Twelve contestants are sent into the woods with zero knowledge of what to expect. Oliva presents us with a great premise - a reality TV show turned nightmare. It's clever, and yet I found it emotionally distant. It's another dense, wordy, literary post-apocalyptic novel. So if you liked the latter, there's a good chance this book will suit your tastes more. Here’s the problem: this is a good book, but I just didn’t really like it that much.Ĭomparisons between The Last One and Station Eleven are spot on, in my opinion. 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.Ģ 1/2 stars. Staggering countless miles across unfamiliar territory, Zoo must summon all her survival skills-and learn new ones as she goes.īut 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.

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.Īlone and disoriented, Zoo is heavy with doubt regarding the life-and husband-she left behind, but she refuses to quit. While they are out there, something terrible happens-but how widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it human-made? Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of their endurance. 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.

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