Review: The Last Girl by Kitty Thomas

Publication Date: Febuary 14th, 2011
Finished Date: April 19th, 2012
Publisher: Burlesque Press
Format: eBook for Review
My Rating: 3.5/5

Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Book Depository | Author's Website

Blurb from Goodreads:
Six years ago strangers broke into Juliette’s house; she was home alone and only thirteen. She kept her eyes closed, praying that if she didn’t see anything, she wouldn’t be killed. No one harmed her. In fact, one of the thieves protected her. Now Juliette’s dreams are haunted by him.

Christian has waited to take her, resisting the urge each night. It always ends badly with human pets. They’re too fragile. The longer he can wait, the better, because the moment he takes her, the clock on her life starts ticking down.

Then she’ll be gone forever.

Warning: This book is dark erotica meant for a mature audience only.

My Review

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you look at the cover? My first thoughts were: Surreally mysterious and darkly sensual. I'm a girl who likes a dark erotica once in awhile and am entitled to my occassional guilty pleasures, and I think my erotica side was more dominating at the time, so after reading the synopsis, I was hell-bent on getting a copy of THE LAST GIRL. I went straight to Thomas' website, found her contact list and requested a copy. She generously gave one to me, and after that, I signed up for THE LAST GIRL's tour when the sign ups were up.

THE LAST GIRL holds a certain similarity to COMFORT FOOD, Thomas' very first novella and another dark erotica. Both were deeply disturbing and highly, well, stimulating, but I have to say that THE LAST GIRL captivated me more.

My Summary (a.k.a. SPOILERS!)
The story's almost exactly as the synopsis portrays it to be - Julia was thirteen years old when her house was broken into. Her parents were out, and Julia was home alone. She hid in her cupboard and hoped that the burglars would steal what they would and just leave her alone. Unharmed. Unscathed. Unseen. But what she didn't expect was for those very burglars be able to smell and sense her out. The cupboard door opens but she doesn't open her eyes. She pleads for her life, saying that she hadn't seen them, and she wouldn't rat them out if they would just let her live. One of them, a male, spares her. Something about him calms her. And after some time, they left.

Julia has been living with the same nightmare where the male burglar would somehow come back for her six years after the incident. And of course come back he did.

Christian has been alive since before the 14th century. He's taken many women as pets, but he ends up killing all of them in the process. Or they end up killing themselves. Either way. He's been abstaining from getting another one, but this one's too hard to resist. Since the time he saw her, eyes shut tight and compliant, he couldn't stop thinking about taking her. But the time is not right yet. He will bid his time until the moment she is ripe and for the reaping to come to make his presence in front of her again.

He's determined to keep this one alive, but how can he? When he is the lion and she the lamb? When his blood lust keeps trying to take control?

My Thoughts
I thought that the romance and plot of the book moved a little too fast that it bordered on impracticality sometimes, but most of the other times, I thought it was good and comfortable. It got confusing sometimes too, but Thomas seemed to have address those few points in the book. For example, Christian was lost in his blood lust once and was killing Julia when all of a sudden, he snapped out of it and says, "I think I love you." And I went, "okayyyy". Julia went on to reminisce about the time when she read Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, feeling cynical about the possibilities of true love developing over only a short time, and that now she finally gets it. Only those who went through the torturous yet wonderful process will understand its magic and complexity. Well, that's one way to solve the problem. Even though it wasn't as much of an explanation, she did tie up all the loose ends in this book, and for that I thought that it was a job well done.

Also because TLG is a novella, the originally goody-two-shoes Julia had her inhibitions about "public displays" stripped away rather quickly. It happened in this club that catered to patrons with more extreme sexual needs (think BDSM), where hypnotic, erotic electronica plays in the background that soothes away your fears and throbs and "envelopes [her] like a primal scream as [they, meaning Julia and Christian] step into manufactured fog". I've never heard of music that could turn people horny, but I'll keep a lookout for that and give Julia the benefit of the doubt in the mean time. But anyway, the other patrons there are enough to give the sexually-charged atmosphere, so it was pretty, well, lascivious.

I loved the vivid descriptions that Thomas wrote. She has this way of writing that can paint a clear scene in my head.

Christian was a damn fine hero-villain to the story, mostly. He was the dark, mysterious, powerful, ancient, handsome, commanding (maybe a little too commanding sometimes) vampire that I prefer, it was just sometimes he wasn't as brooding and person-of-little-words as was my personal ideal. But still, I still liked the way he was with Julia - caring and tender at times, and domineering and sexy in others.

I think that all of Thomas' books have their own specialty and unique feature about them. In COMFORT FOOD it was the psychological play that she did on the readers and heroine's mind, in this it was the haunting past that connected her to a vampire obsessed with her. Someone who had so much power over her, and someone who stalked her and knew everything about her for years. Someone who was as much looking out for her as preventing her from being touched by other males.

It did get boring at one part where I almost stopped reading the book, but after that the pace picked up, and I couldn't stop reading it. I'd recommend this to fans of dark erotica and BDSM.

P.S. One thing I don't like - American slang!! What's 101 mean if it's written in a note? I didn't get it, and I assume it's an American thing. :( Lol.

Update on P.S: I talked to Kitty some time ago, and she cleared up my confusion regarding the 101 note. Apparently, I was too dense to get it while I was reading TLG. My bad. :P

My Rating