The Last Thing He Told Me: Was a Useless Crock of Shit

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
Genres: Mystery/Thriller
Goodreads

The instant #1 New York Times bestselling mystery and Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick that’s captivated more than a million readers about a woman searching for the truth about her husband’s disappearance…at any cost.

Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers: Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.

As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered; as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss; as a US Marshal and FBI agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.

Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth, together. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they are also building a new future. One neither Hannah nor Bailey could have anticipated.

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Oh, man. Please, don’t hate me. I’m not thrilled about having so many low rated reads this year, either. But here I am, with another whatever read of 2023.

This book started off promising. The mystery of where the father ran off to and why intrigued me enough to dive right into the audiobook. But as time went on, the interest started to wane.

This was due to two main reasons.

1. The MC – Hannah was unbearable. I don’t know why specifically but the tone of her character was immature. Her reactions were always exaggerated, her reasoning flawed, and her parenting skills entirely lacking. It didn’t help that her inner monologues were so repetitive – if you aren’t sure of the task her husband has given her, don’t worry, you’ll be reminded 500 times per chapter that she needs to protect her stepdaughter. Which she utterly fails at by gallivanting off to a different state because of a hunch…with said stepdaughter she’s supposed to protect. Then has complete paranoia-induced meltdowns when something slightly strange happens – which seem so out of place and makes her seem unstable.
2. The true lack of direction from the father – This one is hard to explain without spoilers, but look, if the father was in the situation he was in, wouldn’t he have had a more thorough plan? It seemed half-assed. Second thought. Whipped up in a jiff. It wasn’t “realistic“, whatever that word might mean in regard to this story. How, as a father with all that you know, do you only give your wife – who knows nothing of your past – a single note saying, “Protect her” and think “yeah, that’s good, she’ll understand what to do and not question or search for things at all. Ok bye!“

If you don’t like the MC or the premise of the plot, well the story just kind of falls apart (obviously) – and that’s what happened for this book with me.

The only thing I did like was the progression of the relationship between stepmom and stepdaughter. While it could be deemed as cliche, I enjoyed how much their relationship grew by the end of the novel.

Overall, I didn’t hate this book, despite the title and content of this review. It’s a decent mystery if you can set aside the absolute lack of common sense from the characters. I mean, the teenage daughter was the most realistic and likable one, ironically. But if you need a bit of common sense and not high-level emotions in your mysteries, I don’t recommend this one.

Please enjoy this snippet of a review I found on Goodreads from Katie Akins of this book (it gave me a chuckle):

“As soon as I cracked open The Last Thing He Told Me, a bird pooped in it.
Now, as far as I know, birds can’t read, but I’m not Snow White. And so, rather than heed the obvious warning from my avian brethren, I snapped a picture for social media, wrote a quippy caption, and after making sure the bird didn’t poop in my wine, I read it anyway. Turns out birds can read, and never again will I doubt their taste in literature.”