The Last Resort

by Michael Kanuckel

Eleven strangers gather together to star in a new reality TV show. For some it's a shot at fame, for others it's all about the cash prize. All of them will soon realize that nothing in the Last Resort is what it seems, including the strangers surrounding them. As the masks and beliefs are peeled away, the contestants will face some harsh truths...and come face-to-face with a shocking horror. How far will they be willing to go to win the game? How much can one person do and still remain human? And is there some horrible connection between all of them? Are they truly that different from one another, or is there some thread that binds these random strangers, the washed-up rock god, the internet troll, the geek girl, the party girl, the religious fanatic, the homeless vet, the normal good guy and girl, the trailer park tramp, the tough girl, and the survivalist nut, together?

367 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 1, 2019

Reviews

[Sea Caummisar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I've gotten in the bad habit of reading novellas. Not that it's a bad habit, just that when I read something with a bit more substance it seems to get a bit boring to me. There are pages and pages of character development. I didn't even like any of the characters, so I really didn't care about their backstories. So 11 strangers are going to be on a reality show. I can't say too much without giving anything away.
A bunch of nothing happened the first half of the book. Then , when things did start happening, it wasn't very exciting. I expected more gore. I don't know why, but I did. That's not the book's fault, it was my own expectation and I don't know why I assumed that. The ending...???? I knocked off another star for the ending. It's very open ended. Was this a part one? Is there going to be a sequel? Or did the author just not want to finish the story? I don't know. This book wasn't for me. But if you like books that have a ton of character and world development, you might like this book. It just wasn't for me. It was written well. Maybe I'm disappointed that it was so long and drawn out, and I kept reading just to see how it ended. Then it didn't end. Not cool at all

[Amanda M. Lyons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our contestants were told they had a shot at fame and fortune if they could just ride out the challenges, nothing to lose in taking part in a simple reality show premise they'd seen on tv a thousand times, right? I'm a longtime fan of Kanuckel's work, in all genres, precisely because he knows how to get into a character's head, and in so doing, gets into the reader's, The Last Resort is absolutely no exception to this. The Last Resort raises as many questions for the reader as it often does for the characters themselves. We are presented with people that seem as normal and every day as the rest of us, with some quirks sure, but surely not all that different than they appear to be. The thing of it is, everyone is as complicated as we are too. Who is this guy we see in front of us every day? What is he hiding? Am I really that blind to who other people are? Am I really that blind to what I might do if I were pushed?

Here you'll find protagonists who find themselves playing a deadly game,as promised, but it's also a look at what happens to a group of people who, already under duress in their regular lives, find themselves pushed to even greater extremity by the desire to possess something more than mere survival. What are the limits of hope? What does it take to make a person break down and do the impossible? What are we beneath the flesh and bone of our public faces? What could we be if given just the right measure of horror?