3.5 stars

The Last Session by Julia Bartz is a psychological thriller about a social worker who gets caught up in a cult.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Simon & Schuster (Atria/Emily Bestler Books), and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.


My Synopsis:    (No major reveals, but if concerned, skip to My Opinions)
Social worker Thea immediately bonds with a Jane Doe who shows up at the psychiatric hospital where she works.  Eventually she and the staff recognize her as a celebrity that starred in a show called Stargirl, that Thea had watched again and again as a teenager.  People are also saying that the woman and Thea look alike.

When the woman disappears from the hospital under rather strange circumstances, Thea follows her.  She ends up in a wellness center in the deserts of New Mexico.   They retreat deals with both finding the perfect mate, and reliving past lives. Thea feels this place is more of a cult than a retreat, but can't deny the pull of this place.  They seem to know more about her than they should, and the dreams she has been experiencing seem to be on par with their beliefs.

Thea soon finds herself deeply immersed with these strange yet charismatic couple.  There may be no way out.




My Opinions:
I did not really like Thea, and it's always difficult to enjoy the book if you can't like or relate to the main character.  A thirty-something who solves all her problems with alcohol.  It's gets a little boring after a while.

Once I got into the story, however, things definitely held my attention.  The plot was good, twisted, and a little strange.  I like books about cults, and am usually cheering for the victim to get out, but boy, Thea was an idiot.  For someone who works in the field of psychiatry, she knew all about the tactics that the Center wase using, could quote the techniques from her training, and she still fell for everything.  Her thoughts said one thing, and her actions the other.  Although it went well for the story, it was just not believable.  But when I realized I was enjoying the story anyway, I just decided to suspend belief, and ride with it.  Then I started enjoying it more.

Beware that the book touches on alcohol abuse, childhood abuse, sexual and physical abuse, mental illness, as well as cults and murder.  It also contains some sex scenes.  None of these bothered me, as they were incorporated into the story very well, and with reason.

The writing was quite good, and the pace moved briskly.

It did get a little crazy (and yes, unbelievable), but it was entertaining.  So, as long as you remember that you are reading fiction, and can leave your skepticism behind, I think you'll enjoy this.

The Last Session is quite a change from Julia Bartz’s first novel, The Writing Retreat. But change isn’t always a good thing. Similar to that first book, this one also has a dark and twisting story. But unfortunately there is more wrong than right with this one. While the story was fairly interesting, there were definitely parts I could have done without. I just didn’t find nearly as engaging as her debut. Perhaps this is just the sophomore slump. That being said, I’m not ready to give up on Ms. Bartz yet and will likely check out whatever she comes out with next. Thanks so much to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me access to an ARC of The Last Session.
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A social worker chases after a patient she's worried about from NYC to New Mexico and stumbles on a cult and has an orgy. WHAT DID I JUST READ. I don't know who I recommend this for but it was interesting to say the least. It somehow was slow despite it being a cult thriller and I had to suspend reality a lot. Maybe it's because I just watched Opus but I feel like I've read this before.

Thank you Netgalley for an eARC, pub date is 4/1!

The Goodreads reviews have not been kind to this so far, so I'd like to advocate a little for it! I think it's intended to be a book about recovering from Christianity, but it goes a little wacky, with secret twins, a therapist main character who is in need of therapy herself, an obsession with the star of a sexy ancient Egyptian romance movie, and a sex therapy clinic in New Mexico. It's wacky, its's out-there, it reads a little like an acid trip at times. (I half wondered if that would be the ending: the therapist dreamed it all after taking mushrooms or ayahuasca.)
Yes, the ratings might be higher if the book stuck to the core premise: an author who has suffered religious trauma goes undercover at a therapy clinic. But the wackiness did amuse me, even if it didn't make much sense at times!

The writing is engaging and the characters are well-developed.
I enjoy cult-themed stories however this one just didn’t resonate with me. It seemed implausible (maybe far-fetched is a better explanation); that being said I really enjoyed The Writing Retreat and will continue to read the author’s future work.
Thank you to the publisher/author for the opportunity to listen to this complimentary advanced copy. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.

The way I consumed this book in 48 hrs wow. There’s so much going on here that I kept guessing until the end. Please check the trigger warnings. As a mental health therapist myself, this was a pretty solid representation of the vulnerability cults gravitate towards and the people they can/will manipulate. Cultural appropriation is touched on in this story highlighting how white supremacy can show up literally anywhere. I read her first book, The Writing Retreat and was invested just as much. Another well done psychological thriller!

