I’m not sure if the ‘welcome back’ is to me or anyone reading this – maybe both. I’ve taken a bit of a break from blogging recently. First of all, I just didn’t want to (and that’s OK) and secondly I’ve just had a lot going on. I’ve barely read this year and I am not getting myself down about it. I will get my reading mojo back when I’m ready.
Pretty much the only book I’ve managed to focus on recently is Bethany Clift’s Last One at the Party. I saw it recommended by Jules Swain on Twitter and bought it immediately with its gorgeous pink sprayed edges. So here’s my short but sweet review, hopefully I’ll be posting more often over the next few months but if I don’t then so be it.
It’s December 2023 and the world as we know it has ended.
The human race has been wiped out by a virus called 6DM (‘Six Days Maximum’ – the longest you’ve got before your body destroys itself).
But somehow, in London, one woman is still alive. A woman who has spent her whole life compromising what she wants, hiding how she feels and desperately trying to fit in. A woman who is entirely unprepared to face a future on her own.
Now, with only an abandoned golden retriever for company, she must travel through burning cities, avoiding rotting corpses and ravenous rats on a final journey to discover if she really is the last surviving person on earth.
And with no one else to live for, who will she become now that she’s completely alone?
Despite the goings-on of the last year, I couldn’t resist this dystopian novel after seeing it recommended on Twitter. When it arrived I threw myself into it and found it utterly absorbing, but it was so raw and emotional that I had a couple of occasions where I had to put it down and step away.
As someone who has thought about what they’d do in an apocalyptical event (I know, it’s a morbid fascination) I found it captivating seeing what the main character decides to do, particularly when they find themselves seemingly the only survivor. I would put money on it that Clift and I could have many in-depth conversations about survival tactics.
This book will make you wince and then make you laugh. It showcases our human need to survive even when survival seems an utterly pointless task; and even then, we are flawed and dysfunctional.
Highly recommended, although if you’re finding the current state of the world tough, maybe put this on your TBR for another day.
I purchased this book myself.
You can support your local bookshop by buying Last One at the Party through them directly, or via Hive or Bookshop.org.
What do you think of Last One at the Party? Will you be reading it? Let me know in the comments below.
Wishing you a wonderfully bookish week,
Roachie's Reviews 
I am glad you enjoyed it! And that you can approach this reading/blogging slump without feeling bad about it. I don’t think I could read a blog without that plot, at least not now…
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