The Last One by Alexandra Oliva
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Book supplied by Netgalley for an honest review.
There’s not many books, especially debuts, where within the first few pages the quality, the craftsmanship, the attention to detail, makes you realise you’re reading something special. Oliva’s The Last One falls squarely into that category. From the moment Zoo’s voice entered my head in the second section, I was hooked, racing through the book in just a couple of days. Comparisons, not unkindly, will be made to Station Eleven (on genre), and The Night Circus (on style), both of which also blew me away. As with Station Eleven, it’s easy to find fault in the author’s post-apocalyptic world, but that’s not the point. Just lie back and let the quality of the prose, the strength of the voice, wash over you. This is story telling at its best.