The Last One - Alexandra Oliva

Ballantine Books, July 12, 2016.

Four Stars

The Last One follows the cast of a brand new reality survival TV show with a budget bigger than most feature films and an almost live production schedule. There is plenty of hype about the show, and it has the online world buzzing. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face a series of challenges, with only a few supplies and vague instructions that there will be colour-coded clues for them to follow. Some of the contestants struggle, but others find the game fairly straightforward – until a global pandemic wipes out the majority of human life on earth, along with all communication. Disconnected from reality, one contestant continues in her quest to win the game, with no idea that she is the last one.

The contestants are given nicknames by the producers of the show, and it is a woman called Zoo (an obvious choice based on her place of employment) that we follow throughout this book. She joined the show as a way to have one last adventure before settling down with her husband and having children, something she is uncertain about doing. We see most of the story from Zoo’s perspective, with a few hints and foreshadowing about the outside world as an omniscient narrator tells us about the gruesome deaths of the editors and producers of the show. After a few group activities in which we get to know the other contestants, Zoo is completely on her own, cut off from everyone she has ever known.

As Zoo follows the clues that she thinks have been left for her – but are for the most part imaginary – she sees the devastation wrought by the pandemic, but she thinks it is still a part of the show. Regardless of the dangers she faces, she still believes she is protected by the safety net of the show’s crew, who she thinks will jump in to save her if she says the magic words. However, she refuses to quit – although we know that she can’t escape even if she wanted to. Even as she slowly begins to realize that things aren’t quite right in the world, her mind still won’t allow her to see the truth.

The Last One analyzes the role of the media in a shocking new way, exploring the ways it controls our perception of what’s real. The contestants weren’t told ahead of time what to expect on the show, so nothing is surprising to Zoo. She is walking through a wasteland of corpses, yet she still convinces herself that they are props. Zoo works to maintain her on-screen persona, and she continues to direct her movement to the drones and hidden cameras that she believes are watching her, but there is no one there. Zoo’s lack of fear makes her situation all the more suspenseful because she thinks she can leave at any time, and so she has no fear.

This novel has a fantastic, original premise that was so exciting to read. It is being compared to Station Eleven, although it has little in common beyond the basic plot outline – but they are similar in that they are both truly literary apocalyptic novels that explore elemental human themes through the scope of a worldwide disaster. This novel is further enhanced by the omniscient overview and the lens of media manipulation. And above all that, it was just so much fun to read.

I received this novel from Ballantine Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.