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.*

ughhh, you guys! I wanted to like this one so badly because her other books were amazing! But there ain't no way this book was only 240 pages because it felt like it was way longer with how painfully slow it was. There was ALOT going on, and all over the place.

It has a really great storyline and promise at the beginning with the psychiatric hosptial and cult vibes, going in the direction of a possible unreliable narrator, reminding me of Shutter Island. But then it took a weird turn, and I almost DNF it and wish I would've now.

3.75/5, rounded up

Thank you Atria Books for the advanced reading copy!

I love Julia Bartz's writing so much. This book, like her last, was so salacious, gritty and dark, I couldn't put it down! There's a definite creep factor to this book from the start, though I had noooo idea where this was going. This entire book was "what the f did I just read????" but in the best way. Our main character, Thea, could be annoying at times, and I do think the middle of this book dragged a bit. The formatting was helpful, breaking the book down into four distinguishable "parts" that kept things moving. The past-lives aspect was super intriguing and made for a really twisty and unique plot. I was entertained and hooked from the very beginning until the chaotic end. Would read anything this woman writes!!!

this book was so weird. it was also kind of hard to follow at times with the strange narrative changes. i’m not even sure I correctly understood what was going on. can’t say that i’ll be recommending this one

Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy this as much as I was hoping. I found some pasta deeply unsettling and disturbing.

Bartz’ second book is definitely as bonkers as her first, THE WRITING RETREAT. This story is told in three parts - each so different it almost felt like individual stories. The characters were a bit frustrating, putting themselves in dangerous situations with no way out. The ending is fast paced and provides a good thrill. While this one won’t be everyone's cup of tea, it was unique provided for a good escape.

After an encounter with a mysterious patient, Thea heads to a retreat in New Mexico to get answers.

There is something about this book that reminds me of Christopher Pike--I think it's the mundane beginning that leads into a wild, mystical story. It's a unique story, but an average read.

I was intrigued at the beginning of this book. The Last Session starts with a group of four patients in a psychiatric hospital participating in art therapy, led by one of our main female characters, Thea, who is a social worker. While working, a woman who is very familiar to Thea, is brought into their facility in a catatonic state. It doesn't take long for Thea to work out why this woman is so familiar to her and how she is linked to her traumatic teenage years. The link leads Thea on a journey to a wellness retreat in New Mexico where she is going to find answers about the woman (Catherine) but ends up learning truths and processing her own past. I enjoyed the suspense up until this portion of the book. Once Thea arrives at the wellness Center, the plot became a little too farfetched for me. The writing was still very good, it just wasn't quite the story I was expecting.

I didn't love the cult aspect of the story or the way that it was tied in with mental illness. There were such serious topics being discussed (sexual abuse, drug abuse), that talk of portals, reincarnation and obsession with a past popular movie, just didn't fit in well for me. I would have liked a more realistic storyline and concrete resolution.

This one didn't quite hit the spot for me, but it was still a fine read and there are many readers who will truly enjoy this. Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for this eARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

I love the concept of this book, and I absolutely adored The Writing Retreat, Julia Bartz's debut novel. When I got the ARC for this one I was so excited. To me the story just felt like too much. It was over the top and I just couldn't get into the story.

I will still continue to read her novels because The Writing Retreat was fantastic!

Thank you for this opportunity!

Working in the mental health field I was excited to get this and see what she did with it and I wasn't mad at it all. It wasn't an accurate portrait of a mental hospital so don't go in think that it's suppose to be. The first part I was hooked but then it started to get culty and weird so I push through.

As other reviewers have indicated, my hopes were high for "The Last Session" but this did not live up to them. I was expecting a psychological thriller and this was more of a creepy, mystery filled with explicit sexual content that I don't believe added anything to the story...at. all. The beginning 25% started out interesting with good character development but it went downhill after that. Unfortunately, this just wasn't for me. I will still look forward to giving another Julia Bartz novel a chance. *I received a complimentary ARC from the author/publishing company via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts & opinions are my own.

The Last Session by Julia Bartz is a psychological thriller that took me on a wild ride, and I couldn't put down! As my first experience with Julia Bartz's writing, I was thoroughly impressed and can't wait to explore her other works, including "The Writing Retreat."

The premise is absolutely captivating—two women who share striking similarities, from their appearance to their birthdays and childhood experiences. The story follows Thea, a somewhat adrift social worker at a psychiatric ward whose life is completely upended when a catatonic celebrity patient arrives with mysterious connections to Thea's past.

What begins as a workplace mystery soon transforms into a desert adventure as Thea becomes an amateur detective, infiltrating what might be a cult disguised as a wellness retreat in the New Mexico desert. The search for answers about both the missing patient and Thea's own unusual connection to her kept me completely engrossed. The pacing is excellent, maintaining tension and engagement from beginning to end. While the plot gets increasingly complex and sometimes ventures into wild territory with its many twists and components, that's exactly what made it so fun!

Thea is such a compelling protagonist—flawed, a bit messy, with plenty of unresolved issues, but impossible not to root for. Outside of Thea, you'll encounter characters that you'll love, others you'll despise, and some who might completely surprise you. If you enjoy thrillers that keep you guessing, especially those with locked-room elements and atmospheric natural settings, you'll have a blast with this desert expedition into psychological suspense.

Thank you to Julia Bartz, Atria Books and NetGalley for the ARC of this thrilling read!