I don’t know what I expected when I picked up The Final Scene by Steph Nelson, but it wasn’t this. The premise felt muddled and almost as though it was an after thought to the actual story Nelson wanted to tell. The ending felt unsatisfying and the fact that there was a prologue available to help tie things up neater and yet it was walled behind a subscription to the author’s email list.
content warning: brief mention on sexual assault
I realized this was a strange premise when I started trying to explain this to a coworker (bless my coworker who always asks me what new thing I’m reading – it helps me sort things out so much easier btw.) People are kidnapped and placed in a secluded home for the sole purpose of re-enacting moments of the main perpetrator’s childhood. There are always three adults kept at the home with literally nothing to do all day except pretend to be a mother, a father, and a 9 year old girl. Their captors? An older middle-aged man and a fit 70 year old woman. This is where I’ve got issues with this premise. You’re telling me that for ten years, none of the group (with their rotating members) have come up with an idea to overpower two people? They know enough that when the folks are on their way to watch the game in person they can’t be watching the live feed of the home. So not a single one thought okay let’s take some chairs and line up by the door to slam it into one guy, take his firearm, and free ourselves? People with infinite time on their hands aren’t going to just sit idle – it isn’t human nature.
Apart from the premise issue, there were definitely some choices made by Nelson that I don’t understand, and don’t believe added anything to the narrative based off the premise we’re given. What do I mean when I say that? Well the one absolutely wild thing that happened that made absolutely no sense in the book was having Brooke sleep with her captor, Mitch. Once the kidnapped trio understand they have less than a week to live, they decide the best way to move forward is to convince the male kidnapper, Mitch, that Brooke wants him and that is how they will be rescued. What sort of sense does that make? Brooke has known Mitch for the entire ten years she’s been kidnapped. She’s never shown a bit interest in those ten years. How does her suddenly being interested when she has under a week left to live not sound suspicious? Then, Nelson has them actually have sex together and for what? There was no reason. She didn’t get anything from that. And they never touch upon it again. She slept with him and they didn’t gain anything or their freedom and Brooke never struggles with what she was forced to do and Derek, the new man kidnapped on to play her husband who is attracted to her/falling in love with her, never brings it up. So what was the purpose? Why have her sleep with Mitch if no one was ever going to bring it up again and it gained the group nothing? Additionally, it was really weird to have Brooke be coerced into having sex with Mitch, but Derek and Grace don’t. He never has to demean himself, but she does? Feels gross. Gives ick.
Another thing that makes no sense is how we’re told about Brooke falling in love with the man previously kidnapped to play her husband. He died about a month prior to the start of the book and she’s still grieving. But that doesn’t mean anything when Derek, a large man is kidnapped to replace the role he vacated and all Brooke can think about is just how her type he is. It is continually brought up to the point where I wondered if this was a romance we’re reading and not a thriller. That is why I wonder if this premise actually is just a smokescreen for writing a forced proximity romance, at least one of the reasons. After Brooke is forced to sleep with Mitch for apparently no reasons, she then gives herself permission to grow closer to Derek and they sleep together and are suddenly in love.
During the latter half of the book, I just kept getting more and more frustrated with how stupid all of the characters were. There were so many other ideas on escaping or even to subdue their captors, or test their theories without risking death. But they didn’t do a single one and simply stumbled into a solution. And then, we have the book spliced with the story of Mina, whom I really could not care about. She makes herself out to be so completely unpleasant and flashing from her storyline to the kidnapped house storyline was such a break in what little tension existed. And of course we understand the reason she’s there and why the story is broken up as is, but it honestly didn’t feel necessary.
The Final Scene by Steph Nelson was such a weird amalgamation of things that just resulted in a disappointing story. There wasn’t enough tension for it to be a thriller, enough plot to make sense, or enough attraction to be a romance. It included a brief sexual assault for literally no reason and then makes you sign up for the author’s newsletter just to read the epilogue to bring actual closure to the ending. I’m not sure who I’d recommend this for. If you’re looking for a quick read that is thriller light, maybe you’ll like this. But if you want something deeper, heavier, I wouldn’t pick this up.
