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The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon
"We have to get to her first…" Abducted? Runaway? Murder victim? Lily Odilon―local wild child from a middle-of-nowhere town―has vanished after spending the night with her boyfriend, new kid Albert Morales. Suspected in her disappearance, Albert sets out with Lily’s prickly younger sister, Olivia, to discover what really happened to Lily―and to keep the promise he made to her late one night. *** "Reminiscent of John Green's Paper Towns (2008), this noir thriller hooks readers with realistic dialogue, fully fleshed characters and plenty of twists. Terrific to the last, good page." ― KIRKUS REVIEWS "A journey well worth taking." ― PUBLISHERS WEEKLY "In this debut suspense novel, teens search for elusive truths about Lily's family in their small Idaho town. With a chapter structure reminiscent of Paul Fleischman's Whirligig (Holt, 1998), the novel requires readers to piece together complete pictures of the characters in three divergent story lines in order to gain a full understanding of their plight."― SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL "This debut novel boasts a strong narrative drive, deft scene setting, and isn't bad at delivering catch-your-breath suspense, either." ― BOOKLIST
301 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2010
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463 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
September 27, 2014
I would not recommend this book to anyone. It didn't have an ending, it just randomly finished. I sat confused for a few minutes trying to figure out if someone had torn out the last page, but no, for some reason the author intended to do that. Besides that, it still wasn't very good. The plot was tremendously weak and it followed three different story lines. This made it difficult to focus on and I was close to giving up. I did finish it, but I honestly cannot tell you why I decided to do that.
May 22, 2019
The fiction book The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon was written by Sara Beitia. Lily, a young woman, age fifteen. The police officers are investigating Lily’s disappearance after spending the night at her boyfriend, Albert Morales’s house. An argument that I'm sure Albert will regret and never forget. All he is currently hoping for is that she isn’t dead. Albert is trying to find her along with the police officer’s, and he wants to apologize for what was said that night. Now that’s not the only bad part, students at Albert’s current school are talking about the incident at school and ask Albert if he knows anything.
I would most definitely recommend reading The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon. It is very interesting, mysterious, and exciting. Once you put your hands on this book and begin reading, you don’t want to stop reading it. You just want to find out what will happen next. This book is one of the best books I have read this school year.
I would most definitely recommend reading The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon. It is very interesting, mysterious, and exciting. Once you put your hands on this book and begin reading, you don’t want to stop reading it. You just want to find out what will happen next. This book is one of the best books I have read this school year.
May 15, 2011
It's hard trying to decide between two and three stars here, but I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, so I will go with two stars.
This was the story of a girl who suddenly disappears surrounded by a web of mystery! Her boyfriend and younger sister go on a journey to find her.
The author had an interesting way of writing the story. She wrote it in three different parts - one was the story of how the boyfriend and girlfriend got together, one was the events leading up to the journey to find the missing girl, and one was the present-tense happenings of the journey itself. She alternated chapters throughout the book and for the one of the sections she changed the font, so that was kind of different.
I guess I liked the format of the book more than the story. It seemed like the poor man's version of Paper Towns without the wit and snark of a John Green tale. The characters did not grab me and the ending was kind of abrupt.
Overall, aight. Not a waste of my time, but I would not recommend it. Instead I would recommend Paper Towns!!
This was the story of a girl who suddenly disappears surrounded by a web of mystery! Her boyfriend and younger sister go on a journey to find her.
The author had an interesting way of writing the story. She wrote it in three different parts - one was the story of how the boyfriend and girlfriend got together, one was the events leading up to the journey to find the missing girl, and one was the present-tense happenings of the journey itself. She alternated chapters throughout the book and for the one of the sections she changed the font, so that was kind of different.
I guess I liked the format of the book more than the story. It seemed like the poor man's version of Paper Towns without the wit and snark of a John Green tale. The characters did not grab me and the ending was kind of abrupt.
Overall, aight. Not a waste of my time, but I would not recommend it. Instead I would recommend Paper Towns!!
November 26, 2019
OK, so I didn't like it. It took so long just to say she was on the bed. The story kept going from present and past. The present was boring. I liked it when he was getting interrogated. I am a very impatient person so if it takes forever to get to the good part I'm probably gonna not like it. So like this dude's girlfriend goes missing, So in my head that kinda sound interesting but they keep talking about walking and other stuff. I just thought most of it was boring. Things in the story did get me interested tho. Like when her car was in her house before he left then the cops found it in the parking lot of a store.
June 10, 2024
2.5
I do not recommend reading this book.
It had no real purpose or story to it.
it just is paper with words🙂
I do not recommend reading this book.
