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The Last One A Novel Alexandra Oliva 9781101965085 Books

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The Last One A Novel Alexandra Oliva 9781101965085 Books

I love reality TV. I love it. So obviously when I read the synopsis of debut novel, The Last One, I had no choice but to read it. And it didn't hurt that it was compared to Station Eleven. Zoo joins a show called In The Dark, which offers a million dollar prize to whoever wins. And how do you win? You have to be the last person standing. The only way contestants are disqualified are if they say the phrase "ad tenebras dedi" and opt to quit themselves. None of them have any idea what the show has in store for them.

The book jumps between different perspectives every chapter, which I generally find fun to read, as I did here. Sometimes we have Zoo, our main character's perspective starting mid-show in the midst of the solo challenge. Then we'll have the editor's perspective, which is pretty much just an omniscient look at the show, with some minor Zoo-bias because he seems to favor her, that starts from the beginning of filming. And every once in a while we get to see some Reddit-like comments about the show's episodes. What the viewers find interesting about the show is that it's almost aired live. Episodes air around a week after the events take place. And the show has an ENORMOUS budget. The contestants do all sorts of interesting, staged challenges, but they've always been pretty overtly staged. Once the solo challenge begins, Zoo is able to justify being alone for so long and having so much territory to hike without seeing anybody because this is where the big budget must have gone. Right?

This novel is about both the lengths a person will go to to survive, and the lengths they'll go to to delude themselves. To try to justify their choices to themselves. And it's especially interesting to look at that in the context of a reality TV show, where everything can be justified because it's part of "the game." That's the trap Zoo falls into as things get worse and worse for her. Attacked by a rabid animal? It must have been a challenge, what does the producer expect her to do? How would the audience expect her to behave? Meet a random guy who talks about a sickness that killed his whole neighborhood? Maybe he's an actor or the cameraman, so she has to act a certain way in response to his story. And this pattern of justifying her behavior parallels how she's dealt with some choices in her real life, in the past and very recently.

A little bit of a slow burn, The Last One has a ton of interesting ideas but not really the pacing of a thriller. The challenges aren't quite exciting enough (and for good reason, because it's a super-staged survival show) and Zoo spends a lot of her time alone thinking very repetitive thoughts. I still really wanted to know how it was going to come together, though, and I'm glad I stayed with it. I absolutely raced through the last 100 pages or so as the stakes got higher and some s*** went down. The emotional development of Zoo and the slow reveal of her story and her fate had me gasping and tearing up and desperate for more. Many tears were shed at the end, and I'm not going to say what kind they were. You'll have to read and find out if any Latin falls from the mouth of Zoo. And maybe you'll find out what her actual name is too.


Tags : The Last One: A Novel [Alexandra Oliva] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>Survival is the name of the game as the line blurs between reality TV and reality itself in Alexandra Oliva’s fast-paced novel of suspense.</b> 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 their endurance. While they are out there,Alexandra Oliva,The Last One: A Novel,Ballantine Books,1101965088,Thrillers - Psychological,FICTION Suspense,Psychological fiction,Psychological fiction.,Reality television programs,Reality television programs;Fiction.,Single women,Single women;Fiction.,Survival,Thrillers (Fiction),Wilderness survival,AMERICAN MYSTERY & SUSPENSE FICTION,FICTION Thrillers Psychological,Fiction,Fiction - Espionage Thriller,Fiction Literary,Fiction Science Fiction Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic,Fiction Thrillers Suspense,Fiction-Suspense,FictionLiterary,GENERAL,General Adult,Literary,MysterySuspense,Science Fiction - Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic,Thrillers - Suspense,United States

The Last One A Novel Alexandra Oliva 9781101965085 Books Reviews

Well, I fell for the premise of our heroine being the only one to survive being a contestant on a reality show, only for her to realize at the very end that the world as she knew it was gone and reality had really set in. I lost interest with all the named contestants and their challenges and before long everyone featured in the storyline started to get on my nerves. I read through this book as fast as I could and when I reached the final page I realized that I could put this book into a pile to donate to a book sale and not suffer for it. Now to move on to my next book, hopefully to find the excitement that I found lacking in The Last One.
This book is really two stories - one about a wilderness survival reality show and one about an apocalyptic event which seems to have coincided with the show.

The part about the reality show was fascinating! Wow - I wondered if the author was on such a show or knows someone involved. It was so interesting to learn how contestants dealt with the cameras and how situations were manipulated to present certain contestants in a positive or negative light for viewers.

