Thanks to NetGalley and RB Media for the ARC. Audiobook version. Narrator uses a British accent and several voices. This is a sci/fi or fantasy book about an apocalyptic world in which most of the planet was killed by a fog except for 122 people on an island. All good Sci Fi is a commentary on our society, and this is no exception. Who do you think installed the "voice" in your head? Your parents? Your ex? Organized religion? Television? All of us has an internal dialogue that comes from SOMEWHERE. What are the best ways for humanity to survive? Are all utopias destined for destruction? What actions are justified by being done for "the good of society"?

I do believe this would be easier to follow if I had done the digital version instead of listening. Some advice- keep a post-it note or notebook handy, and when a new character is named, jot their name down. There are many characters and easy to mistake for the other. All of them share an AI consciousness called Abby. When you think to yourself (as we often do) this Abby will respond to them and lead their consciousness in a way that advantages the "greater good" of the society. There is a murder 25% through the book, 7 people are dead, part of the book is a mystery. The world can eliminate memory pretty easily- by drinking a milkshake or something. So although everyone wakes up one day with 7 people dead, no one has any memory of it. As far as sci-fi goes, I found this very readable. It is simply harder to follow fantasy on audiobook, but this one can work if you pay attention to the character names. I listened twice, once on 1.25 speed and the second time on 2.0 speed. The second time through I picked up on a TON that I missed the first time. If you are trying to decide between audio and reading I think words would be superior. I loved the story, although the characters are a bit flat, the story is amazing and incredibly engaging.

I need to read this as a hard copy to fully understand what is happening. I had a hard time with characters as there was only one narrator and a lot going on. I will post my final review on good reads once I’ve read the physical or ebook copy. That said I love love love the other books by this author so my hopes are high!

I cannot for the life of me understand how the synopsis left out the most interesting parts of this post-apocalyptic murder mystery—no mention of the narrator being an artificial consciousness connected to every character or that the Death Fog appeared 90 years before OR that the scientists haven’t aged since then? And that’s before you get to the insane parts! I think the investigation part was a bit less engaging than in “The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle,” but the mystery was still compelling (and honestly, after listening to the whole thing in one go, I can’t say that there was anything I’d change)!

3.5 stars

This is a fascinating concept, and overall, the novel worked for me but not necessarily as much as I anticipated it would.

The setting is fantastic: a tiny island refuge in the midst of a world in which the environment has taken out the rest of civilization (so, if you're also accepting reality, here's a preview). For obvious reasons, this society functions in a way that focuses on keeping the inhabitants safe. When one of the three scientists is found murdered, chaos ensues. This is made more intriguing by a sudden (and explained) onset of widespread amnesia. This amnesia issue is an element that I both enjoyed and cursed at various points. I'll be curious to see where other reviewers land on this subject, especially.

This is my first novel by this author (I know, I know), and while I struggled with the pacing and amnesia, I enjoyed it overall and will consider digging into the back catalog and future efforts.

Set in a future where a mysterious fog wiped out nearly the entire population, this is a sci-fi heavy murder mystery about the one surviving island and what happens when an important member of the community turns up dead. This author has big brain energy and his books are always confusing, just usually in amore fun way. I was inhaling the majority of the book, then the last 30% didn’t stick the landing for me. Still fun and totally original.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced audio book.

I wanted to like this book--it sounded quirky--but the narrator's voice didn't work for me and I had trouble keeping track of all the characters. This one wasn't for me.

This is impossible to rate for me.

I've been so excited for this book that as soon as I saw it on NetGalley, I instantly requested it without really thinking and was approved shortly after I requested it. Had I thought it through a little more, I don't think I would have requested the audio. I think this is one of those books that I personally needed to physically read.

I could not keep the characters straight to save my life. I thought after a little while it would come together in my head, but it never did. I'm just as confused now as I was when I started.

I used to be sooooo into dystopian type novels, so I thought I'd love this, but the world building just wasn't there for me.

The narrator confused the crap out of me. Again, maybe it was because I was listening and not reading, but I had a really hard time with it.

It was just so long. It felt like I had listened to an hour and I'd look down at my phone and it had only been ten minutes.