Thank you to NetGalley, Julia Bartz, and the publisher for a copy of this eARC.

Thea is a social worker employed in a public hospital’s inpatient psychiatric ward. A Jane Doe is brought in for evaluation who looks similar to Thea and felt familiar to her. Thea eventually recognizes the Jane Doe as Catherine O’Brien, the star of a fantasy film, “Stargirl,” that had echoed Thea’s own life. Thea’s life was in flux. Her boyfriend had recently broken up with her after she disclosed some information about her past, and her roommate announced that she was having her girlfriend move in and that Thea would need to find a new apartment. When Thea learns that Catherine left the facility with a couple who falsely claimed to be her parents, Thea engages in some amateur sleuthing, and pursues Catherine to an isolated retreat outside Albuquerque, New Mexico, run by two charismatic figures, Moon and Sol.

I generally enjoy books that seek to explain why people are drawn to cults, but this novel jumped the shark. The first half of the novel was interesting, but the second half was just silly. Thank you Atria/Emily Bestler Books and Net Galley for an advanced copy.

I received a DIGITAL Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not 100% sure on my thoughts for this yet. I enjoyed the bulk of this book and the ending was okay but I can't say that I loved it. The ending felt rushed and I have a lot of questions still.

I still haven't read this author's first book but I want to and I still would definitely give another book by this author a try.

3.5 stars rounded up.

This book felt like it had a lot of promise when I began reading it. I’m kind of drawn to a novel set in a psychiatric unit/hospital. So this one quickly drew me in.
Thea is a social worker, trying to find out what happened to a new patient named Catherine. She is emotionless, can’t speak, and has clearly been through a traumatic event.

Then the wheels fall off. This book got so very weird, and confusing I literally had no idea what was going on. The constant references to “Stargirl” were annoying. The sex scene and the cave were so strange and far fetched.
I was expecting a thriller. I’m not quite sure what this was, but a thriller it wasn’t.
I am still confused.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria books for the advanced copy, in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. This book, simply put, is almost like a fever dream. The pacing is inconsistent, but not in a negative way. It starts off slow, ramps up, only to slow down again, and then races to the finish line. It's a mental type of slow-burn and "what the heck is going on" the entire way through and is truly a rollercoaster ride that you feel you are incapable of exiting. The characters were probably my least favorite part of the entire read - they were not trustworthy, irredeemible and just plain unlikeable in my opinion. If you like cults, far-fetched ideologies, and an untrustworthy cast, this is the read for you. If inconsistent pacing bothers you and you need to have at least one likeable character, then perhaps steer clear.

This book started off strong, drawing me in with its premise and initial setup. Unfortunately, as the story progressed, it just kept going farther and farther off the rails—until it reached a point of no return for me. I don’t mind suspending disbelief to an extent, but The Last Session asked for too much, and instead of feeling invested, I found myself mostly confused. The plot twists felt more bizarre than compelling, and by the end, the whole thing just came across as cringey and weird.

Not for me, but if you’re into stories that embrace the absurd, you might have better luck with it.

I would like to thank the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thea is a social worker who is feeling lost, when the actress from her favorite childhood movie shows up at the inpatient psychiatric unit where she works. She feels an unexplainable bond to her, and when she checks out of the hospital under mysterious circumstances, Thea decides to follow her. Thea winds up mixed up in a cult disguised as a sex/relationship healing retreat, and things get wilder than you could ever imagine.
Wow is this book bonkers, and I ate it up! This book yanked me out of my book slump immediately. Just like Julia Bartz's first novel, this won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I was hooked! This is the off-the-rail vibes of The Writing Retreat + a little bit of The Silent Patient + cults. If you don't mind a thriller where literally every moment you're yelling at the main character "no, don't go down there!" - then check this out now.
Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC.
ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book. The cult aspect held my attention but omg darned evil cults!!!

I’m really glad I’ve never been influenced by one especially after reading this. I just was hoping for that feeling I got when I read her last book! But don’t worry, I’m still happy with her overall as an author and will read her next book!

Rating: 3 stars

I was really excited about this book at first - the premise had me hooked, and I loved the cult aspect of the story.

I don’t mind a plot that asks me to suspend disbelief - Heck, I am a huge McFadden and Feeney fan, which says a lot about how much nonsense I can take in and love ... but this one took it to an extreme. It was hard to stay fully invested.

