Once again blending weird sci-fi and horror perfectly together, Caitlin Starling’s latest novel is not one to miss. With no shortage of complex scientific concepts and theories, Last To Leave the Room is somewhat dense, but always engaging. I cannot honestly say I completely understood everything discussed or the unfolding events in the novel, but reading this caused me to stay up past my bedtime multiple nights as I always needed to know what was going to happen next. The novel also kept me guessing as I made multiple predictions while reading and none of them turned out to be true.

Aside from stimulating my brain through googling scientific terms and having me on the edge of my seat, another aspect that kept me engaged throughout are the characters. Tamsin Rivers is “unlikable,” as she is arrogant, unkind, and places her reputation in the scientific world above all else. However, the novel also serves as a fascinating character study for her and despite her being unsavory much of the time, I couldn’t help myself from rooting for her. Despite her double appearing agreeable and kind, I was constantly wary of her and fearful of what intentions she had for Tamsin. It took a bit longer, but I also came to enjoy Lachlan Woodfield quite a bit, the woman employed to “keep an eye” on Tamsin. I do agree with some readers that romantic subplot felt a little underdeveloped, but overall it didn’t bother me and I liked their chemistry.

Thanks so much to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for review.

TL;DR

Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling is an exquisitely crafted book with big things to say about science that I just could not get into. If you like slow build horror, this might be the book for you.

Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.

Review: Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling

For this review, I’ve decided to break one of my cardinal rules as a reviewer. Rule: If I don’t finish a book, I don’t review it. I do this for a few reasons, chiefly, I don’t feel like I can give a good opinion on a book I couldn’t finish. And I know how hard authors work to create a book; so, I don’t want to disparage that. While reading is declining in the U.S., there is a large enough audience that a lot of people will like the thing I don’t. So, I don’t want to judge a book that people like simply because it bounced off of me. When I don’t like a book, I believe the problem is me. Therefore, I don’t write a review if the problem is me. However, this time, I didn’t finish the book and I believe the problem is me, but I’m going to review it anyway because I liked the small amount that I read. Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling is a book that I will have to try again at a different time. To be up front, I only finished 28% of the novel. In that portion, I found an exquisitely crafted book with timely things to say about corporate science and research. But I just didn’t connect to the story for some reason. It’s a book that I enjoyed but don’t feel a need to pick up again. This makes me feel terrible because I know this is a good book. As such, I plan to return to it at a different time for a new attempt.

Dr. Tamsin Rivers is not a good person. She’s the head of a lab investigating, what seems like a new type of communication. Her experiments take place underground at various points around the city of San Siroco, and it appears that these experiments are causing the city to sink in an unusual way. Rivers set up a lab in her basement to measure the sinking that’s occurring within her own home. The house isn’t sinking, but her basement is stretching. The main floor hasn’t lowered, but the basement floor is much lower. Soon, a door appears, and with its appearance, Dr. River’s behavior becomes increasingly more erratic. She becomes obsessed with the door, and one night, the door opens and someone steps through. It’s her. As far as she can tell, an exact copy.

Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling is a third person novel that follows Dr. River’s as her life seems to unravel because of her scientific discoveries. It’s a slow book, too slow for me, that is exquisitely crafted.

Dr. Rivers

Tamsin is a character that I should be interested in. She’s a high powered, type A personality scientist who chose the corporate grind over academia. All of that rings my bell. She’s chosen her career over any semblance of a personal life, and she’s ruthless in her ambition. She typifies everything that’s wrong with corporate science. Despite all that, I couldn’t find anything that allowed me to connect with her. She has a cat; that’s about as close as I got, and I’m not sure what I missed.

Starling crafted a fine main character. Rivers balances on a knife edge between confidence and self-doubt. She questions the motives of her superiors and wonders if her job is in jeopardy. Starling keeps the reader close to Rivers point of view, and she constructs a believable yet unlikable person. It’s masterful writing. Yet I still felt distant from Rivers. I was cold toward her.

Themes

Starling deals with some weighty themes in the portion that I read, and, again, these themes are right up my alley. Through Tamsin’s employer, she’s describes a corporation who acts selfishly but uses its public relations to act like it’s acting charitably. Tamsin’s employer renovating the failing subway system of San Siroco and enjoys all the good press and public goodwill from it. However, that’s just a cover so that they can conduct their experiments underground. It’s a perfect example of how corporations work. They spin their acts as charitable, as being good members of the community; yet we all know that corporations only do what benefits them. If a charitable act does not benefit the corporation, it will not perform that act.

