The Last One at the Wedding by Jason Rekulak on December 3, 2024
Genres: Fiction / Thrillers / Domestic, Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense
Pages: 368
Format: Hardcover
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“Every parent’s an unreliable narrator. We think we know our kids better than anyone. But none of us can see them objectively.”
Frank Szatowski is shocked when his daughter, Maggie, calls him for the first time in three years. He was convinced that their estrangement would become permanent. He’s even more surprised when she invites him to her upcoming wedding in New Hampshire. Frank is ecstatic and determined to finally make things right. He arrives to find that the wedding is at a private estate, very secluded, very luxurious, very much out of his league. It seems that Maggie failed to mention that she’s marrying Aidan Gardner, the son of a famous tech billionaire. Feeling desperately out of place, Frank focuses on reconnecting with Maggie and getting to know her new family. But it’s difficult: Aidan is withdrawn and evasive; Maggie doesn’t seem to have time for him; and he finds that the locals are disturbingly hostile to the Gardners. Frank needs to know more about this family his daughter is marrying into, but if he pushes too hard, he could lose Maggie forever.
I had very high expectations for this since Hidden Pictures was outstanding, that I think this novel fell short for me. I was expecting the same frightening thriller, but this was more a cozy mystery than thriller in my opinion. The big problem with the story is that for long swatches, it’s just boring. There was a decent twist at about the 50% mark which I didn’t see coming. However, there is no edge-of-your-seat thrill moments as the blurb suggests. And that ending? I feel like my book was missing a few chapters towards the end, because it was rushed, and it left a whole bunch of stuff out!!
For this, I rated this novel 3.5 stars. It was a good book, but you just want to know what you are getting into and when you are told it is going to be an “edge of your seat thriller”, which it is not, then it leaves a bad taste. Overall, this was an okay book for me. Not the kind I’d gush over for a week, but still good enough.