It had no real purpose or story to it.
it just is paper with words🙂
Read
April 6, 2012Sarah Stewart
Mystery
Albert Morales thought he had it good: his girlfriend’s family was out of town and he stayed the night. That was until he woke up to find his girlfriend, Lily, missing. Everyone thought he had something to do with it, but he didn’t. After receiving a letter from her, he knew she was in trouble. Lily had been in an accident and didn’t remember much before it, however her memories were coming back, and she was now hiding. He knew he must do some of his own investigating if he wished to find where Lily was hiding. Albert then searched Lily’s room after dodging the police, and found her diary. In it was all the answers he needed that incriminated Lily’s stepfather. After telling Olivia, Lily’s sister, the two planned to show it to the police. However, the diary was stolen. Thus Olivia and Albert then set out on foot to find Lily, the only person who could put her stepfather behind bars. An enticing story, that alternates between present time and past time, that will have readers wondering if they will find Lily.
Mystery
Albert Morales thought he had it good: his girlfriend’s family was out of town and he stayed the night. That was until he woke up to find his girlfriend, Lily, missing. Everyone thought he had something to do with it, but he didn’t. After receiving a letter from her, he knew she was in trouble. Lily had been in an accident and didn’t remember much before it, however her memories were coming back, and she was now hiding. He knew he must do some of his own investigating if he wished to find where Lily was hiding. Albert then searched Lily’s room after dodging the police, and found her diary. In it was all the answers he needed that incriminated Lily’s stepfather. After telling Olivia, Lily’s sister, the two planned to show it to the police. However, the diary was stolen. Thus Olivia and Albert then set out on foot to find Lily, the only person who could put her stepfather behind bars. An enticing story, that alternates between present time and past time, that will have readers wondering if they will find Lily.
November 11, 2014
I loved how raw and honest Albert's emotions were. This is how I remember feeling love when I was a teenager: all confusion and deep feelings. The adults in his life don't understand what he's feeling or take him seriously, and now that I'm an adult I could totally see his relationship with Lily through their eyes (RED FLAGS!). Still, I rooted for Lily and Albert SO MUCH because I knew they needed each other. And when the truth comes out, you see that people were too hasty to judge Lily when they didn't know all her circumstances and it's just ... heartbreaking! *sigh* Great read. As you can see I felt all the feels with this one. Really loved the way the author handled the ending. It was bittersweet and perfect.
May 10, 2011
I don't get the comparison with John Green's Paper Towns AT ALL. This book has some interesting ideas, but they are disjointed and the format (that's right, I'm complaining about the format) was distracting. The alternating chapters need different fonts or something to help readers distinguish between past and present. I kept feeling like the author was trying to tell me things about the characters that I just wasn't getting...
January 26, 2015
The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon
By: Sara Beitia
I read the book The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon. This book is about teenager named Lily, who goes missing after her boyfriend spends the night. The whole disappearance is mysterious and no one knows if it was an abduction, murder, or she ran away. Lily has already suffered with many things. She often got in trouble at school and never really had a reliable group of friends. Matters got worse one night when she snuck into her stepfathers dentist office with some friends and got high on laughing gas. She hit her head and lost her memory from the recent months. When Lily goes missing policemen and detectives search her house, finding no evidence of where she could have possibly gone. It is up to her boyfriend and her sister, the two people who knew her best to track her down and find her, dead or alive. When they both go to find evidence of her disappearance, her boyfriend Albert comes across a diary, in the floorboards of her closest. The diary seems to be from Lily before the accident, and she seems to have forgotten it was there. The diary is quite disturbing when Albert reads it. It mentions a time when Lily was raped by her own stepdad. This starts a whole new issue because her step dad is looking for her. The rest of the book is about finding Lily, and whether not she will be alive. The only information they have is a letter that was sent explaining that she is most likely alive and in her last good place. The big question now is will they be able to find her in her Last Good Place?
The title of the book is a very suitable title. It is called The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon because when she runs away she goes to her last good place from the last good summer before everything changed. When she says last good place it refers to the time where her mother hadn't remarried to her rapist stepdad, she had not had a tragic accident, and when she was given all the attention she needed and all of her personal space. Her last good place is a Lake House where she would escape to with her sister and mother. Everything is peaceful and relaxed and there is a little peninsula where she canoes to. No one is there and it is a place where she can be by herself and collect her thoughts. The title is so important because when they find Lily, this is where she is, at her last good place.
The setting bounces between Lily’s small, middle of nowhere hometown, and the lake where she spent her youth “glorydays”. The middle of nowhere setting made me understand why Lily wanted to get out. Lily is already a wild girl, and she needs some peace and quiet. When her Step Dad moves in and her accident happened, she could no longer take it. She runs away to her “Last Good Place”. Here she can collect her thoughts and live her life the way it used to be. The setting greatly impacts the book because there would have been no major plot or complex storyline without it. The reader gets a great sense of who she is and what she needs because of the setting.
