Book Review: The Last Letter by Rebecca Yarros
With heart, heartbreak, and a whole lot of love, check out my full review for The Last Letter by Rebecca Yarros below!
Book Information
Ella has been through a lot. She is a single mother to twins whose father abandoned them as soon as he found they were conceived. Ella’s brother is in the military and she never knows if he’s going to be okay. She is also struggling to build her family’s business. So, when her brother dies and leaves behind instructions for his best friend (Beckett) to take care of her, Ella must come to terms with not having her brother around anymore, dealing with the struggles of being a single mom, and trying to make sure that Beckett knows she isn’t his problem.
Review | Heidi Dischler
I was super impressed with this book for the first half. So many things were going on, but it felt like it was building up to something extremely emotional (which is did, but I’ll talk about why I found it dissatisfying in the spoilers below). Rebecca Yarros’ writing style is gorgeous and engaging as ever and the characters are built in such a way that makes them feel real and whole. This was an emotional rollercoaster for sure, and I’ll get into all the details more below.
With the characters specifically, I thought Ella was such a great MC. Beckett was an amazing MC. He had depth and emotional layers and man, I can just imagine him as a character in real life. He was everything that you want in a love interest, and the secret that he was keeping didn’t make you hate him at all. Ella was a little unreasonable at times, but mostly, I let that slide. The kids, Colt and Maisie, were okay, but sometimes I felt like the things they did were off for their age group, but that’s just me.
Plot-wise, basically, Ella is dealing with Maisie’s cancer while also grieving the death of her brother while also trying to get Beckett off her back so that he doesn’t think she is his mission. Beckett, however, loves her and the kids (they say this in the beginning, so this is a non-spoiler) and just wants Ella to realize that. You know just with the way this book starts out that it’ll be tragic, but the source of the tragedy made this book lose a whole star in my rating for it.
Spoilers ahead.
So, the spoiler of what the last tragedy was? Colt dies in a freak accident as a trail he’s hiking on with his class collapses on the side of a cliff. You heard that right. He dies. Like, what more can this poor woman endure? It felt ridiculous and purely for shock value. I was sad, yes, but mainly, I was pissed. Everything was great up until that point.
Overall, yes, this book was sad. Yes, there were points where I almost cried. But I honestly lost all interest after the very last tragedy of the book. Went from 4.5 to 3.5 just because of that (rounded to 4/5 for social platforms). It felt unnecessary and like it was just there for shock value. The rest of the story, though? I loved every minute of it. But if you’re deciding between this one and another one of her books, check out The Things We Leave Unfinished or, of course, Fourth Wing.
Source: Audiobook from Audible
(P.S. You can read this book for free by signing up for a free trial of Audible, which gives you two free audiobooks of your choice!)