The story follows Thea, a social worker in a psychiatric unit, who becomes fixated on a patient with a traumatic past. Feeling a strange personal connection, she decides to dig deeper, leading her all the way to a secluded wellness retreat in New Mexico. What she uncovers there is unsettling, blurring the lines between reality, therapy, and psychological manipulation.

The foundation was solid - Thea’s past growing up in a cult-like community set the stage for an intriguing and eerie narrative. For the first half, I was hooked, eager to see how everything connected. But then… chaos. The story took a wild detour from gripping psychological suspense into full-blown absurdity. One moment, it felt grounded; the next, it spiraled into something completely unrealistic at lightning speed.

Ultimately, this had so much potential, but it lost me.

Weird and wild is Julia Bartz’s specialty. I had a really fun time with this one.

As soon as I got my bearings in this book, it goes a whole different direction. So many things are happening here, with intense characters, multiple mysterious side plots, and a woman with a desire to know the truth.

This book talks a lot about trauma- unpacking and confronting it. It gets dark, but were we expecting less? Thea meets a new patient in the psychiatric center where she works. Feeling like she knows her from somewhere Thea feels an instant connection to her. There is something about this woman that cracks open something in her memory, flooding it with difficult past experiences.

When the woman goes missing right before she is supposed to be picked up from the center, a small trail of breadcrumbs lead Thea to her. And things go off the rails from there. This is a rollercoaster of bizarre healing therapies and characters that will get under your skin.

This looks at first glance like a standard mystery thriller: a girl with no memory turns up in a psych ward, and a social worker ends up trying to find her after she disappears). But, ultimately, The Last Session is such a deeply weird story. I mean this as high praise. At no point did I ever know where this story was headed or what any of the motivations of the different characters were. Honestly, it was refreshing chaos and a nice divergence from the boilerplate mysteries I've read lately.

I will confess that I'm not sure every reveal totally worked or if I fully understood some of the bigger ideas that were explored (past lives, reincarnation, soulmates, etc), but I did fully enjoy myself and was never bored. I love reading something where the author makes a big swing even if it doesn't completely come together.

Overall, just a lot of strange fun and hard to put down.

This book started great. I was locked in and my interest was at 100. It started to lose its lustre about halfway through. I don't love the direction the book went. I felt like my level 100 interest was sitting around 25 in the end.

Thanks to #NetGalley and #AtriaBooks for the book #TheLastSession by #JuliaBartz. This book is crazy good involving relationships, therapy and a lot of secrets. Thea is a social worker who recognizes a patient but not sure from where. When the patient disappears, Thea goes looking for her at a secluded retreat for romantic and sexual individuals. What she finds will blow you away.

This story had a layer of suspense that continued to build throughout with many twists and turns along the way. I liked spending the majority of the story in the perspective of social worker, Thea. She has trauma in her own past that comes to the surface when she heads to a retreat in the middle of nowhere, intending to rescue her patient Catherine who surfaced in a catatonic state and then disappeared again when a couple, pretending to be her parents, checked her out of the psychiatric hospital where Thea works. The secondary cast is somewhat suspicious with certain behaviors setting off red flags for Thea and the reader, and I liked not knowing who among them I could trust. Fans of psychological suspense/thrillers will enjoy this book.

Thea works as a social worker in a New York City psychiatric ward. The newest patient admitted to her ward is a catatonic female named Jane Doe. Thea tries her best to communicate to the new patient to no avail, however, she finds Jane to be somewhat familiar. After racking her brain, she thinks Jane may be the actress in her favorite movie, Stargirl. Armed with this information, Thea goes into work the following day to discover Catherine(Jane Doe) has left. Thea makes it her mission to track down Catherine, which leads her to a retreat in New Mexico.
The idea behind this was there. Thea was in a cult like community growing up and has been traumatized as a result. Fast forward to her investigation, as an adult, she finds herself in a similar situation at the New Mexico retreat. For the first 50% I wanted to know how it all tied together and it seems to be moving at a pace that was enjoyable. Then it just completely went off the rails. I don’t even know how to explain how far off the track it went. It went from somewhat realistic to completely non-realistic in the blink of an eye. I was willing to overlook the unprofessionalism of Thea as she didn’t quite resonate as a social worker. But once I realized where the author was going with this, it was the least of my issues. Reincarnation, past trauma,/sexual abuse, past-life regression and bullying are some of the topics touched on in this novel.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for this digital e-arc.*