The Last Thing He Told Me

by Laura Dave

Overall: I enjoyed this thriller centered on the relationship between a mother and her teenage stepdaughter a lot more than I anticipated! Hannah and Owen have only been married for a year when Owen disappears, leaving Hannah marooned on their houseboat (or “floating home”) in Sausalito with Owen’s daughter Bailey. The question, “Why did Owen flee?” is soon joined by the even more troubling question, “Who is Owen, exactly?”

Likes: I loved the relationship between Bailey and Hannah. Thrillers don’t often have a female family relationship at their core (or, if they do, often one of the women is missing), and Dave does a great job of making both Hannah and Bailey fully fleshed characters with endearing quirks, prickly bits, faults, and miscommunication. Having a teenager myself, I found Bailey’s hot-then-cold, mostly-off-but-occasionally-on interactions with Hannah right on the money. Often the actions female protagonists take in thrillers are so questionable to me that it impacts my enjoyment of the book, but Hannah’s behavior seemed both understandable and (mostly) reasonable to me. When stuff gets scary, her instinct is to run, which is what I would do! I also enjoy thrillers like this one that build tension and suspense without a lot of violence and gore.

Dislikes: really nothing. But if you like a lot of out-of-left field twists, or you’re looking for a chainsaw-wielding maniac and blood spraying everywhere, this will not be the book for you.

FYI: References to past acts of violence and murder. Death of a spouse. Death of an adult child.