The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
Pages: 306
Publication Date July 4, 2021
Goodreads
Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother. As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a U.S. Marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.
Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they are also building a new future—one neither of them could have anticipated.
I think the best way to describe The Last Thing He Told Me would be to compare it to a trainwreck. It started out fine and (somewhat) harmless but it slowly started to go off the tracks.
The gist of the story is that Owen goes on the run after the company he works for commits fraud, supposedly to protect his wife and daughter, so of course instead of lying low Hannah and her step-daughter Bailey go on a wild goose chase to discover who Owen really is.
I was invested in learning the truth about Owen and, while I kept calling Hannah and Bailey stupid in my head I wanted to find out Owen’s secret. However, once that was uncovered the story just pittered out and slowly lost steam. But, like a trainwreck, I couldn’t look away. I wanted to know if Owen reconnected with his family and, in that respect, the author succeeded in keeping me engaged. Sadly, I was disappointed by the ending leaving a few unanswered questions and not quite the closure I had hoped for. Lastly, with a premise that brimmed with potential The Last Thing He Told Me was a bit of a let-down and was a miss for me.
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