Book Review: Last Girl Breathing by Court Stevens

Lucy Michaels has spent far too many of her eighteen years attempting to allay her worrywart mother’s fears. Since her younger brother Clay died and her father left their family, Lucy has been responsible for keeping Joanny’s anxieties from becoming too overwhelming – a very heavy burden to ask of any child, never mind one looking to escape her small town via her Olympics-level marksmanship prowess. Her stepfather Robert tries to help, but he wasn’t there in the dark years when it was just Lucy and Joanny. And, in fairness, most of the time Lucy doesn’t mind emotionally supporting the woman who looks like just like an older version of herself:

Our differences start under the skin. I am the taskmaster of hard things. That’s because if you make the mistake of keeping your cool during personal tragedies, people expect you to continue the trend forever. They use big words and phrases to describe you like “strong” and “older than your years,”  and then they lean on you until you’re sure you’ll fall over or die trying to stay up.

 

This is how I know I cannot let my brain run away on a fear marathon.

When her beloved stepbrother Martin goes missing, Lucy’s immediate reaction is to soothe her mom with plausible reasons as to why he might not have shown up for football practice. Secretly, however, she worries that something terrible might have happened, coming on the heels of a conversation she and Martin had just had earlier that day. Kind-hearted Martin had discovered something that might link his rich and powerful father to the dam break that flooded the area and took the lives of not only Clay but members of a boy scout troop who’d been camping in the area. Lucy refused to believe him, but Martin promised he would show her the evidence later that day.

Now he’s missing. Even worse, his truck has been found on the edge of the eighty-mile LaRue recreational area, with blood all over and around it. When the police launch a search, the townsfolk immediately come out in force to help. They are, unfortunately, used to dealing with disaster:

The post-dam break era of Grand Junction forged a new town. The physical property damage gutted the visual of LaRue, but it was nothing compared to the emotional damage of fifteen missing kids. That’s an asteroid strike of trauma. Weeks stretched into months. Searchers came, after work and before, walking riverbanks, picking through moss and briars, dredging the water until there was everything left to find and absolutely no hope of finding it. Most of the bodies were recovered. Some weren’t. 

 

Clay wasn’t.

 

We had a funeral. We even had a graveside service. Mom buried Ribbit, Clay’s beloved stuffed frog, all while swearing to Ribbit she’d dig him up the minute Clay came home. You can know someone’s dead without seeing them dead, but it’s harder.

The last thing that the people of Grand Junction, and specifically Lucy and her mom, need is another tragedy. Alas then not one but two bodies are uncovered, plunging the whole town into a living nightmare once more. Worse for Lucy, the person considered prime suspect in both murders is her ex-boyfriend Neil. He wasn’t super thrilled about her close relationship with Martin, but saved most of his ire for Robert, who heads the company that replaced the failed LaRue dam. Torn between her family and her friends who are close enough to be family, who can Lucy trust as she struggles to protect her mother, all while searching for the truth and justice for the dead?

Last Girl Breathing is a thoughtful novel of suspense and wonderfully plotted, as Lucy uncovers the secrets, some terrible and some just heart-wrenching, of her small town and the people she loves the most. I greatly appreciated the complexity of her relationships, and the sensitive way with which Court Stevens allowed Lucy to feel all of the many conflicting emotions that naturally arose from her complicated situations. While this book is considered Young Adult, I feel that it’s also an excellent entry into the mainstream thriller market, and would be appreciated by anyone who enjoys a good tragic mystery.