This is Book 5 of The Chronicles of Narnia.

In terms of Christian allegory and stories with morals, this book pretty much hits one upside the head with the Sledgehammer of God. There's no light hand in this story, to be sure.

Continuing the Narnia tale, Lucy and Edmund go back to Narnia, along with their cousin Eustace, who's the 1950's model for Dudley Dursley. He's a little shit, know-it-all, arrogant, lazy kid. We could call him a Well Actually and be accurate. He goes off by himself, turns himself into a dragon, learns his lesson through loneliness and loss of connection with all his human friends - why they didn't immediately kill the dragon flying over the camp? - and needs to be restored only through the grace of Aslan washing away his sins in special water.

And then he drops from the story.

There are a number of other smaller lessons learned, don't eavesdrop on others, turn towards God for strength, getting everything you want is a Bad Thing™, regaining your throne is as easy as walking into the top government house and declaring you are the king works every time even when you're a slave, and, for all the flat-earthers, Narnia is flat with the oceans having an edge.

One of my frustrations with the book is Lord Rhoop, who was found on Dark Island, where your dreams (literal dreams, including nightmares, not daydreams) come true. He escaped, yay he was rescued, and HE LEFT OR LOST ALL HIS MEN ON THAT ISLAND. They celebrate this guy's rescue, but he was a horrible leader, all of his men were dead or left for dead. This is a horrible result. None of the men who went out with the seven lords of Narnia were ever found. So, in Narnia, the only people who matter are named royalty?

I didn't review this book immediately after reading it. A large reason for this delay is the impact of the book. I recommend this book.

The premise of the book is that on the day someone is going to die, they receive a call from Death Cast, some time after midnight, letting them know they are going to die today. No one escapes death if they are called, you'll be dead by the next midnight. In this world, some people make the death happen. Others try really hard to escape it, only to slip on the floor and die from a concussion anyway. Everyone adapts in some way.

The book is delightfully constructed with the view from a dozen lives that (spoiler, probably) you realize are all intertwined in some way. I really like the vignettes of the smaller characters that dash into the story and step out, but are still very much a part of the tale.

The two main characters meet through an app called Last Friend, a social network for people who have received their calls and people who would like to support people in literally their last day. Of course, some people abuse the network, but most people are there to help. Each of the main characters helps the other find what he needs. That it happens on their last day is heartbreaking. Kinda knew that from the title, though.

I loved that this book isn't about two white boys. Very few of the characters are white male. I enjoyed changing my mental picture of the characters as their descriptions were made. I loved the challenge of rethinking all of my assumptions while reading the book.

I'd like to know if "you're going to die today" means dead-dead or does dead-but-brought-back work? Can you be clinically dead and revived, or is the call dead-dead and you're dead?

Okay, I think this is the first Grisham I have ever read. I have to say, I enjoyed it. If you read the various reviews, all the men and Grisham fans are loudly saying "THIS ISN'T GRISHAM, THIS IS A GHOST WRITER! Hated it," and all the women (yes, hyperbole) are saying, "This was a great read!" Be unsurprised, as the protagonist is a woman. And a book-reader at that.

Moazam recommended this book to me a bit ago. He commented he thought I would enjoy it, as it is about books and reading and bookstores and wheeeeee! Well, he was right about this one. I was careful to wait until he finished it before starting it, though. He had a couple recommendations that missed the mark. This one was on. More on that I would have expected it to be, given that I had recently read an F. Scott Fitzgerald book, my first, and the original manuscripts were fictionally stolen at the beginning of the book (so, I'm not spoiling the story by saying that, it's on the back cover, too). A delightful coincidence.

This was a fun read. If you're a Grisham fan, this will be a change of pace, based on the other reviews. I find this to be a good beach read, but definitely not high literature.

The heist was over, it was a success, but in any crime clues are left behind. Mistakes are always made, and if you can think of half of them, then you’re a genius.
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He claimed to average four books per week and no one doubted this. If a prospective clerk did not read at least two per week, there was no job offer.
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