REVIEW: The Last Post by Renee Carlino

OUR REVIEW:

When I think about The Last Post, I think about Laya and Micah being in this bubble of grief, and longing, with a sense of hope encircling them. These two characters were, as all of the characters I’ve read from Renee Carlino are, quirky and interesting and a lot in their heads. These two in particular seemed to live more in their heads than in the world—the world seems to be too much many times and so a lot of the novel was them backing away, pondering and working through things and then trying to venture out into life again. Understandable for Laya and a little harder for me to figure out when it came to Micah. 

Laya was working through tragedy and grief and a sense of being doomed to losing those she loved. She felt so lonely to me and I just wanted to hug her and show her some happiness. Micah, on the other hand, was harder for me to grasp. He was going through that mid-20s crisis of finding himself and trying to find his space in the world—the one that felt like a life he wanted to live and that made him relatable. It was the way he engaged with Laya that I found so strange. I couldn’t understand why he was so unaware of how bizarre his good intentions were. 

Their relationship was also something unconventional and I can’t quite put my finger on what made it feel a little unusually disconnected? I don’t know. I think I was trying to see how they worked. What he felt for her seemed so deep so soon and I don’t think I truly understood what triggered it other than her beauty and his curiosity.If I were Laya I would’ve been a little freaked out by Micah. And if I were Micah I maybe would've tried alternate ways to express my feelings, earlier, rather than scare her by using her posts as a reference point??? 

These two had a lot of stops and starts before it seemed to click and it was in those in betweens that they both started understanding themselves and each other better. It made the ending, which really seemed like their beginning, sweet and earned because their path to getting there was so bumpy.

So to end this rambling weird review, I’ll say that this pair has got to be one of the most unusual pairings I’ve read —not because either is so strange or bizarre—but it’s the way they worked that was unusual and interesting. It’s unlike any other love story I’ve read. There are a lot of spaces between their meeting and their ending that I’d love to know more and understand them better, but maybe that wasn’t the point. Maybe the point was to see that on their own, and together, they figured some things out—one being that them being together was way better than being apart. 

I know these will be characters, like all of Renee Carlino's characters,I won’t forget and will wonder about them for a long time. 

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SYNOPSIS:

In this evocative and poignant novel from the USA TODAY bestselling author of Blind Kiss and Wish You Were Here, a young widow in the midst of grieving her late husband through Facebook posts learns to heal and fall in love again.

“See you on the other side.”

Laya Marston’s husband, Cameron, a daredevil enthusiast, always said this before heading off on his next adventure. He was the complete opposite of her, ready and willing to dive off a cliff-face, or parachute across a canyon—and Laya loved him for it. But she was different: pragmatic, regimented, devoted to her career and to supporting Cameron from the sidelines of his death-defying feats.

Opposites attract, right?

But when Cameron dies suddenly and tragically, all the stages of grief go out the window. Laya becomes lost in denial, living in the delusion that Cameron will come back to her. She begins posting on his Facebook page, reminiscing about their life together, and imagining new adventures for the two of them.

Micah Evans, a young and handsome architect at Laya’s father’s firm, is also stuck––paralyzed by the banal details of his career, his friendships, and his love life. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, only that there is someone out there who can bring energy and spirit to the humdrum of his life.

When Micah discovers Laya’s tragic and bizarre Facebook posts, he’s determined to show Laya her life is still worth living. Leaving her anonymous gifts and notes, trying to recreate the sense of adventure she once shared with her late husband, Micah finds a new passion watching Laya come out of the darkness. And Laya finds a new joy in the experiences Micah has created for her.

But for Laya, letting another man in still feels like a betrayal to her late husband. Even though Micah may be everything she could wish for, she wonders if she deserves to find happiness again.

Written with Renée Carlino’s signature “tender and satisfying” (Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Maybe in Another Life) prose, this warm and compassionate novel shows us how powerful the courage to love and live again truly is.