Book Review: Her Last Breath

Rating: 3.5/5

Genre: Mystery / Suspense

Review Style: Spoilers

This one was different. I’m not going to say I couldn’t put it down, but it definitely kept my interest, and I finished it in two days.

Spoilers ahead, so stop here if you haven’t read it yet.

I thought I had one of the twists completely figured out because of all the references to “the survivor.” Turns out there was a twist connected to that, just not the one I expected. For some reason, I convinced myself that one of them was pretending to be the other, although I couldn’t figure out how that was supposed to work when one was a popular influencer and people would obviously know what she looked like.

Instead, the real revelation was that Tess wasn’t actually the victim in this story. She was the antagonist.

I would have loved more backstory explaining why Tess was the way she was. We get the “I’m broken” explanation, but I wanted to know what broke her. What happened? What made her become this person? Considering everything she did, I needed more than simply accepting that something was wrong with her.

I was also confused by some of the “I’ve missed you” comments that made it sound as though these women hadn’t been in each other’s lives for years. If one of them literally works for the other, how much could you possibly have missed each other? Maybe I was reading too much into it, but it stood out to me.

As for the ending, I love a happy ending probably more than I should, so I was happy with where everyone landed. I just wanted more.

I wanted to see Tess’s reaction when she realized that all that smug confidence about them never being able to prove anything was gone. And after spending the entire book invested in Allie and Ethan, I definitely wanted more of their life afterward, especially with the baby.

Overall, a good mystery with some twists I didn’t predict, but a little more character development and a longer payoff at the end could have pushed this one higher for me. 3.5 stars.