The Last Secret You’ll Ever Keep by Laurie Faria Stolarz

336 Pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books
Release Date: March 16, 2021

Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Teens, Young Adult

Terra is a high school student attending a fraternity party. She meets a guy and he offers to take her home but she decides to walk. She calls her friend Felix and talks to him while she walks home. She gets there safely but them is abducted from her bed later. After being trapped in a well for four days, she returns home. People begin questioning whether she was really taken or if she staged it for attention. She spends the next six months trying to prove it happened and why.

The book has a steady pace, the characters are somewhat developed, and it is written in the first-person point of view. Terra’s character grows in strength throughout the book while others turn against her. The problem I had with the book was the text conversations on the Jan Anonymous website. I wish there was another way the author could have provided the information without all the individual texts.

I felt quite engaged with this at the start however I started to lose a bit of interest the further through I got and didn’t feel like the thriller aspects were that thrilling

A gripping thriller with plenty of plot twists. The reader wants to believe the narrative so deeply and hopefully does not give up on the protagonist!!

I was super excited for this one because I adored Jane Anonymous. but this one just missed the mark for me. It all felt a little out of sync and clunky and it just didn't have the nuance and emotional build up that the other one did.

Terra is 18, and has been having a rough time since the house fire that killed her parents. She lives with her aunt, who she's not particularly close to, and doesn't have any real friends. The only friends she has are on the Jane Anonymous online group for survivors. When another member, Peyton, disappears, it seems like Terra is the only one concerned.

This one wasn't for me. Terra is an unreliable narrator, which made the story almost unreadable for me.

My Rating : 3.5/5 🌟🌟🌟✨
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I'm unsure about how to rate this book. It was good plotline with some psychological thriller vibes to it, but I felt the execution was lacking a bit. The scenes described were good, but sometimes it was too detailed and descriptive. And at times the conversation in the anonymous site was too obvious. Although that ending was quite good!
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Kindle / May 2021 / Book 133

I loved a few of this authors other books and was very excited to read this one, however I couldn’t get into it.

The beginning started of really strong and sucked me in. However, as the story progressed, I started to lose interest. I put it down hoping to come back to it but never was able to continue.

Hello, unreliable narrator! That kept me intrigued the entire story. I haven't read a book with a really good unreliable narrator since Alyssa Sheinmel's A Danger to Herself and Others.

We follow Terra as she's recovering from a kidnapping and escaping. No one believes her, because none of her story adds up and there's no evidence to back her up. Then she starts to question herself, although she's still adamant about her story. Then Garrett comes along, who believes her and wants to help her find the real answers.

This was a very interesting story, I really started doubting Terra myself because as with all the adults in the book . . . I, too, didn't see any of he evidence that truly supported her story. It made her really unreliable and I really love an unreliable character. Even when things started coming together, it was not believable.

Once things started coming together, there were a lot of twists that I didn't see coming and it really made the entirety of The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep a great read. I've been in a slump lately and I feel like this helped a little. If you like stories where you doubt the main character's every thought and action, then I definitely recommend this book.

The Last Secret You’ll Ever Keep is a story that shows how women are often not believed when it comes to being victims of kidnapping, assault, and more.

This isn’t a new favorite of mine, but I do appreciate the potential discussions that this book has the power to create. This is a very realistic story that touches on a very real (and terrible) problem. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t really get into it until I was over halfway through the book. I wasn’t a huge fan of how the main character was portrayed, and it was a little bit frustrating that a guy was the only person who believed her. I also wasn’t really surprised by the outcome of the plot. This book was just fine for me, but I’ve seen others enjoy it!

Content warning for kidnapping, bullying, violence.


Thanks so much to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/Wednesday Books for the ARC of The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep by Laurie Faria Stolarz.

DNF - Did not finish. I did not connect with the writing style or plot and will not be finishing this title. Thank you, NetGalley and Publisher for the early copy!

The beginning of the book sucked me right in, but unfortunately it didn’t stay on that high level. I enjoyed different parts of the book and other parts I just wanted to slap people for stupidity. I also felt a disconnection to everyone in the book. All of that being said, the book kept me wanting to know what was going on until the very end!

Didn't capture my attention and engagement. Interested in trying it again though and hopefully it will take.

