I can never resist a wedding thriller. Call me a romantic, but nothing sets my heart aflutter quite like the prospect of murder and mayhem on that special day. So I went into The Last One at the Wedding with high expectations. But unfortunately, it disappointed from pretty much beginning to end.
Frank hasn't spoken to his daughter Maggie in three years. So when he gets a phone call from her, he's rightfully thrilled. And he's even more so when he hears that she's getting married and wants him to walk her down the aisle. But when Frank arrives at the three-day wedding extravaganza, he starts to realize that all is not right.
The story is told from Frank's perspective, and honestly, probably my biggest problem is that I just never connected with him. While I don't always have to love and be chummy chummy with all my protagonists, I do have to understand them. And I just couldn't get there with Frank.
His paranoia reaches the level of making my eyes roll with practically every thought and every sentence. Sure, it eventually turns out that his paranoia is justified, for how else would we even have a story? But it didn't make reading his perspective any easier or any more fun.
But it's more than that. For some reason, Frank came off as extremely unlikable. Now a lot of authors write unlikable characters, and they have no bearing or may even add to my enjoyment of the story. But in this case, I have the uncomfortable feeling that Jason Rekulak may have accidentally made Frank unlikable, that he thought he was crafting a personable guy and instead created a weird and bumbling one.
There were so many moments when Frank would make an observation in his head or open his mouth to say something, and I would just cringe so hard. Like he saw a couple where the man is old and the woman is young and called them "unnatural, a freakish mutation of human biology." It felt so unnecessary and inappropriate, and I winced in embarrassment for him. And it was like this the whole way through.
I tell you, it's hard to enjoy a story when you're wincing and cringing at the main character's every thought. I should've been focused on the thrills, but instead I was mired in second-hand embarrassment.
But it wasn't just Frank. I felt like all the characters were slightly off, doing and saying things that no actual person would do and say in those situations. It's clear that each interaction was there to further a specific point in the plot line and they were shoehorned in to achieve that, no matter how awkward the result may be.
As for the twists, they were fine, although with the weird characterizations, it made it hard for me to really buy in to them. It felt like characters were just randomly assigned roles in the reveal, and when the time came, their personalities were bent and changed to further that goal.
So when we finally reached the end of the book, I understandably breathed a sigh of relief. But then I turned the page and there was a whole nother section left? I realize now that this is Rekulak's modus operandi. He likes to end his thrillers with a nice leisurely wrap-up, just to spell out in long form how everything works out for everyone, kind of like a HEA for thrillers. But there's a reason no one does them. I tolerated it for Hidden Pictures because I loved that story so much, but here, it just made a mediocre tale feel even longer.
Readaroo Rating: 2 stars
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