Book Review: Last Night in Montreal

Last Night in MontrealThis book came to me from a Twitter book rec thread.

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I actually picked up a lot of really great books from that thread and I keep going back to it to see what else has been added. I immediately grabbed 3 books on Overdrive and have been steadily adding titles from this thread to my TBR on Goodreads.

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What I Loved:

» @MollyMcKew was right when she described the writing as “haunting”
I enjoyed Station Eleven so I was kicking myself for not reading anything else by her. So this was the first book from that Twitter thread that I picked up and I read it immediately. I really love the way Emily St. John Mandel writes. It evokes a certain kind of mood and feeling that I can’t describe. Read Station Eleven and you’ll get what I mean.

» The mystery
Where is Lilia? Why is she running? Will Eli find her? What happens if he does find her? What happens if he doesn’t find her?

» Lilia’s name
If I do end up having a baby, I have both a girl and a boy name already. But if I somehow end up with two girls, Lilia will be at the top of the list for Baby Girl 2.

» Montreal
I didn’t know anything about Montreal until now. Is the city really so pro-French/anti-English? I’m curious and want to visit, but the locals will hate my English speaking. However, according to some reviews from people from Montreal this wasn’t a 100% accurate portrayal of the city. So I guess I’ll have to visit to judge for myself.

What I Wished For:

» More depth to Lilia
As is, she is giving me Manic Pixie Dream Girl vibes. Her need to run. Her habit of collecting and abandoning lovers everywhere she goes. Love-struck Eli chasing after her. The Eli chapters were very reminiscent of Q chasing Margo in Paper Towns.

» A character I could root for
I guess I was rooting for Michaela. But I really didn’t care much about any of them. At a some point, I realized I reading because I was enjoying the writing rather than the story itself.

» More Michaela. More of Lilia’s father. More of Simon.
Basically I wanted more of side characters. They were the ones who intrigued me the most. I wanted to see how Michaela went from who she was when we first meet her to who she is at the end.

TL;DR:
Great writing, but not my favorite story or characters.