The Last Chance

by Rona Jaffe

Book by Jaffe, Rona

Genres: Chick Lit, Fiction, New York

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Rona Jaffe established The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards program in 1995. It is the only national literary awards program of its kind dedicated to supporting women writers exclusively. Since the program began, the Foundation has awarded more than $850,000 to a total of 92 women.

Ms. Jaffe was the author of sixteen books, including Class Reunion, Family Secrets, The Road Taken, and The Room-Mating Season (2003). Her 1958 best-selling first novel, The Best of Everything, was reissued by Penguin in 2005.

Reviews

[Bren fall in love with the sea. · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

It's funny. I read this piece of women's fiction when I was just a young one. Now, as an adult, I wanted to read it again. I remembered it as being fantastic but when I went in for a reread I really did not like it all that much. It was still all right but nothing like I remembered.

This was sort of "Sex and the city" before "Sex and the city" existed. The plot is indeed about four women in NYC trying to navigate their lives both professionally and personally.

I should state (and this is not a spoiler since it is on the back cover) that the book makes it clear that one woman will die during the story. Only we, the reader, do not know which one.

I found it a way more gloomy read then I remembered and nowhere near as involving. Now perhaps my tastes have just changed but I have many books from long ago that i still love, some even more now. So I don't think that's it.

All the relationship hopping, romances. arguments etc just made me sad after awhile. The book paints a realistic portrait of being single and lonely in in a huge city. All of these women were so empty. I felt for them all greatly.

As to who dies..well I will not say, even with spoilers but I remembered that scene as having a very strong impact and that I remembered correctly as it still did. It is actually a pretty shocking and unnerving scene.

I do not think this was bad at all but was let down that I could not be drawn in as I once was. 3.5 stars.

[Richard Neil Jensen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Rona Jaffe's writing style and have enjoyed each of her novels. However, I did not like The Last Chance...it was way over the top and just seemed to go down hill with each chapter. Sorry!

[Tammy Adams · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 1/2 stars

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up for a dollar at A Novel Idea; the story of four women approaching 40 seemed an appropriate choice as I near my own 40th. This would have been around the time my mother was a working woman, so it was interesting to hear the concerns and preoccupations of these women. There was a lot of talk of crime on the subway, petty theft, and apartment break-ins, and New York seemed in transition: no longer the city of Mad Men but not yet the city of Gordon Gecko. Each woman was navigating a new place in the world, where having a job was in conflict with having a man. One took a job because her husband's business wasn't doing well, one just wanted to go back to work because she loved her old job, one was a single woman who had never given up her career, and one was looking for meaning in life so went back to school. All but one struggled to get support from the men in their lives, who were threatened by the shifting roles. Jaffe did a great job of characterization, and I was fully absorbed into this story. I also kind of loved how it turned into a mini-thriller at the end.

"Margot counted the number of long skirts versus the number of pants on the women, and then counted the number of women who hadn't shaved under their arms for at least two weeks." (p. 128)

[Kaipo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first Rona Jaffe novel I read and based off of this book it immediately makes me want to read more of her work. The Last Chance is a poignant story about being a contemporary woman in the seventies and the dangers that New York City brings. There are constant twists and turns throughout the story that don't feel contrived but rather incredibly natural, and the payoff from the initial funeral scene to the end is satisfying and keeps you on your toes. Nikki, Ellen, and Rachel were written to be incredibly likable although I found myself having a hard time sympathizing with Margot. I feel that Ellen wasn't written to be likable, but something about her character stuck out to me in a way that felt all too human—I absolutely adore the neutral approach Jaffe took when writing about her placidness and shortcomings. She seemed incredibly realistic, even for her era, and I found her scenes as well as Nikki's eventual growth into who she is the highlighrs of the book.

[Tonya Canfield Krueger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very slow throughout and hard to continue at times. Each story had a uniqueness, but the writing wasn't great.

[Sheena Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've enjoyed this book so much that I re-read every few years. I'm a bit forgetful so for me it's like reading it for the first time. I like the diversity of each characters backstory.

[Amber Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is all about control: trying to obtain, regain, or maintain it, recognizing the loss of it and accepting when we do not and cannot have it. I did not fully realize that was what the book was really about until I finished it. Jaffe spends a lot of time developing her characters which I personally appreciate but others might find slow. I devoured this book. It could perhaps be considered a guilty pleasure read, but I like the fact that even though it was a quick, "guilty pleasure" kind of read, it still had a lesson to it and a thoughtful one.

Perhaps the most telling quote regarding this theme (I do not think it gives much away):

"We have no control...What can I control, with all my struggles and determination? I can control the things inside my life. Enjoy my life, my work, my family, my friends, my loves, my pleasures, my moments, and try not to think about the other.
But how can I not?"

[Cecilia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Este libro ha sido la chispa que me quedaba para llegar a la conclusión de que cualquier libro que narre historias de mujeres en décadas pasadas en ciudades como Nueva York probablemente me guste. Me gusta ver a mujeres desenvolverse en grandes ciudades, como luchan contra el patriarcado y cómo conciben el amor. Adoro a las mujeres, y leer la vida de estas 4 me ha apasionado de veras. He cogido bastante cariño tanto a Nikki como a Margot como a Rachel, pero a Ellen sinceramente no. No me ha caído bien en ningún momento. Todas tienen sus cosas malas y sus cosas buenas pero las actitudes de Ellen me han parecido injustificables en todos o casi todos los casos. Ha sido un buen libro, pero la verdad es que el final muy flojucho, muy inesperado sí, pero también muy sin sentido. Aunque todo sea dicho, la historia del asesinato no era realmente lo más importante del libro.