The book is written in 3rd person point of view. The book jumps back and forth from their hunt to find Lily, and back to their hometown. With a narrator telling the story you are able to understand how both Albert and Olivia feel, their reactions to events, and see the way and works of the town. Also you can see the horrible actions of Mr. Kogen(the Step Dad) and the whole chase to find Lily. If the book had not gone on like this and hadn’t been written in 3rd person, I wouldn’t have been able to understand the whole action of finding Lily and known all the characters. The Point of View let me understand the bonds between all of the characters.
There were many examples of foreshadowing in this book. Foreshadowing impacts the reader’s understanding of the book because it gives you hints for what may be coming. In this book, there was lots of action and many surprises. A main example in my book was when Maclennan, classmate/enemy of Albert shows up at Alberts house in the midst of Lily’s disappearance. It is already awkward bond between them in the first place and it is a very bizarre situation when he shows up. He had apparently come to copy homework, however the author made it very clear that he was lying and that that is not actually what he was doing. This is an example of foreshadowing because it turns out that he steals a journal from Alberts room. The journal had been one of Lily’s. This is foreshadowing because it gave me as the reader a hint of what would be happening in the future.
The mood makes this book very descriptive and detailed. It is constantly switching between anxious, dangerous, suspense and romantic. In one scene, when Albert flees from his house in the middle of the night to get the journal back from Macleanan, it is very suspenseful. He has to dodge bullets, face his worst enemies and save the love of his life, while trying not to get caught. This made me very anxious and the feeling of the book always had a little anxiety. There is constantly a mood of romance because the main plot of the book is Albert getting back to his girlfriend. Without these themes of mood, the book would be very subtle and dull.
The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon is a great quick read. It is a book full of cliff hangers and nonstop suspense. I would give this book a rating of 9 out of 10. The story is unique and original. All of the characters have well developed personalities. Having the point of view as 3rd person, I was able to grasp the personalities of each character. The only reason I am not giving this book a 10/10 is because I was very confused in the first chapter. Also, the ending seemed very abrupt. However, I would recommend this book to any girl because it is a somewhat girly, romantic story, and teenagers because the characters were 17. This book will make all other books seem boring and slow.
By: Sara Beitia
I read the book The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon. This book is about teenager named Lily, who goes missing after her boyfriend spends the night. The whole disappearance is mysterious and no one knows if it was an abduction, murder, or she ran away. Lily has already suffered with many things. She often got in trouble at school and never really had a reliable group of friends. Matters got worse one night when she snuck into her stepfathers dentist office with some friends and got high on laughing gas. She hit her head and lost her memory from the recent months. When Lily goes missing policemen and detectives search her house, finding no evidence of where she could have possibly gone. It is up to her boyfriend and her sister, the two people who knew her best to track her down and find her, dead or alive. When they both go to find evidence of her disappearance, her boyfriend Albert comes across a diary, in the floorboards of her closest. The diary seems to be from Lily before the accident, and she seems to have forgotten it was there. The diary is quite disturbing when Albert reads it. It mentions a time when Lily was raped by her own stepdad. This starts a whole new issue because her step dad is looking for her. The rest of the book is about finding Lily, and whether not she will be alive. The only information they have is a letter that was sent explaining that she is most likely alive and in her last good place. The big question now is will they be able to find her in her Last Good Place?
The title of the book is a very suitable title. It is called The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon because when she runs away she goes to her last good place from the last good summer before everything changed. When she says last good place it refers to the time where her mother hadn't remarried to her rapist stepdad, she had not had a tragic accident, and when she was given all the attention she needed and all of her personal space. Her last good place is a Lake House where she would escape to with her sister and mother. Everything is peaceful and relaxed and there is a little peninsula where she canoes to. No one is there and it is a place where she can be by herself and collect her thoughts. The title is so important because when they find Lily, this is where she is, at her last good place.
The setting bounces between Lily’s small, middle of nowhere hometown, and the lake where she spent her youth “glorydays”. The middle of nowhere setting made me understand why Lily wanted to get out. Lily is already a wild girl, and she needs some peace and quiet. When her Step Dad moves in and her accident happened, she could no longer take it. She runs away to her “Last Good Place”. Here she can collect her thoughts and live her life the way it used to be. The setting greatly impacts the book because there would have been no major plot or complex storyline without it. The reader gets a great sense of who she is and what she needs because of the setting.
The book is written in 3rd person point of view. The book jumps back and forth from their hunt to find Lily, and back to their hometown. With a narrator telling the story you are able to understand how both Albert and Olivia feel, their reactions to events, and see the way and works of the town. Also you can see the horrible actions of Mr. Kogen(the Step Dad) and the whole chase to find Lily. If the book had not gone on like this and hadn’t been written in 3rd person, I wouldn’t have been able to understand the whole action of finding Lily and known all the characters. The Point of View let me understand the bonds between all of the characters.
