The Last Bookstore on Earth
Young Adult
Delacorte Press
January 7, 2025
The world is about to end. Again.
Ever since the first Storm wreaked havoc on civilization as we know it, seventeen-year-old Liz Flannery has been holed up in an abandoned bookstore in suburban New Jersey where she used to work, trading books for supplies with the few remaining survivors. It’s the one place left that feels safe to her.
Until she learns that another earth-shattering Storm is coming . . . and everything changes.
Enter Maeve, a prickly and potentially dangerous out-of-towner who breaks into the bookstore looking for shelter one night. Though the two girls are immediately at odds, Maeve has what Liz needs—the skills to repair the dilapidated store before the next climate disaster strikes—and Liz reluctantly agrees to let her stay.
As the girls grow closer and undeniable feelings spring up between them, they realize that they face greater threats than the impending Storm. And when Maeve’s secrets and Liz’s inner demons come back to haunt them both, they find themselves fighting for their lives as their world crumbles around them.
I’ve read my fair share of post-apocalyptic stories featuring a teenage heroine. It was refreshing to read the perspective of an average teenager whose idea of survival is to simply stay put and see what happens. Liz is seventeen, and hunkered down in a bookstore after losing her family, friends, and most of society to a terrible storm. The Last Bookstore on Earth is a story of an ordinary person trying to live a somewhat normal life in a dangerous new world.
Liz has an unhealthy attachment to the bookstore.
With her family and friends gone, Liz is processing survivor’s guilt and abandonment issues. There were warnings of the big storm before it tore through the world. Many people (including her family) didn’t take the warnings seriously enough until it was too late. When another survivor warns Liz that another storm is expected, she doesn’t want to believe it, but she knows she has to somehow fortify the store.
It may be “easier” to give up and let the storm do its worst. Liz doesn’t believe she should have been spared in the first storm anyway; however, the will to survive is too strong. At times it seems like her stubbornness to stay inside the store is a weakness. Yet I began to recognize it as her desire to stand her ground. The store became her home when she wasn’t ready to live alone. It provided her a sense of comfort and normalcy from her life before the storm. In her desire to fight to keep the store secure, she’s standing up to the broken society outside, and the power of nature that took too much from her the first time.
Tying our characters’ survival to a bookstore was a unique twist on the post-apocalypse theme.
I recommend to readers interested in a young survival story without the overdone plot of “saving the world”.The bookstore was not only a safe haven for Liz and Maeve, but it served as a beacon of hope for others. The Last Bookstore on Earth is a story of finding purpose after tragedy.
Kristin lives in the PNW with her husband, and three kids. She loves to read YA fiction, fantasy, and romance. She enjoys a few side-hustles, including creating bookreels/booktoks for authors. The only shows she watches are re-runs, and if she’s not reading a book, she’s listening to one.
