This book is a major trigger for drug addiction, which I did not realize and was not expecting. I did not finish this book and thus will not be publishing a full review of it on my blog. The problem with most dystopians lately is that they are too real and not fun to read. This was no exception. Unless the language is exceptional (i.e. Gold Fame Citrus or Station Eleven), the book just feels staid and boring. The writing in this book was not good, was not beautiful and I was bored. Thank you for considering me.

This was amazing!!! I’m not one to usually read dystopian thrillers but oh my gosh throw in a murder mystery and I’m in! Jon Keller a historian is on a work conference in Switzerland in an isolated hotel, his family is back in the United States. He’s eating breakfast in the hotel dining room when suddenly everyone’s phones starting going off and there is breaking news on all the televisions. Nuclear attacks all around the world on major cities. People begin panicking with many of the people abandoning the hotel trying to get to the nearest airport. The internet isn’t working, electricity has been shut off to try to save what they have and food is limited. Not able to reach family to see if anyone has survived , Jon decides to start documenting his and everyone at the hotels lives, in case they don’t survive people can read about them in the future. While looking into how much water they have left Jon with a few other hotel guests check the hotel water tanks, they discover the body of a young girl. Jon now realizes he cannot leave the hotel and he’s staying with a possible murderer! He decides to take the investigation into his own hands at the stay same time try to stay alive. This was such a frightening premises, knowing that this could possibly happen made this book so real to me. It was a dark disturbing read , told by Jon and I found myself eagerly turning the page to find out what crazy thing was was going to happen next. Highly recommend and I give this four stars!

Woo, this book! So, the less you know going in, the better! There’s a reason it has a brief synopsis, and my review will be to the point, too!

The Last is a dystopian psychological thriller on every level. An American professor is left stranded in Switzerland as a nuclear war erupts. The professor is not alone. There are twenty other “survivors.”

As if surviving nuclear war isn’t enough, this crew has a murderer in their midsts as the body of a girl has been discovered in a water tank at the hotel. All the survivors start to suspect each other, and they become obsessed with solving the crime.

A thrilling, chilling, thought-provoking novel (could this nuclear war really happen?), The Last leaves you wondering what’s the truth and where are the lies. It’s dark, disturbing, and completely absorbing. Kudos to Hanna Jameson for this brilliantly original and unsettling book!

I received a complimentary copy. All opinions are my own. Thanks to my friend, Melisa, and Atria Books for this special opportunity.

Cross posted to my blog, instagram, Goodreads, and Twitter.

In the world of apocalyptic literature, The Last stands out as a thought-provoking, yet quiet novel. Devoid of the typical violence of the genre, The Last is an isolating novel, focusing solely on the handful of guests at a hotel. Jameson’s unique style blends fiction with record keeping, as the narrative recounts his experiences. Fans of the genre will find Jameson’s style refreshing and her characters intriguing. Part mystery, part apocalyptic, The Last is a mind bending reading experience. Jameson writes a quiet kind of suspense, where tension ebbs-and-flows between mild discomfort and heart-pounding terror.

The Last approaches the end of the world from an internal point-of-view, offering an intensely personal reading experience. I found myself unable to put the book down, as Jon’s obsession became my own. I moved through chapters, building from casual enjoyment to a frantic need for answers. I offer high praise for Jameson’s narrative and craft.

I'm not a regular mystery reader. I chose this title because the premise reminded me of The Last Detective, which I really enjoyed. Ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances at the end of the world can make for a fascinating read. However, this novel never seemed to commit to being a creepy whodunnit, a speculative post-apocalyptic tale, or the diary of yet another mediocre white guy's midlife crisis. As a result, each aspect of the plot stays on the surface level.

I liked: the flawed characters and their various coping mechanisms, the unexpected moments of humor, and the realistic depiction of regular people coping with witnessing and committing acts of violence.

I disliked: the uneven pacing, lack of detailed world-building, and the resolution of the central mystery.

3 1/2 stars. I liked this book but the whole time I was reading it I felt like I'd read some variation of it before. That said, it was interesting to tie a murder mystery into an apocalyptic novel. The character interaction was strange at times but overall the book was entertaining.

"For fans of high-concept thrillers such as Annihilation and The Girl with All the Gifts, this breathtaking dystopian psychological thriller follows an American academic stranded at a Swiss hotel as the world descends into nuclear war - along with twenty other survivors - who becomes obsessed with identifying a murderer in their midst after the body of a young girl is discovered in one of the hotel’s water tanks.

Jon thought he had all the time in the world to respond to his wife’s text message: I miss you so much. I feel bad about how we left it. Love you. But as he’s waiting in the lobby of the L’Hotel Sixieme in Switzerland after an academic conference, still mulling over how to respond to his wife, he receives a string of horrifying push notifications. Washington, DC has been hit with a nuclear bomb, then New York, then London, and finally Berlin. That’s all he knows before news outlets and social media goes black - and before the clouds on the horizon turn orange.

