This was just a little too much on the YA side for my taste (also confusion over how it was Liz and Thea's 17th birthday, but they were also going to college the week after). At times the vibes were great, though the dichotomy of cozy bookstore apocalypse vibes versus the body horror apocalypse vibes was jarring. I think I was expecting more on the cozy and introspective side of disaster fiction, and the parts where they were living side by side in the bookstore were my favorites. It felt like a lot of what Liz had built (or really just had fall into her lap) was pushed aside, especially the postal/trade system, and the fact that she hadn't had to leave the bookstore in a year! That felt really big and was kind of just shrugged off. It then made the escalation when Liz and Maeve run afoul of the group in the woods to the point of murder feel out of nowhere, since up until that point, no one had really cared and now they were willing to murder two teenagers for a place that was also going to be destroyed anyway?

Honestly, my actual favorite parts were the stories Liz collected in her journal, the glimpses of everyone's transitions, and I wish more of that energy had been present in the main plot.

First, can we all step back to admire and appreciate this GORGEOUS cover?!?
Second, I devoured this book in a day! This story grabbed ahold of me and didn't let go until the last page. We have a book with a scarily realistic dystopian premise, relatable (albeit annoying and frustrating) main characters, and world-building that is believable.
I liked how all of the cards weren't put on the table at the beginning. I enjoyed the bread crumbs strewn throughout the story so that the reader could put the puzzle pieces together themselves.
Our main character, Liz, obviously has some issues to work through and possibly some mental health concerns. She is naive and somewhat immature in her late teen years given the circumstances but it works with the progression of the story.
I do feel this was slightly mismarketed as LGBTQ, as this is such a side note to the actual story. It is barely covered, with the exception of a few ill-timed kisses between two of our female main characters. Yes, I suppose it explains some of Liz's trepidation and naivete, but it is still not very relevant to the story.
I was so excited that this took place in a bookstore! However, I expected that to have more purpose. I thought our MC would be more of a "nerd" and that the setting would hold more significance than a sentimental attachment. I was still glad for the few book references that were made.
Overall, given that I was able to start and finish this in a day, I award this 4 stars. We had a believable story that flowed at a nice pace, credible characters, and was fairly well-written. Bravo for (what I believe) is Lily Braun-Arnold's debut novel.

The Last Bookstore on Earth is a fantastic perspective of post-apocalyptic life. While the plot definitely meandered a bit, I couldn't help but be drawn to the enduring necessity for books and how even after the world has ended, they will remain relevant. At once a story of hope and love and loss, this is definitely a strong entry to the genre.

Post-apocalyptic story about a teenage girl named Liz who is living on her own in a bookstore in suburban New Jersey after her former co-worker/friend abandons her to find out what else is left in the world. Liz stubbornly refuses to leave even when she finds out that another apocalyptic storm is coming and knowing that the bookstore isn't in good enough repair to weather the storm. She meets a girl named Maeve and the two quickly (within a matter of days) fall in love and debate on whether they should move on or hunker down.

The situation was compelling and I enjoyed the first quarter of the book until
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SPOILER
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Liz gets hurt. Liz and Maeve discover a generator which is rusty and may or may not work. Liz decides to stick her hand inside of it despite not knowing if it works or how to fix it if it is broken. Unsurprisingly, her hand gets chewed up by the generator. Badly. For example some of the descriptions of this injury: "A log, jagged gash runs down the top of my forearm, still bleeding... My hand is in even worse shape, knuckles shaved down to what looks like bone. Fingers hang limply off, and no matter how hard I try, I can't get them to move. I can't get my hand to move.... I look down at the gaping slit in my arm, running like a ribbon across my skin and up my hand, like the crevasse in the middle of a geode. The edges of the wound are ragged like that, too, bits of stray flesh tapering off in triangles around the congealed crimson. Beneath it, in deeper sections, there are patches of pale pink, small hints of the muscle and bone that like beneath. I look at my skinless hand and and admire the tendons stretching from my knuckles to my wrist." Liz and Maeve then go on to cauterize the wound with a hot knife (how did they heat it? they never mention having a fire, there's no electricity??). THE NEXT DAY she walks what I assume is at least a mile to an abandoned Target where she gets in a Nerf fight with Maeve, gets tackled by her, walks part way back before coming upon a trail and HIKES for a mile, gets into a scuffle, hikes back and goes back home where she says: "My arm is healing, I can feel it." No, your degloved, broken hand is not healing. Three days after the injury, she seems to unwrap it to check on it for the first time. No bandages are changed and she wraps it back up with what I assume are dirty bandages. They have no access to antibiotics or any pain relievers (even Tylenol or Advil) but somehow she can more or less function as normal and doesn't get an infection. Sorry to spend so much time on this part of the story but it makes me irrationally angry.
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The rest of the story is relatively predictable, but the setting is intriguing. None of the main characters are particularly likable, though I think they're meant to be. They're also all very shallow and, maybe understandably, have attachment issues. I really wanted to love this one and it was a great idea, just not particularly well executed. 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3

