This book is set in 2023, the start of the end of the world. A new virus 6DM (6 Days Maximum) takes over the world and all of the people in it, except from our main character.

I liked the style of this book, kind of like a diary with flash backs to times where she wasn’t alone. With only the company of a stray dog she names Lucky they go in search for anybody who could be alive.

This is going to be as much as I say about this book, other than read it. It wasn’t only about death, virus’ and loneliness, it was about finding the inner survivor in you and learning how to cope in order to stay alive.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC. I would definitely purchase it for others to read.

I really enjoyed this book, and think its a fantastically written examination of what it would be like to be an average person and the last left alive after a global pandemic - something that I will admit to have thought about occasionally during this unusual year!

There is obviously a significant focus on the main character, but there are enough flashbacks to get a feel for who she was and how she interacted with those around her. She isn't the most likeable, but she's very normal which I think was quite refreshing.

Unfortunately, this was a difficult book to get through because of the obvious parallels. I think I may re-read it in a few years when things have (hopefully) settled down somewhat, since I think in usual times, it would be a real favourite.

I received a copy form the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Very well written and I liked the fact that some modern day things - covid-19 and brexit - were written into the story line. It was not my favourite book I've read but I think that's because it didn't grip me! Thank you to Bethany and Netgalley for allowing me to read this ARC!

I couldn’t put this down so that’s a definite indication of a good book and I wanted to know more throughout. However, some of the gory descriptions were a bit too much and I almost gave up at several points. My curiosity won out and I continued to learn of the trials of this poor woman who finds herself totally alone in a world of dead people. People who have died during a pandemic of epic proportions that wiped out the population of the world in weeks. Her family, friends, neighbours, the whole of London. Gone. What to do? Get drunk, break into expensive shops, live in a luxury hotel and enjoy visitor free tourist attractions. Of course, this lifestyle could not last and her journey begins. A story of survival, fear, heartache and despair. I didn’t like her. I was annoyed by her stupidity, her hedonistic lifestyle and her self obsessed pity. As time went on however, I warmed to her and by the conclusion of the book, had actually started to want her to succeed. The end of the book was many things; a relief, annoying, heart warming, heart rendering all in one. Would I recommend this book? Yes. After the year we’ve had in 2020, it makes me quite relieved that most of us are continuing in relative normality but also makes me think about what I would do if such a devastating pandemic occurred. I always thought I would want to be the survivor, but maybe that is actually the more difficult option. This is thought provoking and with the first hand knowledge that we all now have, different considerations can be imagined.

A global pandemic is working its way around the world in the year 2023.
If you catch it you have six days to live. Most of the population are now dead.
One woman is left alone in London with the rotten corpses.
After the shock she decides to find out if she is the only one left alive or are there more survivors.
A story that is shocking and hard to read in parts.
I read this book in one day because I wanted to know if she would have to courage to survive.
Thanks you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Gosh I LOVED this book. I scurried through it in one sitting, couldn’t stop reading it for the life of me. Then at the end I cried because it was over. Look, its 2020, I can cry if I want to…

Last One At The Party starts, yes, with an apocalyptic event, maybe you would think it a bit close to home given our current situation but be reassured. That may be the inciting event but this one is entirely character driven. It’s not that easy to pull off a one woman show but Bethany Clift did just that.

You want to know what happens? Nope I am not spoiling a single beautiful, scary, horrifying, uplifting, edge of the seat moment of this one. It is brilliant, clever, emotionally demanding yet inspiring and is written so so well.

I make no promises on whether this is triumph over adversity or one woman’s final stand…but I will promise its worth the journey.

Highly recommended.

It's 2024 and the world is in the grips of another pandemic where everyone dies within six days maximum (hence the nickname 6DM), but our narrator has somehow survived.

You'd think reading a dystopian novel during the 2020 global pandemic wouldn't be the wisest choice, but I feel like this took you away from the realities of what we're living with. I liked the throwbacks to our current situation with social distancing, mask wearing etc.

I've always enjoyed a dystopian novel, and whilst I haven't read past the usual Handmaid's Tale, Hunger Games, etc I feel like this is a bit different. It's also not like your usual post-apocalypse zombie chases and people fighting each other - the worries are a little closer to home.

It left me with a bit of a book hangover and wondering how I'd deal with the situations our protagonist was presented with. I'd really recommend to everyone - it's funny, heart wrenching but so enjoyable.

