The Last Love Story by Katharyn Blair

Blurb:

That's something the stories got wrong. Because the end of the world wasn't supposed to be like this.

Ripley Hart didn’t plan to break the law. But on her eighteenth birthday, the Administration bans all books. Which means that the story Ripley wrote years ago, about her first love, is contraband. It’s also gone viral. Suddenly, everyone is reading her story—and trying to write her next chapter: Lyceum, a group of vigilante librarians, wants her to fight with them; the Machs, a ruthless faction of the rebellion, want her to kill for them; and President Graves wants her to be his Propaganda Princess. Forced into a fake engagement with the president’s son and striking a tenuous truce with the annoyingly attractive leader of the Machs, Ripley takes control of the narrative. She doesn’t know if a love story can save the world, but no matter what—she’s going to write her own ending.

Review:

Ripley Hart never intended to go viral for a book she wrote about her first ever love several years ago. Neither does she expect, on her eighteenth birthday, for the Administration governing the place she calls home to ban all books–and for her old, forgotten story to become contraband material. With everyone–even people she knows–reading her story, she finds herself entwined in a rebel plot with a group called Lyceum, a resistance composed of vigilante librarians.

They offer her safety in exchange for her fighting on their behalf, and they intend to take down President Graves, the person who banned all books–even if it means killing them. Ruthless and criminal, the Machs faction of rebels force Ripley into a fake engagement with the president’s son. Ripley manages to manufacture a tension-fraught truce with the leader of the Machs, but she doesn’t know if she can accomplish what he hopes she will. She doesn’t know if a love story will save the world, let alone one written by herself, but she’s determined to find out.

I’ve read a lot of book-themed cozy fantasy and general fantasy books in recent months and years. I think of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab, The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods, and The Astral Library by Kate Quinn to name a few. While these books would make phenomenal comp titles to The Last Love Story, they truly don’t compare. Not just to the science fiction, dystopian-oriented genre that this novel encompasses, but the overall themes of the story. The Last Love Story is one of a kind, original in ways I haven’t seen a science fiction-themed novel be written in a long, long time–maybe even years!

This book truly gives the vibes of a groundbreaking debut, and it pulled me straight back into the early 2000’s crave for dystopian fiction. It pays penance to the blockbuster plots of Divergent by Veronica Roth and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and even The Giver by Lois Lowry. It has both the chops of a classic tale of science fiction but also the heart and emotionality of a modern novel with a strong focus on the characters and the struggles they face.

I especially liked the conundrum which was Ripley’s motivations and goals throughout the narrative, and how those motivations and goals changed to benefit her and help her grow as the story went on. She’s an intriguing, easy-to-like lead who truly wants what’s best for herself, but also for the world as a whole.

I also enjoyed the dynamic of the rebellion not being entirely crafted from “good people”. Often, in fiction, I see rebellions being written on one side of the extreme: either they’re all good, and their rebellion is for a good cause, or they’re all misguided, and their cause is fundamentally crooked. The Last Love Story adds depth to the rebellion trope by showcasing that even people chasing good goals can be a spectrum of good and bad, selfish and selfless, while also hinting that people pursuing bad goals can also be on a spectrum of good and bad, selfish and selfless. This is the kind of depth I love to see in the stories, and that I wish I saw more often in modern fiction.

Overall, the originality, the ingenuity, and the deep characterization of The Last Love Story makes it a must-read for lovers of science fiction, lovers of cozy fiction, and lovers of original plots with intriguing, engaging characters!