The Last Murder at the End of the World - Stuart Turton
Stuart Turton’s latest novel is about a murder that has quite literally happened at the end of the world. It hasn’t been told how one might expect it to be told, but it’s a story that entices the reader with its strange thoughts on what the world might look like in hundreds of years time, as well as its unique storyline and characters. It takes a very curious and courageous mother through the journey of investigating the murder of a scientist named Niema, but not everything is at it seems. Nobody knows why or how Niema has died, and with her death being a death trap for the villagers living on the island, the fog is closing in faster than people can keep up with; and the only way to stop the fog is to find out who Niema’s killer was. But do they ever find them at all? That’s something you’ll have to find out. The clock is ticking, there’s secrets to unveil, and villagers to reassure; it’s intense, extremely detailed, and like nothing you’ve ever read before. I think it’s like Marmite, you’ll either love it, or you’ll hate it.
Let’s just say, I’m not a fan.
33 days later and I can say that I’ve read it all, front to back, without a single doubt in my mind about how I feel about Turton’s Dystopian, Sci-Fi, crime, and mystery novel.
So with that said, I think it’s finally safe to say that (if it wasn’t already clear) I didn’t enjoy this book at all. The concept is pretty cool, but if we’re considering the fact that the story is about someone’s murder, it doesn’t introduce it until one hundred pages in which made the first third of this book quite difficult to get through. It was information heavy and much of it wasn’t necessary in my opinion, and not a lot happened. Nothing exciting, anyway. Nothing that raised my hairs and quickened my heartbeat. Turton’s plot was too slow paced for me. Niema’s death was a surprise but only because I wasn’t expecting it to happen so late in the story. The story would have been interesting if she’d died right off the bat, but instead I had to get through an information overload that had me zoning out every five pages. And how it happened wasn’t anything that stirred my emotions either. It felt quite bland, and because of that it was a tedious read.
On top of its plot, almost every single character in this story annoyed me. I never warmed to any of them, and I never wanted anyone to leave the book with a positive outcome. I simply wasn’t bothered about their storylines. They annoyed me too much, but then again, I guess that means they were pretty realistic and well thought out. However, I can’t say that Turton did this to his characters on purpose, he might have actually wanted them to be loveable and to have his readers rooting for them. I never saw them in that light, and I still don’t even after I sat back to think about how and why I’m approaching this review the way I am. Instead, I found myself wanting to shout at them, begging them to do exactly the opposite of what Turton had them doing. Plus, there were character’s mentioned in this book that were never explained, or introduced properly, they were just referred to every once in a while, which left me assuming that they weren’t important and that they were simply villagers left in his story to help show what life is like in the world they live in.
It saddens me to say, though, that I’ve never experienced such negative emotions whilst reading a book before and that in itself took me by surprise.
The Last Murder at the End of the World wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I kept thinking about how I could write it, removing all factors that make it Sci-Fi and Dystopian because I’m not sure that helped his idea. It made it confusing, and some of it I felt didn’t make much sense. Though I do blame that opinion on the fact that I zoned out a lot while reading this book, and therefore missed some key parts in Turton’s story. However, a good book holds onto the readers’ attention throughout his or her story, and because Turton’s didn’t do that for me, it wasn’t a good book. I didn’t care enough to stay in his world for more than five or ten minutes at a time.
Admittedly, I’m only one person out of the hundreds who have read this, and everybody is different. There’s people out there who’d rave about this novel all day and all night, and I’m unfortunately not one of them. So, if you’re like me, and aren’t a fan of science fiction, complicated murder mysteries that haven’t been executed in a way that’s easy to follow, or simply dislike books that have a wishy-washy beginning, middle, and end, then I don’t recommend Turton’s latest novel. It sort of put me off his other books, but I shan’t judge them based on this book solely. He writes in different genres every time, perhaps this genre isn’t his forte? I know it’s not mine.
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