THE LAST ONE

Author:  Alexandra Oliva

Genre:  Fiction, Standalone

Published:  2016

Personal Rating:  2/5 (not enjoyable)

Format/Narrator:  Audiobook/
Chamberlain & Zanzarella

Yearly Count:  28

From NetGalley:

She wanted an adventure. She never imagined it would go this far.

It begins with a reality TV show.

Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of endurance. While they are out there, something terrible happens—but how widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it man-made? Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. When one of them—a young woman the show's producers call Zoo—stumbles across the devastation, she can imagine only that it is part of the game.

Alone and disoriented, Zoo is heavy with doubt regarding the life—and husband—she left behind, but she refuses to quit. Staggering countless miles across unfamiliar territory, Zoo must summon all of her survival skills—and learn new ones as she goes.

But as her emotional and physical reserves dwindle, she grasps that the real world might have been altered in terrifying ways—and her ability to parse the charade will either be her triumph or her undoing.

Sophisticated and provocative, The Last One is a novel that forces us to confront the role that media plays in our perception of what is real: how readily we cast our judgments, how easily we are manipulated.

Dour.  That's the first word that comes to mind to describe this book.  I did not enjoy it for a couple of reasons.  One - it was dour.  Two - I think I prefer to watch reality TV shows over listening to all the monotonous descriptions of every little expression or movement of the contestants.  Just blah.

Thoughts of Joy

My thanks go to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing me with the eGalley.