A review with spoilers about a heart-tugging novel about grief and finding yourself from author Emma Grey
Hey, hi, and hello! Welcome to yet another week in the month of February, and another book review from Monica to you. Apologies for not updating last week – my family was in town for the week. Oh, how I’ve missed them so. It was great to just let loose and hang out with them for the week. We did as many touristy things as we could, of course. They’ve never been to Florida! Because we were on the go so much, I was wiped out by the end of the week. I was also fighting a cold almost the entire time, so that came back to bite me in the butt when they finally left. My body was like, “Okay, can we be sick now?” and just deflated like a balloon in the summer heat. Not fun.
Anyway! I’m feeling better with the exception of a mild cough, and I’m back to chatting with you lovely folks. Today I’m going to be reviewing a book titled, “The Last Love Note” by Australian author Emma Grey.
A quick synopsis: “The Last Love Note” follows a woman named Kate as she navigates her life two years after her husband passes away. She is a widow at age 40, with a young son that barely remembers his father, a BFF who wants Kate to “get back out there” and date, a mother who just doesn’t click with her daughter, and a boss at her fundraising job who is almost too perfect with his ability to help her through her many tough times since they’ve met.
When Kate and her boss, Hugh, get stranded in a small beach town (the horror) during their work trip, Kate finally has time away from her hectic life to figure things out, including who she is outside of her dead husband, her job, and her family. The biggest thing she navigates? Her heart.
Here’s my rating: 3.5 stars out of 5.
Sooooo… Raise your hand if you feel personally victimized by this book.
*raises hand*
I feel like it’s my fault. I need to learn this trick: when the book is marketed as a contemporary romance, the cover is whimsy and cute, and the synopsis on the back cover is rather vague, it’s going to wreck me a lil bit. “Tear-jerker” should be an official tag on Goodreads, damn it!
The main character, Kate Whittaker, becomes a widow at age 38. Just by that tiny piece of information, it should be deduced that her husband’s death is rather heartbreaking and sad. Which it is.
Some spoilers from here on out, since I’m assuming the way the husband dies is – in and of itself – a spoiler.
The reader comes to find out that Kate’s husband, Cameron, has early rapid-onset Alzheimer’s. He’s only in his thirties, so it’s very early. And it’s aggressive. Kate believes they could have several years before he passes; instead it’s only two from when he’s diagnosed to when he dies. There are a lot of flashback chapters showing the progression and his eventual death. It’s rough, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s making my throat tighten even as I type this.
Ever since my grandmother was diagnosed with ALS a few years ago (she died last year) I’ve been very sensitive to stories and situations like this. Stories about incurable diseases where the person is basically wasting away right in front of you and you can’t do a damn thing about it. My grandmother was 81 when she passed; she lived a fulfilling life and she was blessed with a family who loved her and a husband who stayed right beside her until the very end. I was lucky enough to visit her and interact with her a couple days before her passing. Thankfully with ALS, it did not affect her memory or personality. She remembered me and her family, and she would even roll her eyes when my grandfather would say something silly, even if we didn’t get to hear her say his name in that tenderhearted yet mildly annoyed way that I can still hear to this day.
I can understand and process my grief on the situation with my grandmother, but there is no way in hell I could understand my grandfather’s grief. I could only witness it at the funeral. I could only hear it in his voice when I would call him after she died. I am blessed to not have been in that kind of situation – where my spouse is dying over the course of a couple years and I have to just make things comfortable for him. I have no idea how I would process it, how I would handle it. I can say all I want about how I’d be the perfect wife during that time, that I would be the perfect caretaker and, “No, don’t take him to a home, I can take care of him here.” But the truth is, I’d have no damn clue.
I think that’s why this book was difficult for me. There were so many times where Kate felt resentful. Resentful of Cameron getting sick, resentful of him not remembering things over the course of his illness, even resentful of him dying. For a while I was getting irritated with her. It’s not his fault! I wanted to yell at her. He didn’t choose to get sick. But after I finished reading and started thinking about the story and how I wanted to write my review, I realized how real that emotion is. Resentment is a real thing that can come up with sickness and death. It’s a messy one for sure, but it’s there. I can see it. Especially for a death such as this; caring for this man for two years, knowing where it’ll end. It’s not like you’re caring for the person you love who’s sick with a curable disease, or with something that just takes time for the body to heal itself.
Kate knew the outcome. She knew how it was going to end: Cam’s death. Cam was going to die and leave her alone with a toddler to take care of. The resentment is cruel, but it’s not something she can control; this is made obvious during her inner dialogue with comments such as, “Don’t think that!” and, “Don’t speak ill of the dead, Kate.” She knows it’s wrong to have these thoughts and feelings, but it doesn’t mean it’s not real.
