28821606Teenagers who speak like the 14 y/o Kelly does in this book are annoying. I was quite irritated with Kelly by the end of the book. It was amusing at first, then it got tiring. You know how young girls have the tendency to recap every event to the very minor detail? ‘I did this, and then I went there and I was like, and then this happened, and then…’ .. and then finally we get to the freaking point. Yes, I’ll admit,  it’s absolutely a case of pot, kettle, black. I can remember some of the shit that I used to say when I was 15+, some of the phrases I used- now, at the age of 29 I blush when I think back on some of the verbal diarrhea I had. Ugh.

Examples, you say? Sure… No. Actually, no, I changed my mind.  Pot, kettle, black. We’ve all been there…

Sarah is in a coma.
Her memory is gone – she doesn’t know how she got there. And she doesn’t know how she might get out.
But then she discovers that her injury wasn’t an accident. And that the assailant hasn’t been caught.
Unable to speak, see or move, Sarah must use every clue that she overhears to piece together her own past.
And work out who it is that keeps coming into her room.
A novel that grips from the very beginning and that will live long in the memory, The Last Thing I Remember is Deborah Bee’s startling debut thriller.

Meet Sarah– locked in a coma. Can hear everything that is being spoken of around her hospital bed. Nurses gossiping, chatting about ‘cheese strings’ or well g-strings. Her parents fussing around her. The doctors explaining what’s going on with Sarah medically.

Meet Kelly– a teenaged girl who befriends Sarah, the new and stunningly beautiful next door neighbor. She’s a typical and very realistic teenager who has her own troubles at school. Turns out the school is ruled by the bullying ‘housing estate’ twats.

The book alternates in between Sarah’s and Kelly’s POVs and, as is typical to a thriller, in this case a contemporary thriller, the pieces are put in place slowly, chapter at a time. What actually happened will be revealed with a nice twist, even though around halfway through I started suspecting the endgame.

The two are unlikely friends at first glance. But Sarah helps Kelly ‘disappear’, to become a ‘nobody’ so that she won’t be noticed by the Horrors that roam the school and empty everyone’s pockets. Kelly helps Sarah in a different way. Maybe come out of her shell a little, enjoy life a little.

The characters are really, truly, quite realistic. It was a bit like watching reality TV. You know one of those ‘999, emergency’ shows, or ’24 hours in A&E’ except the novel’s timeline is 10 days with glances into past and a possible murder investigation.

On the whole the book, for me, was:

  • Frustrating- because I wanted to know quicker. Suspense can be frustrating. Squirmy.
  • Sad- because.. there was some really shitty events. I can’t really say much because I don’t want to give anything away. But I was slightly heartbroken for Sarah.
  • Making me angry. That bitch of a mother of Sarah’s. What a cow!

For lightweights I’d put out a  warning for elements of:

  • bullying
  • abuse
  • feeling locked-in just like Sarah. Quite suffocating.
  • profanity. See word count comments below.
  • I would also say this book is quite provocative. In a sense that it doesn’t filter out what may or may not hurt someone’s feelings about certain subjects.

Word count for ‘fuck’- it goes to infinity and beyond. Kelly has quite the sailor’s mouth.

Word count for ‘like’- takes second place behind ‘fuck’.

My rating- 3***. I liked it. It was very realistic. I did find Kelly’s chapters a bit of a work to read through in the second half of the book.

I won an uncorrected proof copy of this book on a Twitter giveaway. Thanks to Amanda from Chocolate pages, author Deborah Bee and twenty7 Books. Apologies for taking my sweet bloody time to finally read and review.