Overall, I think I liked the idea more than the execution; this could be because it was the audio version and not the actual book, so I don't know that I can fairly give a rating. Because NetGalley requires it, I'll go in the middle with 3 stars.

In The Last Murder at the End of the World author Stuart Turton transports us to an island at the end of the world where a fog has destroyed the world as we know it leaving only 122 villagers and three scientists. However, when one of the scientists is found murdered and the security system that keeps the fog at bay starts to fail a countdown begins. A race to solve the murder and save what's left of the world.

The premise of The Last Murder at the End of the World was undeniably intriguing and the reason we decided to open it up in the first place. Turton creates a post-apocalyptic world that is eerie and unique. With nearly 100 years since the last murder, this sets up an investigation like no other. A murder investigation with extremely high states and limited time adds tension to an already tense world.

The story was innovative and full of twists and turns that even surprised us, but we found ourselves struggling to connect with Turton's characters. We could not emotionally invest in the outcome of most characters as they felt underdeveloped. This in addition to a few major plot points the felt rushed made it difficult to connect with the novel entirely.

Despite our personal reservations about character development and some plot hoes in The Last Murder at the End of the World, the ending was crazy and exciting. While this novel was not for us, Turton did a great job creating an interesting world from a unique premise. He does take risks and pushes boundaries which we can respect. If anything, Stuart Turton delivers on creativity and originality.

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton offers a fresh take on a murder mystery adding elements of a post-apocalyptic world and unique storytelling, but ultimately his writing style was just not for us. While not for us, this book will be popular for a ton of people.

I actually quite liked this. It was nothing of what I was expecting, but still definitely within my wheelhouse.

This has a very Sherlock Holmes vibe in a sci-fi dystopia, with layers of secrets to uncover that affect every corner and facet of their very isolated lives.

The Writing:
Though it initially seems like third person present tense, it's actually written in first person from the POV of an omnipresent AI who exists both externally and within all the minds of the island's inhabitants.

The Plot:
I thought the mystery was well carried out and satisfying. There were enough clues laid out along the way for an observant reader to pick up on and piece together, but also it was well-explained if you just wanted to be along for the ride.

The Characters:
The characters were also more complex and interesting than in traditional Holmesian mysteries. We're plopped in among complex family dynamics, see old age deaths and new births, messy families with estrangement and relationships torn apart over the loss of a loved one. It's a tight knit community and I think it does a good job of building the vibe such that you really understand their day-to-day lives by the end.

Sci-Fi:
Well it'd be spoilers to dive in too deeply to this, but there's been a catastrophic event and while a lot of technology exists where they are, it's a fairly isolated setting. And there are more sci-fi elements than initially meet the eye, but I don't think it goes too deep such that it would be off-putting to someone who normally reads Contemporary.

Audiobook Notes:
The narrator has a British accent and does a competent job. Occasionally his voice for one of the female characters (I wanna say Thea?) was unpleasantly whiny, but otherwise quite good.

I'm unsure if Hui is supposed to be named like in Chinese (which would be pronounced 'hway'), but the narrator consistently pronounced it as 'HOO-ee' and I can't tell if this was an oversight (but it feels like one).

One other note is that occasionally the narration deviated slightly from the written book (I had a WS sprayed edge copy that I read from in tandem). Mostly it was that the audio would use proper nouns while the physical book would use "she" or other small variations like that. But toward the end there was a rather different interpretation as the audio sounded like: "I won't. Thank you, Abi" while the physical was written as: "I won't thank you, Abi." And that made me chuckle a little (I think the audio interpretation is probably what was meant).

This book is about a village on an island that is surrounded by a barrier that protects them from a deadly fog but soon one of the main 3 scientists dies which triggers a dead man's switch effectively disintegrating the barrier which means that the only way to have the barrier back is by figuring out who killed the scientist.

This book was both confusing and compelling. It started out in a very odd way and you really don't understand what's fully going on until the very last page but even then, I still have so many unanswered questions. This book dug deep into what happens when you don't have humanity and lie to people, along with a sort of doomsday situation.

The narrator in my opinion was sometimes reliable and sometimes not, due to the fact that the narrator is this thing called Abi which is this mental being that is in all the villagers' heads while also being its own entity. Abi causes a lot of secrets to be kept and perpetrates many of the events of this book.