I had such high hopes for this one. Unfortunately I just couldnt connect to the characters. I dont mind drama in my books but this one was over the top.

A girl off her medicine is never a good thing but it’s really bad when it leads to murder and kidnapping. She thought Eli was the one for her but was it all based on lies. Did one girl try to take it all and end up dead. This book takes you through graduates in a writing course that will end with someone dead and another girl kidnapped.

Last One Seen pulled me in right away and didn’t let go. It’s one of those books where you keep saying “just one more chapter,” and suddenly it’s 2 a.m. The mystery at the center is intense and emotional, and the way the story unfolds kept me guessing the whole time.

The characters are so well written—complex, relatable, and full of depth. I especially appreciated how the story balanced suspense with emotional weight. It wasn’t just about solving a crime; it was about family, trauma, and resilience.

Rebecca Kanner did an amazing job of building tension while also making you feel for everyone involved. The pacing was spot-on, the writing was strong, and the ending totally delivered.

If you’re into emotional thrillers with real heart, Last One Seen is a must-read.

Really loved this book! An unreliable narrator, some really off the wall characters, and a twisty story that kept me guessing throughout the entire thing! 4 stars!

I really liked the start when it was a smart, character-driven academic suspense story – but then it veered into over-the-top popcorn thriller territory and the execution (especially the second half) was too jarring, clunky, and over-the-top.

Energy: Silly. Dark. Scattered

🐺 Growls: Became a constant stream of chaotic, unbelievable events. Disjointed, jarring plot progression — not that horrible things like that don’t happen, more that it was so random with no build-up so it felt very much For the Plot and just thrown at us.

🐕 Howls: The abrupt tonal shifts. Clunky, unnatural dialogue. Past/present tense mix-ups. Inconsistent pacing. Whole scenes fly by without connection, like characters first meeting to suddenly kissing with no transition. Wish we had other POVs for a better sense of what’s happening and to introduce a ‘who to trust’ dynamic.

🐩 Tail Wags: Intriguing characters. The flawed main character portrayal (at first). The grad school group dynamics.

Scene 🇺🇸 St Louis, Missouri, and Minnesota, USA
Perspective: A 26 yo prospective MFA student, living with mental illness and raised by a neglectful parent, who put themselves through school. They’re eager to get in the program but dependent on a stipend that might go to an award-winning yet wealthy candidate.
Timeline: Time-jumping. 2020s. Four months leading up to the start of the grad program, during the semester, and a few months later when something has happened involving our MC.
Fuel: Is Hannah being sabotaged? Why? How will she handle rejection from her peers? Is she experiencing full reality? What happened that has her on the run in the future?
Cred: Suspended disbelief over-the-top to hard to believe

Mood Reading Match-Up:
• Invisible in the room, listening to the character, being told a story (first person)
• Casual, simplistic writing style
• Spiraling, clingy, mean, flawed, and unhinged characters
• Grad school politics, academic scheming, love triangles, and “pick me” friendships
• Rejection, rivalries, vengeance, and internal chaos
• On-the-run and trauma reveals
• Mental health + missing memory shockers
• Plot-driven but character focused
• Popcorn thriller antics and villainy

Content Heads-Up: Ableism (mental illness stigmas; purposeful triggering). Abusive, controlling relationship. Alcohol (self-medicating, intoxication/black-out; parties). Alcoholism (treatment, sobriety, relapse). Antisemitism. Bullying (peers; rejection, sabotage, set-ups). Confinement. Drugging. Eating disorder (bulimia). Gun violence. Intoxicated driving (fatal; mention). Loss of parent (as child). Mania. Medication (psychiatric; misuse). Mental illness (bipolar; medication, manic episodes). Parental neglect, addiction. Personality disordered parent (borderline). Pregnancy. Sexual content (behind closed doors; intoxicated). Sexual harassment.

Rep: American. Jewish heritage. Bluish pale, pale skin tones. Bipolar disorder.

📚 Format: Advance Reader’s Copy from Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley

Last One Seen had me spiraling right along with Hannah. She shows up to her MFA program with good intentions: take her meds, stay focused, write something great. But then Justine happens— brilliant, magnetic, a little too interested-and everything starts to spiral.

From the jump, we know Justine is dead. We know Hannah might have killed her. But what we don't know-ever-is the full truth. And that's the entire point. The tension simmers in the uncertainty. And since we only have Hannah's fragmented memories to go on, we never really get the full picture. We're left to decide whether Hannah is a victim, a villain, or something in between.

