The Last Thing I Remember by Andrew Klavan

The last day Charlie West can remember was a perfectly normal day. He was a regular high school kid doing regular things like his schoolwork, practicing karate, chatting with his friends, and getting nervous around the girl of his dreams. He was a good kid who listened to his parents, prayed, treated girls with respect, and loved his country. But now, Charlie has just woken up in a living nightmare. He’s strapped to a chair and covered in his own blood and bruises. Someone outside his torture chamber just ordered his death. Charlie has no idea where he is or how he got there. He doesn’t know why he’s so beaten up and supposed to be killed. And more importantly, he has no idea how he’s going to escape from his room alive.

There is no doubt that The Last Thing I Remember is an action packed story. However, an action filled plot by itself never made a complete story. Once everything else is added in, the results are not so savory. My largest issue had to with Charlie’s character; I just did not like him. He was too much the good kid, respectful of his parents and elders, religious, nice to pretty much everyone, and a tad too patriotic. People this good I find unrealistic unless they’ve got some other huge problem eating at them, but Charlie’s life was pretty much golden until he woke up in practically a torture chamber. Even then, I only had a little sympathy for him because the entire first part of the novel, I didn’t get what the point of the story was. Yes, the kid is in trouble and running from danger, but so what? Even through the rest of the novel where things take a turn for the slightly more interesting, I didn’t care much for Charlie. It was frankly annoying how much Charlie relied on religious faith and patriotism, sometimes even to questionably justify his actions. And what I liked least was the inclusion of terrorism, particularly the central role it plays in Charlie’s tale. All of this added together felt too much like a not-so-sneaky spoon feeding of right wing mentality; nothing against it, but is there’s one thing I hate being force fed besides religious views, it’s political ones. Tie in writing that’s sometimes cheesy and definitely nothing special, and you get this pretty mediocre action book.

The Last Thing I Remember appeals primarily to the teen male audience, especially those who enjoyed action flicks like the very similar Bourne movies. I’m not sure I’m interested in checking out the sequel, The Long Way Home since this novel was not one I particularly enjoyed.

Rating: 3.25

Review copy from Amazon Vine