Last to Leave the Room

This is my third read by Starling, and I think this might be my favorite of hers. Her prose is crisply elegant, her characters are wonderfully flawed and believable, and the choices she makes in plotting sometimes leave me breathless, especially in how she translates our familiar world in a way that's just off-kilter enough to make it both familiar and terrifying. And this book in particular felt perfectly conceived. Very much in the sci-fi-horror realm, it starts out with kind of quiet/creepy sci-fi vibes, and then as it progresses, gets darker and darker. Two nights in a row, I had to put it down because I was so thoroughly creeped out and worried it would give me nightmares if I kept going. Through the last fifty pages, I couldn't show more stop turning pages, and yet was terrified of what I was moving toward. So, all told: definitely recommended!

Also, ignore the weird red and black cat cover on the paperback edition, which I find incredibly confusion. The hardback cover is more fitting. The red/black cover with the mad cat has nothing to do with the book as far as I can tell and is a super-weird choice. I mention it because it might well have scared me off if I'd seen that cover first! And yet, the author does such a lovely job of writing the cat in this book (who very much does NOT fit the cover picture!). show less

I had a fantastic time with this book! I really liked The Death of Jane Lawrence when I read it last year so I was eager to give this book a try and I liked this book just as much. I was hooked by this story from the beginning and was curious about what might be happening to Dr. Rivers. I love that the story left me questioning everything and I found it to be a very entertaining read.

The city of San Siroco is sinking and Dr. Tamsin Rivers is trying to figure out why. Her basement seems to be sinking even more than the rest of the city and a mysterious door has appeared. When she meets her doppelgänger, she does not know what to think but things start to go horribly wrong as they spend more time together. I had a great time trying to show more figure out how everything fit together. The story kept me guessing until the very end with plenty of twists and turns along the way, including a few really big surprises.

I listened to the audiobook and thought that Xe Sands did an amazing job with this story. I really felt like I was there with the characters experiencing this story. I thought that she did a fantastic job of bringing these characters to life by adding just the right amount of emotion to her reading. I know that her performance added to my enjoyment of this story.

I would recommend this book to others. I found this to be a rather unique story that blended the genres of horror, science fiction, and thriller quite nicely. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more of this author’s work in the future.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Macmillan Audio and St. Martin’s Press. show less

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Last to Leave the Room is a new novel of genre-busting speculative horror from Caitlin Starling, the acclaimed author of The Death of Jane Lawrence.

The city of San Siroco is sinking. The basement belonging to Dr. Tamsin Rivers, the arrogant, selfish head of the research team assigned to find the source of the subsidence, is sinking faster.

As Tamsin grows obsessed with the distorting dimensions of the room at the bottom of the stairs, she finds a door that didn’t exist before—and one night, it opens to reveal an exact physical copy of her. This doppelgänger is sweet and biddable where Tamsin is calculating and cruel. It appears fully, terribly human, passing every test Tamsin can devise. But show more the longer the double exists, the more Tamsin begins to forget pieces of her life, to lose track of time, to grow terrified of the outside world.

With her employer growing increasingly suspicious, Tamsin must try to hold herself together long enough to figure out what her double wants from her, and just where the mysterious door leads to.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU. CW: body horror

My Review: What worked for me: Tamsin's doppelgänger discovery and subsequent action. What didn't work for me: the first third of the book's quotidian tedium, and the underused plot-point of the sinking city. Too much of one, too little of the other; while I, on balance, liked the read just fine, I put it down for a year at the 15% mark, and only picked it up because someone I trust told me I should. He was correct.

But I could've just left it very easily. Tighter beginning without some stuff I never felt I needed anyway would serve the really good bits better.

St. Martin's Press expects $11.99 from you. I'd say it's a perfect library borrow. show less

The first part of this book is filled with techno-jargon and office intrigue, but if you are patient and keep with it for about 100 pages you'll get into the meat of the story. The secret science project that the main protagonist, Tamsin, is involved in is never really clear, only the unwanted side-effects. One of these is the appearance of doppelgängers. Naturally these must be dealt with, but the author's desire to keep things mysterious also keeps things muddled and the ending really doesn't pay off.

I'm giving this very generously 3*** in recognition that a lot of other readers might like it more than I do. If you're thing is scifi with a combo of horror and thriller, you'll probably like it. Personally, it's not my cuppa and I'll probably not go on to the author's other books. It was a quick Kindle read.

The ending, I might add, was disappointingly inconclusive, perhaps as a set-up for a sequel. Again, it's a sequel I won't be reading, but best wishes to a competent writer and to her admirers.

This is going to be a soft DNF. The concept is incredibly interesting. I just found the actual writing of it to be very dry? I understand the main character is not the most likable person but I still wasn't engaged with Prime either.

So much happens without the story actually progressing anywhere.

I was and still am most interested in the strange relationship between the protagonist and her boss? And I read over 250 pages to see if I could get more info on what they aren, or were. I know it's probably somewhat answered in the end. But I've got to put it down for now.