Excellent YA mystery novel that I regret not reading earlier. The right amount of mystery to give me ideas of the ending but totally surprising me once I get there. Love and friendship are key points in this as well. Flynn and January appear to be the perfect couple. As January shows up missing one day, Flynn recount the last few months of their relationship and things don't seem as wonderful as they appear. This book takes you through many suspects, including Flynn, and amazing revelations in the lives of those involved.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest opinion. Thank you!

Last Seen Leaving is a riveting YA thriller that keeps you guessing. There are so many suspects, including the main guy Flynn himself, but what actually happened to January? That's the question that drives this gripping pageturner as you're racing to find the answer out for yourself. Though I had my guesses that were pretty close to the truth, this is not one of those books where you have it all figured out from the very beginning. I highly recommend to thriller fans of all ages, teens on up.

Cleaning my netgalley out of books that didn't get downloaded onto my kindle. Sorry I didn't get to this novel.

my rating: ★★☆☆☆

PROS

First off, the main line was awesome:

“There was a corpse in my neighbour’s front yard.”

Amazing cover, enticing premise and the protagonist is gay.

Last Seen Leaving gave me some serious Halloween vibes, it’s thrilling and short and I totally recommend that you guys pick this one up in October. It’s short enough that you could read it all on the night and still give yourself a bit of a scare. Though, this is just my opinion, Halloween is bull and you people are all really weird.

CONS

I really wanted to enjoy this but unfortunately when it came down to it and I thought about it for a minute, the cons outweigh the pros.

I am quite the Veronica Mars nerd and I have had my dalliances with the odd Nancy mystery, so I really thought I would love this novel, I’m pretty into teenage mystery solvers apparently. Unfortunately I just couldn’t get into this one, I just found it too unbelievable. I’m used to protagonists with backbone, who have a knack for the trade if you know what I mean. Characters like Veronica Mars (whom I love, if you couldn’t already tell) have a backbone and obviously have mystery inclined minds. They also have actual investigating skills and equipment, whereas Flynn solves a mystery, comes out as gay and I can’t even think if a third thing that happens, all in two weeks, solving a case that the police couldn’t???

Rather than a thriller this is a coming of age – it’s not really about finding out how January disappeared, though that is a large part of it. The novel is more so about Flynn finding out who he is and about him coming to terms with his sexuality.

I guess this just wasn’t what I’m used to with thrillers and maybe I should just get over myself. But I found the slow pacing and lack of an actual thriller to be a big let down for me. The story tends to rely mostly on misunderstandings and a hole lot of miscommunication and that’s something I really dislike in pretty much any type of media. I prefer a fast paced mind-fuck (for lack of a better term) compared to a slow-paced, and frankly, boring mystery. But that’s just me, because I can see that a lot of people devoured this book, so definitely read some of those reviews too before you pick it up!

ALSO, last thing I promise! I have seen soo many people pitching this as YA Gone Girl and can I stop you right there please and thank you?

I have read Gone Girl and it is one of my favourite books of all time, I love it and urge you all to read it. And people are comparing this sub par mystery to the mind-fuck of the century? NO, I cannot let this stand, sure, they have some similarities but that’s where it ends, the two are in no way in the same league, let alone the same rating box. I know that sounds harsh as hell but I loved that book and Last Seen Leaving just wasn’t as good, in my opinion.

QUICK OVERVIEW

-The self discovery aspect of this novel was really interesting to read.
-While this wasn’t a groundbreaking novel or anything new, really but it was a quick mystery I found easy to get through in between my classes.
-Slow paced
-I think the main character is 15 and the book ends with him dating a college student and that’s a reasonably large age/maturity gap, though we’re never told the guy’s age.

Flynn's life turns upside down when his girlfriend disappears and is presumed dead. It forces him to confront the truth he's been hiding about himself and take a hard look at his relationship with January to figure out what was real.

A masterful debut from an excellent author, I look forward to more stories to come! Roehrig keeps the plot as you move through the story, and just when you start to think got it sorted out and are on track, he throws in another twist. The writing is on point, the voice of The characters are sobrealistic, drawing the reader into his numerous struggles. This book deals with finding your own place and identity in the world and shows that love can exist in many different ways. I highly recommend this book, you will not be disappointed.

Interesting, but not particularly surprising or new. I do look forward to what the author will write next.

I snagged a copy of this one from Netgalley when it was a Read It Now title. I do rather enjoy YA mysteries. I’m a sucker particularly for missing person mysteries. The plot of this one drew me right in. The mystery aspect was what kept me reading.

Overall, I just didn’t like the main character Flynn much. I found him annoying and boarding on obnoxious. He had zero personality, and seemed kind of self-absorbed. Which is not exactly unusual behaviour for a teenage boy. He was so wrapped up in his own issues he barely noticed the problems his girlfriend January was having. January had a friend at the toy shop she worked at, Kaz, who was a few years older. All of course the reader hears from Flynn in the beginning is what an ass Kaz is.

