Sam and Ilsa's Last Hurrah

by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Sam and Ilsa Kehlmann have spent most of their high school years throwing dinner parties, and now they’ve prepared their final blowout, just before graduation. The rules for the twins are simple: they each get to invite three guests, and the other twin doesn’t know who’s coming until the guests show up at the door.

With Sam and Ilsa, the sibling revelry is always tempered with a large dose of sibling rivalry, and tonight is no exception.

One night. One apartment. Eight people. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, we all know the answer is plenty. But plenty also goes right – in rather surprising ways.

• ISBN13: 9781780317526
• Publish Date: 5 April 2018
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Egmont UK Ltd
• Imprint: Electric Monkey
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 224
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[Joséphine]

Actual rating: 3.5 stars

Initial thought: I think Sam & Ilsa's Last Hurrah is one of those books that can leave one baffled about what's the point of it all? Set in the course of a day (afternoon to night), there's not a lot that can happen, especially if the setting is a singular house. Plot-wise, Sam & Ilsa's Last Hurrah did suffer, I think. Still, it's the people and relationships, the exploration of place and identity, and the uncertainty about the future that makes you want to linger in the present which carry this book. I found these explorations rather poignant, even if the characters were rather off-kilter. Sadly, the epilogue reduced my enjoyment of the book because it didn't add much to what I had learned about Ilsa and Sam in the preceding 20 chapters.

[Sam@WLABB]

This was not the book I was expecting. In fact, as I was listening to it, The Big Chill kept popping into my head.

It started off quite amusing. I was smiling and laughing, but once the dinner party started, the story took on a more serious and darker tone. Sam and Ilsa were not only saying goodbye to this glorious apartment, they were saying goodbye to high school, their old friends, and each other.

They touched upon so many issues and worries that many young people their age would be dealing with, and some of the discussions were quite deep. I just wished these serious portions were balanced out with some lighter parts, because I did find myself being consumed by the melancholy tone of the story. I will admit, that tears were shed towards the end, and the very end was quite strong.