After graduating high school, Mia faces a summer of goodbyes. With her friend Britt urging her to chase bigger dreams, Mia uncovers a series of mysterious letters from her late mother, a country music star. Each letter leads Mia on a journey through her hometown, revealing secrets about her mother’s past. With time running out before Britt leaves, Mia must decide whether to stay in her comfort zone or embrace the unknown and forge her own path.
In a way, this book felt like a mix of Mamma Mia meets Daisy Jones and the Six and the vibes were really engaging overall. If you’re looking for a fun, quick read (and are willing to suspend your disbelief for a time) then Mia’s journey to find out about her mother’s life will surely appeal to you.
The story has a lot going for it—we have an adorable queer pair of grandmothers taking care of Mia, a set of small-town secondary characters that are charismatic and intriguing, and we have a romance that keeps you guessing. Oh, and loads of lyrics that tug at your heartstrings!
While I adored the premise of this book, the execution felt a tad strenuous at times. Maybe it was the concept of the whole book but to me it would have translated a lot better onto the screen rather than a page—and that comes down in part to the writing.
As an example, when it came to emotions, the prose often fell into the dreaded telling instead of showing—especially when it came to trying to explain emotions with clichés that were then just explained right afterward with bland statements like “I felt sad”, which was a bit nonsensical. Also, at one point, the reader gets told in every chapter that Mia is sad, that she feels torn, that she can’t get what she wants in almost the same words as before but we’re rarely shown that. Over and over we have this repeated thought cycle without any sort of change (not so much in the emotions themselves but the words to describe them). Mia and Britt’s relationship especially suffers from this and it takes a bit of the magic out of the will-they-won’t-they struggle. All that being said, though, I still found myself rooting for them to find a way to be together, no matter whether physical distance was going to be an issue or not.
By far my favourite part and the one where the prose truly shines is the exploration of Mia and her late mother’s relationship. With the help of the scavenger hunt of clues, Mia unearths so much about her mother that she didn’t know and learns that after all this time, a lot of people she might not have spent a lot of time with in her hometown (felt a bit suss considering it’s a small town where everyone is supposedly a tight-knit community but we’ll deal with it), had the puzzle to the mystery that was her mother’s death all along.
Tori Rose was a strong character whose true voice shone through the lyrics that are included in this book. I could imagine myself listening to her on the radio and (like a lot of individuals in this book were willing to) wanting to follow her around the world. In that regard, the book was truly immersive and made me crave the chapters from her point of view. I guess that’s always a possibility with alternate timelines that one is more intriguing than the other.
While the big plot twist is quite predictable, I still had a fun time watching Mia try to piece together the clues her mother left her and the way it brought her and Britt closer together.
If you’re in the mood for a quick, summer-y story about a girl torn between her mother’s unresolved past and her own fears of the uncharted future, paired with a dash of heartfelt country music lyrics and a small town setting to steal your heart, then The Last Love Song’s the book for you!
The Last Love Song is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of April 9th 2024.
Will you be picking up The Last Love Song? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
A queer YA Mamma Mia! with a dash of Maureen Johnson, The Last Love Song celebrates the music of an uncertain heart—perfect for fans of Nina LaCour, Laura Taylor Namey, and Emma Lord.
After high school graduation, Mia Peters faces a summer full of painful goodbyes. Songwriting is her only solace. Everyone she knows is moving on, including Britt, her biggest supporter … and kind-of-sort-of girlfriend. Britt keeps pushing Mia to go bigger and do better than their small town, but Mia can’t imagine a life beyond Sunset Cove. Besides, she refuses to follow in the footsteps of her late mother—country music star Tori Rose—who abandoned her family to pursue her dream, leaving Mia and her two grandmothers alone.
Desperate for a sign of what might lie ahead, Mia finds the opposite—a mysterious letter from the past, addressed to her in her mother’s handwriting. It turns out to be the first of many. One by one they lead Mia on a wild scavenger hunt through a Sunset Cove she never knew, buried under the memorializing that has frozen her mother in time. Each new discovery brings Mia closer to the real Tori Rose, but with the clock ticking on Britt’s departure, Mia knows she is running out of time.
With the summer winding down, Mia must decide if she is ready to face the present, confront her feelings, and forge the destiny she truly wants. A dazzlingly soulful debut, The Last Love Song is perfect for anyone who’s ever tried to decode the clues in the lead-up to a new Taylor Swift album.