Kaz actually turned out to be my favourite character in the whole novel. Who is nothing like Flynn first assumes. As the novel progresses I found as a reader I had a lot of empathy for January, who has lived most of her life in the same town, has the same friends as Flynn, and then her mom married some up and coming Congressman who was fabulously rich and had a certain image to maintain and an asshole of a wayward son of his own, Anson. January was forced to move from her comfortable existence into this new world of fabulous rich political people where January and her mom were supposed to dress and act a certain way. While her mom lapped it up, January not so much.

As the novel progresses through flashbacks of conversations and moments that happened between January and Flynn, the reader learns about some of the problems that January was having with her situation, the ones that she told Flynn about. As Flynn starts looking deeper into January’s disappearance himself, he learns about a side of her he never really knew. Which makes him feel confused and guilty.

There are lots of questions and very little answers and information and everything new Flynn learns is something surprising. Flynn’s other major conflict throughout the novel is he’s gay and struggling to deal with it. He doesn’t seem to want to really accept it. Kaz is a big help here, and part of what makes Kaz such a wonderful character. He was a voice of reason and someone who really seemed to want to help Flynn and cared about him.

While Flynn himself…urg. I just found Flynn dull and boring and hard to connect with. He seemed very two dimensional.

The mystery of what happened to January was enough to keep my interest to the end of the novel, and to be fair, I didn’t guess who the bad guy was. There was a twist at the end – which was kind of a bit unbelievable to me, but left a possible question hovering.

Just an okay one for this reader.

YA thrillers are my favorite, and this book really threw me for a loop! The writing really pulled me in and I enjoyed reading about the characters and getting lost in the story.

This book was both a gripping mystery and a compelling coming-of-age story. I was hooked from page one, and I immediately purchased a copy for my library's shelves on release date. Thanks so much for early access!

I'm not always a fan of coming out stories, but I thought this one was very well executed, and wrapped up in a very solid mystery. I liked the characters and enjoyed spending time with them!

Flynn is 15-years-old. Flynn's girlfriend, January, is missing. The cops are asking Flynn some questions that he can't answer. Flynn has a secret.

Flynn teams with January's former co-worker to discover what happened to her. But he's learning there was much more to January than he knew. Why was she lying to her friends about Flynn? And where is she?

LAST SEEN LEAVING is mostly about friendships and love .... discovering who you are and where you fit in the world. The mystery part is fairly predictable.

The story is told in Flynn's voice. He is such a likeable character, full of that teenage angst that a lot of us remember from our own teen years. I didn't care as much for January. Her mother married a rich man and all January seems to do is complain. I didn't find her sympathetic at all. There are secondary characters that play an important role, but they weren't as completely defined as was Flynn.

While I can't give it a solid 5 stars, it was an interesting read. Teens and young adults should definitely read this one.

Many thanks to the author / Macmillan Children's Publishing Group / Negalley for the digital copy of LAST SEEN LEAVING. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

When Flynn's girlfriend goes missing, he discovers how little he really know about who she is. Last Seen Leaving is not just a mystery about a missing girl, it's an exploration into the secrets we keep, both about ourselves and from ourselves. Flynn is challenged through his search to accept the truth about himself and others.

I liked this book a lot! It kept me guessing and there were some twists that I did not see coming. I will be looking out for this author's next book!

Flynn’s girlfriend January is missing. No one has seen her in days and the police are looking for her. Flynn is embarrassed to tell the cops that he and January broke up the last time they were together. She wanted to have sex and he didn’t. She wanted him to admit he was gay and he wouldn’t. So Flynn feels a bit guilty and decides to try and figure out what happened to January. He discovers that he really didn’t know what was going on with her at all. She was lying to him, to her parents, to her friends and her coworkers. She was telling different stories to different people. But what was she hiding? And what happened to her?

I thought the mystery of January’s disappearance was an ok story. It seemed to follow a fairly predictable path of throwing red herrings out before revealing the truth. The real heart of this book was Flynn’s story. He goes from denying his sexuality and hiding who he is to coming out, getting a boyfriend and truly accepting himself. It is a beautiful, realistic journey. I get that January’s disappearance and Flynn’s investigation instigated the coming out, but I wish there really would have been more focus on him. He was a fantastic character.

I received this book from Netgalley.

"There was a corpse in my neighbour’s front yard."