In addition, Tamsin’s experiments are causing an ecological and societal disaster. Yet she and the corporation continue to pursue the experiments. Because who cares if we destroy where we live, right? In addition to a commentary on climate change, this also acts as a commentary on science itself. Too often – and especially in light of the science deniers from Covid – people look to the scientific process for the only answers. In truth, science is part of the answer. The pursuit of science simply for itself can lead to horrors. There are examples of this throughout history (see the Tuskegee experiments). Humanity is the end; science is the tool. When we treat humans as a means to a scientific end, horror follows. Rivers and her company are doing this in Last to Leave the Room. They’re placing innocent people at risk to further their own agendas.

Pacing

While this is an exquisitely crafted book, the pacing was too slow for me. Starling takes us through River’s life in detail, and she builds a picture of a character ripe for a decline. It was at about 20% of the way through the book that the doppelganger shows up. Starling takes us through the various experiments that River’s performs on her in more detail than I needed.

For some, this buildup will have been tense and delicious. If you enjoy the sweet torture of delayed gratification, this book might be for you.

Conclusion

Caitlin Starling’s Last to Leave the Room is an exquisitely crafted book that I couldn’t connect with. I plan to revisit this book at a different time to see if it’s just me that’s the problem. I found the writing to be top notch with excellent crafting. Starling’s main character is well drawn. This is a book with a lot of interesting things to say, and if you like slow build up horror, this is the book for you.

3.5 stars
Dr. Tamsyn Rivers is a scientist who lives for her work, especially since she was assigned to work on the top-secret problem of her city sinking with no apparent scientific reason. But she's keeping a secret even from her team - her basement has been growing at the same rate the city is sinking. It keeps stretching and stretching before an impenetrable door appears, and from it comes an exact copy of Tamsyn.

This was an interesting take on doppelgangers that I'm glad I kept with, because I nearly DNFed. The first section of this book dragged with repetitve scenes and fictional science that even this engineer found hard to follow. For the doppelganger being the main point of the synopsis, it seemed to take a long time before she appeared. Anything before then strained my interest thin and could have been slimmed down. It was especially infuriating at that point that she refused to tell anyone else about what was happening. However, everything after was much more fascinating. The most engaging part of this story was by far the interactions between the two Tamsyns and how their scientific minds interact with this impossibility. While the nature of their relationship is predictable, it is no less horrifying. I liked that this addressed the cliches of the traditional doppelganger plot and decided to go against many of them. The last volume in particular I found to be stellar and evened out how I felt about the beginning.

Overall, I'm glad to have another scifi horror to recommend to others. The beginning was a drag, but the ending made it worth the read.

Did you like House of Leaves? Did you like The Echo Wife? What if they had a baby?

Seriously, though, creepy door–loved it. I think it's hard to take such a good premise and actually play it out all the way through with the same level of tension and scariness. This book mostly succeeds, but is compulsively readable the whole way through so whatever little hiccup I felt could have been the result of me speed reading this to find out what happens next.

What a wild reading experience! This book totally a science fiction with a lot of science and tech I did not expect. I had my moments if confusion and head scratching thoughts while reading. The book is very engaging and cinematic in scope. The ending was a real wild twister that I was not expecting. Until next time Happy Reading!

Starling creates a wonderful creeping atmosphere where something is clearly off, although it's hard at first to pinpoint what exactly is wrong, by the time the doppelganger shows up things become clearer but far far more tense. The early parts with the city sinking and the house have impossible geometries brought me back to the things that first attracted me to House of Leaves, and while that ended up being mostly set dressing in both books, I still loved it. Tamsin is a fantastic character, ambitious and morally suspect, she's unlikeable but thoroughly compelling.

Highly recommend for a good spooky season read.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a very strange book. I'm not really sure if I feel satisfied with it. I also did not like the main character. I know sometimes it works for a story. But I guess I wasn't sold on it.

Tamsin Rivers, researcher at Myrica Dynamic, knows it’s bad when when she discovers her basement is sinking much faster than the city of San Siroco. It’s even worse when she discovers a door appearing out of no where in her basement.

A door is bad enough, but when an exact copy of herself steps out, that’s when things start getting really strange. Where did the double come from? Does it have anything to do with the experiments in underground data and communication transfer Tamsin and her team have been working on? Why does Tamsin start losing her memory?

Last to Leave the Room is a quiet horror novel. Starting with an underlying feeling of uneasy, the terror builds slowly, focusing mostly on psychological and body horror.