Thank you net gallery for the advanced copy of this book. It was presented as a snarky dystopian novel, but I did not find much funny. much less enjoyable. The world makes no sense to me. Did we really need the generator scene? I am not sure I would recommend it on that alone.

This normally wouldn’t be a book I would like, yet the description had me curious. I really enjoyed the love story and the survival angle as it felt genuine and not forced. It was a quick read I enjoyed every page of it, and I will be following this author’s next work.

Following a devastating Storm brought on by climate change that absolutely everyone saw coming, Liz must confront her fears, demons, and the crumbling bookstore she’s taken shelter in. While she collects the stories of her occasional customers she keeps the people she meets at arms length.

I really felt a connection with Liz, with her love of books, her loneliness and awkwardness, her absolute inability to do anything physically demanding (cough) and I definitely think I would have holed myself up in a bookstore to cope with the apocalypse. I think you’ll enjoy the dry humor, the morally gray decisions, and the tenuous moments of hope.

Thank you to NetGalley and TBR&Beyond Tours for my copy. These opinions are my own.

loved how the story balanced the intensity of survival with the practical challenges of life after an apocalypse, all while diving into deeper themes like survivor’s guilt and learning to trust again. The writing was so charming and relatable, and the characters felt real, making this a perfect read for anyone who enjoys YA dystopian stories.

Honestly, everything about this book sounded great. But the reality was that I hated the characters, all of them. I did not root for them. I side with The Storm, acid rain that dissolves the bodies of those it kills.

Liz lives in what she considers to be the last bookstore on Earth, the place where she worked before The Storm. When another young woman breaks in, she decides to trust her and enlist her help in fixing up the store before the next Storm. So on and so forth. Sapphic romance that felt like it was only based on being around each other and forced fight with “enemies”.

In the end, I just did not enjoy it. At all. I rage read it as I seethed over the fact that I was using my Friday night to do this instead or enjoy a book, watch a movie, or stick bamboo shoots under my fingernails.

The thing is, there is an audience for this book. It is a book about fear, guilt, and an unwillingness to work to survive. This will appeal to some but not me.

Thank you to Random House Children’s, Delacorte Press, and Net Galley. All opinions are my own.

This book did nothing wrong, and in fact has so many wonderful things going for it including being a queer sci fi book set in a bookstore during an apocalypse. I enjoyed reading about this main character's job not only running a bookstore (tough to sustain during aforementioned apocalypse) but also holding and delivering letters to travelers' loved ones as a way to do good and also provide for herself in a time when food and currency are scarce. Unfortunately I'm learning about myself that I don't love apocalyptic survival stories as much as I thought, so the character-centered nature of this book felt a little slow and the action sequences a little boring. If those elements sound up your alley, though, I would recommend this to you!

The Last Bookstore on Earth by Lily Braun-Arnold is an intriguing YA debut with a fascinating premise and a sapphic romance subplot, set against the backdrop of an apocalyptic world. While the book delivered on its promise of "The Last of Us"-style vibes, albeit in a much milder form, its execution left me feeling a bit underwhelmed.

The idea of Liz holing up in an abandoned bookstore, living off bartering and using books as currency in a post-apocalyptic world, is incredibly compelling. The setting itself is unique, and the prose was well done, making it easy to visualize this desolate, storm-ravaged version of suburban New Jersey. The pacing was quick, which kept the story moving and made it an easy read.

However, where the book fell short for me was in its emotional resonance and character motivations. Liz’s adamant refusal to leave the bookstore felt underdeveloped, lacking a strong, emotionally compelling reason to stay. As much as I appreciated the sapphic romance subplot, it didn’t fully land for me. The relationship between Liz and Maeve felt too forced and progressed too quickly to be believable. While the circumstances of the end of the world might justify rushing into a connection, their chemistry didn’t feel organic or earned, which made the romance less impactful.

