By: Riley Sager
“She’s capable of so little yet accused of so much, and I remain torn between wanting to protect her and the urge to suspect her.”
The Only One Left
*This post contains spoilers for The Only One Left
Overview:
Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.
The ONly One Left
Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life
It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything.
“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead
As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.
This is very different than any other Riley Sager book. It is way less dark and more of a mystery. If I had to equate it to another author it would be closer to an Alice Feeney book. Heck, it even had the twist that a character being referenced in flashbacks was actually a different character than we were lead to believe.
I prefer the more contemporary horror movie style that Sager’s books usually have. Makes me feel like I am reader a slasher movie. The Only One Left was more of a who-dun-it.
The main twist (Lenora actually being Virginia and that she has mobility) was good. Adding in all the other twists; Virginia having a relationship with Kit’s father, Kit’s father being the one that killed both Kit’s mother and Virginia’s, Jessica being Virginia’s granddaughter, Lenora being Mrs. Baker, etc, etc, etc. It was far too much and lessened the impact of the big twist.
The entire backstory with Kit’s father could have been removed. Focusing the story on how Kit’s care of her mother parallels Virginia’s experience with her mother, would have been a better story. Having both of them kill their moms in an act of mercy. Instead Kit’s father killed both of their mothers. A character that barely showed up the entire story and never moved the plot forward.
Overall,
This book was just ok.
I have read many Riley Sager books and I still don’t know how I feel about them. They’re not bad but very few have me blown away.
A lot of authors suffer from twist fatigue. Too many twist packed into one story. Just give me one real good earth shattering twist that sticks with me. All these little twists piled up don’t compare.
Rating: 3/5 stars