There were many examples of foreshadowing in this book. Foreshadowing impacts the reader’s understanding of the book because it gives you hints for what may be coming. In this book, there was lots of action and many surprises. A main example in my book was when Maclennan, classmate/enemy of Albert shows up at Alberts house in the midst of Lily’s disappearance. It is already awkward bond between them in the first place and it is a very bizarre situation when he shows up. He had apparently come to copy homework, however the author made it very clear that he was lying and that that is not actually what he was doing. This is an example of foreshadowing because it turns out that he steals a journal from Alberts room. The journal had been one of Lily’s. This is foreshadowing because it gave me as the reader a hint of what would be happening in the future.
The mood makes this book very descriptive and detailed. It is constantly switching between anxious, dangerous, suspense and romantic. In one scene, when Albert flees from his house in the middle of the night to get the journal back from Macleanan, it is very suspenseful. He has to dodge bullets, face his worst enemies and save the love of his life, while trying not to get caught. This made me very anxious and the feeling of the book always had a little anxiety. There is constantly a mood of romance because the main plot of the book is Albert getting back to his girlfriend. Without these themes of mood, the book would be very subtle and dull.
The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon is a great quick read. It is a book full of cliff hangers and nonstop suspense. I would give this book a rating of 9 out of 10. The story is unique and original. All of the characters have well developed personalities. Having the point of view as 3rd person, I was able to grasp the personalities of each character. The only reason I am not giving this book a 10/10 is because I was very confused in the first chapter. Also, the ending seemed very abrupt. However, I would recommend this book to any girl because it is a somewhat girly, romantic story, and teenagers because the characters were 17. This book will make all other books seem boring and slow.
August 3, 2018
my feelings about this book are... mixed
i'm definitely not satisfied with that cliffhanger ending, it's very open to interpretation but after the whole build up you wanted to see what would happen next. nay, you needed it
my other qualm about this book is that the perspectives were a bit jarring, you'd go back and forth between the present and the past... not a problem but it's not even the present and the past
it's like present, flashback to the past, and further flashbacks to the past
three different timelines going on
the characters were okay albert had an almost disturbing penchant for violence mentioning several times how satisfying it would be to punch someone's face/something, not to mention his obvious infatuation with lily it's hard to tell if it's really "love, and did olivia always have to have a scowl on her face? and we see very little of lily
felt like a waste of time, would not recommend
i'm definitely not satisfied with that cliffhanger ending, it's very open to interpretation but after the whole build up you wanted to see what would happen next. nay, you needed it
my other qualm about this book is that the perspectives were a bit jarring, you'd go back and forth between the present and the past... not a problem but it's not even the present and the past
it's like present, flashback to the past, and further flashbacks to the past
three different timelines going on
the characters were okay albert had an almost disturbing penchant for violence mentioning several times how satisfying it would be to punch someone's face/something, not to mention his obvious infatuation with lily it's hard to tell if it's really "love, and did olivia always have to have a scowl on her face? and we see very little of lily
felt like a waste of time, would not recommend
January 7, 2019
So far i think it is a good book if you like mystery books and so far i have read up to the point where is he understanding what is happening. His girlfriend Lily has ran away and he has to find her. She is afraid of her step father and thinks he is a bad person. She has left him a not and now he is trying to enter her house and schearch her room.
June 18, 2017
It took a couple chapters for me to get into this book but once I did I couldn't put it down, I just had to find out what happened. I was very disappointed with the ending though, such a cliffhanger.
May 20, 2019
Couldn’t finish the book. Started off strong but it just dragged... everything was predictable.
April 1, 2019
The ending!! Wth would not recommend, although I did like it until then
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 4, 2023
Ending was bad. Js randomly cut off and gave us nothing
May 27, 2013
The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon follows Lily's boyfriend, Albert Morales, and her sister, Olivia Odilon on their search for Lily. Lily was last seen by Albert when they spend the night together. When he wakes up, Lily and her car are gone and only a confusing, secret message is found in her place. Albert is the number one suspect in the police's eyes but despite this, he decides to go on a search for Lily. He convinces Olivia to tag along although the two do not really see eye to eye. The two travel together in the cold, in the rain, arguing, and with the police on their tail until they finally reach the Odilon's summer home. Their home is near a body of water and across it Albert sees a figure move and in the night he swims towards what the reader hopes is really Lily.
This book dragged on a bit and the adventure was very simple as Albert and Olivia only go from point A to point B and yet it was an amazing book. It began by Beitia creating a lot of suspense for the reader. She also created a sense of hopelessness. I always thought that Lily was abducted and killed and that Albert and Olivia's trip was worthless. The sense of suspense drags on to the end by the ending being very abrupt and unclear. (Was Lily the figure Albert saw across the water?) Beitia also made use of a lot of flashbacks, which were confusing at times but explained Albert and Lily's relationship before her disappearance and having a back story is always nice and useful. The best part of the book for me was seeing Albert and Olivia's relationship change. Olivia went from completely hating Albert to sort of liking him by the time they reached the summer home, or tolerating him anyway.
