I didn't really enjoy this others previous work. I think, perhaps, that this author and I just don't mesh because didn't enjoy this, either. My biggest issue was the time jumping, combined with a pretty non-compelling, sort of lackluster writing style. The idea for this is super cool, but the characters were boring, the writing style didn't really compel me to keep reading it was sort of flat. And it was hard to follow this book and the direction it was going in. I think the organizational issues, specifically around the fleshing out of the time jumping, combined with the pacing being both slow and a bit random, just really killed this experience for me. There were moments that I found myself really engaged in the story, but those were so few and far between, that it wasn't enough to really hold my attention. This is my third attempt reading something by this author, and I ended up really, really not liking it, so I don't know that I'm going to seek much out from her going forward.

Tamsin is a scientist working for a shady tech company who discovers that her top-secret underground experiments could be causing the city to sink. On top of that, she discovers that her basement is distorting in a very strange way, and a mysterious door has suddenly appeared. Then a perfect double of Tamsin emerges from the door. Starling creates a tense atmosphere and effectively builds the sense of dread. Her prose is calm and understated, perfectly capturing Tamsin's logical and scientific approach to the bizarre evens surrounding her, Danger abounds everywhere in this creepy and satisfying read.

I picked this book up because I enjoyed the author’s previous book The Death of Jane Lawrence; but it was such a departure, being much more modern, the adjustment makes it difficult to get into. However, as I know that the author has a range of genres they write in, I should have read the synopsis more closely. Over all I did like this novel, despite its slow start. I saw that some reviewers disliked Tamsin but, I found her characterization honest and all the more poignant as her reliability falters. During the 3/4 mark, I had to know what was going to happen, I was so absorbed in the story. But I found myself a bit lost in the final chapters.

Suspenseful, Enjoyable, great pacing, exciting settings kept me hooked. Great novel that will be the perfect to lose yourself in. Thank you Net Galleyfor ARC in exchange for my honest opinion

Caitlin Starling is one of my favourite novelists and writers of speculative fiction of the past two decades. Her book, “The Death of Jane Lawrence,” is a Gothic masterpiece, and “Yellow Jessamine” is also darkly brilliant. In this newest novel, “Last to Leave the Room,” we start off with a Dr. Tamsin Rivers. She stands in the abyss. Like the literal “do not gave into this because it gazes into you” Nietzcheian abyss. She’s far below the city of San Siroco. This is a book more strongly centered on science fiction horror, and while that is not my cup of tea, I love Starling’s writer, which shines through here. As the narrative goes on, it feels more like a Ridley Scott-influenced nightmare, a “Prometheus”-like reflexiveness that will make the reader question what is going on. The exploration of tensions between humanity and machines are particularly pressing now with AI-this and ChatGPT-this, and the absolutely devastating effect they have had on not only the current writer’s guild of america strike, but also in the sense of people trying to exploit or offer “shortcuts” with these tools and not considering the ethical implications. People who have brought up concerns about Terminator-like scenarios and other terrors related to that suddenly seem to make a lot of sense and don’t seem as fanciful or fictional as they once did.

When there is this crew dynamic where readers can see the trust begin to erode between them, the alliances at the start of the book not being those by the time you get to the end, or sometimes even the middle, these cracks in the foundation begin to permeate throughout the novel.

Final verdict is if you were expecting something more in the vein of Starling’s previous Gothic works, then you may want to sit this one out. It’s a fantastic, well-plotted and well-written novel but I felt that it didn’t vibe with me overall, unfortunately, only because of my interests as a reader, and not anything at all to do with the style or with the brilliance of Starling as a writer. Highly worth recommending and checking out.

I was convinced to read this book by the author's claim that it contained an "extremely threatening yet sexy and butch 'coworker'", a quote which I incorrectly began with "extremely sexy" the first three times I tried to type it here. Freudian slips aside, I'm delighted to have been able to read an advance copy of Last to Leave the Room, and I loved it for more reasons than I expected.

The main characters: Dr. Tamsin Rivers, who is unlikable and knows it. Mx. Lachlan Woodfield, Tamsin's coworker/bodyguard/enforcer who never relaxes and never takes off her black gloves. Penrose, who is a cat. Dr. Tamsin Rivers, who is obedient and--wait, what? Wasn't she just--

It's difficult to summarize the plot beyond the blurb without spoiling anything, so I won't. I'll just say that I was lulled into a false sense of security by the slow start, and then before I knew it four hours had passed and I was interrogating my cat about his earliest memory and double checking the number of doors in my hallway. This IS horror, but you might forget that for a while...