Now, two months later, there are twenty survivors holed up at the hotel, a place already tainted by its strange history of suicides and murders. Those who can’t bear to stay commit suicide or wander off into the woods. Jon and the others try to maintain some semblance of civilization. But when the water pressure disappears, and Jon and a crew of survivors investigate the hotel’s water tanks, they are shocked to discover the body of a young girl.

As supplies dwindle and tensions rise, Jon becomes obsessed with investigating the death of the little girl as a way to cling to his own humanity. Yet the real question remains: can he afford to lose his mind in this hotel, or should he take his chances in the outside world?"

It's post-apocalyptic Poirot!

I love an end of the world story. This book opens right as things are going down- there's been a nuclear attack on most major cities and there's no way to connect to the outside world. I like to be there from the beginning to see how people react. This was more Bird Box than Station Eleven. I liked the set up- all of these different characters from many countries are forced together. Jon is an American historian and the book is his account of what happened, what they're going through, and interviews from the other people living in the lodge. They find a young girls body in the water tank- and evidence suggests that she was put there before everything went down. Jon becomes obsessed with figuring out what happened to her- caring about her was his way of hanging on to some semblance of humanity

This was political but a nice think piece. We get to see characters debate on the page- Are some people more valuable than others? What should the group do when someone commits a crime? Who's fault is this?

The book is grim, but I did enjoy it. I think there's room for a sequel.

Rating-4

I guess I would describe this book as good, but not great. It had so much potential to be better but the pace and main character really made this book drag. The Last by Hanna Jameson could have been a great apocalyptic mystery, but didn’t quite reach the mark.

While historian Jon Keller was attending a conference at a hotel in Switzerland, a mass nuclear attack happened around the world. While some people left the hotel as quickly as they could, others, including Jon, decided to stay.

Jon deeply regrets not messaging his wife back before the attacks, and fears for his wife and daughters back home in the U.S. They’re cut off from the outside world, with no electricity and internet they have no news and do not know about other survivors.

Jon and the twenty other survivors start to think about the future. Should they stay in the hotel or venture outside? Is it safe outside the hotel? How long must they stay? Will anyone come looking for them? How long can they survive and when will their supplies run out?

After the body of young girl is found, Jon takes it upon himself to find out what happened and whether the murder is still in the hotel. Not only does he turn into Sherlock Holmes, but he also takes it upon himself to document what is happening at the hotel. From interviewing the others in the hotel, to writing what he sees day-to-day, we’re able to see into the life of the people are a nuclear disaster hits the world. We’re told about the struggles of survival, leadership disagreements, arguments among the survivors, and even suicides by some.

While this was an interesting subject — the whole world goes to hell after a nuclear disaster — it is very slow and not much action. You’d think with the world ending there’d be more action, trying to survive, find out what happened, looking to the future. But nope, it was rather slow and disappointing. I don’t even want to get into how boring of a character Jon was. Of all the people who could narrate this book, I certainly wouldn’t have chosen Jon!

I will say, to the author’s benefit, it was a very thought-provoking book. It really made me think what would I do if a nuclear disaster took place? It made me think how it could happen in my life time too!

The Last by Hanna Jameson could have been a fantastic dystopian mystery, with tons of action and suspense, but it really fell flat for me. I wanted more! I guess it could have been better, but if you’re looking for something different, this one could be right up your alley!

Thank you to Atria books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Honestly this was a book i just couldn’t get into. I loved the thrill, but the whole world ending wasn’t my kind of book. I think it would be a great book for someone who loves this kind of story line.

Ask yourself this question: If you were thousands of miles away from home, away from your family, at a remote international hotel and nuclear war broke out, what would you do? You find yourself stranded. No phones. No internet. No connection to the outside world. Just you and the handful of hotel guests that stayed, living off the remaining supplies. And then…. You find a dead body. And you realize that one of the survivors among you may be a murderer.

The Last by Hanna Jameson takes you into this world. A world where nuclear holocaust is a reality. The world as we knew it is gone. And now all there is left to do is survive. And we may find that if the elements don't kill us, we might kill each other.

This reminded me of Shari Lapena's An Unwanted Guest in that it slowly introduced a line up of characters in a remote hotel and centered around a murder mystery. I really enjoyed the main character, Jon, and his constant struggle to come to terms with the new world surrounding him. As a historian, he constantly worked to document the aftermath. I enjoyed that characters were introduced slowly by way of Jon interviewing everybody for the sake of documentation. It was a nice way to get to know each person individually, and share in their background stories.