Our main characters are writers, and the book frequently digs into the blurred lines between fiction and nonfiction. I really enjoyed the commentary on storytelling that was woven throughout the story.

Last One Seen isn't your typical twisty thriller. It's murky, disorienting, and rooted entirely in the mind of one incredibly unreliable narrator. I kept waiting for a big reveal, some clarity, but it never came.
And weirdly? I respect the hell out of that.

If you like unhinged and unreliable narrators that’ll leave you questioning what the truth even means, you just might like this one. Just don't expect a neat ending. You're not getting one.

After reading the first few pages, i was captivated. Why would someone suspect themselves of murder!? As the story unfolded, my feelings changed- I was so disgusted by the thought of someone purposely messing with another's mental health, that my focus switched from wanting to know why Hannah suspected herself to why did Justine want to do that to Hannah.

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what an absolute nightmare of an experience hannah went through. i felt it in my bones.
brilliant portrayal of mania and unraveling mental states. unreliable narrator with unreliable characters.

justine is the actual worst but then again… who is justine? is any of this real? is this a fight club situation? hannah is justine is amelia is eli is… hannah?

honestly i hated every character but i couldn’t stop reading. the whole time I was spiraling right along with hannah and wondering: is any of this real or are we fully in a manic break?

also - eli... i wanted to know so much more about his back story.

dark and dizzying and weirdly addictive.

3.75/5

this book was exhausting. I only finished it in order to write an honest review but I wouldn't have finished otherwise.
every character in the book is unlikeable, the situations are wild, there's so much going on that it's hard to keep straight. if you can tolerate an unreliable narrator and like to feel hungover just from reading something this is the book for you.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. The dialog and relationships between characters felt strange and unnatural. Hannah, the main character, is wildly unhinged and unlikeable. She is a writer and graduate student with bipolar disorder, who is also an alcoholic and largely goes unmedicated. The story is told from her POV only, and is a bit all over the place. You are left wondering if any of it really happened. It's a weird read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the ARC.

Thank you NetGalley for the early access!

This book had me thinking about so many scenarios.. At times I couldn’t figure out what was going on and there were so many stories going on at once. The obsession was a little too intense for me. And the book as a whole was just too slow and drawn out for me to really enjoy it.

Thank you Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley! I am always happy to review a book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Wow this was dark......and I love dark and twisted! The writing was intoxicating and absolutely sent shivers down my spine. I never enjoy reading or giving reviews that are just repeats of the summary on the back of the book jacket. I love sharing the feeling a book gives me, and the feeling this book gave me was delightfully awful. The twists, the paranoia, the suspense! It was very well written.

4/5

Holly Collins

So, a young postgraduate student is kidnapped by a dubious boyfriend. She has shot and killed her friend, she is told. They have to go into hiding, he tells her. Deep in the countryside in an abandoned chalet.

The action then switches between the present, and past events leading up to the murder. It soon becomes clear that for the narrator. Hannah Silver, the stakes are high. She wants to study creative writing, and open herself to tough critiques. She receives no funding, as all available money has gone to her classmate, the rich and sophisticated Justine. She wants to be liked by her classmates, but perhaps does not quite feel equal to them. She can't quite afford the chic clothes of Justine, but desperately seeks to emulate her.

All that could be enough to drive a vulnerable individual to possible breakdown, and unfortunately, Hannah has broken down before. She is bipolar.

The writer is especially accurate in describing what it is like to be manic, and the dangerous situations this leads to. It all rings horribly true, as does Hannah's deteriorating state, helped by a prédilection towards alcoholism too, and the trouble she gets into. She loses the respect of most of her friends, as well as of members of the staff. And there are accusations of theft, and waking up with bruised hands and face. She starts taking shooting lessons. Just in case.

However, rehab offers Hannah some possibility of redemption, as she chooses an a cohort to work with her, and her issues, the cohort rising beautifully to the occasion. Until she is kidnapped.

So did she do it? This is the main question Hannah has to find out for herself, as she face the truth about herself - and her classmates.

As already remarked, this book's greatest strength is on depicting what it must be like to experience suffering such a severe mental illness first hand. The post-graduate life for aspiring creatives did bring somewhat distasteful reminders of the competitiveness and back-biting of that kind of life, but that too seemed true to real life. The comments about unreliable narrators seemed a little too clever within the context of the tough situations Hannah is in, but certainly hints at what Hannah needs to do to gdt to the truth of what really happened.

The novel is possibly a little slow to get going, but the plot thickens in a pretty satisfactory way towards the end.

