This is a Guest post by my dear friend Nilanjana.Book Review of Just Last Night by Mhairi McFarlane
About the book
The Story
The Story
Eve and Susie meet Ed and Justin in 6th grade. A bond forms which quickly develops into the closest of friendships, the kind where they grow into adults together. On one of their trivia nights, everyone is shocked when Ed’s long-term girlfriend Hester proposes – and Ed accepts. Shocked because they never saw it coming. Especially Eve because she has been in love with Ed since forever. They had a chance once but sheer bad luck meant they missed their chance; but Eve had kept hoping that some day she and Ed would be together. Her sadness and anger at Ed’s engagement fades into insignificance when a disaster happens that very night.
The group dynamic changes, Eve starts to question Ed’s part in their star-crossed love story. In the aftermath of the tragedy, shocking revelations further disrupts her world, and she wonders whether she even knew her so-called best friends. Into this haze of trauma and distress, enters a figure from the past. Someone they all considered to be the utmost low form of human was now back in her life raising hell.
Forced together on a journey of rescue with her antagonist, Eve embarks on a new path of discovery – of self and of others. There’s always two sides to a story and when you give a fair chance to all involved, you may change your mind about certain events and people. Is that what happens to Eve? Or was everything just a show? Read this book to find out.
My rating: 4.5 star
What I liked?
I liked it for various reasons. The flow of the story, the relationships, the characters and the life lessons. No one is perfect; we may put them up on a pedestal but they are after all human. When we accept that, we can enjoy the wonderful side and let go and forgive the not-so wonderful parts. This is what we get to see in this book.
Grief is a part of life but this book is about recovery. Dealing with the pain, struggling with the new “normal” happens slowly but one day you wake up feeling recovered. I loved how this was dealt with in the book.
What I would have liked to see different?
Nothing really. While all ends aren’t tied neatly with a bow by the end and all mysteries aren’t solved, it doesn’t strike me as a negative feature. This book ticks all the correct boxes and leaves me with a pleasant feeling in the end, intermixed with a slightly heavy heart.
Read my book review of Zero Day by S. Hussain Zaidi
I’m participating in #BlogchatterA2Z and this is the R post.
