📚The Last Session by Julia Bartz

⚠️CWs for inpatient psychiatric setting, involuntary hospitalizations, HIPAA violations, mental illness, sexual assault, cult, gaslighting, manipulation, pedophilia, adult/minor relationship, substance abuse, animal death, isolation/confinement, suicide, and more

Rating: ⭐️⭐️/5

A VERY generous 2 stars, might I add. This book was so frustrating!!!!! It’s been a while since I’ve read a good cult thriller, so I was really hoping it would be a fun read at the very least. I was actually really enjoying the first 30% or so. As much I don't love fictionalizing psychiatric care, I thought the setup and initial mystery was engaging enough. But then out of nowhere things started going rapidly downhill and never improved. And that ending?! Not worth the physical toll of being subjected to the audiobook tbh.

I also had similar feelings about Julia Bartz's debut as well, so I think maybe she’s just not an author for me. You win some you lose some!

I have never read anything by this author, but I will be looking out for other books they write in the future. I really enjoyed the story as well as the pacing of the story.

I’m really bummed I didn’t get the chance to read this: it get removed from Netgalley before I got to my Arc. I’m sure this is a great book and I’m excited to see further reviews

The Last Session was not at all what I expected! It started off at a mental hospital, with our MC Thea working as one of the employees there. Things begin to get strange when a patient comes in who looks exactly like Thea, and is in fact an actor that Thea remembers from her childhood. This was all right up my alley, and I was very excited to read it based on the description.

As Thea searches for this patient, though, the storyline lost me a little bit. The book turned out to be about reincarnation, which was a hard left turn from the social worker description I came for. I do love a cult thriller, so I was still interested to see where the story would take us. In the end, though, there wasn't quite enough of a solid real-world explanation for my taste.

This book is definitely different and interesting, even if it wasn't quite for me!

This book was a stretch for my imagination.

Thea, a social worker, meets a new patient, a catatonic, she feels an instant connection to. The woman actually looks like Thea but there's another association niggling in her brain. Thea realizes the past association, she has positive results in their sessions but then the patient disappears with strangers posing as her parents.

Now Thea has decided she needs to save this woman because she had such an influence on her in her youth so she becomes a sleuth and discovers her final destination. It's in the middle of a dessert and it's a cult hiding under the guise of a retreat run by two podcasters who promise enlightening results for those who attend.

Thea hides her real identity, still determined to save this important person from her early life, and becomes caught up in all the drugs, personal revelations. She discovers the schemes by the owners who have their own personal god issues and becomes intrenched in the group and it's mystic behavior.

Sacrificial bonfires, calling of the spirits, dream inducing drugs, disappearing people and uncovering the truth about the real identities of the leaders and participants make for a complicated and twisted story.

Readers of the dessert lore and its spiritual connections will enjoy all the phenomenons that are included in the storyline.

Thank you netgalley for this. 2.5/5 stars.
The story follows a social worker in a psychiatric unit called Thea. At her work, Thea comes across a woman with a traumatic past, so she decides to uncover her story, which leads her to a remote wellness center/cult. The plot itself was really intriguing, but this kinda just floundered around a bit? I felt myself getting pulled away from the story as things too illogical and a bit too suspended belief kept happening.
The twists and craziness in her first story just worked. In this one I really didn't love them.

Thank you Net galley for the early read of this!

Psychological suspense with trauma has my name written all over it. I will eat it up any day, just like I did with The Last Session! The cults! Oh em gee!! I'm not usually a fan of cult books. They can be too far fetched for me. But I really enjoyed Julia Bartz writing. I have never read anything from her but I have now added her to my list of must reads!

⭐️⭐️💫

Literally what did I just read. Unhinged but couldn’t look away. Not for me, but if your into cults and reincarnation, maybe it’s for you…

Thank you NetGalley and Atria for the eARC.

Now I loved The Writing Retreat, so I was very excited for the author’s sophomore novel. However, this just didn’t hit how I wanted it to. I can appreciate a cult story but I felt like this had way too much going on at once and was just trying to tackle one too many storylines. I felt like the ending got way too bonkers for my liking and was borderline ridiculous.

