Synopsis

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.

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, 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 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 be either 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.

Review

I saw this book while I was at BEA and almost picked it up but didn’t. Something brought it my attention again and I got a copy from Netgalley. I am so glad that I did! This story had me on the edge of my seat and I could not put the book down. It was like Survivor meets Hunger Games.

There are 12 people that agree to do this reality TV show and they had to survive out in the wild with little help from modern technology. What they don’t know is that the winner is the “last man standing”. Each of the contestants are doing this for a myriad of reasons and it isn’t all about the money. Each one has their own skill set/strengths and weaknesses and at times they band together and other times it is each man for itself. you will find that you like and hate various characters and some you will just shake your head – like the one they call the Exorcist since he claimed he exorcised demons from people.

While there are 12 main characters the focus really is on Sam (or Zoo as she is called) and the story does not follow a straight time line, it does jump back and forth in time but that is what held my interest – reading what they went through during the show and what happened to her during a certain point in the show until the end.

I will admit the ending seemed to have stopped abruptly and certain things are not wrapped up…but I’m not going to tell you what, you will have to read the book to find out. Maybe it was left that way for a follow up book? Just a guess on my part but not sure how there could be a sequel.

We give this 5 paws up!

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