 Outstanding blend of supernatural, teen angst and hard rock, HELL YEAH!!!! Young Adult (YA) novels with a musical theme are notoriously tricky to get right and when you throw in heavy metal it becomes even more difficult to avoid the dreaded devil-horn clichés. Amazingly, Jacqueline West superb Last Things avoids these pitfalls in a gripping tale of a tortured teenage musician who believes his success might be because of a strange conversation he can’t get out of his head. I’m a long-term heavy metal fan and I felt this novel was super convincing in the way it portrayed the band performing on stage and the overall small-town music vibe scene was pitched perfectly. The cover is slightly juvenile and younger readers may well find it rather slow, but teenagers who enjoy music, a strong character driven plot and an unexpected reveal are sure to love it. I certainly did. It had me wondering what the band actually sounded like! Author Jacqueline West should take that as a major compliment. The story is told via two uniquely different first-person narratives in alternating chapters; ‘Thea’ and ‘Anders’, with all the action taking place in the small Minnesota town of Greenwood. Over the last year a heavy-metal band called ‘Last Things’ have had a very successful Friday night residency at the local coffee shop, ‘The Crow’s Nest’, such is the band’s reputation rockers have been travelling from over 200 miles to see the trio play, including music scouts and agents. The band are beautifully portrayed as three young men, with dreams of escaping their small town, until the cracks begin to show after Anders makes a few rash big decisions on his own. In the early part of the novel, such is their popularity, the coffee shop owner asks the band whether they want to play every Saturday night, as well as their usual Friday. They are big news and it is easy for the reader to get carried along by their success. ‘Last Things’, the band, is a three piece with Anders the tortured genius the story focusses upon, with him singing and playing lead guitar. The eighteen-year-old is ably backed up by Patrick on drums and Jezz on bass. Although they are an incredibly tight unit, it is Anders who is the real star, even if he does not want to be, and this is where the friction with the bandmates begins. The rest of the time Anders is anonymous and his high school persona is completely different from the charismatic frontman which captivates the live crowd week in and week out and even has the cutest girl in school, Frankie Lynde, chasing him down. The music scenes with Anders truly sizzle, equally his obsession with improving his guitar style and the comedown when the gig is over is completely convincing when he is alone brooding in his bedroom. Angsty teen readers are going to lap this stuff up! Where’s the supernatural angle you might ask? Anders believes, even if he practices for hours every day, he plays better than he should. He believes something has happened to make him this good and feels that deep down he is a cheat and does not deserve this success. This was a very clever part of the story and it remains cleverly shrouded for the majority of the novel. I’m not sure how familiar today’s YA audience are with the famous stories from the past, of selling your soul for success, but this is a very clever riff and original spin on that age-old story. Or is it? That’s all part of the fun. Anders is an exceptionally well-rounded character who has a complex and believable relationship with his parents; his father resents the fact that the coffeeshop do not pay the band for their gigs, but this is more to do with Anders strangeness rather than the coffeeshop being stingy. Throw in the family’s lack of finances and Anders guilt over his pricy guitar lessons, you will wonder why the boy seems intent on self-sabotage even when new songs come to him quicker than he can write them down, or the rest of the band can learn to play. Even he cannot understand where the songs come from and spends more time with his guitar (which he calls ‘Yvonne’) rather than the gorgeous Frankie. Yup, this boy has problems! The narrative contrast with Thea, also known as ‘Stalker Girl’ is striking. She loves Ander’s music and has a weird obsession with him, almost like she is watching over or protecting him. This took the book in a very cool direction, as the reader is never quite sure whether she is off-her-head or if there is something stranger going on, which she implies with comments like; “I watch the woods. They’re always closer than you think” and her obsession with the encroaching forest. This girl even lurks in the forest when Anders is home and has her own complicated family background. Last Things takes its time and I thought the pacing was great and the supernatural angle was revealed deliciously slowly bringing Anders and Thea together. There was much to enjoy in this excellent YA novel and I enjoyed the endnote in which the author implied how she felt her band actually sounded like. The blend of atmosphere, the music vibe, the subtle supernatural approach and a host of engaging characters made this one of the best YA supernatural thrillers I have read in a while. Make sure you’re listening to Rage Against The Machine if you’re checking out this book!  LAST THINGS BY JACQUELINE WEST New York Times-bestselling author Jacqueline West captivates readers with a dark, hypnotic story about the cost of talent--and the evil that lurks just out of sight. Fans of Holly Black and Victoria Schwab will be mesmerized by this gorgeous, magnetic novel. High school senior Anders Thorson is unusually gifted. His band, Last Things, is legendary in their northern Minnesota hometown. With guitar skills that would amaze even if he weren't only eighteen, Anders is the focus of head-turning admiration. And Thea Malcom, a newcomer to the insular town, is one of his admirers. Thea seems to turn up everywhere Anders goes: gigs at the local coffeehouse, guitar lessons, even in the woods near Anders's home. When strange things start happening to Anders, blame immediately falls on Thea. But is she trying to hurt him? Or save him? Can he trust a girl who doesn't seem to know the difference between dreams and reality? And how much are they both willing to sacrifice to get what they want? Told from Anders's and Thea's dual points of view, this exquisitely crafted novel is full of unexpected twists and is for fans of Holly Black's The Darkest Part of the Forest and Melissa Albert's The Hazel Wood. "Everything I love in a book."--Victoria Schwab, author of #1 New York Times bestseller This Savage Song "The kind of taut, atmospheric thriller that gets your heart racing and sets your imagination on fire. Sensational."--Claire Legrand, New York Times-bestselling author of Furyborn   |
Archives
April 2023
|
RSS Feed
|
|