Since I have an entire Goodreads shelf dedicated to them, I think it's safe to say that "impossible door" books are one of my favorite micro-sub-genres of SFF/horror. Of all of those books, Last to Leave the Room reminded me most strongly of The Last Universe by William Sleator (my introduction to the genre), but for adults and with much better disability representation.

Starling is an expert at depicting the horror of isolation and confined space, so much so that this novel felt like a dark mirror of my experiences as a high-risk person avoiding the continued pandemic. The medical horror aspects of the plot were intense and disturbing, but not in a way that felt exploitative. One of my favorite scenes involves pushback against the infantilization of a disabled character, which is not something I ever see!

Recommended for fans of: The Last Universe, Mickey + Jessica, Several People Are Typing, and Piranesi (the ending, not the beginning).

I received an advance e-copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

The disorganized time jumping in the early part of this book was an issue for me. After three attempts, I gave up on the book. Please note, I only post 3 star or higher reviews to my sites, as that is what my readers want to hear about. Strongly recommend resolving the organizational issues before this book goes live. Best of luck!

An interesting premise with close proximity tension and spine tingling moments but one that, sadly, suffered from major pacing issues.

Disappointment is my middle name.

Imagine debuting with the incredibly unsettling and page-turning The Luminous Dead, following it up with The Death of Jane Lawrence, a story with so much meat and riveting moments ... only to think you can get away with this absolute snooze. Like I said: DISAPPOINTMENT.

For a horror thrilling, it was not thrilling at all. Nothing happens! It starts off right away with so much science and technical jargon that you aren't given the chance to parse it out unless you too have a PhD (and I have a Geography degree, I know what subsidence is here), and it bogs down the rest of the story. The emergence of a door in your weirdly stretching basement through which a doppelganger of yourself steps through should be terrifying, and it simply wasn't executed well.

There were a few scenes that were horrifying and promised a sudden turning point in the story, but they never lasted. It also doesn't help that it got quite confusing inside the main character's head. It seemed to switch POV's at times, but not really, and after reading the last page I am still not sure what exactly happened or which of the two Tamsins I'm dealing with. There *is* an answer for what caused the subsidence and the doppelgangers, but I think I need someone to explain it to me because I'm lost.

Will I keep reading Starling's work? Absolutely. I'm choosing to believe that this was just a blip and not the right book for me. Others will probably enjoy this but it didn't work for me.

An intense science based horror/drama, The Last to Leave the Room touches on so many things, doppelgängers, cosmic interaction, parallel worlds, greed, science advances and experimentation, and it does so with well written, thoroughly researched information.
We come in on Dr. Tamsin Rivers, and the current communications project her team is working on with the backing of Myrica Dynamics. We get to know her handler, Mx. Woodfield, a lurking presence in the background. The things Dr. Rivers and team are working on will be ground breaking, and historically shattering, but all factors haven't been taken into account. The sinking in her basement, and the mysterious door that appears, add to the concerns and mysteries.
The book was intense, not so packed with advanced terminology that I felt like I couldn't follow along, and was honestly just a lot of fun. I highly recommend it!

I Dnf'd this book around the 20% mark after restarting it and reaching the same 20% mark - I just had little to no desire to continue the story? I found the writing a bit choppy and it overwhelmed me to the point that I wasn't interested in continuing the story because I was too worried about the "he said, then she said, then he said" of it all. Additionally, I just wish I could have been inside the head of our FMC, Tamsin. Having the phantom narrator instead of this story being a first person POV didn't make much sense to me? maybe if there were dedicated POV switches that could have intrigued me a bit more? I generally give DNF's a 1 star but I bumped it up to 2 because of how neat I think the premise of the book is.

There are horror books that are slow to build tension, and then there are horror books that are slow...for no discernible reason. The creepy premise of Caitlin Starling's new book promises creeping techno horror for an age of looming climate disasters, but fails to deliver much of a thrill. It is a deeply psychological novel, concerned with the decaying mental state of our protagonist, which is fun from a horror of the mind perspective but didn't leave me feeling any chills. I wish the story had moved faster, and given more context to the "science" fiction of the universe.

I'd like to thank the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for allowing me a chance at reading this.