I will try from this author once more considering I did enjoy her first book!

I liked the first part of this book and thought the mystery was interesting, but then it took a bit of a strange turn. I didn't mind the cult aspect, but I started to feel like I was reading a sci-fi novel, and I had to suspend belief a little too much. I liked Thea, but I definitely questioned her choices!

Unfortunately, this was a miss. I had faith that the author would do a nice job with the mental health component, as she's trained as a social worker, but I had a hard time buying that the main character would breach ethics like that. I also didn't care for the woo woo elements. Bonus points for creativity, though.

Well, this was not good. Too much going on with Thea's current situation when it has nothing to do with the plot. Why waste pages on Amani's engagement? Dom's relationship? Even the epilogue was unnecessary. Should've just went even more all in on the cult. This was disappointing.

This was kind of all over the place and I can't say I was really a fan to be honest. Just an okay read that is actually pretty skippable in my humble opinion. It was okay on audio but the story itself did nothing to grab my attention or keep me interested. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

Thea is a social worker on a psychiatric unit. A new patient arrives with a link to Thea's past. Before she can figure it out, the patient is gone and Thea tracks her down to a relationship retreat in remote New Mexico. Thea needs to figure out what's going on and try to save the patient, and hopefully herself.

This wasn't one of my favorites by Julia Bartz. The writing is excellent but the story was too hard to follow and too unrealistic. I couldn't relate to Thea's character which made it hard to understand why she made the decisions she did. I could see how this book would be better for someone who could relate more to Thea's story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC of The Last Session.

Definitely a mysterious, edge-of-your-seat type thriller!
The cultish/paranormal type elements weren't really my thing, but I do always enjoy Julia Bartz's writing & the development of her characters.

I just want to give a heartfelt thank you to Atria as well as NetGalley for this e-arc. I have read Julia’s previous book "The Writing Retreat" and I loved it! So when I got approved for this one, I was pretty excited, especially bc the synopsis really got me intrigued. However, the story lost its spark and the ending dragged. It felt very drawn out and I couldn’t wait for it to finish. Even though I am rating it rather low for my liking, I still would read other work by the author in the future.

I was so excited to see this author had a new book coming out after loving her debut, but this did not live up to my expectations.

The premise of the book and the blurb had caught my eye instantly and I was intrigued by how a therapist would find herself immersed in a cult. But the execution of the story felt overly wordy, and at times read more like a psychology text book than a thriller cult novel. I have a background in psychology, but when sharing parts of the book with my husband, I could easily see how if I didn’t have that background I’d miss huge parts of the story.

I also felt like the third and fourth parts of the plot were almost too drawn out, too out there, and too anticlimactic. There came a point where I just didn’t care anymore about who went where or what happened or who did what because I was ready for the book to end. The final chapters offered no real closure, and honestly were a huge disappointment.

I will continue to keep my eye out for the next novel - hoping we’ll return to a five star read like the debut was!

Thank you to Atria books for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

This is my second book by this author and similar to the first it was a very engaging, fast paced read albeit this one is a little darker. Definitely check trigger warnings (the book details this upfront though). This was a wild ride about a therapist who feels connected to a patient so strongly she follows her down a rabbit hole and into a cult.

I did ultimately enjoy this book and would recommend for those that enjoy thrillers particularly about cults. Where the book lost some points with me was in the pacing. The ending felt a little drawn out throughout then abrupt at the end (if that makes sense). There were some chapters that were a little confusing, as well.

Thank you to Atria Books for my copy of THE LAST SESSION.

Julia Bartz is making her way to my auto read list. This newest book was so twisty and entertaining. I loved the characters, the atmosphere and the way that I didn't have any idea where it was going. I highly recommend this book!

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books | Atria/Emily Bestler Books for an early copy of this book. I really enjoyed this book and read it in one day. I couldn't put it down, except when family thought they needed to eat.. I loved the storyline and the characters. I would definitely recommend this book.