I would recommend this book to just about anyone who likes a good suspense story. The reader will not be disappointed but instead hooked into the story as they wonder where Lily could be and if Albert and Olivia are going to find her dead or alive, or if they are going to find her at all. The reader will also be on the edge of their seat wondering if the police will ever catch Albert and take him to jail. However, the book does have a flaw that will turn many away: the characters are not very developed. There is a back story but very little information about it. Although it was not a problem for me, to many readers a story with characters that barely develop is not a good story. Generally, the plot is a good one and a slightly different one so why not give it a chance?
This book dragged on a bit and the adventure was very simple as Albert and Olivia only go from point A to point B and yet it was an amazing book. It began by Beitia creating a lot of suspense for the reader. She also created a sense of hopelessness. I always thought that Lily was abducted and killed and that Albert and Olivia's trip was worthless. The sense of suspense drags on to the end by the ending being very abrupt and unclear. (Was Lily the figure Albert saw across the water?) Beitia also made use of a lot of flashbacks, which were confusing at times but explained Albert and Lily's relationship before her disappearance and having a back story is always nice and useful. The best part of the book for me was seeing Albert and Olivia's relationship change. Olivia went from completely hating Albert to sort of liking him by the time they reached the summer home, or tolerating him anyway.
I would recommend this book to just about anyone who likes a good suspense story. The reader will not be disappointed but instead hooked into the story as they wonder where Lily could be and if Albert and Olivia are going to find her dead or alive, or if they are going to find her at all. The reader will also be on the edge of their seat wondering if the police will ever catch Albert and take him to jail. However, the book does have a flaw that will turn many away: the characters are not very developed. There is a back story but very little information about it. Although it was not a problem for me, to many readers a story with characters that barely develop is not a good story. Generally, the plot is a good one and a slightly different one so why not give it a chance?
January 10, 2014
I do not recommend this book.
There was enough suspense that I kept reading it thinking something interesting might happen. The main character you never really meet. She is a flipping crazy girl with a personality disorder that hasn't really treated her boyfriend or her sister with love or respect. She is manipulative, unreliable, and definitely unpredictable. Why they care so much about her is impossible to understand. (Well except for the fact that Albert has a condom in his pocket.) She belongs in the lock-up ward at the hospital but somehow they can't see this. The adults are never fleshed out so you always wonder what is really true and what is just Albert's take on the situation.
One thing that was curious about the book is that the way it is told sounded like the 1970s era or even before that. If I'd read this book when I was in high school the only weird thing would have been the cell phone. There aren't other modern gadgets like computers or Facebook or anything else that would date it. The author even uses a saying from Love Story. You have to be over 40 to catch that one. Fortunately there are no overt sex scenes and the F word is never used so it is tame enough for a tween.
Recently I read a book about a girl in a plane crash and she spent a great deal of time worrying about where she was going to get something to eat and drink the very first day. Albert and Olivia in this story seem to go for more than a day without eating or drinking or thinking about stealing food or dumpster diving. They don't even come up with any clever ways to find shelter and get some sleep. I hate stupid protagonists. Albert isn't endearing or smart.
I got to the point that I was writing the story myself hoping that Lily was dead or Albert would decide Olivia would make a better girl friend or that Lily's sperm father had spirited her away or the whole thing was a clever trick and something surprising would happen. What a huge disappointed the non-ending was. I hope she isn't planning a sequel. As far as I can tell she didn't use an editor...
Here is a sample of the book: "Ah." She smiled a little. "You're in the love-means-never-having-to-say-you're-sorry camp? Love conquers all?" I cried at the end of Love Story and I wish this book had a tear-jerk ending too.
There was enough suspense that I kept reading it thinking something interesting might happen. The main character you never really meet. She is a flipping crazy girl with a personality disorder that hasn't really treated her boyfriend or her sister with love or respect. She is manipulative, unreliable, and definitely unpredictable. Why they care so much about her is impossible to understand. (Well except for the fact that Albert has a condom in his pocket.) She belongs in the lock-up ward at the hospital but somehow they can't see this. The adults are never fleshed out so you always wonder what is really true and what is just Albert's take on the situation.
One thing that was curious about the book is that the way it is told sounded like the 1970s era or even before that. If I'd read this book when I was in high school the only weird thing would have been the cell phone. There aren't other modern gadgets like computers or Facebook or anything else that would date it. The author even uses a saying from Love Story. You have to be over 40 to catch that one. Fortunately there are no overt sex scenes and the F word is never used so it is tame enough for a tween.
