Good book. A bit cheesy, but overall I enjoyed it. The overall plot was good, but it felt like something was missing. Kind of random how all the characters fit together. Seems like it was trying a bit too hard.

Great potential as a psychological thriller but I honestly had a hard time wading through this book. It grabbed my attention as soon as I started but half way through the story was lagging. Thanks for the advance read and for accepting my honest opinion.

Unfortunately not for me. In a world with SO many books being published, I just don't see this as a must in our collection.

"The Last Room on the Left" by Leah Konen is a twisted psychological thriller told from three points of view that complement one another. It's marketed as a "feminist take on The Shining," but it bears only a faint resemblance to King’s classic. But more on that later.

The story centers around Kerry, an aspiring author whose life has hit rock bottom due to her struggles with alcoholism. Her drinking has cost her both her husband, Frank, and her best friend, Siobhan. On top of everything, she’s battling writer’s block. In an effort to turn her life around, Kerry accepts a month-long position as a caretaker at a revitalized roadside motel in the Catskills. Since the motel has no Wi-Fi, she hopes to finish her novel without distractions.

She’s assigned to stay in the last room on the left but finds it mysteriously occupied upon arrival, with no trace of the tenant. The plot thickens when she discovers a body and clues suggesting foul play. With a snowstorm cutting off electricity and cell reception, Kerry must rely on her wits - no easy task, given that she’s fallen off the wagon again.

I was excited to dive into this psychological thriller, but it didn’t quite hit the mark for me. While I enjoyed the eerie setting, unsettling atmosphere, and overall sense of dread, the story dragged at certain points, and the writing felt repetitive at times.

Although the book echoes "The Shining" in its isolated setting, unreliable alcoholic caretaker, and tense mood, it is nothing like "The Shining". Kerry is no Jack Torrance, and the plot diverges significantly from King’s novel. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for me, since I’m not overly fond of "The Shining".

None of the characters were particularly likable, though. Kerry is full of excuses to justify her poor choices and a drinking problem, and the other two protagonists aren’t much better. One character constantly seeks male adoration (which undermines the feminist take), while another engages in non-consensual S&M and returns for more, disregarding her safety.

Even the side characters, though well-drawn, didn’t resonate with me. The constant drug and alcohol abuse was hard to relate to, and I struggled to warm up to any of the cast. Additionally, the book could use another round of editing to smooth out some rough patches. For instance, in one scene, Siobhan gives her keys to another character but then uses the same keys herself in the very next scene to access the boiler room.

Overall, The Last Room on the Left had a solid premise, and I appreciated the suspense and spooky atmosphere. The story is readable, fast-paced, and offers a few chilling moments along with twists I didn’t see coming. However, while I enjoyed certain aspects of it, I wasn’t blown away. The idea was interesting, but it fell short in execution. As a result, I would rate it 3 out of 5 stars.

* Thank you NetGalley and (publisher) for the opportunity to read this arc. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for this ARC copy in exchange for an honest review. This was my first book by Leah Konen and definitely will not be my last! Each page was mysterious, full of twists and turns, and reminded me of a female version of The Shining meets Psycho in a very refreshing way. Set in a motel, Kerry (the FMC) is stuck alone and without access to power or cell service during a winter storm, with a dead body that she found buried in the snow outside. Any time she finds help from the police or other locals, the body ends up missing from where she saw it last, causing her to question her sanity, and whether or not the alcohol and isolation are getting the best of her mind, or if there really is a danger lurking out in the snowy woods with no sign of any real help to be found. I devoured this book in one day, waiting to figure out what was going on with Kerry and the dead body, and I wasn't disappointed by the result. Not to mention, the ending was a big shocker that I didn't see coming! This is one, if you are a fan of fast-paced thrillers, to add to your TBR.

I really like this author so I was excited to see her new thriller that was inspired by The Shining. It has lots of twists and turns, an unreliable narrator, many cliffhangers at the end of chapters that made me keep turning the pages, and a surprise ending. I recommend this book!

✨This was a fun, fast-paced thriller with lots of my favorite elements: an isolated location, a locked room mystery to solve and a dreary wintry setting.

