'The Last Thing He Told Me'

      

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave was our online book club choice for February.  It was fast paced and well written. I couldn’t put it down and finished it in less than 4 hours.

I really liked it and thought there was great character development, particularly with the lead character Hannah Hall.   Her insight into step-parenting and teenagers was pretty good, considering she was thrown into that role via marriage.

Overall, most of us really liked the book with three of us giving it a 4.5, one a 4 and the one who picked it a 3.5, for an overall rating of 4.2.

      

 There were a few things that were perhaps a bit unbelievable, and a few questions left unanswered.     I would have liked to know what Owen/Ethan did that was hinted at but never spoken of.  What about Ethan’s family? 

Grady, the Texas marshall was a bit sketchy, and we don’t know if that was fully developed or not.  Several of us thought there were some pretty good quotes in the book.  Hannah gets a lot thrown at her for a relatively new family member, and she takes things in stride.  Even finding out there was a dark side to her husband she never wavered. One line she said was:   We accept them if we are strong enough. Or we accept them enough to not let the bad parts become the entire story.

I would recommend reading this book. It is slated to become a movie with Jennifer Garner as the lead. As an aside, my neighbor ordered The last thing he told me from Amazon. She told me she finished it in a few minutes--I was impressed. 

      

It arrived, and it was an empty journal with the same name,

      

so make sure what you are ordering. I got mine from the library!

I may have slowed down a bit in my reading, but I did read ahead for both book clubs, but will discuss those books next month.  In our other book club we read The Vapors, which I did enjoy.  I was looking for some more authors to follow and came across Archer Mayor—the first in the series Open Season was great and very clever.  I also read two Deborah Crombie books, and have enjoyed them.  I also read a thriller Van Ops: The Lost Power. I thought the story line was good, but the writing was amateurish with too much harlequin romance thrown in.  I also read The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen. I thoroughly enjoyed the Venice storyline, and relived my trip there through the descriptions, but the storyline was weak and predictable.  I am in the middle of the Midnight Library by Matt Haig, which many have raved about. So far, I am not thrilled, and I don’t really like any of the characters except the librarian. Maybe that will change.  Interesting premise, but I don’t really get the rave reviews yet.  What are you reading?