Recently I read a book about a girl in a plane crash and she spent a great deal of time worrying about where she was going to get something to eat and drink the very first day. Albert and Olivia in this story seem to go for more than a day without eating or drinking or thinking about stealing food or dumpster diving. They don't even come up with any clever ways to find shelter and get some sleep. I hate stupid protagonists. Albert isn't endearing or smart.
I got to the point that I was writing the story myself hoping that Lily was dead or Albert would decide Olivia would make a better girl friend or that Lily's sperm father had spirited her away or the whole thing was a clever trick and something surprising would happen. What a huge disappointed the non-ending was. I hope she isn't planning a sequel. As far as I can tell she didn't use an editor...
Here is a sample of the book: "Ah." She smiled a little. "You're in the love-means-never-having-to-say-you're-sorry camp? Love conquers all?" I cried at the end of Love Story and I wish this book had a tear-jerk ending too.
May 5, 2016
Eighteen-year-old Lily Odilon has been in trouble before. When Albert Morales meets her, there are plenty of rumors swirling around her--she had been a party girl, but isn’t anymore; she had an ‘accident’ and was hospitalized for a long time; she sometimes acts very strangely.
None of that matters to Albert. He’s the new big city kid in the small high school in the small Idaho town of Little Solace. (Is that a great name for a town or what? Love the double meaning which added to the story.) It seems that all the teens have known one another all their lives. Making friends is difficult. And yet, Albert finds Lily attractive, and she responds to his interest.
As the novel opens, Albert is on the run with Olivia, whom, we discover, is Lily’s younger, cynical sister. Albert had snuck into Lily’s bedroom and spent the night with her. She disappeared. Now the police and Lily’s parents are looking for her. Albert is the prime suspect, having seen her last. While Albert’s parents believe that he couldn’t have been involved in harming Lily, they think she has been nothing but trouble for him and have grounded him. Only Olivia believes that together she and Albert can find Lily before there’s another accident. Albert, usually one to fly under the radar, decides to take the risk for the girl he loves.
High school housekeeping: The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon is a great book for a suspense-filled journey in search of a missing girl. The story has a lot of reluctant-reader appeal with its suspense, its subject at the heart of the problem, and its satisfying conclusion. However, there are three storylines running at once, so someone who is a struggling reader might not follow the action. For the average reader, the three lines add interest and background knowledge, creating more suspense in the search. The reader learns about the relationship between Albert and Lily; what happened in the few days before Lily disappeared; and what happens on Albert and Olivia’s search (on foot, no less!) for Lily. Good pacing and lots of opportunities to root for the heroes. Give it a read!
Note: This review is mirrored on my blog 'School Library Lady.'
None of that matters to Albert. He’s the new big city kid in the small high school in the small Idaho town of Little Solace. (Is that a great name for a town or what? Love the double meaning which added to the story.) It seems that all the teens have known one another all their lives. Making friends is difficult. And yet, Albert finds Lily attractive, and she responds to his interest.
As the novel opens, Albert is on the run with Olivia, whom, we discover, is Lily’s younger, cynical sister. Albert had snuck into Lily’s bedroom and spent the night with her. She disappeared. Now the police and Lily’s parents are looking for her. Albert is the prime suspect, having seen her last. While Albert’s parents believe that he couldn’t have been involved in harming Lily, they think she has been nothing but trouble for him and have grounded him. Only Olivia believes that together she and Albert can find Lily before there’s another accident. Albert, usually one to fly under the radar, decides to take the risk for the girl he loves.
High school housekeeping: The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon is a great book for a suspense-filled journey in search of a missing girl. The story has a lot of reluctant-reader appeal with its suspense, its subject at the heart of the problem, and its satisfying conclusion. However, there are three storylines running at once, so someone who is a struggling reader might not follow the action. For the average reader, the three lines add interest and background knowledge, creating more suspense in the search. The reader learns about the relationship between Albert and Lily; what happened in the few days before Lily disappeared; and what happens on Albert and Olivia’s search (on foot, no less!) for Lily. Good pacing and lots of opportunities to root for the heroes. Give it a read!
Note: This review is mirrored on my blog 'School Library Lady.'
August 15, 2012
This storyline was suspenseful, despite somewhat obvious hints at the outcome, and an okay read. The beginning piqued my curiosity enough to continue reading but probably would not hold the attention of someone who needs to be able to get into the story within the first thirty pages. The characters were not very likable; the point of view was too impersonal, and Albert was entirely too clueless. It was also difficult to feel an attachment to his and Lily's relationship, since details of it were randomly placed and mostly thrown in towards the end. None of the characters were very developed, either.
The switching between the present and two past sections—the search, events leading to the search, and relationship events—is a good method of conveying background information if used correctly. However, it was not in this book. The idea to use a different font for one of the sections was clever, but the effect would have worked better if a different font was used for each of the three, or if the author had used the different font for all past events. The flashbacks also became somewhat tedious toward the end, interrupting every present moment of suspense. This effect was overused and boring to a reader.