✨ The main character is a hot mess but trying (and failing), but you still can’t help but root for her.

✨ The twists and turns as the story unfolds really kept me on my toes.

✨This will be the perfect chilly thriller for a cold wintery day.

🌿Read if you like:
✨Psychological thrillers
✨Locked room mysteries
✨Isolated locations
✨Snowed-in narratives
✨Renovated mid-century roadside motels
✨Alternating points of view

My thanks to @putnambooks and @netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book before its publication date.

It started with at first her car was a Toyota and then magically turned into a Honda and went downhill from there. I can say the book tried, but it’s a no for me.

Honestly meh? I don’t think I would call this a feminist take on the shining. I don’t know that I would file this anywhere close to that actually. This was a hard story to get into and an even harder one to finish. The plot could be interesting at points but most of the time it was a yawn fest. This was just not for me.

Thanks to NetGalley for the copy of this ARC. This will be out in January 2025.

An interesting thriller! I did love the unreliable narrator and the retelling of The Shining. I liked how the twists kept coming. However, I feel like there was a lot of common tropes and it was relatively easy to guess “who did it”. It also seemed that the end came too quickly and was too neat and clean of an ending. A fun read, but not necessarily one of my favorites.

Thanks to NetGalley and Putnam Books for sending me an ARC of The Last Room on the Left in exchange for an honest review.

Kerry has an drinking problem, and it’s ruining her life. Her husband Frank has left her. She hasn’t spoken to her best friend Siobhan in two months. She has a book deal that could make her career but she can’t get the words on paper. So she’s going to spend the month of February working as a caretaker at the Twilite Motel in the Catskills, in the hopes that the isolation will help her stop drinking and start writing. But within hours, she thinks she’s found a woman’s dead body in the snow, but did she? Because it’s gone when the police arrive. Is Kerry in danger from a killer or is she going crazy?

The Last Room on the Left is a pretty standard psychological thriller. It’s got the multiple points-of-view and the non-linear storytelling that are so common in the genre now. There are half a dozen potential suspects, and several red herrings, but you’ll probably know who the killer is. It’s the kind of book I usually rate as 3.5 stars rounded up 4.

But The Last Room on the Left is expressly positioning itself as a “feminist take on The Shining.” And this book certainly borrows the set-up of The Shining: an alcoholic writer takes a winter hotel caretaker job to finally stop drinking and write their novel.

And yet for me, it was perfect, my own little Overlook Hotel, where I could finish my book (minus the ghosts, psychotic break, and homicide, of course). And unlike Jack Torrance, I didn’t even have a family to terrorize and I wasn’t going to be drinking a single drop. All work and no play was finally going to make Kerry a truly successful girl.

But The Shining uses that set-up to show Jack’s slow, supernaturally aided descent into homicidal madness. The Last Room on the Left does none of that and nothing like that. Moreover, I’d argue The Last Room on the Left isn’t even feminist. Placing women in mortal danger at the hands of men is not feminist. Instead, the three main female characters are actually pretty awful to each other throughout the story.

The Last Room on the Left is the rare book that I rate as 3.5 stars rounded down to 3.

Kerry is an alcoholic who takes a job as caretaker of a remote hotel. She liked the fact that there wouldn't be wifi and she could finish writing her book. Once she arrives the room she is suppose to stay in is dirty and looks like someone never left. Kerry finds a body frozen outside and she reports it to police. The police arrive and there is no trace of a body. Kerry isn't sure if it was real or if she imagined it.

I just didn't enjoy all the drug/alcohol aspects and the explicit sex scenes in this book.

Trigger warnings: Drug/Alcohol abuse, explicit sex scenes

The book was billed as a modern, feminist take on the shining. I was immediately engrossed and flew through this book. The story followed a writer to a remote motel as she worked as an overwinter caretaker to work on her novel and struggled with her alcoholism and absolute wreckage of her life. I thought the writer did a really great job exploring these issues and also wrote a captivating thriller. I thought it was interesting how she included her compulsion to numb herself with the “endless scroll, scroll, scroll…” with her other vices. As someone who was once a terrible alcoholic, but is now sober and still guilty of checking out in social media, this is something I am becoming more and more mindful of and was interested to see it included here. Overall it was a really good thriller.

