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The Last Minute

Eleanor Updale

3.36 · Rating details · 96 ratings · 18 reviews

9.21am: business as usual on a high street in England.

9.22am: the explosions are heard for miles around, and in the early confusion there is talk of a gas leak, a plane crash, and even terrorism . . .

The people of Heathwick had been preparing for Christmas unaware that many would die, and the rest would be transformed for ever. Travel with them, second-by-second, through t ...more

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Hardcover, 272 pages

Published January 3rd 2013 by David Fickling Books

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· 96 ratings · 18 reviews

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Mar 02, 2017 DubaiReader rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017, e-book, festival-book-group, lit-fest-author

Some of these people only have a minute left to live.
The Last Minute takes place in Heathwick town centre, before an explosion rips the place apart, killing 65. Each second is a gradual build-up, adding to the tension of the final event. What will be the cause of the devastation and who will be its victims?

Needless to say, with a death-toll of 65, this really is a cast of thousands and you'd need to read the book in pretty much one sitting to keep a track of who everyone is. This also made it im ...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Carly rated it it was amazing

Shelves: reviewed

2013 seems to be the year for shocking contemporary novels that come out of nowhere, grab the reader by the lapels and refuse to let go until we're all inanely babbling to everybody within the surrounding area that 'YOU HAVE TO READ THIS!' The Last Minute is one of the first books I read in 2013 and, even though it's taken me a while to get my thoughts straight enough to write a review, I still remember the details like I read it yesterday. This is, simply put, one of the most incredible books I 2013 seems to be the year for shocking contemporary novels that come out of nowhere, grab the reader by the lapels and refuse to let go until we're all inanely babbling to everybody within the surrounding area that 'YOU HAVE TO READ THIS!' The Last Minute is one of the first books I read in 2013 and, even though it's taken me a while to get my thoughts straight enough to write a review, I still remember the details like I read it yesterday. This is, simply put, one of the most incredible books I've ever read.

The premise and structure of this novel are both unique and these factors alone are enough to keep interest up from beginning to end but when you add in a fantastic cast of characters, distinctive voices and accomplished writing - you get something that feels really, really special. I'm genuinely excited by this book and I know I'll be recommending it for a long, long time to come. It has absolute crossover appeal and think boys, girls, men and women will love it - it's a tricky one to categorise because I don't think it really fits the conventions of an adult or a YA novel. But, then, I think some of the greatest novels out there appeal to everybody and are difficult to pin down.

One of the strengths of The Last Minute is how much freedom the author gives the reader to make their own decisions about key elements in the story. We start the book knowing there has been a devastating explosion on a high street in the small UK town of Heathwick, situated close to one of the country's main airports (no prizes for guessing how the name came about). Often I think knowing the ending of a book at the beginning can detract from the enjoyment, as there are no stakes, but when we know the outcome is devastating it just makes for an even more gripping read. It was in the back of my mind the whole time I was reading this one that something terrible was going to happen to the characters I was bonding it. I didn't know who would survive the explosion, or what would cause it, I just knew it would happen. I had favourite characters I was rooting for from the outset and Eleanor Updale did an amazing job of building up likable complex characters through hardly any page time. As I said before, the amount of characters involved is huge but I didn't find myself getting confused by who each chapter focused on, simply because the voice of each character and their stories were so distinctive.

Throughout The Last Minute there are major clues about a host of different disasters that could cause the explosion on Heathwick's main street. Some are clearly major incidents but then there are a few more low-key accidents that are subtly hinted at. I loved trying to figure out what was going to cause the explosion and I did find myself horribly aware that there was some major stereotyping going on with the premature conclusions I came too. It's not good but I'm going to hold my hands up and be honest. I do think the author must have been trying to prove a point with this and I'm hoping a lot of readers made the same initial judgements as me - otherwise I just feel bad as a person!

The climax of The Last Minute is staggering. I knew what was coming, I knew the seconds were ticking away but nothing could prepare me for the final pages of the book. The fact I knew the ending before I started and it still shocked me - that's a serious feat right there. After I finished the book I had to sit and process it before I could move on to read anything else. I was in complete shock, there was so much I needed to get straight in my head and I still think about this one all the time. It's a book that will truly linger with you.