On the positive side, the prose was engaging, and the book delivered enough intrigue to keep me reading to the end. The "Station Eleven meets The Last of Us" vibe is present, though less intense than I expected, making it a decent introduction to dystopian fiction for younger readers.

Final Thoughts:
The Last Bookstore on Earth is an enjoyable but flawed read with a strong premise and solid writing. While the romance and character motivations didn’t fully work for me, it’s still a decent YA dystopian novel with unique elements and a sapphic love story that many readers may appreciate.

The Last Bookstore On Earth is an amazing read - I loved it just from reading the blurb, and actually reading it has only reinforced that feeling. Here are my 5 reasons you should read:

1. How often do you get to be in on the ground floor of a whole new genre? Following on from cosy fantasy and cosy sci fi, this is cosy apocalypse, and not in the snide way people talk about John Wyndham. Liz and Maeve have both suffered, but the focus of the book is on a small area and their concerns are mostly (but not solely!) everyday, smaller items.

2. But that doesn't mean this doesn't have the usual trappings of post apoc - there are marauders and people out for themselves. There's just far more of the other kind, the decent people who even now just want to help each other get by. It's a far gentler apocalypse than any I've read before.

3. The girls. Liz has a backstory straight out of The Rain by Virginia Bergin, and it's made her gentle and nice. Maeve has a much more typical post apoc backstory, and it's made her spiky and hard. Together they are far more than the sum of their parts.

4. Those amazing covers. Both US (top image above) and UK (lower image above) have knocked it out of the park; the US is moody but still has signs of brightness, and the UK has so many little details that make sense once you've read it. Whichever you get, it will look amazing.

5. The found family and sense of hope that threads through this story. I adore a good found family story and this one scratched that itch really well. I'd love to read more in this world, but if this is what we get, I'll be happy - it's a wonderful ending for our brilliant characters.


I hope this has piqued your interest and might lead you to check out the book! If you enjoy it, you might want to check out All that's left in the World by Eric Brown and its sequel, The Only Light Left Burning. If you enjoy the found family aspect of the apocalypse, keep an eye out for The Last of Us on TV!

I am a big fan of dystopia novels and this one really worked for me. I really liked that it was a realistic type of dystopia – an apocalypse brought on by climate change which if anything feels a little too real! The conversations that Liz and her family had in the past really made it feel real and added to the back story, especially as her mum and sister didn’t believe anything was going to happen and she and her Dad wanted to prepare but were almost ridiculed about it.
I also loved the setting of the bookstore and think this would definitely be one of my favourite places to be for the end of the world! The bookstore acts like so much more than a safe place for Liz, it holds lots of memories and has become a useful place for passers-by acting as a makeshift postal service. Of course Liz doesn’t want to let go of it and the connection it still provides for people, no matter how dangerous and unsafe it gets.
95% of the book is set in the bookstore and I think this perfectly showed how isolating and lonely the apocalypse is if you don’t have anyone still around to care for. That is what it was like for Liz for months after Eva left her until Maeve arrived. I loved the developing relationship between Liz and Maeve and I just wish that we got more of them together! It obviously takes them a bit of time to begin to trust each other but I loved the little moments that showed how much they cared the further into the story I got.
Liz’s past is also quite an important part of the novel with some chapters offering flashbacks to before the storm which lets the reader see what she was like and her family dynamics before everything turned upside down. This is an integral part of why she feels the way she does and it makes her character that much more interesting.
Along with the setting of the bookstore which was just perfect, the characters really made this story. There are lots of emotional moments, mistakes are made and they all have flaws which made them feel real and you can really connect to them, especially Liz. Liz also collected the stories of people who travelled past her home and these are placed throughout the novel to show how the apocalypse affected all types of people and it was a really lovely addition to the story.
There is of course some drama as some enemies appear and Liz refuses to leave the one place she feels safe even as it starts falling apart around them but this just adds to the tension in the novel and I really didn’t know how it was all going to end. This is really good addition to the dystopian genre and is perfect for readers who like the sound of a YA Sapphic apocalypse story.

Dear god no. I literally thought this book would be so much better but it was so repetitive and boring and nothing happens for the first 100 pages and it barely has the horror that we see in the last of us. By the time I got to the end, I wanted to burn the book truly.