A renovated mid century motel in upstate New York is closed for the winter and needs a caretaker. Enter hot mess writer, Kerry, hoping the peace and solitude will help her finish her novel. Peace is definitely not what she finds.

Told from several POV, this book is filled with twists and turns galore! It’s a great mashup of thriller, mystery and horror and to make it even better there’s a blizzard. There’s nothing I like better on a 95° day than reading about freezing cold and a dangerous blizzard. I had trouble putting this book down as I needed to know what would happen next.

I recommend this book to anyone looking for a fast paced, trippy whodunnit. You can’t go wrong with this one.

Thank you to Netgalley, Penguin Group Putnam and author Leah Konen for the fantastic ARC. I appreciate the opportunity.

The part where the book is said to be "a feminist take on The Shining" is a lie. Just saying.

Unless you consider every story about a caretaker of a motel that is in the middle of nowhere to be a different version of The Shining, then sure.

I read later on in the Acknowledgements part of the book that her friend had dared her to write "a feminist The Shining" but until I finished the book, I was not sure how it was anything like The Shining or even a feminist version of it. I guess there was some feminism in the book, but again, the term "feminist The Shining" stayed with me from the start until the end and sort of bothered me.

Don't get me wrong, it is not a bad book. I enjoyed it from the first page, every chapter is fast-paced and got me disturbed by the actual random sounds around me in real life. There is twist after twist, and as a reader, you cannot trust anyone, not even the narrator who has a drinking problem and a history of imagining things.

The book is pretty solid, the plot was mostly decent, but the ending kind of fell flat. As a fan of the thriller genre, I guess I intend to have a higher expectation than I should have, but the ending just sort of... happened. It is a good book, but nothing remarkable. If you are a fan of the mystery thriller genre like me, I doubt that this book will impress you, but you might still enjoy the story.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book jumps right into it within the first couple of chapters. After the first few chapters the books alternates between different character POVs and timelines which was well done to keep the reader interested. The author did a really good job at keeping you guessing until the very end on what really happened. I'm a sucker for a snowed in or blizzard type of book so this was right up my alley. Will definitely be recommending for others to give this one a read.

This was a quick, fun read, but I think it would have been more successful if not marketed as a 'feminist take on The Shining.' Yes, it's a woman who is a writer and goes to a secluded hotel to finish her project, but just because the main character is a woman doesn't necessarily make it 'feminist,' and unless I'd read that comparison, I wouldn't have thought to compare it to 'The Shining' myself. I think doing so just sets readers up for disappointment when it could otherwise stand on its own as a fun thriller.

The last Room on the left by Leah Konen

This book came out of the gate strong and then I struggled to push through it. I enjoyed the jumpstart with the character and learning about her struggles and addiction to alcohol but then it continued and became a constant drone of the same ol, then the pieces started to fit in with her friendship with Siobhan… well then that got played out very repetitive and became obnoxious.

The premise to the story was interesting and the idea intrigued me, especially the shining reference, motel in the mountains, seclusion, etc. Overall I enjoyed the story and it held my attention but it failed to deliver in the haha department.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin group for this Arc!

3.5 stars.

The novel started out a little slowly before picking up. Two once-close friends who have lost touch are reunited when both are named caretakers of an isolated motel during the winter off-season.

Although its billing as a "twisty, addictive, feminist take on The Shining" sounds appealing, it is inaccurate. There are no similarities between the books beyond a shared premise - both involve isolated properties in the off-season, caretakers with existing substance abuse problems, plus mysterious and sinister occurrences. The author added a substance abuse issue to the equation and I feel that is a fairly common complication used in suspense novels as the basis for much of the suspense - are the sinister occurrences *real* or figments of the character’s alcohol-addled imagination? I typically do not enjoy books where the protagonist struggles with substance abuse, but I appreciated that the author strove to create characters who were “regular” and average, very different from the implausibly high-achieving female characters found in many works of contemporary fiction and suspense.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Putnam for granting me access to this ARC for my review consideration. All opinions are my own.

This book was gripping and hard to put down. It didn't feel like everything else you see out there, it felt very fresh. I really enjoyed this book!