This did have a little bit of a The Walking Dead vibe without the zombies (I feel like I say that a lot about post-apocalyptic thrillers). There were many similarities in the way the characters scrounged for food and supplies, tried to establish leadership among the group, interacted with other settlements of survivors, etc. I'm a big fan of this type of novel, so it was right up my alley.

If I could have asked for anything to be better, it would probably just be a little bit more differentiation between characters. At times I found myself getting their names confused because there were so many of them and most of them had pretty standard, American type names which made them blend together. And the ending was maybe a tad abrupt, but overall satisfying.

-I was gifted a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Hanna Jameson, and Atria Books for the opportunity to review.-

A terrifying tale that was haunting, chilling, and far too real!

<blockquote><i>Who Will be with you when the world comes to an end? And what kind of person will you be?</i></blockquote>

This book was riveting and unique. A post apocalyptic psychological thriller, Who would’ve thought? Hanna Jameson that’s who! And can I just say I am so happy about this, this was such a compelling thought-provoking journey and I am so grateful to have taken it. This is a book that will completely ensnare both your mind and your heart. This book hit a little too close to home, it was simultaneously humbling and terrifying.

John is a historian/professor who is at a convention in Switzerland at an isolated hotel. The hotel guests start receiving updates on their phones of nuclear bombings, whole cities being annihilated, panic ensues. Most of the guests flee even though there is news that no planes are flying. When the dust settles there are only 20 people remaining in the hotel one of them being John. Everyone shifts to survival mode it is every man/woman for themselves, yet they all need one another to really survive. Shortly after the beginning of the end a body of a young girl is discovered, is the murderer still amongst them? Not going to say much more than this, but I do think the murder mystery played a significant backseat to the psychology of surviving the end of the world.

The story was told through John’s journal entries as he documented the days after the nuclear distruction. What I found so compelling about this was the social structure that formed in this time of severe crisis. Really made me think what would I do in this situation? What part would I play if I were in this hotel? The setting of the hotel itself was extremely eerie, the thought of being in a huge hotel with only 20 people was tremendously unsettling. The relationships and bonds that formed during this time, the lines that were drawn, the alliances formed, we’re all very intriguing. I really just love everything about this book, I loved how the story was revealed, how we got to know the key players right along with John. There was the perfect amount of mystery that added some major tension to the book. This is a book I would absolutely recommend to all thriller lovers. It was refreshing, unique,Disturbing, haunting, and seriously absorbing.

*** many thanks to Atria and my girl Melisa for my copy of this book ***

This is the first Hanna Jameson novel’s I’ve had the pleasure of reading and I don’t think it’ll be the last. While there were some slow and sluggish parts to this story, I found the main character able to sustain the novel, the suspense and the narration style. Some reputable authors have called this a “Stephen King meets Agatha Christie…novel” (Untrue) and said it’s “For fans of high-concept thrillers such as Annihilation and The Girl with All the Gifts…” (Again Untrue). This novel is not high impact and does not have the science heavy and intricate details of any of the novels or authors mentioned above. So don’t go into this novel thinking you’ll get creepy to the max like a King novel or intricate science like The Girl with All the Gifts. You’ll be disappointed, which I was…at first. Then I stripped away all the things people said the book SHOULD be and found that it stood pretty well on its own. It is a story of self awareness, post-apocalyptic “what would you do” style of adventure. I found the characters actions to be believable (until the end) and warranted in many occasions. While true back stories lacked in almost all the characters, the reader still gets a grip on who the major players are and what they would do in a situation. Even with all this good, there were some missteps with the lingering too long investigation of the young girl, the unexplained relationships and alliances, and the twist at the end seemed a little non-sensical. For the interest of not spilling any spoilers, I won’t give too much away but the explanation for certain characters at the end was bittersweet. Overall, I enjoyed the story and liked the style of writing as if the narrator was writing a historical account of events (this allows the reader to remember that it is written in the point of view of someone who may or may not be reliable…and that keeps you on your toes).

Raging Book Reviews Recommended

While I really enjoyed the format of The Last, it was written as a diary/historical account by a professor of history during the first few months after a nuclear war destroys most of the world, I found this dystopian novel to be to predictable. Even though I liked the formatting I feel like this style never really allowed me to connect to any of the characters and it left me with a very unreliable narrator. I couldn’t really trust anything Jon (the historian) was recording as being objective (which I’m assuming was kinda the point) but it prevented me from growing attached or caring to much about anything. I was also able to guess the major of the large plot points as they very closely followed the standard dystopian format and the book just seemed to kinda end.

I will say this book did a fantastic job of giving me the creeps and I found myself scared when I turned off the lights at night after reading this before bed. Jameson created some very eerie scenes that made me want to sleep with the lights on. This book was also a very thinly veiled reaction to the election and what a lot of people are worried may actually happen with our current administration. I appreciated how Jameson navigated the implications of that, how people would react to those still alive who voted in favor of the fiction president, and how other countries would view Americans. The Last was definitely compulsively readable but I wouldn't pick it up expecting something novel.