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review</i>

This book is superb and very well written. Although I found the subject matter quite upsetting to deal with at times, I was compelled to continue reading and follow the central character on her life-changing journey of self discovery. Will look forward to reading more by this author.

Get your hands on a copy of this book as soon as you can.

Wow, this is one of the most disturbing yet amazing books I’ve ever read! In equal parts terrifying, depressing and hilarious.

This book is set around 10years into the future and another global pandemic has hit. There is reference to our current pandemic (COVID19) and this new one is called 6DM (6 days max).

It tells the tale of a woman in London who seems to be immune to the virus/disease that is killing off the world. America is hit first and slowly it makes its way to the UK. In some senses this book might still be a bit raw but I think you need to have courage to be able to write like this in the world that we are in.

It's a bit of a slow start and the pace still plods along but it's a good read overall and worth the time spent on it.

Thanks for letting me read and review the arc.

Will be posting on Goodreads, my blog and amazon

I didn't think I'd particularly feel like reading a book about a pandemic just now but I'm so glad I did. It's the year 2023 and a virus is spreading around the world. Pharmacies are giving the option of a suicide pill which many people take before they get infected but the lead character decides not to and instead lives her life as the lone survivor of the pandemic. I don't want to compare this to other dystopian novels as I don't think it would quite do it justice. I found this book so gripping and mildly terrifying- loved it!

It was only a matter of time until we had a pandemic novel. The pandemic that hits the UK in 2023 is somewhat worse that Covid 19 and ends up wiping out the global population - just about. As the title tells us there is at least one left at the party and it is her experiences and problems in coming to terms with surviving when you are entirely on your own that is the theme of Clift's novel. Whilst there are some vignette moments for us to enjoy there is nothing truly insightful in this story. Maybe if the plot line and character had been made more believable there would have been more engagement but, for this reviewer, I'm afraid it only merits 2 stars.

Oddly prescient post-pandemic tale with lots to recommend it for fans of apocalypse stories, but quite bleak to read during Covid lockdown! I enjoyed following along with the protagonist and her choices, and the past/present perspectives worked out quite effectively.

Go on Rebecca, read a book about a deadly disease in the middle of a global pandemic.

I didn't know what I was getting myself in to but the description of this book had me curious. I loved it and devoured it in two sittings.

I've laughed out loud, cried, wanted to spew and fallen in love with how great dogs are, all all 4 often within the same entry. I hate/love the ending but I do think its very, very cleverly written.

I'd recommended this book to anyone, whether living through a pandemic or not. One of the books I've enjoyed reading the most this year.

What a book! I absolutely loved it. It was scary, funny, sad and entertaining. I couldn't put it down. Given the current pandemic it was that much more believable and although it is based on this premise the story is more about the journey the main character takes herself. Even though she is not hugely likable to begin with you warm to her as time goes on and the situation changes her.
Absolutely gripping and a great debut.

A scary, funny funny which will have you thinking 'what would I do?' all the way through This is a story of our time. We have already have had to question the way we live, this book goes deeper and darker with added humor and humanity.
December 2023 and the world has been hit with the virus 6DM (6 days maximum to live). The pandemic has no cure and no survivors. The government has issued free suicide tablets, it is the end of the world...except...what if you are the only survivor? What if you have to come to terms with never having human contact, or hearing a human voice again? What if it is the making of you?... A great read and a great bookRead it!

Oh my god!!!.... sniffles... I mean wow!!! What a book... I was shocked, stunned, gripped, hooked and terrified and saddened. I know for a fact I would not have lasted that long before I would have hurt myself or even just wanted to die. My family mean so much to me and also my friends that knowing I was alone.... no I would have tried to find ways to go. I gradually over the course of the book did not like the main character I just found her a bit annoying... I did sympathies with how upset she was about her parents death but I don’t know didn’t quite like her. It’s still good just bloody hell... what a tear jerker.

What would you do if everyone was dead after a world pandemic & you were the only person left? A book that make's you seriously think what could happen. One woman who tells us her story of what happens to her & I want to know more! A great read that I finished after two sittings. Recommended read.

