Last Seen Leaving
Last Seen Leaving by Caleb Roehrig is a widely unknown first novel by a widely unknown author and at first, I curiously wondered why. The premise seemed transparently intriguing and the writing seemed detailed and crisp in a way that you know is coming from the tactic of “write what you know.”
However, by the end of the novel it became obviously clear why no one had heard about this book or talked about it on any platform that I have seen: it sucked.
One, the plot of the novel seems interesting at first. A missing ex-girlfriend, a current ex-boyfriend trying to dreg up his old memories to save the girl that he wasn’t there for “but still loved” (even while he very quickly moves on with someone else DESPITE HIS LAST RELATIONSHIP BEING LABELED AS MISSING AND MOST LIKELY DEAD).
The whole plot surrounds a small town (haven’t read about this before-cue eye roll) and the disappearance of a fierce and sassy blonde. The main character, Flynn, is completely bland and unremarkable.
The only thing I could ever remember about him was that he somehow had abs despite his lifestyle and that he was short. And smoked pot once and thought he was a badass. That’s it.
Flynn embarks on an adventure, if you could call it that, to uncover the secrets behind his missing ex-girlfriend’s disappearing act. The novel takes you through three different scenarios, all of them more obvious and banal than the last. First, he goes to her douchey coworker at the toy store, quickly moves on to her wretched politically-driven selfish step father and his equally evil and hedonistically disgusting son and last to the creepy perverted theater teacher with a penchant for drugging and photographing young girls and yet still finds himself in the education profession.
This is the whole novel. I repeat THE WHOLE NOVEL. Mainly, the chapters oscillate between Flynn overthinking every goddamn thing that happens in the story, interspersed with poorly written drama, which then prompts more chapters of Flynn purely thinking about the implications of such drama, and finally, my least favorite, interjected with flashbacks of Flynn and his ex-girlfriend, January, hanging out.
These were absolutely painful to read. Not only did the italics hurt my eyes, but in addition, the memories were so lame that I often lost track of time and was even tempted to skip them over. One flashback is okay. Ten is borderline sociopathic.
Lastly, the ending was so frustrating it pains me to write about it now. Flynn, the obnoxious and stupid character that he is, decides to confront the pedophilic suspected murderer by breaking into his apartment to look for clues, which he finds. However, of course the murderer comes home, a confrontation occurs, the protagonist wins by a lucky and flimsily detailed turn of events and then that’s it.
As a reader we learn that the missing girlfriend, the eye of the prize for the whole book presumed raped and dead and gone, IS ACTUALLY ALIVE AND PREGNANT WITH HER RAPISTS BABY AND LIVING ALONE IN CALIFORNIA??????!!!
And not only this, but our resident idiotic main character, obsessed with her well being and finding her the whole damn story, essentially says, “Cool. Glad she’s alive,” and is content to live out his life knowing that his best friend and ex-girlfriend is deeply troubled and has been victimized and injured and is alone and pregnant across the country?
Of course, he decides not to betray her trust and is content to keep this secret to himself and live on normally. Okay. That’s fine. I’m not upset. Nobody’s upset with that clusterfuck of emotions and poor decisions. All good.
Anyway, to sum up, I disliked this book. It offered only dismay and frustration at every turn of the page with no discernible satisfying ending. In addition, all the character thinking and insubstantial flashbacks made this book more trouble than it was worth. Avoid at all costs.
Recommendation: Don’t read it. It will only make you want to pull your hair out and offer epiphanies on why you prefer fanficiton over published novels.
Score: 3/10