I liked that we stayed in Tamsin’s POV the entire time as it gave it the claustrophobic feeling the novel needed. It was easy to feel her fear and dread and to sympathize with her, despite her being a pretty unlikeable character.

I’ve never read a plot quite like this before, something I appreciate especially in science fiction. It brought up lots of interesting themes such as what makes a person unique, how much of a person is their memories and the danger of a thirst for knowledge.

The last part of the book was the weakest for me. Some of the more interesting plot points were glossed over, and that was disappointing.

I’d recommend Last to Leave the Room if you enjoy psychological horror with sci-fi elements. I’m looking forward to seeing what this author writes next!

*Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital arc. All opinions are my own.

Last to Leave the Room by Catlin Starling is a fun, psychological thriller perfect for the start of spooky season! It starts slowly but soon grabs you and won't let go. The story revolves around Dr. Tamsin Rivers, a tough-as-nails scientist working for a larger corporation. Her team discovers their city is slowly sinking, and Dr. Rivers finds her basement subsiding even faster than the rest. Things get weird when a door suddenly appears in her basement, and a doppelganger of Dr. Rivers walks out of it. Starling has again written a thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat!

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the eARC of this book.

Last to Leave the Room was one of those "exercise in patience" books.

I loved Caitlin Starling's The Death of Jane Lawrence for it's beautiful writing and immersive atmosphere. And while that lovely writing was present here, there isn't much else for me to recommend, unfortunately. It's definitely a subjective miss for me.

I'll say up front--the excitement of this book really doesn't pick up until you're about three quarters of the way through, and it's fairly good. But if I were simply reading for pleasure, I would have quit about 10% of the way in. I was hoping for horror, or at least some dystopian thriller from the premise, but this is a lot of science fiction--and it's dry at that. Not only did I find myself lost half the time (with echoes of Howard Wolowitz yelling "I have a Masters Degree!" in my head), but there's nothing to really care about here. I want an emotional connection to my stories--it's what disaster films like Volcano, The Day After Tomorrow, and Armageddon have in common and did well. But it's entirely missing here. Who cares that San Siroco is sinking? Why is it? What's/who's in danger and how? We're told a couple times that pipes will burst or something, but nothing felt immediate, there was no sense of urgency. Nor is there any sense of answers or closure as to why any of this was happening.

And the characters themselves were nothing to sympathize with either. Tamsin's a horrible person with no connections but a cat, Lachlan is this sort of cyborg-ish super human that we're given no insight into and everyone else is just a flat Mr. this or Mr. that.

I can't say that I would recommend this book to anyone other than those looking for some slow burn speculative fiction. If you can push through most of the book, the last quarter is pretty interesting, but I wouldn't usually wait that long.

Very appreciative to St. Martin's Press for the invitation to read a copy of this ARC in exchange for a review through NetGalley.

This book did not go where I expected it to, and that's what I liked about it. Dr. Tamsin Rivers is working on what she assumes will be the discovery that makes her career, helped along by the not particularly ethical but very well-funded corporation. She can sense her research coming into sight; she can feel it just outside of her reach, like a door she can't quite open. Unfortunately, the city of San Siroco, site of her research, is developing an odd phenomenon. It's sinking, stretching downward, and her apartment building is sinking even faster (there's a wonderfully tactile description of the feeling of walking down the ever-more distant treads of the stairs). Even more unfortunately, that's not the only side effect. This does not of course keep Tamsin away from any mysterious doors.

For a book that centers on the kind of expansion that's hard to pin down (but is slowly causing harm), the story feels surprisingly claustrophobic. In tone, it reminded me of Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger, with a scientist/doctor narrator who's a little too caught in their own experiments and not alarmed by a little human damage as the measurements continue to be made.

I found it tense and engaging, and when I finished, I was very glad to go outside and find the world measuring exactly as I expected.

Thanks to the publisher, the author, and Netgalley for my e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

As I said in my initial Goodreads review, this book was an absolute mindf*ck and I loved it. Dr. Tamsin Rivers is investigating the distortions taking place in the city when a mysterious door suddenly appears in her basement. Then a double of her appears through the door. Then a double of her cat appears through the door. Then she wakes up one morning and thinks that SHE’S the double and her dimensional double has assumed her life as Tamsin continues to lose her mermories. Her “handler” comes and gets her, her mind starts getting right, and then a door appears in the handler’s apartment. And a double comes out of it. And then Tamsin kills that double, but then she’s worried that in doing so she has accidentally also killed the handler because she’s been reading a bunch of stories about how doppelgangers are inextricably linked. Eventually she shoves her double back through the door, the door disappears, things go back to sort of normal as they deal with cleaning up the repercussions on the city (including collapsed buildings, etc.) The Last to Leave the Room delves into themes that I absolutely love exploring, like what it means to be human and the ethics of experimentation. Plus, it’s super weird, and who doesn’t love that?