I made it to 70% before I had to close the book. This was one of those, did it really need to be this long types.

There are earthquakes (?) in this city that is causing a lot of issues. This scientist starts working on the source or cause. One night, a door appears in her workspace basement. After a few days, it opens and out comes a replica of her. Curious and infantile at first, it begins to gain knowledge and becomes a kinder, nicer replica of her.

So little was happening in this book that I just chose not to sit around waiting for something to happen. The build up was getting too long and wordy to make any sort of punch.

When I saw that Caitlin Starling had a new book out it was an auto-request ARC for me because I’d enjoyed “The Death of Jane Lawrence” so much. “The Last to Leave the Room” is a very different sort of book but not in a bad way, just different.

It’s billed as speculative horror but I saw it more as a psychological thriller with speculative elements. Brilliant, unlikable, ambitious scientist Tamsin Rivers is working on a communications project that requires the use of labs deep underground while the city around them may or may not be sinking, and it may or may not be related to Dr. Rivers’s efforts.

One day a mysterious door appears in her basement at her private residence, along with her doppelgänger, who has an infinitely more pliable personality than the rigid Dr. Rivers. Dr. Rivers descends into obsession studying the unusual phenomena.

This project is never actually really explained, which I found kind of frustrating, and the science is kind of iffy; this is one of those kinds of books that throws around scientific jargon and the scientific method but sounded more like someone doing their research.

The book is very slow paced and dragged quite a bit in the first 40%, but I stuck with it because I liked the dread it managed to build regardless, and it had the same moody atmospheric style as the author’s previous work. I also loved the characters. I suspect this book may have been written in the pandemic because it definitely dug deep into the paranoia and discomfort of isolating at home in a visceral way.

This was a fascinating character study of the transformational arc of an interesting character, Dr. Rivers. I also loved Lachlan, her handler at the company they both work for, and how it’s never explained that she’s nonbinary but it’s shown in her leather gloves, the way she dresses and her use of Mx. as an honorific. I loved the sapphic hate pining between the two of them.

The spookiness in the setting was definitely more along the lines of Black Mirror or Twilight Zone creepiness than scary horror but I like that kind of horror/thriller vibe.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Dr. Tamsin Rivers is the head researcher for a tech company that's been hired by the city of San Siroco to solve its problem with a slow but steady sinking of its infrastructure. Mysteriously, Rivers' basement is showing an even more accelerated rate of sinking. Even more mysteriously, one day a door that can't open and shouldn't exist appears in her basement. Even more mysteriously still, one night an exact double for Rivers shows up in the basement - exact in appearance, but more docile and less knowing in personality. But as Rivers spends more time examining and becoming more familiar with the doppelganger while simultaneously trying to solve the subsidence issues of the city, she begins to lose herself. Now she's in a race to discover how all the strange occurrences are related, and how to stop the dangers they entail before it's too late.
I must say, this is one of the most unique stories I've ever read. While it took a bit to get into the novel, as a lot wasn't explained at the beginning, as the book went along everything eventually made a lot more sense and was (mostly) explained satisfactorily. This was definitely a different take on the double trope, and an engrossing sci-fi tale. 4.5/5*

I really wanted to like this book. I really enjoyed The Death of Jane Lawrence, however, this was a DNF for me at 30%. The writing is beautiful, but the vibe of this story just isn't for me. I may revisit it later on. Just because it wasn't for me, doesn't mean it won't be for you!

No two Caitlin Starling books are the same, save for their intelligence, imagination, and compulsive readability. But with THE LAST TO LEAVE THE ROOM, Starling has outdone herself. If, by the end of Chapter 3, you're not *desperate* to know what happens next, you're as baffling as non-Euclidean geometry.

Not as good as Jane Lawrence. I got a little bored and distracted halfway through and feel like I actually missed the point of the whole story. But it was interesting.

3 stars

While I love a good slow burn, this one felt a little too slow. That being said, the story was very good, and the characters were well developed. It was able to build the dread, and anxiety quite well. I wish there was a bit more going on to pick up the pace, but other than that, it was quite a great book. I highly recommend pushing through.

Caitlin Starling has written another wonderful, suspenseful, slow-burn story that leaves you guessing until the very end.

I enjoyed every minute of this book. The characters are engaging and maddening - in all the right ways. Its heart wrenching as their mistakes lead to anguish and dispair but uplifting as they work through their redemption.

I highly recommend this thriller!