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as “The Best of Everything.” It was hard to put down and went into the sex lives of four beautiful women leading ridiculously sexually active lives. The book often read like propaganda, and some of the characters were a bit cardboard. Some of the writing made me cringe. But it was a fun guilty pleasure usually. The ending was unsatisfactory. Did she expect to write a sequel?

[Annabelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this back in college, I think, or late high school. It was a secondhand paperback, likely bought at the old Rustan's Cebu's used books bin on their basement floor. While dated by today's standards, the the themes on the mechanics of friendship, marital dynamics, insecurities, and choices still ring true today. The one memory I still vividly recall today: towards the end, a major character gets randomly and fatally knifed in New York City.

[MBenzz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This being my 6th Rona Jaffe book, I again have nothing but praise for her work. This book sucks you in, right from the first page of the prologue. The book starts at the end, in December of 1975, and at the funeral of one of four friends. Who's funeral is it?...while you may think you have it figured out throughout the book, you'll be very surprised at the ending.

This is the story of four friends...Margot - Local news anchor, and very depressed and cynical woman who has one night stands to try and find happiness...Nikki - Bored with her husband constantly trying to make her decisions for her, and putting down all that she finds pleasure in, she leaves the country for an apartment in the city and learns life's not so easy on your own...Ellen - Married to 'Good 'Ol Hank', has numerous affairs to try and fill the void of a loveless marriage to a man she barely even likes, while her children become strangers to her...and Rachel - A beautiful young women married to a very wealthy man who adores her and she, him, gets tired of being a social butterfly and decides to go back to school and do something with her life, meanwhile, unbeknownst to her, an increasingly dangerous man has an unhealthy obsession with her and has taken to following and spying on her, all the while nearing his breaking point.

In the end, I loved this book. It was so hard to put down, and you never knew which way the story was going to take you. I can't wait to read my next Rona Jaffe book...I know I won't be disappointed!

[Kim Fay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, guilty reading pleasures. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways ... I came across an original hardcover edition of this book at the Golden Goose Thrift Shop in Tucson. I can't say why, but I've long been fascinated with Rona Jaffe, and I dug into this novel with relish. It was everything I wanted it to be, in that 1970s-aggressively-feminist-while-eschewing-feminism-fiction way. Lots of consciousness-raising type talk, dramatic affairs, misunderstood parents and their maladjusted children, and yes, plenty of violence. As is usual with nearly any book or movie from this time period, the violence is always stomach-turning because of the ambiguous way in which it is interpreted (accepted as a byproduct of society) by the person attacked (especially when that person is a woman). Violence also plays a starring role in the book's end (another common feature of the era)... an eruption that illustrates the case that the world as we know it is coming to an end. In short, this is a book about four friends in New York, their marriages, their careers, their angst and their self-made dramas. This is a perfect time capsule, not necessarily for a type of lifestyle, but for a once-popular literary way of looking at modern life.

[Ffiamma · Rating 3 out of 5]

quattro amiche alla soglia dei quarant'anni nella new york (cupa e assai poco glamour) degli anni 70 provano, ognuna a modo suo, a cambiare la propria vita- chi iscrivendosi all'università, chi incontrando un amante diverso dai precedenti, chi inseguendo il grande amore, chi staccandosi da una quieta vita di provincia. per nessuna di loro la scelta sarà vincente- e la tragedia, grande e piccola, è quasi annunciata. scritto vent'anni dopo lo spumeggiante "il meglio della vita", questo romanzo è triste e opprimente e non lascia adito a speranze o lieto fine.

[Mitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a surprisingly fascinating read about four very different women who are linked and surviving in the dangerous and fast-paced word of New York City. The women become close based on their affairs, interests, social events, and other crazy happenings that come....until one of them lose their life. I was please by this very quick read that I read on an airplane. I reccomend this one for sure!

[Pepe Llopis Manchón · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un humorístico grupo mujeres al estilo Sexo en NY, pero llevadas con pura literatura; viven sus vidas como cuatro amigas con problemas y pasiones dispares. A partir de maridos, divertimentos, amantes, conversiones y dolores de cabeza... Toda acaba (y perdóneseme la redundancia) acabando con una trágico final coral. ¡Un verdadero espectáculo!

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of only three Jaffe novels that have been translated into German in the 80's (finally last year a 4th Jaffe novel has been translated).
This is almost as good as "Class Reunion", but more thrilling with an unpredicatable ending.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

riveting. i loved it.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I, of course, read this 25 or 30 years ago. But I enjoyed it just as much this time around. Stalkers, eating disorders, sexual liberation: this one's got it all!!

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

About four good friends. One will die in the coming year.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grossartiger Roman! Der Taeter stellt sich erst zum Schluss heraus.

[Nadia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't remember how long ago I read it, perhaps I should re-read it