A pitch-perfect homage for fans of Annabel Monaghan, Alisha Rai, and Jenny Han, One Last Word is an empowering, laugh-out-loud story about a woman who learns to speak up and fight for what she wants in life and love.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Suzanne Park’s One Last Word, which releases on April 16th 2024.
What would you say to your meddling parents, your ex-best friend, your toxic boss, or your high school crush if you didn’t have to face the consequences?
Sara Chae is the founder of One Last Word, an app that allows you to send a message to anyone you want after you pass. Safeguards are in place so the app will only send when you’re definitely, absolutely, 100% dead, but when another Sara Chae dies and her obituary is posted online, Sara discovers that drafted messages she had drunkenly uploaded on one night have been released —one each to her emotionally charged mother, to her former best friend who ghosted her, and to her unrequited high school crush, Harry Shim.
Still reeling from this disaster, Sara finds out she’s been accepted into a venture capital mentorship program— and that the mentor she’s been assigned to is none other than Harry, who’s now a major VC superstar. With her life going from uncertain to chaotic overnight, Sara has to deal with the havoc that ensues and reopen wounds from the past to find a true path forward.
Some days don’t go as planned.
For example, today.
Today, I dribbled hot coffee on my lap during my commute to the office, leaving me to decide if spit-cleaning my dry-clean- only pants would make the stain even worse.
Today, I discovered that the new red whiteboard marker was leaky, staining my hands as if I’d stabbed someone.
Today, I found out that the product I’d been working on all year—the career-defining app I’d been toiling away on during workdays and weekends—was simply nonfunctional.
And yet, I was scheduled to present this nonworking app wearing brown-speckled pants, with noticeably bloodied hands, in an important meeting, while the founders of the company sat and judged me.
Casey, my favorite interface designer at the company, hovered over my shoulder as I tapped my finger on the tablet, trying once again to make the app work. I exhaled hot air from my nose like a pissed-off dragon. “Nothing’s working. Why is nothing happening?”
He explained, “Sara, these are the storyboards you can use as visual aids this afternoon. See? That’s an image of the app icon. Swipe right and you’ll see the welcome message and the drop-down menus. Honestly, we’d be on schedule with a working prototype if it hadn’t been for this meeting.” He shrugged. “The design team did a good job though showing how it will work.”
Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. The still images were nice. The diverse template gallery offered designs ranging from simplistic to high octane. An easy-to-use font selector with smart pairing recommendations for headline and copy was something other apps didn’t offer. Themed photos based on content theme, mood, and personality type were all cutting edge.
Despite all the day’s earlier mishaps, I’d be walking into that meeting with a sure thing. For months I’d happily geeked out on developing these features. The level of customization for this messaging app was unparalleled.
I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes. “I’m sorry I freaked out. The meeting is in ten minutes, and then I hope it’ll be back to business as usual.” My brain was out of sorts from caffeine overload and fatigue. I could barely see straight. When my boss came back from vacation, I’d need to talk to him about taking a long overdue sabbatical.
“No worries, if I was working long nights like you, I’d be a barely functioning zombie with draggy feet too. With saggier flesh.”
I couldn’t help but notice he’d said too and saggier. Saggier . . . compared to whom?
He clarified. “Maybe a little hydration and some fresh air would help.” He hesitated before adding, “And some expensive under-eye concealer.” I’d worked with Casey for nearly five years, and we’d been friends for almost as long, so I knew the drill. He came with an excellent work ethic, beautiful aesthetic sensibility, and slap-in-the- face directness. On the weekends, he frequently wore a T-shirt with the word “Sasshole” on the chest. Casey didn’t hold anything back, especially when it came to his favorite topics, such as dating, fashion, and under-eye puffiness.
“We can go to Sephora and get you some caffeine-infused cooling eye gel later this week. It works wonders. But not tonight. It’s gym day, and it’s kettlebell Tuesday.” Casey unzipped his jacket to reveal his other favorite shirt, the one I bought him for his birthday. A black tee with “Kettlebell King” screen-printed in large white letters. He was the strongest person I knew, which came in handy when I needed to rearrange furniture, move apartments, or make an IKEA trip.
“Sounds good, thanks Case.”
He jutted out his chest, then closed the door behind him.
After I rearranged a few photos on the tablet, my phone alarm rang, startling me. It was my five-minute warning to head to the meeting. I grabbed my tower of devices—laptop, tablet, phone—and arrived at the executive conference room with time to spare. But this was one case when punctuality didn’t matter: the session before mine ran over. When the door finally opened, a large group consisting of mostly men shuffled out of the conference room in complete silence, heads hanging low. What happened in there? It was almost lunchtime, and there wasn’t even chatter about the brand-new bacon bar in the cafeteria. The entire floor smelled like bacon, which to anyone who loved meat, namely the exact demographic who worked at my company, was the world’s best air freshener. You’d have thought they were walking out of a funeral.
I raised an eyebrow at my friend Dave when he exited the room. My shorthand for “WTF.” He muttered, “Brutal,” and shuffled past me.
The moment I walked in, alarm bells went off. I wasn’t the type of person who believed in burning sage to clear out evil spirits or bad juju, but the only way to describe the room’s energy was “severely fucked up.”