When two police officers arrive unexpectedly on the Doherty doorstep one week before Halloween, fifteen-year-old high school sophomore Flynn Doherty’s biggest concern is the half ounce of weed he and his best friend, Micah, had purchased and hidden in Flynn’s bedroom days before. The last thing Flynn anticipated was that they were, in actuality, there to inform and question him about the sudden disappearance of his ex-girlfriend and best friend, January McConville. Wracked with guilt about his inability to be entirely honest about the last time he saw January, dissatisfied with the scope of the police’s inquiry and desperate for answers about the girl he loved and once believed he knew better than he knew himself, Flynn begins to conduct his own examination into the circumstances surrounding January’s disappearance. When January’s blood-soaked clothes are discovered and the scope of the investigation shifts from ‘missing’ to ‘murder’, however, the stakes have never been higher as Flynn desperately attempts to determine which of his ever-growing list of suspects had the motive, means and opportunity to do her harm. Was it January’s step-father, the ambitious and manipulative state senator? The scheming, unscrupulous campaign manager? The directionless, disgusting step-brother? The narcissistic, histrionic mother? As evidence mounts, secrets are revealed, lives are changed – and lost – and Flynn’s investigation intensifies, one crucial question remains: What happened to January McConville?

"January had been troubled by something, and I was so terrified of being honest that I’d made things worse on purpose. And now she was missing. Missing. What if the scenario was truly worst case? What if I could have done something to prevent it, but I’d let my secret get in the way?"

Last Seen Leaving is a novel predicated on a boy’s search for his missing ex-girlfriend but as Flynn quickly discovers, searching for the truth about January’s disappearance will mean first accepting and understanding the truth about his own sexuality and authentic self. Having grown up in a quiet, middle class suburban neighbourhood in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Flynn never questioned what he perceived to be the inevitability of his future as a heterosexual man, going so far as to expect a sexual attraction to women to eventually develop, even when there was ample evidence that this would never occur. Flynn’s growing understanding that his future may be very different than the one he imagined and that it’s imperative that he be honest – both with himself and with others – about his sexual orientation offers a touching and insightful glimpse into the experience of coming out and acts as one of the central narratives of the novel. Though the circumstances surrounding Flynn’s journey of self discovery are, admittedly, a little extreme, they are no less realistic or relatable as Roehrig explores numerous aspects of the queer experience. Gay readers will no doubt find visibility and comfort in Flynn’s story and the love and acceptance he ultimately receives from the majority of those in his life. While it eventually becomes clear that Flynn was never sexually or romantically attracted to January, there can be no doubt for his deep love for her. The author accomplishes this by thoughtfully and carefully interspersing the narrative with moments from their shared history, which allows for a greater understanding of January’s character, whom the reader is only ever able to learn about from the unreliable and subjective perspective of other, and underlines a significant and abiding connection between Flynn and January that extends far beyond the physical.

"January gave me a bemused look that might or might not have been genuine, a knowing glint flickering in the depths of her placid blue eyes. “Flynn, haven’t you figured it out by now? I’m not scared of anything.”

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive… In addition to being a captivating contemporary story, Last Seen Leaving is also a gripping and elaborately-constructed mystery. Roehrig seamlessly blends the contemporary, thriller and mystery genres to great success, incorporating elements of the former without ever losing sight of the latter. Readers cannot help but feel compelled to keep reading as Flynn’s investigation hurtles toward its startling and surprising conclusion, ultimately unravelling the convoluted web of lies, secrets and deception that have long defined January’s life. In doing so, Flynn also uncovers a plethora of suspects, each of whom have a compelling and increasingly sordid reason to want January to disappear. Last Seen Leaving also successfully subverts tropes synonymous with the thriller and mystery genres as well as reader expectations as it explores a narrative outside of the largely tragedy-based LGBTQIA stories that have long saturated the YA market. Flynn is not the victim of a violent crime whose suffering is meant to teach the audience a lesson about ‘tolerance’ or inclusion, but rather the brave hero whose tireless efforts and dogged determination single-handedly solve the case. Representation matters, and literature is never more powerful than when it is used to show readers of all races, religions, backgrounds, body types, and sexual orientations that they deserve to be the heroes and heroines of their own story. Last Seen Leaving reinforces this, demonstrating that a homosexual protagonist can solve the crime, fall in love, and save the day and need not be relegated to the background or a supporting role. Flynn’s burgeoning romance with a secondary male character, a Muslim, is especially charming and beautifully executed as Flynn is given the opportunity to act on his true feelings and desires for the very first time.

"Would we really find her today? Did we want to? After all, if she were this close to home, and had been all along, then either she was camping in the woods somewhere…or she was dead.
And January had never been a big fan of camping."

As the days grow shorter and the evenings grow colder, few books are more perfectly suited for a dark and stormy night spent curled up indoors than Last Seen Leaving, an impressive and accomplished debut novel from a promising new voice in young adult fiction. A diverse, inclusive #OwnVoices narrative that seamlessly blends the contemporary and thriller genres to great success, Last Seen Leaving offers a compelling character study and a complex mystery complete with twists, turns, and an unexpected conclusion that will have readers riveted until the very last page.

This is the story of 15 year old Flynn whose girlfriend is missing. I was a junior high teacher, and I feel my students would have really enjoyed this story. Most could identify with Flynn in his quest for self-acceptance and the mystery, while probably not enough to keep most adults interested, would be intriguing for teenagers. I would recommend this book to my students and to my teenage granddaughter.
I voluntarily read an ARC of this book.