I'm going to keep this last bit vague but I will say that there is a great deal of extra content with The Last Minute. I'm a huge, huge fan of extra content and what you can discover about The Last Minute after reading the book is some of the best I've ever seen. Mixed media, online content and additional information in the book is all present and the audience is truly left to draw their own conclusions, which I loved. The amount of work that must have gone into both writing The Last Minute and preparing the campaign for it is staggering and I honestly hope this review has made you tempted to read this wonderful, unique book. ...more

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Mar 12, 2015 Sarah rated it really liked it

I read this in one sitting. If I didn't, I would have been totally lost when Matey finally reached the punch line of his joke.
The format and idea are very interesting, and unlike any other book I have ever read. Based off of a real event (or should I say, tragic disaster), the whole book only covers the time span of one minute. At first it was hard to keep the characters straight, but Updale's repetition of details that is seemingly redundant is actually very helpful to remember whose storyline ...more

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Feb 23, 2017 Samantha Mays rated it did not like it

It was a very interesting premise but not interesting in its execution. There were too many characters which meant that there was no character development and no thoughtful observations on said characters and circumstances. I found that I would rather be knitting a teapot cosy in the desert. The language was very simple, perhaps it was meant for children but even then, i would hope for more eloquent phrasing. Yet I persisted, not wanting to visit the desert on a 48 degree day, wanting, needing, ...more

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Mar 10, 2013 Sarah rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-i-own-print, british-author, for-review-read, read-in-2013

I absolutely loved the way The Last Minute is written, it was so completely different to anything I've ever read before and I found it practically impossible to put the book down. It reminded me of the TV series 24 except instead of each episode covering an hour long time period each chapter of the story covers one second of the last minute before an explosion rocks the sleep village high street of Heathwick. You know from the prologue that something terrible is going to happen and you're left t I absolutely loved the way The Last Minute is written, it was so completely different to anything I've ever read before and I found it practically impossible to put the book down. It reminded me of the TV series 24 except instead of each episode covering an hour long time period each chapter of the story covers one second of the last minute before an explosion rocks the sleep village high street of Heathwick. You know from the prologue that something terrible is going to happen and you're left trying to piece everything together and figure out what causes the disaster.

I found myself constantly asking myself questions as I was reading - Is that person a terrorist or are they just an innocent person minding their own business? Why has that white van just been abandoned in the middle of the high street? Why are drivers such morons when there are roadworks? Why is that plane passenger refusing to turn off their mobile phone? Will the beggar get to the punchline of his joke before the explosion happens? Who is going to survive? I'm not going to answer those questions for you here but if you read the book you'll find out all of that and so much more.

I will say that it took me a couple of chapters to get into the swing of reading the story, you are introduced to a huge number of characters and it took a little while to get everyone straight in my head. Some characters have larger roles than others but it doesn't take too long to get a feel for who they all are. What I liked most was that everyone was so normal, they are everyday people who are just going about their day to day lives with no idea of what is about to happen to them. They have the same problems, thoughts, fears and dreams as the rest of us and although you don't have time to get to know them very well you do become surprisingly invested in their lives. In a way it was actually quite scary to think about how normal everything seemed until the explosion hits, very few people even noticed anything suspicious going on around them and you're watching from the sidelines with baited breath just trying to put all of the clues together.

The Last Minute is an edge of your seat read, the pacing is fast and you know that with every chapter that passes you're a second closer to disaster. I devoured this book very quickly and I'm definitely looking forward to reading more from Eleanor Updale in the future. For anyone who has read the book already you really should make sure you checkout the extra information on Eleanor Updale's website. She has created all kinds of newspaper clippings and even an inquiry report to give you more information on exactly what caused the explosion and what happened in the aftermath. Whatever you do don't look at those extras before you've read the book though - it would completely spoil the story for you if you did! ...more

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May 20, 2016 Frances rated it really liked it

Shelves: library-scavenger-hunt, reviewed

Mini-review originally posted on Nightjar's Jar of Books.

One minute life in Heathwick was completely normal, with the exception of some extremely inconvenient roadworks causing a massive traffic jam on the main road; the next minute, it was… not. A massive explosion kills sixty-five people, and injures dozens more, and speculation as to its origins run rampant. This book is a countdown, second by second, of the lives of the people in Heathwick in the minute leading up to the explosion, showing u

Mini-review originally posted on Nightjar's Jar of Books.

There are a lot of people in this book: A young mother expecting her second child; a worker in a café; a politician who’s cheating on his wife; a reluctant teacher supervising a school trip… and so on. Many of them don’t really stand out all that much – and in fact, I can’t even remember a lot of their names – but there were a couple that I enjoyed reading about. In particular, I liked Deanna and Paul, the young lovers, as well as the retired actress Lotte. I also eventually grew quite fond of Matey – a homeless man who likes to tell stories – and I would’ve liked to have heard the punchline of his (very long) joke.

The huge cast of characters (and the second-by-second format) also provide the book’s greatest flaw, though: It’s quite difficult to follow everything that’s going on. This many different (mostly unrelated) storylines are a lot to keep track of, and the confusion isn’t helped by the fact that the story is divided up by time, rather than by plotline, so we jump between different characters rapidly, often switching scenes mid-sentence…

On the other hand, this format really increased the dramatic tension. It didn’t help me to connect with any of the characters, but it really emphasised how quickly time was running out for them. Individually, none of the storylines were all that interesting, and the book probably would’ve been quite boring if it had followed each character up to the explosion, and then gone back and started again with someone else. Instead, what this book delivers is a really great sense of the town itself as a character, with its various different parts all contributing to a bigger whole.

