5.20.2020 | Wednesday

The Last Conversation

category: Book Reviews
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The Last Conversationtitle: The Last Conversation
author: Paul Tremblay
series: Forward
published: 17 September 2019
publisher: Amazon Original Stories
genre(s): sci fi
pages: 56
source: Kindle Unlimited
format: eBook
buy/shelve it: Amazon | Goodreads

rating: five-stars | series rating: five-stars

the blurb

What’s more frightening: Not knowing who you are? Or finding out? A Bram Stoker Award–winning author explores the answer in a chilling story about identity and human consciousness.

Imagine you’ve woken up in an unfamiliar room with no memory of who you are, how you got there, or where you were before. All you have is the disconnected voice of an attentive caretaker. Dr. Kuhn is there to help you—physically, emotionally, and psychologically. She’ll help you remember everything. She’ll make sure you reclaim your lost identity. Now answer one question: Are you sure you want to?

Paul Tremblay’s The Last Conversation is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.


my review

The Last Conversation was an absolutely chilling read! It is narrated in the second person, as if the narrator is telling the story to himself. Somehow, the use of this perspective made it even more eerie and unsettling. For most of the book, the reader is kept largely in the dark, wondering where it’s all going and knowing the destination can be nowhere good.

There are hints along the way, just vague enough that I’m certain readers will have the freedom to imagine it unfolding it different ways. About halfway through, I was positive I knew what was happening, only to discover I was totally wrong.

The ending was a the fruition of a nightmare, not just in the answers to the questions that lead the reader through the story, but it what it all implies for the future. The fact that it all is so easily applicable to our world makes it that much more of a nightmare!

my recommendation

While the book is definitely science fiction, it is set in a post-apocalyptic word, and there are elements of horror. If these genres are in your love zone, this is a great book to read.

About Paul Tremblay

Paul Tremblay has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book awards and is the author of The Cabin at the End of the World, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts, the crime novels The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland, and the short story collection, Growing Things and Other Stories.

He is currently a member of the board of directors of the Shirley Jackson Awards, and his essays and short fiction have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly online, and numerous year’s-best anthologies. He has a master’s degree in mathematics and lives outside Boston with his family.

Rating Report
plot
five-stars
characters
four-half-stars
writing
four-half-stars
pacing
five-stars
Overall: five-stars
::spread the love::

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