The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep by Laurie Faria Stolarz is a YA suspense novel that's perfect for fans of twisty mysteries, unreliable narrators, and teen angst. The author tackles fairly dark themes for a YA novel, including death, mental health, betrayal, and trauma, but she does it in a way that allows the reader to relate to the characters even if we haven't experienced said trauma ourselves. If you enjoy books where the characters survive a significant event and must now deal with the traumatic aftermath, you'll enjoy The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep.

I was not the biggest fan of the first book in this series, but because it is not a true sequel, I decided to give this one a try and I was not entirely disappointed. I love a good unreliable narrator and this book gave me that and more. The book sucked me right in at the beginning and although it did not keep up that level of interest for me, I'm a big fan of the premise of a group of survivors being brought together to connect and support each other after their traumatic situations.

I really didn't like the first book in this series this one was slightly better. This girl has a lot of mental health issues and with everything going on it seem like the people in charge don't care and just want things to get better once again and care more about them selves then the MC now the aunt try to get our mc help but goes about it all wrong she trying to make it a mandatory thing making her an unsafe person to go to.. With all that said I glad that she does get the help she need in the end. this has a lot of triggers in it though, kidnapping, lot of mental heath things,

Read a finished copy from the Library
Rating: 3.5 stars
Warning: Death of parents, trauma, fake friends.

“Then continues our fun and the villain has won. We’ll run away together and spin our tales forever and ever. Tick tock, tick tock. Run, run away or you’ll have to stay. The villain of this story really loves to play.”

This is the second book in a doulogy and I didn't realize this until a quarter of the way into this book, because of that I'm sure I missed some things that could have been useful.
We have our narrative of the story we are almost convinced is unreliable, but her story is one that is truly heartbreaking from losing her parents to, being missing for a week and the trauma that caused in her teen years. With next to no one helping her or believing that all of this stuff is happening to her or did happen to her in the past besides the loss of her parents she feels very alone. She doesn't sleep much, and the only friends she has are ones from the Jane Anonymous website.

Overall I spent at least half of this book confused as to what exactly was going on and if the narrative was actually happening, or if it was just trauma dreams/hallucinations because those can happen. However, by the halfway point it is very easy to see that what's happening is actually real and that she is mostly on her own due to the adults around her not believing her. This causes her to change the way she acts, and causes her to start not doing so good in other areas of her life because of how she is always having to be on guard. It's exhausting to watch happen to her, especially once one of her friends needs help and she feels that she must go to them. But even this could have sinister motivations and leads to bad things happening to her. This book does make it so you question who you can trust and who will actually be there when things start going wrong and you need real help.
This book is not for the faint of heart as it does deal with trauma and reoccurring trauma.


"Screaming is a defense, and you’ll do a lot of that. You’ll also punch the walls, as if you could ever break them down."

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. This was a cool book, I'm surprised I haven't been hearing more about this book. It's like a hidden gem.

"The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep" is an exploration of the survivor trauma and the ways that people treat those who have survived horrific things. The character of Terra (while an unreliable narrator) is very reliable in the feelings that she experiences when faced with trauma she can't understand and the doubt and reactions of those who don't believe her. It can be very prevalent in our society as a whole not to believe survivors, especially when their stories are jarred or incomplete due to the trauma they've faced.

Overall I felt that Laurie Faria Stolarz did a great job with the shame, fear, and doubt that Terra feels as a survivor and her story is definitely a thriller.

I hadn't realized that TLSYEK is actually a stand alone in the 'Anonymous Jane' series but you don't have to read the series to be able to read TLSYEK. Though that being said, this book definitely makes me WANT to pick up Anonymous Jane, especially if it's anything like The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep.

My only complaint with the books is the ending felt a bit rushed and kind of confusing. Also the "truth" while well contrived, left a little to be desired in terms of execution, particularly in reference to what REALLY happened to Terra.

That being said I thought this was a great read and if you can get past the feelings of frustration that the other characters bring and Terra's own unreliable storytelling I think you'll enjoy it.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley for the advanced copy of "The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep" in exchange for an honest review.

I found this to be an enjoyable read, keeping me on my toes throughout. The storyline was written well and flowed seamlessly. I look forward to reading more by this author!