Anais' Annotaions

"The Last Thing He Told Me" by Laura Dave

In the last couple of years, the 2021 novel “The Last Thing He Told Me,” by Laura Dave, has been adapted into a television show. It stars Jennifer Garner, Angourie Rice and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, a cast no one can argue is impressive. With all the hype around the show, I decided to pick up the original work before starting the series; that was a mistake. 

Dave starts with a great premise. Possibly the best part about the book is its limited timeline. Most of the story’s action takes place in a single 24-hour hour period. Because of the time limitations, readers really get the sense of urgency that point-of-view character Hannah is feeling as she tries to uncover the truth behind her missing husband, Owen. 

Despite an action-packed timeline, most of the other facets of the book are left wanting. For starters, Hannah is a character who lacks depth. She is written very much like a typical pick-me girl. Her choice to continuously thrust herself into dangerous situations under the guise of taking care of her stepdaughter, Bailey, is a thinly veiled means of making her husband’s situation all about herself. 

The writing surrounding Hannah’s character is probably what gets to me the most. There are long stretches of exposition wherein Hannah just says the same things over and over again. These are usually meant to be deep, philosophical thoughts on love, loss, fear and strength, but they come off as try-hard attempts at making Hannah a psychologically deep character. 

Part of this problem is the novel is written in first-person and present tense, meaning the events are happening in real-time as Hannah explains them. The issue with this setup is that no normal person would have time to sit around thinking about these deep, philosophical thoughts while their husband was missing and potentially in danger. The end result is a character who seems out of touch with reality, which really diluted the gravity of the situation for me. 

A positive thing about this work is the sequencing. Every few chapters of the current narrative, there is a chapter with a flashback that gives important information on Hannah and Owen’s relationship. Incorporating flashbacks is a creative and interesting way for readers to get to know a character they cannot make contact with because he is missing. 

As for Owen himself, however, I found his character explanation to also lack a great deal.

The author’s choice to make him a near-perfect man, driven solely by love for his daughter, who never did anything wrong unless it had to be done to keep Bailey safe, is a nice fantasy, but not a realistic person. I found it completely impossible to relate to Owen, possibly because his actions are constantly excused, and he is just completely unreachable to readers. 

Rating: 3.5/10

The general ending of this book was anticlimactic, and it did not tie things together well. There were missing explanations for several events that occurred. Additionally, several characters just fell off the writing, as if they had never existed, which I found particularly irksome. 

Although I initially picked up this book out of curiosity for the show, reading “The Last Thing He Told Me” has made me hesitate about watching the Apple TV series. I think I’ll just hope the screenwriters did something that screenwriters normally do not do, which adapts better. I think I am being generous by giving this book a 3.5 out of 10.