All of these points made the story less enjoyable than it could have been, as the plot itself was engaging. However, the most disappointing aspect was the ending. It has been called a bad cliffhanger, but I wouldn't even refer to it as that. The writing ended before the story. I kept flipping the last page back and forth, and I even checked to see if pages were torn out of the book. It bothered me so much that I even went to lengths as to look up the number of pages online, but in fact, the ending was that terrible. The least the author could have done was write a satisfying conclusion to a lukewarm story.
Overall, I would not recommend The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon.
The switching between the present and two past sections—the search, events leading to the search, and relationship events—is a good method of conveying background information if used correctly. However, it was not in this book. The idea to use a different font for one of the sections was clever, but the effect would have worked better if a different font was used for each of the three, or if the author had used the different font for all past events. The flashbacks also became somewhat tedious toward the end, interrupting every present moment of suspense. This effect was overused and boring to a reader.
All of these points made the story less enjoyable than it could have been, as the plot itself was engaging. However, the most disappointing aspect was the ending. It has been called a bad cliffhanger, but I wouldn't even refer to it as that. The writing ended before the story. I kept flipping the last page back and forth, and I even checked to see if pages were torn out of the book. It bothered me so much that I even went to lengths as to look up the number of pages online, but in fact, the ending was that terrible. The least the author could have done was write a satisfying conclusion to a lukewarm story.
Overall, I would not recommend The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon.
June 8, 2012
This book was a mix of good and bad. The plot was good, and the author did a good job of creating a well paced and suspenseful read. However, the characters weren’t all that likable and the story’s format was confusing to say the least.
The book wastes no time jumping right into the action and kept up a good pace throughout. While a lot of the time I could see what was coming even though Albert was absolutely clueless, there was still a sense of suspense for the overall plot that kept me intrigued, kept me reading.
The book was written in a mix of chapters from the past and present. I was confused at the beginning because I saw no noticeable signal for the switch. I later noticed that the chapters from the present were marked with a time stamp under the chapter number. However it soon became even more confusing because the chapters from the past started jumping around a lot from what happened to Albert after Lily’s disappearance to the time they first met, then to Albert’s life after, then back to their first date. There were also some chapters in a different font than the rest but I have yet to figure out what that was all about.
I really didn’t feel any connection with the main couple, Lily and Albert.
You really only get to know Lily first-hand for a few chapters, after that the only way you learn about her is through Albert’s memories, so she felt like a stranger to me. I felt bad for her and the situation she was in, but I didn’t really like her as a character.
With Albert, who is the main narrator of the story, it wasn’t that I didn’t know him. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I disliked him so much. I think it might have just been because he makes a lot of stupid decisions over the course of the book and by the middle of it I was so fed up I just wanted to shake some sense into him!
The book wastes no time jumping right into the action and kept up a good pace throughout. While a lot of the time I could see what was coming even though Albert was absolutely clueless, there was still a sense of suspense for the overall plot that kept me intrigued, kept me reading.
The book was written in a mix of chapters from the past and present. I was confused at the beginning because I saw no noticeable signal for the switch. I later noticed that the chapters from the present were marked with a time stamp under the chapter number. However it soon became even more confusing because the chapters from the past started jumping around a lot from what happened to Albert after Lily’s disappearance to the time they first met, then to Albert’s life after, then back to their first date. There were also some chapters in a different font than the rest but I have yet to figure out what that was all about.
I really didn’t feel any connection with the main couple, Lily and Albert.
You really only get to know Lily first-hand for a few chapters, after that the only way you learn about her is through Albert’s memories, so she felt like a stranger to me. I felt bad for her and the situation she was in, but I didn’t really like her as a character.
With Albert, who is the main narrator of the story, it wasn’t that I didn’t know him. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I disliked him so much. I think it might have just been because he makes a lot of stupid decisions over the course of the book and by the middle of it I was so fed up I just wanted to shake some sense into him!
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January 26, 2014The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon reminded me a lot of Paper Towns by John Green, and this comparison is actually mentioned in the book's press release - so I am here to say that this is very accurate.
Our plot consists of a girl going missing (like Paper Towns), and her best friend looking for her (like Paper Towns). The process and adventure, of course is different - poor Albert in this book doesn't have much to go on at first, and it gets pretty intense because we find out much more about Lily's past and how this has affected her and possibly forced her to run away.
The cover of this book is very nice, and the writing is as well. It skips back and forth between the past and the present, from what Albert is thinking and what has happened. At some points this got to be a little long winded for me, but overall I enjoyed this book and had no trouble reading through the longer passages to get to more action.