The Romance. While there is a very clear-cut ending to Kate’s story when it comes to her love life, the romance in this book is not about that relationship. The romance is Cam and Kate. It always was, and always will be. Yes, she finds love in the end, and it’s someone that fits that oddly-shaped grief hole in her heart perfectly, but the love story is still Cam and Kate.
The way the book is written shows this: half the book is flashbacks of Cam and Kate, and the other half is present time, but still her inner dialogue (and a lot of outer dialogue too) is about Cam. The story is about her figuring out who she is as a person after her husband’s passing, and what is best for herself and for her son. Is Hugh, her boss and love interest, there? Yes, he is. It is a romance novel after all. But honestly I would have been okay if it was Kate and Charlie (her son) traveling the world together, just the two of them. Did I like the sort of “blended family” that was shown in the epilogue? Sure thing. But the ending felt like it had only one ending in order for readers to not be pissed off. Because Cam’s dead; who else is she going to end up with?
The Ending. So this is why my rating was only 3.5 stars. The ending. While the ending ending was fine (the epilogue), I did not like how it got there. Big spoiler ahead.
So the reader finds out about halfway through the book that something went down between Cameron and Hugh, after his diagnosis. Everyone used to be the best of friends and hung out all the time, but then suddenly things got weird between Cam and Hugh and their friendship got fractured because of it. No one but those two know why. Kate knows something weird happened between them, but neither of them were talking. Now that Cameron died, the only person who knows is Hugh, and he’s not saying anything. This creates a rift between them, because while Kate is starting to realize her feelings for Hugh, she can’t get over the fact that he’s keeping this secret.
The basics are usually this: Cameron asked Hugh to “take care” of Kate when Cam died. Simple enough. The “secret” could be something like, “But no, like, really take care of her. Marry her and have babies with her and shit.” I figured it wasn’t that one because it’s so overdone and cliche. Also not a thing that needs to be kept secret, to be honest.
Another thing could be the whole “Cameron has a secret himself and he told Hugh and how Hugh is all awkward and shit about it.” Something like a secret love child living in the Alps, or he cheated with Kate’s BFF. Things like that. But then I figured that would cheapen the love story and just make me angry, so while that was on the table, I really didn’t expect that based on the vibe of the book.
The secret: Cameron asked Hugh to take his life so he would no longer be a burden to his family. Assisted suicide. While there is such a thing as “doctor-assisted death” in some states in the US (quick Google search shows only 10 states), it is not legal in Australia, where this book is based. (Actually, another quick Google search shows that all states and territories in Australia made doctor-assisted death legal on a case-by-case basis, and that it’s up to the discretion of the state in question. This was signed into law in November of 2023. The book came out in January of 2023, so it was illegal at the time of publishing.)
I can see this being a huge burden for Hugh, and while I understand the reasoning for Cam wanting to do this, I just can’t help but be so sad for Hugh. Especially when you find out that Hugh himself went through something similar with a woman he was engaged to. He had to watch his love die, just like Kate had to watch Cam die. I’m sure this is a very big reason for their connection. It’s also why Hugh seemed to always know what to say and how to be around Kate; he understood.
In the end, Hugh said no to helping Cam end his life prematurely, and it seems that Cam never forgave him. This is not why I didn’t like the ending. In fact, that secret makes Cam and Kate’s relationship that much richer. Yet another heartbreaking aspect of their love.
No, I didn’t like how “the last love note” was the secret itself. Written down on a sticky note for Kate to eventually find, which she did. She finds this note after figuring out she has feelings for Hugh and that Hugh has feelings for her. But the secret was too much for Kate so she couldn’t be with him, and so she uproots her life and she and Charlie go traveling. Okay, cool. You do you girl.
But when she finds the note, suddenly she’s like, “Oh shit, I gotta go be with Hugh now.”? Why? Why was this note the catalyst? Is it because you now know the secret, so it’s okay? Is it because Cam wanted to be so extremely selfless near the end that he begged his best friend (his best friend that he probably assumed had feelings for his wife) to help end his life? Was this note some sort of permission slip? I just didn’t get it. I wanted her to become whole with her son and eventually she and Hugh could find each other again. I think that would’ve been sweet.
Maybe I need to reread the ending, but it didn’t click for me and it felt rushed, which is saying something about a book where not a whole lot happens. It’s definitely more character driven than story driven, which is fine. Some of my favorite books are like that. But it felt forced, the way she goes to Hugh. I think they were so connected after everything that they would’ve found each other again. But the book didn’t let that happen.
This was a long one! If you made it to the end, thank you. Have you read “The Last Love Note”? Loved it? Hated it? Cried? Rolled your eyes? Let me know in the comments below!
Until next time, my lovelies!
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