The Last Bookstore on Earth by Lily Braun-Arnold

The world is about to end. Again.

It’s been a year since a devastating storm ripped Liz’s world apart. Haunted by the memories of those she couldn’t save, Liz is holed up in the only place she felt safe before her world fell away- the bookstore where she used to work. Now she spends her days trading books for supplies and collecting stories from the remaining survivors who pass by.

Until she learns that another earth-shattering Storm is coming . . . and everything changes.

Enter Maeve, a spiky out-of-towner who breaks into the bookstore looking for shelter one night. When Maeve’s secrets and Liz’s inner demons come back to haunt them both, they find themselves fighting for their lives and asking themselves one big question.

As the end of the world approaches, is there time for one final love story?

My opinion about this kept growing over several days as I thought about the story. There is so much wrong with it because there is so much we didn’t find out.

Let’s launch into it!

“Haunted by the memories of those she couldn’t save” Try DIDN’T BOTHER SAVING!!!!

And what the hell happened to her parents? Because one minute they’re in the backyard having hamburgers and then Liz storms inside and locks the door, then the rain belts down, her parents scream, her sister screams and bangs on the door, but she’s all Liz sees? What happened to her parents? Washed away in the flood, apparently. As her sister would have been. Not that she’d know, she didn’t bother helping them and left them to die in the backyard.

I found this book in my local library, and, because it’s the last bookstore on earth, I grabbed it. I didn’t know it was considered lesbian fiction or lgb, not that it mattered. I just really don’t understand why, in an apocalypse (Walking Dead, I’m talkin’ ’bout you) people need to hook up for relationships and/or sex. Not that there was any.

The story should be about surviving a new normal, which Liz is trying to do. And I use that word loosely.

Throughout the story, we find out how her parents and twin sister died (as mentioned above), what it’s been like for her, and what could happen next. We also find out that the internet and phones work but the connection is sketchy. Has she even bothered trying? If they still work, that means satellites are still working, and the electric poles are still working, just as the bookstore’s water pipes were still working over the last year before they gave up the ghost, so she apparently had water in the tap.

But what about showers? Washing your hair, dealing with women’s monthlies, no mention of those in an apocalypse. No, oh, my god, where are the pads and tampons? No, oh, my god, why didn’t she take a bag of clothes with her instead of living in the same crappy bras and tops that are mentioned. Like, oh, my god, her house was ten blocks away and she hadn’t gone back since she’d left until Maeve made her. And why the hell didn’t she stock up on these things?

Fuck, man!

It could have been a good story if the female lead wasn’t a goddamn pitifully pathetic, useless, painful, whiny victim of insipid garbage.

We’re in an apocalypse, bitch! You’re barely surviving in the freakin’ bookstore you ran for cover to because you worked there. You’re not even boarding up the roof, walls, and windows. Newcomer Maeve (who lost her parents and sister but we don’t find out how because apparently it’s not important enough and Maeve just wanted to “get out” for some “peace and quiet”) has to do that for you because you refuse to. You’re emotionally weak and pathetic, regardless of being a teenager. Personally, I prefer Red from The Girl in Red by Christina Henry. Now that was a tough chick in the face of adversity.

But Liz, I just couldn’t get into. Maeve on the otherhand, she had Liz pegged, so did Eva who left her, but Maeve didn’t mind doing the work for companionship in return.

There will always be books that we read where there are piss weak characters we wish we could kill ourselves. This book was one of them. Yet, authors are meant to write characters people like and root for. This one was not. So far from it you couldn’t touch her with a ten thousand-foot barge pole. She was weak, this was weak, and left me wishing it had been so much more.

And the more I thought about this story, the sadder it became. Liz had basically given up. Given up on helping herself, given up on dealing with the real world happening outside. People were dead, as they usually are in an apocalypse, but her parents and sister could have been alive if she hadn’t locked the back door and then not stared in horror and fucking opened it. And then, as what happens in an apocalypse, the people who are alive resort to primal beings by killing, threatening, stealing from others instead of helping out. Although there are a few who still do that. Helping Liz by exchanging food items, batteries, and matches for the books in her store. Because it’s not like money is useful anymore.

I guess some people still need to escape from an apocalypse IN an apocalypse.

And why aren’t the people left rebuilding? There is usually a government. The whole army/navy/military can’t be gone. Who the fuck is helping?

The author took an apocalypse story and made a desolate being living in a desolate landscape a lesbian and tried turning it into a “love story”. I personally don’t think it needs it. I certainly wouldn’t be looking for love and sex during end times, but then, many book/TV writers seem to think we do.

This book grew sadder the more I thought about it. And that sucks!

I gave it 6/10 and that’s generous.