of the Echo Wife, though (looking over my past review of that title) appears to have annoyed me less than the Echo Wife.

Cons: The first half (maybe even 2/3?) was slooooow. At first I thought it was due to the audiobook narrator, but even switching to print I found myself kind of skimming. This is a very internal book, in spite of the scenes where Dr. Rivers interacts with her colleagues and her handler, and it dragged. Rivers was portrayed as ruthless and cutthroat, and I wanted to see more of that borderline sociopathy in the narration. This was a book that should have had sharp edges the whole way through, but it just...didn't, for me.

Even writing this, I'm struggling to say why this doesn't hold up as a 4 star read for me. Maybe it was the plot was good but the atmosphere and pacing was wrong? It was missing the element that made House of Leaves so terrifying, the detachment that made me feel like either Rivers was capable of true cruelty. I can barely remember the drama of the climax.

A horror that, for better or for worse, had none of the staying power of a Gailey or a Hendrix in my brain. Maybe just not for me.

This is a science fiction speculative horror novel that starts off slow but picks up halfway and doesn’t stop!

Tamsin, a doctor working on some very intriguing science, discovers that her basement is sinking… Really, the whole city is sinking, a possible result of her own field of work, but her basement is sinking faster. When a door appears in the basement and a person steps through, she is most shocked by the fact this this being is an exact replica of herself (visually at least).

While Tamsin starts to lose time, lose memories and becomes increasingly fearful of the outside world, her doppelgänger begins learn more and more, starting to take up parts of Tasmin’s life

This book was really interesting. The science around it, the idea of this happening… absolutely terrifying. I started out not really liking Tamsin, but she definitely grew on me. I enjoyed the aspect of her superior (a handler of sorts) being just on the edge of Tamsin’s discovery. It added a perfect anticipatory element of what will happen!?

The final last 1/3 of this book had me in the edge of my seat. The fact that this is narrated by one of my absolute favorite narrators didn’t hurt either… This gave me The Echo Wife vibes…

A city is sinking and scientist, Dr. Tamsin Rivers is trying to find out why. She hasn’t shared the fact that the cellar in her own home is also. One day, she discovers a door and her cellar, one that was never there before. On the other side of the door is a replica of Tamsin, identical in every way, except for her personality. The real Dr. Rivers. Is cold and selfish, and her coffee is the exact opposite. She becomes obsessed with this copy of her, and spends more and more time in the basement of her house, gradually, forgetting more and more about her life beyond the basement. I really wanted to like this book, it had an interesting premise, but I didn’t like any of the characters and therefore did not care what happened to them