The show contestants were called by their occupations.....Trapper, Waitress, Zoo, Rancher, Carpenter Girl, etc. This helps the reader keep them all separate and sort of gives the reader expectations of their abilities. I did think it would have been good to have the folks be not so stereotypical to their occupations....like the waitress be really good at building shelters or something.

The challenges are based on survival scenarios, such as tracking someone, catching food, etc.

BUT...it was very confusing that the chapters went back and forth from the group doing challenges and Zoo off on her own.

And when she is on her own, It's not clear what her destination is, but she comes across some very odd buildings and scenes. Then, she decides to just walk home....seemed very odd!

She does meet someone during her solo trek who she thinks at first is a camera man but later learns more about him that seems impossible. But they do join forces.

To me, it seemed like a book with two very separate stories forced to try to blend. I wasn't interested in the apocalyptic story at all. It was also somewhat frustrating that the story seemed only somewhat resolved at the end.

The author is a very good writer, nonetheless, and that made up for some weaknesses in the plot.
The premise of this book was very interesting and I was so excited to delve into this novel. I was intrigued at the idea of reading a book about reality shows and how they are filmed as they are one of my favorite types of shows to watch. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations. There were a few things about this book that I found extremely frustrating. I felt like the book was a bit wordy and a little muddled as it switched between the present time and the airing of the reality show. I was extremely frustrated at the identification of the characters. Throughout the majority of the book, each contestant was identified by a descriptive name such as "Tracker" or "Asian chic" etc, but in other parts of the book, they were identified by their birth names. However, never in the book that I could find, was there any way to cross reference the birth names with the descriptive names and was extremely frustrated because I didn't know who was the subject of some of the conversations. That, in itself, was enough for me to give this book one less star than it could have gotten.

The book could have read more fluently if it were more focused on the travels during the big solo challenge instead of the small challenges during the filming of the reality show.

For a first book, not a bad start. I would definitely read another of Alexandra Oliva's books because she has amazing potential for the 5 star book.
I love reality TV. I love it. So obviously when I read the synopsis of debut novel, The Last One, I had no choice but to read it. And it didn't hurt that it was compared to Station Eleven. Zoo joins a show called In The Dark, which offers a million dollar prize to whoever wins. And how do you win? You have to be the last person standing. The only way contestants are disqualified are if they say the phrase "ad tenebras dedi" and opt to quit themselves. None of them have any idea what the show has in store for them.

The book jumps between different perspectives every chapter, which I generally find fun to read, as I did here. Sometimes we have Zoo, our main character's perspective starting mid-show in the midst of the solo challenge. Then we'll have the editor's perspective, which is pretty much just an omniscient look at the show, with some minor Zoo-bias because he seems to favor her, that starts from the beginning of filming. And every once in a while we get to see some Reddit-like comments about the show's episodes. What the viewers find interesting about the show is that it's almost aired live. Episodes air around a week after the events take place. And the show has an ENORMOUS budget. The contestants do all sorts of interesting, staged challenges, but they've always been pretty overtly staged. Once the solo challenge begins, Zoo is able to justify being alone for so long and having so much territory to hike without seeing anybody because this is where the big budget must have gone. Right?

This novel is about both the lengths a person will go to to survive, and the lengths they'll go to to delude themselves. To try to justify their choices to themselves. And it's especially interesting to look at that in the context of a reality TV show, where everything can be justified because it's part of "the game." That's the trap Zoo falls into as things get worse and worse for her. Attacked by a rabid animal? It must have been a challenge, what does the producer expect her to do? How would the audience expect her to behave? Meet a random guy who talks about a sickness that killed his whole neighborhood? Maybe he's an actor or the cameraman, so she has to act a certain way in response to his story. And this pattern of justifying her behavior parallels how she's dealt with some choices in her real life, in the past and very recently.

A little bit of a slow burn, The Last One has a ton of interesting ideas but not really the pacing of a thriller. The challenges aren't quite exciting enough (and for good reason, because it's a super-staged survival show) and Zoo spends a lot of her time alone thinking very repetitive thoughts. I still really wanted to know how it was going to come together, though, and I'm glad I stayed with it. I absolutely raced through the last 100 pages or so as the stakes got higher and some s*** went down. The emotional development of Zoo and the slow reveal of her story and her fate had me gasping and tearing up and desperate for more. Many tears were shed at the end, and I'm not going to say what kind they were. You'll have to read and find out if any Latin falls from the mouth of Zoo. And maybe you'll find out what her actual name is too.