Towards the end you assume you know how everything is going to pan out, but it's likely you haven't got it exactly, which adds a little quirk to the book. The end is not really how I expected it to be at all - and I'm not sure if I'm a fan of it or not... though I think I like it.
Our plot consists of a girl going missing (like Paper Towns), and her best friend looking for her (like Paper Towns). The process and adventure, of course is different - poor Albert in this book doesn't have much to go on at first, and it gets pretty intense because we find out much more about Lily's past and how this has affected her and possibly forced her to run away.
The cover of this book is very nice, and the writing is as well. It skips back and forth between the past and the present, from what Albert is thinking and what has happened. At some points this got to be a little long winded for me, but overall I enjoyed this book and had no trouble reading through the longer passages to get to more action.
Towards the end you assume you know how everything is going to pan out, but it's likely you haven't got it exactly, which adds a little quirk to the book. The end is not really how I expected it to be at all - and I'm not sure if I'm a fan of it or not... though I think I like it.
March 4, 2015
Yay! I'm finished reading for PPYA! For a month or so at least, until the next round! And ending my reading on a John Green-ish novel was a good thing! Lily has disappeared, and it's up to her boyfriend and sister to find her. Told in chapters alternating from now to a few months ago, with some diary entries thrown in, the suspense builds. I won't give anything away, but you know what happened to Lily about half way through the book, but the reader doesn't know what happens to the characters. I wasn't too thrilled with how much time at the end was given to MacLennan, since he was such a secondary character throughout the book. But the point of view from Albert Morales is right on and engaging.
July 29, 2011
I really liked this book but the ending was/is a downer. Besides that I really did like this book. I like how it isn't a copy of someother books. But the author had a good idea, plot and characters. Sarah Beitia is a good author but I feel like at the end she kind of ran out of steam. Or she tried to do a cliff hangar and left to much open to the reader. I don't know but I wasn't really impressed by it. The character Olivia; Lily's sister. I like how she didn't back down when Albert; Llily's boyfriend, came along. Like in other books I know of(Twilight).But anyway all around it was a good book and I would like to read more from the author.
May 2, 2013
When I first saw this book, I thought it looked interesting and suspenseful. Turns out it was in the beginning. I read about half the book and was completely bored with it. The writing is good, but it moves so slow, I lost interest. I skipped tons of chapters just to read the end, finding out there wasn't much of a mystery at all. Plus I didn't miss anything by skipping the chapters that I didn't read. This definitely wasn't a book for me, but if you like very slow books, then you would love this book.
March 26, 2011
Albert Morales is the new boy in town. He somehow starts a relationship with Lily Odilon, the 2nd year senior and town delinquent. On the first night that Albert and Lily spend together, Lily disappears in the middle of the night because she is remembering something. Albert is soon accused of Lily's disappearance. Albert and Lily's little sister now go on an advetnure looking for Lily's last good place.
Not a very fast read because of the multiple flashbacks.
Not a very fast read because of the multiple flashbacks.
November 19, 2011
I barely read this book (I only got 56 pages though it) but I just couldn't stand it. The format is confusing, jumping from one thing to another. I didn't enjoy the characters. The plot sounded a lot more interesting than it is. I just overall didn't like the book.
Plus, how are people comparing this to Paper Towns by John Green? That's one of my favorite books, and if anything it's an insult to compare this book to something so great.
Plus, how are people comparing this to Paper Towns by John Green? That's one of my favorite books, and if anything it's an insult to compare this book to something so great.
December 6, 2012
What happended to the last pages of this book? It started out as a speedy little thriller. The author thought enough of her readers to give credible explanations of why the protagonist didn't trust the adults he comes across-- leading him to act on his own. Nice. Many authors don't bother with this touch.
Unfortunately, she didn't bother to finish the darn book! Really. Great rising action, tolerable climax. End. No denoument. No resolution of the big bad adults. Very unsatisfying.
Unfortunately, she didn't bother to finish the darn book! Really. Great rising action, tolerable climax. End. No denoument. No resolution of the big bad adults. Very unsatisfying.
August 22, 2011
I did not care for this one. I was not engaged in the story and I wasn't emotionally invested in the characters. I thought the plot was thin at best and there were unresolved issues between Olivia and Albert. Only positive I can offer is I thought the alternating story lines worked well. If only the story did.
February 8, 2011
Similar to Paper Towns, but I really did like this better - I liked the characters better, I felt like there was more solid reasoning behind things, there were some bad guys that felt like real bad guys. Interesting - I'll read it again. Similar sort of abrupt ending, but I didn't mind it with this story (possibly because I'd read some reviews and had some warning).
March 5, 2011
The mystery and suspense were definitely there. The narrative tense is odd in some places, and took me out of the book and had me focusing on the writing. I was impatient in some places, mainly due to some excessive descriptions. The flashback technique is used well. Overall, a good read for me, and one I can definitely see teens grabbing and reading with pleasure.
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