“There are three people I suspect of killing her, and I’m one of them.” Last One Seen is a wild, unsettling dive into obsession, mania, and memory. The story follows Hannah, an MFA student whose world spirals under the influence of the magnetic Justine. Now, she’s fleeing the scene of Justine’s murder — unsure if she’s the one who did it.

This isn’t quite a thriller, but it is a gripping, character-driven ride. The dual timeline works really well, and the short chapters keep things moving. Hannah’s unravelling is so well done that you fully buy into her paranoia. But some elements didn’t land — her lack of fear toward the end when Alex was still believed to be alive really undercut what should have been a crucial moment of tension. The subplot with her neighbour felt unnecessary, and Leroy was more of a caricature than a real character.

That said, I found myself enjoying this more as it went along. It’s a solid read that could have been great with a few tweaks, but it still lingers after the last page.

I’ll be sharing this review (or similar) on IG: @amiedaniellebooks

digital arc was provided by Netgalley and the publisher

Last One Seen is definitely an interesting thriller. The story revolves around a mentally unhealthy Hannah who tries so hard to befriend an important fellow grad student, Justine. Fast forward some months later, Justine is dead, and Hannah is on the run with Eli, Justine's ex, who says that Hannah, in one of her episodes, shoot Justine. Hannah has no recollection, and should she believe Eli?

Calling it a thriller is a bit... incorrect. Most of the book, 95% of it, is a drama between Hannah and Justine, Hannah vs everyone else, and Hannah vs Hannah. Hannah isn't likeable and her desperate attempt to justify and explain everything backfires so hard it made me catch a secondhand embarrassment. However, that does mean than Kanner did a great job in portraying Hannah. Reading this made me glad I didn't continue my pursue in MFA, to be honest.

This book kept me intrigued enough to keep reading. There were times when I laughed out loud and there were times I was like "wait, what?"
I like a book that can do that for me. Hannah is suffering from bipolar and takes medications to keep her mood on an even keel. I
didn't like when her meds were manipulated by herself or someone else and it made me nervous about what kind of trouble she was going to get herself into during those times. She was a very relatable college-aged young woman but a very unreliable story teller. I really liked this book, but for the life of me I'm still wondering about the ending.
Read this book. I've given it 4 Stars

Thank you to Net Galley, the author and the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC in advance of publication for my honest review

This so twisty you’ll never see anything coming. Talk about an unreliable narrator!! This story was a WILD ride. Hannah is a grad student who is…struggling. She meets and becomes immediately drawn to Justine, another student in the program, and things start to get messy. Told in dual timelines (now & then) this story is a fast paced ride that keeps you guessing. Who do you trust when it feels like your own mind betrays you? Who do you believe? What lengths would you go to to stay in a fricking grad program?? (yes anyone could have just transferred but there’s no story if that had happened) Full of drama, lies, drinking, plotting, and more, Last One Seen keeps you questioning even after the very end.

Thank you Netgally & the publisher for this e-ARC.

The start of this book was a little bit chaotic for me but after getting my head into it, I loved the writing style. It became a real page turner and I was never sure how the protagonist would react.
A great book that I devoured in 2 days.
Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC in advance of publication. I’d definitely recommend if you love a good fast paced thriller.

I received an eARC from NetGalley

This book had me in a whirlwind. At times I couldn’t figure out what was going on. It seemed there was so many stories going on at once. The obsession with one person was a bit much. When the story line started to unfold, it seemed the book was just getting towards the end. For me, it took a while to pick up the pace and just too much going on to completely follow through.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing me with an eARC of Last One Seen in exchange for my honest review!

This is quite the psychological tale that pulls me into Hannah's dark interior, keeping me wondering what's truly happening with her and the reality she exists in. This is impacted greatly by her alcoholism and her bipolar disorder (which is exacerbated by her resistance to medication), and the layers that these elements add to fleshing out her inner space further enthrall me. The dual-timeline trope is additionally something that this book deploys, and I find it to be effective here, pacing out the information and maintaining a consistent curiosity in me over the past and the present of Hannah's life. What does hold me back from feeling more strongly on this novel is that the third act, after all the buildup we've spent with a sympathetic and unreliable narrator like Hannah, ties up the threads in a manner that hits me more formulaically than I'd expected it to. It's not like the endings that I've seen from a few other thrillers where they truly managed to deliver all the twists and turns, where they strike all the emotions in just the right way. No, the third act for Last One Seen is perfectly decent, but it feels like it could have strived for something higher.

Overall, I'm officially rating Last One Seen 3.75 out of 5 stars, which I'm rounding up to 4 stars. I'll keep an eye out for more of Rebecca Kanner's work.