Well I most certainly wasn't expecting all of that to happen in this book. But it sure did and then some. We meet Liz and as thr story unfolds we learn how she came to live in the bookstore. We get little pieces here and there about what may have happened to her family. But not much it's more she tells stories about the before the storm. About how things were. And we also get some stories about the people who pass through after the storm. They tell Liz their stories and make trades for books and food and such. We learn that she had a friend that was living there with her at the bookstore but she leaves. Then we meet Maeve who is such an awesome character as well.
We don't necessarily know her whole story either. But when Liz and Maeve run into trouble one day when they go out looking for some food and things they may need before the next acid storm comes. The trouble just continues from there on. As if an acid storm wasn't trouble enough, other people are not the greatest during a I'm going to survive no matter who I harm in the process.
This book was very interesting and I would like maybe a second book or a novella or something to see how Liz and Maeve are doing and if the world has changed for the better or at least their town?

A cozier book than I expected for a post-apocalyptic dystopian setting. It was a nice fast paced read that I didn't want to put down. Loved the setting (also love the idea of spending an apocalypse in a bookstore) and the character development, I felt connected to Liz. And I love a good sapphic book!

What I Liked: Dystopian books are something that I will almost always pick up especially when I need a different world other than my own to be falling apart. This was just what I got when I picked up The Last Bookstore on Earth. I was hooked to this story from page one as I love the setting of this book, it was something that I hadn’t really seen in a dystopian book before which was surprising.

This book goes back and forth from before the storm and after the storm. Through these perspectives you get to see what life was like for Liz before the storm and what becomes of her life after the storm. It was fascinating to see the way that things were run prior to the storm and how different things were after.

Something that I was longing for throughout the book was during the storm, I wanted to hear how Liz experienced it and later how Maeve experienced the storm. This aspect is what kept me reading as I wanted to know more about this storm, I had to know what this storm looked like and how it impacted all of our character’s both in the past and future. And just when you find out about Liz’s past and what happened to her family you wish that things had gone differently as your heart breaks for her.

The other characters that are introduced throughout the book are great additions to the story as they contrast well with Liz. Maeves addition is great as she knows a lot and has many of the skills that Liz is lacking. I enjoyed reading as their relationship develops as it isn’t one that you see coming when we first get introduced to Maeve. The twists that are introduced later in the story when Eva comes into the book is one that I did not see coming but makes you want to know how this all ends.

Final Verdict: The Last Bookstore on Earth is a great dystopian read showing the importance of being able to rely on others as well as yourself. This book will keep you on your toes as you get transported into another world and read as Liz is trying to make it out alive. There are so many moments in this book in which you will be yelling at the characters for their choices and then yelling at the author for breaking your heart. Continue reading to stay on the emotional roller coaster that is definitely worth your time.

The Last Bookstore on Earth by Lily Braun-Arnold is a remarkable post-apocalyptic story!
A very entertaining dystopian fiction that kept me glued to my kindle!
I was so invested right from the beginning and was not disappointed at all!
I cant even begin with how absolutely GOOD this book was. Lily Braun-Arnold knows how to set the vibe, creating intriguing and entertaining characters.
A fantastic YA debut!

Thank You NetGalley and Delacorte Press for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

Many thanks to NetGalley, Lily Braun-Arnold, and Random House Children's for the opportunity to read this captivating post-apocalyptic story. If the world ever ends, I can only hope to survive in a bookstore! The novel beautifully explores themes of loss, the formation of new bonds, the complexities of old relationships, and the struggles with toxic connections. It’s an emotional journey of adaptation to a changed world and learning how to move forward from the past.

Man, did I love this book!! I loved the way it made me feel! It made me gasp out loud. It made my heart drop. It made me yell out loud at the fictional characters. I love the books that make my family question my sanity 😅

Sometimes flashbacks are confusing, and sometimes, but not this time. I liked the way Lily Braun-Arnold wrote these flashbacks because they told bits of the story about who Liz is and why, and the puzzle doesn’t completely fit together until the very last flashback.

This story made me think about the dystopian books we read and the actions we would actually take if we were in that situation for real. This might be the adult in me…or it may be the over imaginative reader, but with the way the world is today, I feel like dystopian stories prepare us for the very near future 😬. Maybe we should be in better shape to be able to do physically hard things. Maybe we should take stock of the things that matter to us so we know what to fight hardest for. Maybe I’m getting a little too deep after reading a dystopian teen book. Who knows.

Either way, if the world ends, I would want to end up in a bookstore, no matter how impractical it may be. A smarter place might be a hardware store or a grocery store….but I would 100% head for the bookstore.