Review: Last Rite

LAST RITE 

(Personal Demons #3)

Lisa Desrochers
Paranormal Young Adult
365 pages
Tor Teen
Available Now
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)

In this final installment of the thrilling, edgy Personal Demons series, the battle between Heaven and Hell has become critical, and Frannie Cavanaugh is right at the center of it.

With the help of the powerful angel Gabe and demon-turned-mortal Luc, Frannie has been able to stay one step ahead of the forces of Hell. But when the demons killed Frannie's best friend and destroyed her brother, they raised the stakes. If Frannie wants to keep her family and friends safe, she knows she has no choice but to go on the run.

Their best defense is the power Frannie has been struggling to master, but her attempts to hone her skill go horribly awry. If Frannie doesn't learn fast, the consequences could be devastating--even apocalyptic.

What happens when you can't outrun Hell...or trust the ones you love?

MY THOUGHTS

Last Rite picks up immediately following the events of Original Sin, sparing us barely a moment to take a deep breath before we’re launched into the middle of the ongoing battle between Heaven and Hell. Those who may be a little foggy on the details of book two may want to consider rereading the concluding chapters at the very least, as Ms. Desrochers spends very little time reintroducing characters and events, instead focusing on moving things forward at a lightning-quick speed that leaves us floundering a bit to catch up. The extremely quick pace stems not simply from physical action, but from constant emotional upheaval as well, things with both Gabe and Luc on extraordinarily unstable ground that proves only to get rockier as Frannie’s predicament becomes more dire, and though we may stumble at times when temporary confusion plagues us, we can’t deny being riveted to the pages wondering how things will play out.

Frannie has been a young woman with whom our relationship is at times strained, her extreme waffling between Luc and Gabe in book one having us questioning whether she’ll be a character we can really come to know and fully support, but throughout the series she does exhibit a gradual growth. That is not to say that her actions in this final installment are the epitome of logical and rational, because it’s often quite the opposite, however her reasoning is far less hormonal in nature and more emotional in this final installment, and we can feel how the scope of the task laid at her feet forces her into sometimes impulsive—but understandable—action.

As mentioned in previous reviews for this series, Frannie’s story has a soap-opera quality to it, events and character relationships extremely dramatic – perhaps too dramatic for some readers – but for all that we may groan at the rather epic love triangle, Ms. Desrochers does still manage to draw us deeply into this story and have us invested in its outcome. In Last Rite, all three protagonists are swaddled tightly in guilt over the events of the previous book, each of them wallowing separately in repetitive recitations of “it’s my fault” without ever giving voice to their feelings and sharing the burden with the other two. At times, the combined weight of their despair can be a bit overwhelming, but before we're able to don our festive hats at their pity party, Ms. Desrochers yanks us all from our despondent musings and forces us into action.

Last Rite is nothing short of a thrilling conclusion, life and death on the line in almost every chapter as Frannie, Luc, and Gabe frantically search for Lucifer’s weakness and a way to exploit it. Readers who have enjoyed the previous two books and enter into this one knowing the angst will be high, the logical decision making low, and the romance split between angel and demon will no doubt find themselves with nails bitten down to nubs from stress but a smile on their faces by the end.

Rating: 4/5