I devoured this book; it's a perfect read for spooky season and just the type of horror I like (creepy, atmospheric, without relying on gore and cheap thrills). The main character Dr. Tamsin Rivers is brilliant, put together, and decidedly not a nice person - in short, she’s one of my favorite types of characters (what can I say, I like my women with a side of sociopathy). At least, she's all those things until her doppelgänger shows up in her basement.

Watching Tamsin deal with this arrival of another her, going from self possessed and in control, to slowly losing her grip on reality and becoming more and more of an unreliable narrator, is a tension filled delight. Caitlin Starling excels at dropping clues that barely register at first until they become glaringly obvious, leading to a point where I sat up and cackled “oh sh*t” in delight.

Everything is told from Tamsin’s POV, and while there are several side characters, she and her dopp are the primary characters. But there's also her corporate-provided “minder” Lachlan, who is ever present in Tamsin's mind even when she's not there physically. I enjoy reading cipher characters like Lachlan, and the evolving ways we as a reader see her through Tamsin’s changing mental states. However we don’t really get to learn too much about her which is a shame as she’s fascinating in her own way. There is however lots of tension (sexual, romantic, and fear-based) between Tamsin and Lachlan, not necessarily healthy in how we see it play out (in the romantic sense) but very fitting with the story.

What didn't work for me was some of the explanation towards the end, which I found a bit unsatisfying but readers who like more of an ambiguous story may not mind.

October 3, 2023
"But maybe observing does produce the result observed; maybe if nothing had been measuring depth at the construction sites, not only would they have not noticed for months or years, maybe there would have been nothing to notice.
If she hadn't been going down to her basement, maybe the door would never have appeared."

Dr. Tamsin Rivers is a scientist. She works in a lap for Myrica and studies things underground. Apparently the city is sinking, which undeniably, is a problem. However, what is also troubling is that the basement in Dr. Rivers' home appears to be stretching. What is the correlation and why are these things happening?

Starling's books are each so different and interesting and science-y with interesting horror elements. Last to Leave the Room felt very science fiction/Twilight Zone-ish, and although those things aren't necessarily things I gravitate to, I did enjoy this one once it got going. I will say that it took awhile to get there though, and I was getting pretty restless until the a door appeared in the basement and Dr. Rivers doppelganger walked in. At that point I was like WTF, and tore through the book to see where it was going.

This would be a great book club book because there are so many interesting questions to be asked about the story and the science and the ethics and all kinds of things. Definitely a book I could see myself rereading in the future.

In Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling, the city of San Siroco is sinking. The basement of Dr. Tamsin Rivers, head researcher investigating the subsidence problem, is sinking even faster. One evening, a door appears on the basement wall that wasn’t there before, and out of it walks an exact copy of Tamsin. Who is this second Tamsin? Where did she come from? How did she get here? And how can Tamsin stop the subsidence from destroying the city?

What I love about Starling’s style of horror is how psychological and character driven it is, and Last to Leave the Room is no different. Dr. Tamsin Rivers is, I believe intentionally, unlikeable as a character, narcissistic and self-serving and cruel. But Tamsin is, at her core, a scientist, and her obsession with the subsidence felt infectious. I appreciated the care Starling took to develop Tamsin’s character and show the research process, with Tamsin hyper-focusing on meticulously collecting data and measuring the progress of the sinking. I loved the way that Starling seeded doubt about whether Tamsin was a reliable narrator, allowing the reader to wonder what was real and what was an invention of Tamsin’s mind. While I eventually grew to sympathize with Tamsin, I loved Lachlan’s character even more. She is tough and intimidating, but her job as company muscle was portrayed in what felt like a realistic way, with excellent disability representation.

Overall I enjoyed this book, and at about the halfway mark it gripped me so tightly that I could not put it down until I finished reading it. I rated it four stars because I was left wanting a little more from the ending. The resolution seemed rushed, and I am left with so many unanswered questions. However, I grew to love the characters, and it was great to be back in another unsettling world of Starling’s creation.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for gifting me a copy of this eARC!

