THE LAST WITNESS BY CLAIRE MCFALL

1/6/2020

This is a haunting young adult thriller with a killer twist NO reader will see coming! While I wish it was a paced a little faster I can't rate it any lower because of that UNIQUE ending!

Rating: ★★★★
Release Date: January 7, 2020
Genre: Young adult mystery and thriller
Series: None. Complete standalone.
Pages: 272 pages
Format: eBook. ARC.

One year ago she survived...but being the last one standing has consequences.

Heather agrees to go camping with Dougie and his friends because she's desperate to get closer to him, and a secluded beach sounds like the perfect place. But the trip takes a sinister turn that brings Heather's plans to a violent end.

One by one, the group begins to vanish.

A year later, Heather knows she's just lucky to be alive. And now, people are asking for answers, or else she will be the one to take the blame.

A chilling psychological thriller from unflinching and award-winning writer Claire McFall.

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READ MY BOOK REVIEW

Release Date: January 7, 2020
Actual Rating: 4 stars

Young Adult Thriller | Mystery and Suspense

The Last Witness by Claire McFall is a young adult thriller book with a KILLER ENDING! I’m telling you, that ending was so unexpected and GENIUS that I pushed my rating an entire star because of it! I was initially going to give this book 3 stars (which I’ll explain below) but that huge twist at the end changed my mind. Kudos to the author for ending it that way because it was PERFECT. I know many readers are going to be so thrilled with it just like I am.

As I mentioned, this is a young adult thriller . The story revolves around 5 teens who decide to go camping in the wilderness for a friend’s birthday. Things start out as fun and games (there’s drinking and some partying) but quickly descend into a horrifying nightmare when one by one these friends go missing. Claire McFall leaves no breadcrumbs for us to follow and figuring out what happens doesn’t come easily to readers. Were thrown down twisty roads of druids, black magic, and the macabre but nothing is really what it seems. I LOVED THIS. I can’t stand when things are so clear in a thriller and I want that feeling of dread and suspense when reading which is exactly what we get in this book. Don’t go into this book expecting to know what is going to happen because you won’t! Especially when you get to the end and things are so convoluted and twisted that it makes your head spin!

Obviously I enjoyed many facets of this book- the unique and mind blowing ending, the fact that we never really knew what was happening to these teens when they went missing, and the aspects of black magic that seems to be haunting the characters (don’t worry, that’s not a spoiler, just something that takes place in the book). However, there were some things that just didn’t work for me as a reader.

First, the book was SLOW. Normally I can read a book that’s about 250 pages in a day as they are much faster paced than books that are longer. This wasn’t the case for The Last Witness though. It took me about 3 days to read this book and it’s not for my lack of trying. I think the main reason for this is because the plot really doesn’t pick up until the book hits the 60% mark. Another thing that didn’t sit well for me was how EASY the “killer” got away with everything. It seemed to hit you in the face at full force without any repercussions. So while I absolutely LOVED the ending, it happened far to fast and hard with very little answers or investigations.

Other than this, The Last Witness is a solid YA thriller and I think readers will really enjoy it!