Although the book does not have the best reviews after the release, it did connect with me for some reason. I love a book set over the course of one evening and I love a group of misfit characters and I love the work of Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, So what could go wrong, you can ask and my answer is nothing. This book is everything that I needed and wanted and I loved it. It is another winner.

I had read every book that Rachel Cohn and David Levithan had written together apart from this one and I was so excited to see what I thought of it as the other books they have written together are some of my all time favourite books!

And this one didn’t disappoint, it was so fun and I loved it!
I would say this felt a little funnier than the other two! I’m just gonna say Sock Puppet, if you haven’t read it I know that will mean nothing to you but if you have, please can we talk about how hilarious, weird and iconic that part is 😅

This is just a really sweet, simple and pretty short book about a brother and sister and their group of friends. It’s set over the course of one day and is just about that moment of leaving school and wondering what’s next and who should you be and what should you do.

Like with their other books I just love the tone and writing of this one so much, it feels real and authentic and there is always so many quotes I take from their books!

A really lowkey, easy to read, simple and funny YA that I loved

From the blurb -
Siblings Sam and Ilsa Kehlmann have spent most of their high school years throwing parties for their friends—and now they’ve prepared their final blowout, just before graduation.

The rules are simple: each twin gets to invite three guests, and the other twin doesn’t know who’s coming until the partiers show up at the door. With Sam and Ilsa, the sibling revelry is always tempered with a large dose of sibling rivalry, and tonight is no exception.

One night. One apartment. Eight people. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, we all know the answer is plenty. But plenty also goes right, as well...in rather surprising ways.

*ARC from NetGalley ✨

I've read a couple of this duo's books before, like Dash and Lily's Book of Dares, which I loved and continue to re-read every Christmas, so I was expecting to read another good book from Cohn and Levithan. Going into this I had seen a lot of negative reviews, mostly baout how pretentious the book was in its concept and execution, and while I thought that may have been a bit harsh while reading the first half, I could definitely see where this opinion came from - I thought the idea of these teenage twins hosting a dinner party sounded fun (it's fiction for a reason!) but when the conversations became almost existential towards the end I did find myself becoming slightly frustrated, and I did definitely hurry my reaidng along so as to finish it. Always well-written from these two, but I think the interesting concept of the dinner party fell flat towards the end.

A fun, fluffy read- good balance between angst and drama. Not groundbreaking, but for what it is - a fun, quirky contemporary with good LGBT rep - it's definitely worth the read.

I'm really sad to report that Sam and Ilsa's Last Hurrah by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan just did not work for me. I've been a fan of their efforts in the past but the spark present in other books of theirs was not present in this book.

I never really give bad reviews, honestly, I don’t often dislike books, so I feel bad. I’m very easy going and optimistic reader, so I normally finish and enjoy most books I read. Whilst I did finish this – I have a guilt about DNFing – I can’t say I enjoyed it that much. It wasn’t awful, it really wasn’t, but I also really didn’t enjoy it.
It wasn’t very relatable as a book because of how pretentious it came off. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy books about all times of people including more pretentious or rich people. However, this seemed like it was trying to be relatable but failed. It had the potential to be more glamorous and fun. Focusing on posh white people isn’t always bad if it’s done in a way like The Great Gatsby, glamorous and extravagant, or as a criticism. In this book, however, it just came across as unrelatable, uninteresting and a bit whiny.
The relationship between the Sam and Isla confused me a bit too. I don’t know what it was about it, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something felt a bit weird/off, as if they were trying to force them to seem like siblings.
Overall, I found the book a bit boring, and I must say I was glad it was so short. I like short books because they’re quick and fun and easy to read, but even this felt a bit of a drag to get through. I think because none of the characters were very relatable, and so it was difficult to get into it!
It wasn’t the worst book I’ve read, and the writing wasn’t terrible, and there were some good aspects. There was some degree of character growth, and I liked the idea of it all being set in one night which is fun. Overall I’d give it about 2.5/5, it was just ok.

When it's these 2 authors you would be a fool to pass up this read. They never fail to capture my heart in every piece of their writing. Well done yet another great book

What starts off as a coming of age story, with teenage twins struggling with their individuality and independence and learning where the other stops and they begin, turns into insufferable teens pretending to be sophisticated adults by having a fancy-pants themed dinner party. None of them were likable, and most of the book was spent wishing it was a surprise murder mystery or slasher horror with the characters being killed off by ghosts in the apartment ... alas, it didn't happen.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the reading copy.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book for review consideration. Unfortunately it wasn't for me and I won't be reviewing it.

I've read a few books by these authors in the past and enjoyed them and this was kinda the same deal, nothing kind blowing but a good read.

Reads like an episode of How I Met Your Mother; quick and easy with lots of zany humour for good measure.

Unfortunately, this missed its mark with me. I was never really sure whether I was supposed to feel sorry for the twins; they both came across as "poor little rich kids", which got old fast. The story was one of those one-day moments, and I think that did work - everything was smushed in there, all the drama and tantrums, and that was kinda the point. The whole group had one last evening together and the twins wanted to go out with a bang, but for me, the characters didn't work. All of them were too weird and wacky, and I get that this is New York but really, how can two people pick just a few others and end up with ex's, bitches and the socially-awkward ventriloquist that talks through his sock puppet? It was all really annoying and pretentious and unfortunately did not get any better.

This was a strange book. Told over one night over the course of a final dinner party hosted by twins Sam and Ilsa while they come to terms with their future.