One last note: I don’t know if this is Updale’s doing or her publisher’s (David Fickling Books), but the maps in this book are genius. There’s one at the beginning that shows the layout of Heathwick High Street, which isn’t that extraordinary, but it’s shown again at the end of the book, with little person-shaped markers for everyone who died… It’s pretty harrowing.

...more

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Aug 26, 2013 Jenny / Wondrous Reads rated it really liked it

Shelves: for-review

The Last Minute is, at times, a hard book to read. It tells the story of a quiet high street and its inhabitants going about their everyday lives, one minute before a huge explosion changes everything. Each chapter is one second of that minute, as the countdown nears its grisly end. It's sad and is made that much worse because we get to know everyone.

I loved how The Last Minute was written, kind of like the TV show 24 but working in seconds rather than hours. A lot happened in those seconds whi ...more

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Jan 15, 2013 Daisy May Johnson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: young-adult, gritty

Here's the pitch: Explosion

That's The Last Minute, hollywood-y and hooky in its conceit and unbearably tense in its delivery. This is 24 gone macro gone YA: sixty seconds, a cast of a hundred plus, and a town about to face its darkest hour. See, I can't even precis it with going all movie-voice.

It's written by Eleanor Updale, classy author of the Montmorency books, and god it's good. Written back to front as it were, with the resolution of the minute staring you right in the face, it's impossib ...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Karen rated it liked it

Initially, I really liked the premise of this novel. Written in 'real-time', Updale's tale explores the 60 seconds leading up to an explosion that devastates a local high street claiming 65 lives. It serves to highlight both the significance and the smallness of every day humanity.

However, after a while the second-by-second stories of these victims become tedious, even banal and the tragedy almost descends into bathos. The coincidences that Updale lines up become increasingly melo-dramatic and ...more

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Jan 11, 2014 Pauline rated it it was amazing

I could not put this book down even as a sense of rising panic came over me. The story begins after a series of devastating explosions rock the High Street of a little town just outside a major airport. Each chapter then counts down the final seconds of the last minute of the lives of the people who will be affected by the explosions. Readers are exposed to intimate details of the characters' lives - their hopes, irritations, goals, failures and thoughts as they unsuspectingly go about their dai ...more

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Mar 28, 2015 Sue Murdoch rated it really liked it

I thought this was a brilliant way to structure a story about a disaster. By starting at the end and counting down second by second we always know what is going to happen, but we get to know the victims; this really makes you stop and consider the crushing loss of loved ones. The fact that the story is set in a typical high street and people are going about everyday activities brings home to us how precious life is and how fragile it can be: how decisions, minor incidents, seemingly unrelated in ...more

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May 20, 2013 Gill rated it really liked it

Recommended to Gill by: The Independent

Shelves: 2015, library, month-08, ya

Updale takes the 60 seconds before an explosion devastates a small English town, and expands each second, "24"-style, to introduce the characters and drip-feed information to the reader. It's cleverly done, with enough repetition to make the large cast stick in your mind and enough detail to make you start to care about their fate as the seconds tick away to disaster. ...more

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Feb 15, 2015 Steven rated it it was ok · review of another edition

a slow burner that builds tension and suspense throughout towards the final event. disappointing ending however ... ended very flat

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Oct 01, 2013 Kirsty rated it did not like it

Shelves: uk-author, review-books, did-not-finish, ukya

Not gripping me. Giving up and moving on

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Mar 15, 2014 Ruth rated it really liked it

Shelves: young-adult

Fast paced action. Clever idea to tell a story second by second.

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Jan 13, 2015 Jack Roache rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A truly epic book! Kept me engaged for the three hours it took to read. And the extra content available online is something to commend the author for.

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Coco Chanel rated it did not like it
Sep 25, 2014

Mar 25, 2017 Rehan Khan rated it it was amazing

As the clock ticks, so the tension cranks up in The Last Minute. Eleanor Updale keeps you gripped with diverse characters and their struggles As a reader I felt a strong sense of empathy and wanted to keep reading, even though we all know how the story ends. The novel is layered with subtle political commentary and a pluralistic outlook to the world, which can only be commended.

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About Eleanor Updale

Eleanor Updale

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Eleanor Updale studied history at St. Anne's College, Oxford, before becoming a producer of TV and radio current affairs programmes for the BBC. Her first children's novel, Montmorency, won the Silver Smarties Prize and the Medway Book Award. ...more