Reviews with content warning for Addiction - The Last Flight

Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

The Last Flight, by Julie Clark

15 reviews

krys_kilz's review against another edition

mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This thriller was fine, it just wasn't particularly memorable for me. While the concept was intriguing, the characters weren't as strong as Clark's other thriller The Lies I Tell, which I enjoyed a lot more. The pacing also felt a little off for me, just a bit too slow.

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brttbwrs's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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aplantoread's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes

3.5

3.4 but I’ll round up. I’ll give my review later.

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life_is_good's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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mysticforestcrafts's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A

4.0

The second book I’ve read by this author and I do see a pattern forming. That isn’t at all a bad thing but for people who need variety it will mean don’t binge her books all at once.

Pros:

This is another story with two incredibly strong women in impossible situations trying to find a way to survive. Each goes about it a little differently based on their background and resources yet they still end up in the same place change each other’s lives.

I truly appreciate that this book shows that paranoia can make a person fear someone who is only trying to help them because they have been so hurt in the past. Often people don’t understand why survivors will shun a new friend or help and I think this book highlights the fear and consideration they have to put into everything happening around them all the time.

Cons:

I think it is incredible that this book focuses on the difficulty for women to report and get away from abuse. However, I think that citing the me too movement and now having two books about women having to overcome things men have done is lacking inclusivity. I’m truly hoping that the author will take inspiration from the Depp vs Heard case and give us a book where a man is struggling to get away and recover. It is even less accepted for a man to claim a woman abused him and we need excellent writers in the field to share those stories side by side with the stories of women getting away. Let’s cut out gender bias completely and celebrate all the survivors.

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brenna2themax's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

First up, general trigger warnings for the book: discussion of intimate partner violence, drug use, addiction, growing up in foster care, parent abandonment, discussion of possible femicide

I really enjoyed this book. Good twists, I liked the characters (especially Liz and Kelly). I really love reading thrillers, but I hate it when they have gratuitous sexual violence from the male.perspective. graphic, dehumanizing, used as a cheap tool to excite the reader. No thanks. As a woman and a Survivor, I just don't want to read that shit. But I do enjoy reading stories about domestic violence and male violence toward women from a woman's perspective. Not dwelling on the gory, graphic details because we get it, most of us have (or still are) loved through it somehow.

Julie Clark walks this line well, explaining the danger, but also understanding that the reader isn't an idiot and likely has their own trauma and has some knowledge on the subject.

Some of what I say next gives away some general themes in the book.

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More specific trigger warning, because I don't want to give to much away but want you to be prepared: domestic violence situation in which we read about a husband working up to an explosion (walking on eggshells stage), but

Spoiler

doesn't physically strike her.

There are scenes of men forcefully grabbing women's arms and shoulders. There is discussion of being hit by a male partner, but we don't see this happening.

Spoiler

There is discussion of a man killing a female partner, but again, we don't read through the scene or get any concrete details.

While the book does explore women's experience of violence from men, and not just from male partners, from male

Spoiler

cops/Agents, boyfriends, friends, spouses, fathers, coworkers, and powerful men in male run institutions,

it also explores how we as women can play both the role of accomplice and victim to the violence we recognize, and how a lot of us end up being accomplice because we don't know how to help and don't have the resources to help. Women turning to each other in spaces away from men are where our strength lies. If we lay the ground work, and strengthen these connections yo each other with our truth, we can form enough of a network to take down powerful men.

I love these kinds of thrillers and really wish they had their own genre, because I am fucking sick to death of the thrillers that dehumanize women, graphically describe violence women endure, and then feed us some bullshit story about how we just have to find the "right" man to help us out. Fuck that noise. I want a realistic thriller from a woman's perspective. This is one of those books.

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