The Last Boy and Girl in the World

by Siobhan Vivian

From the critically acclaimed author of The List comes a stunning new novel about a girl who must say goodbye to everything she knows after a storm wreaks havoc on her hometown.
What if your town was sliding underwater and everyone was ordered to pack up and leave? How would you and your friends spend your last days together?
While the adults plan for the future, box up their possessions, and find new places to live, Keeley Hewitt and her friends decide to go out with a bang. There are parties in abandoned houses. Canoe races down Main Street. The goal is to make the most of every minute they still have together.
And for Keeley, that means taking one last shot at the boy she’s loved forever.
There’s a weird sort of bravery that comes from knowing there’s nothing left to lose. You might do things you normally wouldn’t. Or say things you shouldn’t. The reward almost always outweighs the risk.
Almost.
It’s the end of Aberdeen, but the beginning of Keeley’s first love story. It just might not turn out the way she thought. Because it’s not always clear what’s worth fighting for and what you should let become a memory.

• ISBN10: 1481475479
• ISBN13: 9781481475471
• Publish Date: 11 August 2016 (first published 26 April 2016)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 27 April 2017
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster Children's
• Edition: Export
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 432
• Language: English

Reviews

[Bianca]

We’ve been told that all good things must come to an end. Even things that feel permanent. Stuff that maybe we take for granted. Like this town. Or for me, my mom. So how tightly are we supposed to hold on to stuff that we love? Really tightly? Or not at all? Should we be sad when they go away? Should we fight? Or is letting stuff we love go inevitable, like that old adage says?

— Well... that was just anticlimactic.

[readingwithwrin]

My Rating : 3.5 stars

See more reviews like this first on my blog


"We're trying to make the best out of a bad situation.We're making lemonade out of lemons." "Is that what you call it?" he chuckled "Because I think you're trying to pretend it isn't happening."


Keeley’s world is falling apart. When rain just keeps happening every day for months, the ground her town sits on starts shifting and eventually even mudslides start happening. But this isn’t what causes everything to start changing. The Mayor and Governor of where they live had decided to make a deal and buy out everyone in the town in order to make something new. The problem though is they didn’t tell everyone this until after all of the rain started happening and the whole place started to flood.
Most people just went along with it that is until Keeley’s dad steps in and starts making it his new purpose in life to save the town. He actually knows somewhat to do, and even starts repairing the houses damaged if the families wanted him to. This is so nice to see after we learn what happened to him several years ago.
Keeley does have good intentions; she just always ends up trying to cover everything up with something else instead of actually dealing with what was happening. Jesse doesn’t help with this either. He is also trying to avoid what is happening. Except he takes things even farther then Keeley does normally. At first I thought they were okay together, but after a while and several of their antics later, you start seeing flaws between them and what drives both of them to do these things. Plus I really wanted her to end up with someone else who might seem like a good two shoes, but he has a good reason to be and just wants to try and make his dad proud of him.
As for Keeley’s two best friends Morgan and Elise. I had mixed feelings about them. I liked Elise and I got why she was so upset with Keeley, she had every right to be considering what was happening to her. Morgan was a good friend to her as well, and she really tried to help her, but after a while she got tired of Keeley avoiding the problem all of the time, and constantly trying to make a joke out of everything.
Overall I did enjoy this book, but I found Keeley to not be that great of a person. This was a very easy book to read. I really liked Vivian’s writing style and how she made the characters seem like real teenagers for a change; this is something that’s happening less often in Young Adult books recently. I really want to read more of her books, and see how the other ones are compared to this one.

I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight
I came kind of close to DNFing this one, actually. I was about 12% in, and I felt like I had been reading for hours (I hadn't been). And it was 432 pages, which is kind of long for a contemporary. Especially one about the rain. I was kind of hoping for a really epic apocalypse level water situation, but it really wasn't that at all. It was more like "Hmm, this place flooded a bit, and it's raining all the time for no actual reason but no one is concerned, so let's turn the town into a lake! For reasons."

Keeley is the main character, and she has these best friends, Morgan and Elise, but frankly, I felt like she just wanted Elise to go away. Then somehow, she ends up in a quasi-relationship with this guy Jesse, who she's had a big old crush on for years. So during this time, Keeley's dad is fighting for the townspeople's right to stay in their homes. And that's just something that is also happening, because Keeley is busy. She has to do immature stuff with Jesse, and ditch her friends, and be awful to the guy who was nice enough to give her a job even though the whole town is flooding away.

But then she had redeeming moments where I genuinely felt for her, and she did grow as a character, so she wasn't all bad. And while the whole flood thing wasn't exactly realistic, the relationships and friendships were, which I appreciated. I also have read that there are quite a few changes that were made in the finished copy, so maybe some of these things have been cleared up.

Bottom Line: While I didn't hate this one, it was long and draggy where it didn't need to be, and Keeley really was trying at times. But the honest relationship portrayal is a definite plus!