Thank you Atria books and Netgalley for my free review copy!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

This review is hard to write. I mean, the end of the world happens, and the following days are slow, haunted, and devoid of much action... and yet, I had a driving interest that made this hard to put down. I just knew the story was building to something bigger. Hints of supernatural, a murder to solve, danger in the woods, a huge hotel where unknown others could be hiding, tension between characters... there were so many threads woven into this story and unfortunately, many of them were either left dangling or given an unsatisfactory ending.

For most of this, I enjoyed it. It was atmospheric, and it felt reminiscent of a King novel. And just like most of the King novels I've read (aside from a handful of his masterpieces), there was great character development and excellent setting and fantastic concept... and a disappointing ending. But King still normally pulls things off better than this one, which was abrupt and weird and not at all satisfying.

Overall, since I enjoyed probably 90% of the book, I'm going to go with 3 stars. I liked it enough, but didn't love it.

3.5 stars

The end of the world has happened. Somebody got trigger happy with the nuclear bombs and wiped out most of the world.


Well the big cities anyways. This story revolves around a group that survives. They are all at a Swiss Hotel for conferences, weird stuff, etc.
After everyone does the panic thing about not having phones and internet, some resemblance of calm happens. We see everything through the eyes of Jon, he is some smarty farty type. (I kinda lost what he actually does..don't worry someone will correct me in the comment section.)
He wants everyday life to return and he kinda whines about not knowing anyone and not being able to trust anyone.


He probably shouldn't because when they are checking some water towers on the top of the hotel they find the body of a young girl. Then Jon kinda obsesses about solving her murder.

The good in this book? It's actually really good. I liked the way the story evolves into humanity sorta getting kicked out the window. I loved the writing. There were some spooky moments that had me up late last night because I was determined to see how it wrapped up. I haven't done that in a minute.
I think it was Stephen King who said that the sum of all human fear is just a door left slightly ajar.
Heck yes.

Now the bad. The stupid politics. I've been bashed before for saying I don't want political crap in my reading time. I don't. This at the beginning was well done and then it turned into a political rant of sorts. Not a fan. (Once again watch the comments I'm sure I'll get corrected.)
And the stupid ending. I'm sorry if you write a really good book that book should have a decent ending. Don't just throw in the towel because you feel you have to hurry up and wrap things up. I'm over that crap.


Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review

It's been a while since I've read a worth apocalypse book, and this one is different enough from the others that I was able to really enjoy it. This is the story of a group of people who are at a remote hotel in Switzerland when the end of the world occurs. Nuclear bombs are dropped on many of the world's largest cities and chaos ensues. The story, however, does not so much revolve around that idea as much as it centers on the relationships that people create in this situation. This is much less of a "The Road" scenario than it is a meditation on how we relate to people and how this sort of occurrence might cause people to band together in specific, unlikely ways. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing and the character development, and it was a fast moving story that kept me engaged throughout.
I would highly recommend!

This ebook was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Loved this book. It's a well crafted mash up of pit-apocalyptic and murder mystery. The disaster scenario was believable and scary, and the book is set in a creepy vacant hotel in a remote area in Switzerland. The characters are all so flawed and real with plausible human conflicts to face. I do recommend this one to anyone who enjoys these theme.

Thank you so much Atria Books for my free copy of THE LAST by Hanna Jameson.

I am always up for an apocalyptic or dystopian based novel and this one I thoroughly enjoyed! And the scariest part is that the premise is completely plausible - eek!

American historian, Jon Keller, is staying in a hotel in Switzerland attending a conference. All of the sudden nuclear bombs go off all over the world and millions of people are killed. Back in the states, he has no idea where his wife and two daughters are or if they are alive, and then all communications cease and the internet goes dark. People are trapped in the hotel not knowing what’s out there causing paranoia, panic, madness, and mayhem among them. The remaining survivors continue to reside in the hotel to try to maintain some sort of civilization. In the midst of all this the body of a young girl is found in an inconspicuous place and Jon becomes obsessed with figuring how she came to be.

There are so many factors at play here but they all seemed to work. The format of the book is stellar! I love that the reader experiences everything through Jon’s eyes via journal entries. He documents everything day-by-day and it really adds to the intensity of the situation. The story is intriguing, gripping, suspenseful, and what I love most about dystopia, thought-provoking. I tried to picture myself in similar circumstance and think about what I would do. It’s a scary thought but at the same time I can mull it over for hours. I’d love to know what other readers think so read this book so we can discuss!

I really enjoyed the premise. I wanted to like this book. It just seemed as if there was just too much going on to follow.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.