Given the subject of the tale and the times we're living through, this was surprisingly easy to read and, I found, equally compelling. It was well written (even if the formatting on my old faithful kindle let it down here and there- words running into each other, sudden gaps and unexpected double line spacing making it look like I'd come to a new paragraph in the middle of a sentence, etc) and bold in places, not shying away from nastiness. I did wonder a little how quickly she became adept at smallholding- I'm sure I wouldn't have managed so well, especially in those circumstances. The character of Susan was an absolute delight.

It’s a difficult task for any contemporary novel written subsequent to the events of 2020 to avoid mention of the pandemic and, as though cognizant of this fact, in Last One at the Party, Bethany Clift goes all out, not only referencing it, but actually basing her story on a new and present threat in the near future. It’s a bold decision, especially given the global fatigue around such topics, but one which, curiously, by comparison, makes Covid seem like a tea party. 6DM (named after the fact that it takes six days maximum to prove fatal) is the apocalyptic threat of nightmares; its inevitable biological mechanism so bad, in fact, that global agencies are forced to provide a mercy solution in the form of a suicide pill.

As interesting as the premise is on a hypothetical level, all stories gain their emotional weight through the personalisation of struggle, and through the course of the novel the central character, seemingly the last surviving person on earth, certainly endures the most horrific losses as friends and family eventually succumb. Distinct from similar narratives such as the excellent Train to Busan, or World War Z, however, this is not a zombie story, although curiously it is in some way thematically about the undead. For as the novel progresses we learn that Clift’s nameless female protagonist has spent her entire life up to this point going through the motions, shape-shifting her way through other people’s expectations of happiness and, as a result, no longer knows who she really is. The journey of the book thus becomes a story of both physical and emotional survival and its central question one about what truly constitutes freedom. In this way, the novel’s events - as thrilling and readable as they are - become a larger metaphor for Newton's First Law of Motion, where the immovable object of the heroine’s inertia can only be changed by a truly monumental external force.

To say that this larger message is the joy of the novel, however, would be to do a huge disservice to the pleasure of the read itself, which is impressive given the difficult creative challenges of its storyline. For a start, almost the entire forward momentum of the novel is carried by a single character, without the variety that dialogue and other interpersonal exchanges allow. Our engagement with this character is key, and this is where much of the book’s skill lies. It is hard to come up with a fictional character who is quite so unflinchingly honest about herself, (TV tends to do this better, such as Lena Dunham in “Girls” or Michaela Coel in “I may Destroy You”), and it is these astute observations and details that accumulate as the novel progresses that make us root for her success. The events of the novel are both compelling and frequently moving, but equally often hilarious, and it is this variety of tone and mood that gives the book its power.

To point out that the narrative is light on the Political is merely to acknowledge the fact that most people are; overwhelmed as they would be in a similar situation with the day to day practicalities of survival. What Clift presents us with is a curiously British exploration of dystopia, filtered through the lens of her particular protagonist, and it was refreshing to read a novel of this genre that didn’t rely on the well-worn devices of mass weaponry, murderous communes, or conspiracy theories. The struggles here are real: a failing National Grid, feral seagulls; the ultimate pointlessness of designer handbags in a world where no one can see you anymore. Special mention to the sequence dedicated to a mini crusade to Suburbia which had me laughing out loud with its brilliant punchline. But importantly, the small, seemingly insignificant comforts are real, too. Here and elsewhere, there is a lightness of touch, a matter-of-factness to the prose, that by its apparent superficiality only highlights its profoundness and its poignancy.

Given these narrative challenges, it’s no surprise that the author intersperses the present story with frequent flashbacks that illustrate both her life and her emotional trajectory up to this point. Whilst certainly enlightening and important to the novel, I personally felt as though these were the least successful aspects of the book. The characterisation felt occasionally thin by comparison, the events a little predictable and familiar and, whilst this worked in illuminating the falseness of the protagonist’s former life, they did not have the freshness found elsewhere in the novel.

Clift does not necessarily aspire to write “literary” fiction: her gift is portraying real life in all its messiness and that is to be applauded. In a Forward to the book, she explains her intentions and motivations in writing the novel and, touching as it was, I’m not sure it was entirely necessary. It felt like a need to explain what was to come, a story that needed no such suggestion of apology or justification. Rather, the novel is what it is, and what it is is really rather excellent. Highly recommended.

Content warnings for graphic scenes of death, and the aftermath of death, and for references to suicide.