I loved The Death of Jane Lawrence. And I’m happy to say the same about her upcoming title.
Immediately after reading the description I knew I had to read it.
Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling is a story that will grab the reader from the first page and continues to build more intrigue and suspense up to the last page.
Last to Leave the Room is well written and is an absolutely riveting book.
The narration was tense throughout and it had to me on the edge of my seat biting my nails and staying awake late at night to find out what happened next.
This is the best kind of horror! And I ate it the hell up.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank You NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

This was a weird book...

Dr. Tamsin Rivers is doing some secretive science work when title becomes clear that the city she lives in is sinking. Which on its own is an issue because she might be responsible for it. But her attention is drawn away onto her basement that is also sinking and the door that has mysteriously appeared there. And then a woman comes out the door throwing her life into complete chaos. The woman looks just like her thinks like her and seems to be her. As the doppelgänger becomes more like her Tamsin starts to lose herself more and more...

To be honest I only wanted to read this book because it’s the pick for a book box I’m subscribed to. Without that factor I wouldn’t have been interested in this book at all. Horror? Suspense? Thriller? It was none of those...it was basically a whole lot of nothing happening. Throughout the whole book we are trapped inside Tamsin’s head as she seems to be losing her mind. 90% of the book takes place in her house with just Tamsin and Prime (the doppelgänger). It would have actually been more interesting if none of it was real. As for the mystery? It’s never really explained why the door appears or if other doubles come out of other doors (there’s only one situation where this even comes up). The nature of her work is never explained... there’s just a whole lot of nothing.

So if you want to be bored and observe to a very unlikable person with zero redeeming qualities slowly lose her mind and her whole sense of self then do read this book. Just beware that nothing happens and anything that might have been interesting is just casually brushed aside. Lachlan though was an interesting person and I would love her story, it would be way more entertaining I imagine than anything to do with Tamsin.

I wanted to like this but it was boring which sucks because weird can be fun or at least interesting this was weird and boring. A boring book with a wasted premise. Before this book I never heard of the author not certain I am curious enough to read her other work... but I wouldn’t rule it out so maybe I’ll try something else.

4.5 Yes yes yes! Deliciously weird and trippy. Dr. Rivers is doing some shady work at her company’s underground node labs when her team notices some strange phenomena. We soon find out that these strange distortions are also happening in Dr. Rivers’ basement. So begins the unraveling of our main character and everything she thinks she knows about herself.

The tension was immaculate, Mx. Woodfield was a great addition, and the blend of tech and speculative was perfect. Things just keep getting stranger and stranger until it all comes to a head. I didn’t want to put this book down!!

Firstly, my thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book in advance of publication. My comments and opinions are my own.

"Behind her there's a soft click.
She glances over her shoulder. The door is open, just a little, maybe two inches wide. Beyond it is the abyss, exactly as she pictured it, exactly as she remembers it. It spills from the doorway like a substance, not an absence. It washes over the basement floor, lapping at the table legs, covering her notes. The lights cannot pierce it and are swallowed in turn.
The line of the dark rises."

Starling's latest book is science fiction horror, with light romantic elements. It's a specialty in the author's cook book of recipes, last seen by me in The Luminous Dead. In this latest novel, quantum physicist Dr. Tamsin Rivers is leading a research team assigned to find the source of the subsidence of an entire city. The city is literally sinking, at a uniformly even rate, with the potential to cause enormous destruction. But Tamsin has bigger problems, because she's discovered that her basement is also sinking, much faster than the city. And there's a mysterious door in her basement, one that seems to generate doubles. Doppelgängers. Or maybe not.

I enjoyed many parts of this book - it nails several scenes that are nail-biting and full of existential dread of the unknown. The switching of original and double is subtle and smart, and it left this reader looking for clues and tells to figure out who was real and who was not. And after a while, I was left wondering if both Tamsins were real, just from different worlds connected by the basement door.

I also enjoyed the character dynamics, particularly with the handler Lachlan Woodfield, with her tailored black suits and slicked back hair, and her unusual physique. The personality switches between Tamsin and Prime and Naught were also really well done. There were some areas towards the middle of the book that seemed to drag on, but I figured that might just be a byproduct of the distortion field that Tamsin was researching. (Ahem.)

Overall, I enjoyed this read, and am grateful for the opportunity. For a sci-fi thriller, it hit all of the marks.

"She lingers on a story: the devil teaches black magic to seven pupils in Salamanca, Spain. The last student to leave each night forfeits their soul. But one clever man argues that, when he leaves at sunrise, it will be his shadow that is last to leave the room."

I struggled through this one. This was my first book by the author so the writing style was a bit different for me. Once I got into though, I was REALLY able to get into it. But like I said, it did take me a while to get into the story.