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Have you ever wondered what life is like after a nuclear war? The Last will provide you with a glimpse of one those perspectives. But we all have our own expectations, I believe, of what things would look like.
However, I enjoyed the questions this book made me ask about myself. Comparing my own values and ideals against how the characters in this book behaved and the choices they made.
What if you were one of the last people on earth?
The Last is a thriller written from the first-person vantage of one of the survivors as he makes a record of what happened and everyone’s story about who they are. But in the midst of the end-of-the-world nuclear attack that leaves only twenty people at this remote hotel in Switzerland, we quickly see how dark things can get. Especially when the survivors find the body of a dead girl in one of their water tanks. Tensions rise and people can’t help but blame one another.
Especially as other survivors make appearances in the surrounding area and they’re not as civil as those in the hotel.
The thriller aspect of this story was fascinating. But what really grabbed my attention all the way through was the evaluative process it allowed me in observing Jameson’s perspective on how people might behave when it seems as though everything of the world we know – is gone.
Each character provided a balance to the others. I’m not so sure it would ever be this perfect in a real situation, but it did make for a compelling cast. People from all over the world all happened to be together in this hotel when tragedy struck.
Even more interesting though were all the little things you pick up in the story. Things you might want to consider keeping stored in the back of your mind just in case you ever find yourself in this situation. For example, having a stash of toothbrushes or soap. I don’t know many people that ever have extra of those kinds of things.
Another thing this story will have you doing – paying attention to the things going on around you. How people are behaving and who, if any, is a possible threat to you now that there’s not much separating people from one another. No one is any better off than anyone else when the world comes to an end like this.
Dystopian novels are amazing to read because they really get you thinking about things bigger than yourself. This particular story could have used some more of a human element – and in that I mean showing a connection between people. This was one thing that was glaringly obvious in that people were depicted as being at a state of desperation that everyone was closed off from one another. While I would expect people to be displayed as guarded and weary of letting others in that are essentially complete strangers, but these characters were in a way really cold to one another.
Adventures in Literature 