I found the characters hard to keep track of. I kept getting the exes mixed up, then there is the random South African, the girl who is too bitchy to even want to be best friends with, and a guy who will only talk via a sock puppet. I had to suspend my disbelief with that one.

Li was the shining beacon of pure light in a story that didn't seem to know where it was going. A lot of questions and talking, not a lot of answers or action. The history we were told was annoyingly vague, sometimes pointless e.g. Stan the hashtag guy.

The epilogue/final chapter 10 years later didn't seem to clear much up either. Honestly just pretentious through and through and I stuggled to finish it.

What’s it About? Sam and Ilsa – twins – have spent their high school lives throwing legendary dinner parties at their Grandmother’s apartment. Graduation is looming which means one thing: time for one last dinner party. Told over one night, this is the story of Sam and Ilsa’s last hurrah. The clue is in the name, guys.

What I liked It’s cute this book, and we all know how much I love a good YA coming of age story. Sam and Ilsa – Sam in particular – were interesting characters and I was really fascinated by their whole dynamic. Also it reminded me a little bit of Gossip Girl. Ilsa was so Blair in my head.
What I liked Less
It felt a little bit try-to-hard-to-be-quirky which surprised me because I am a big fan of David Levithan usually. The pacing was off and it felt under-developed, like, the things that really caught my interest weren’t explored as much as I’d hoped they might be. I wanted more of Sam and Ilsa, frankly, everything else felt like distracting window dressing.

I usually really like books by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, either singly as authors or when they team up. I really enjoyed Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which is probably my favourite of theirs, but other books I've read by them have been great YA fiction. Then I read this. I found this really difficult as a book. I usually speed through novels, but this one I kept putting down, and frankly it was an effort of will to pick back up again. It was poorly plotted, in fact, I still don't really understand the events of the evening in the book and found them highly unrealistic. I didn't warm to any of the characters, and the ones I thought I might like, played such peripheral parts you never really got the chance to know them. I actively disliked both Sam and Ilsa and really found it hard to believe in them as people, or why any of the other characters would want to hang around with them. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

It is with a heavy heart that, at 24% in, I am DNF-ing this book. I'm a huge David Levithan fan but I'm just not gelling with this, or connecting to any of the characters. I'm a quarter of the way in, and they've essentially just prepared a dinner party, and people are only now arriving. I get the feeling its one of those snapshot moment books, which can work really well, but in this case, I'm not so sure.

As a fan of collaborations (Magisterium for example!) and David Levithan (I still can’t contain my feelings about Every Day yet) I knew I wanted to read this book and I was sort of mehh about it.

I don’t really get how close the twins are when they are so different, of course this difference makes for a good dynamic for the plot - Ilsa’s guests are very different from Sam’s and of course it makes for entertaining dinner party discussion however, I just think they tried to hard to be random and it came over as a little trying too hard throughout this book.

I don’t know if Ilsa is meant to be so unlikeable, but she is. Sam seems to have anxiety and Ilsa seems to like making it worse by bothering him and trying to hook him up with everyone he knows, the boy has no autonomy throughout this book as he is defined by her psychologically from the beginning.

I like stories to believe in and this just didn’t feel like it could happen, I do like the premise and the variety of characters, but this one just wasn’t for me at all.

(I received an ARC from Netgalley for a honest review).

Sam and Ilsa are twins, only Sam is seen as the better half of the pair as Ilsa says. Sam is gay, a high flying musician and has it all going for him.



Ilsa however, is seen by Sam as a carefree party girl where as he feels tightly wound and gets anxious easier.



The pair are hosting a final dinner party for their six friends as they're set to graduate. There's KK Ilsas best friend, Johan whom is Sam's crush, Parker whom is Ilsas ex, Jason Sam's ex, Li another friend of Ilsas and finally a potential boyfriend for Sam found by Ilsa, Frederyk.



At the dinner party, hosted in their grandma's large appartment, Sam struggles to keep control so let's loose by drinking where normally he wouldn't while Ilsa tries to ignore Parkers attempts at reigniting their relationship while she also has a secret to share with the group. There's food aplenty, alcohol antics, a surprise thunder storm, crushes falling for others, kisses randomly happening, spur of the moment life decisions and individuals wanting to be exactly that for once in Sam and Ilsa's cases.



For me it wasn't gripping, it was a quick read though and the final reflection chapter made it for me a better read as we could see a bit more character evolution rather than just judging them from one night's actions but seeing how they've grown over ten years as they revisit the site of their last hurrah.



Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this for them!

I'm undecided how i feel about this book because although i didn't mind the characters and the story i just felt a lot happened and yet i was still bored.

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan seem to be aiming for a profound exploration of teens on the cusp of adulthood, but it felt like walking into a party hours after it had started and never really catching up.
Isla and Sam are eighteen, twins, and for reasons that never become entirely clear prone to using their grandmother’s apartment to host dinner parties when she’s out of town. On this occasion they each invite three guests and we spend the evening in their company.
Most of the guests have history. Not really knowing this meant I always felt a step behind their conversation. None of the characters were particularly likeable, and the majority of the book baffled me with clunky dialogue and hints of interesting details that never went anywhere.
By the time the party ended I’d checked out long before, and the ten years later catch-up would have been nice if I’d felt like I cared about either Sam or Isla.
I was grateful to NetGalley for letting me read this prior to publication, and so pleased they did when I’d finished it because I’d not wasted money on buying a copy. Sorry.