What do readers think of The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin? Write your own review.

I enjoyed that depiction of the relationships between the siblings - how they came together as children to get themselves through "the pause" and how their relationships fell apart later. But I didn't think that the big reveal that Fiona built up to as she was telling the story really paid off. I also a nit to pick about the use of historical details to set the time. She says that their father's funeral was in March 1981 and that Jimmy Carter was president. Reagan was inaugurated in January 1981. That detail has absolutely no bearing on the plot, but if you're going to include a historical detail, please get it right. I saw no evidence that it was meant to show that Fiona's memory was failing. Overall, I liked Tara Conklin's first book, The House Girl, much better.

This novel presents a story of contemporary familial dysfunction in a setting covering the years 1981 to 2079. Fiona is the narrator with the voices of her older siblings and mother also telling aspects if their individual perspectives. While I could relate to many of the family dynamics since arguably the old dysfunctional family is now the new normal, the story peaks about three-fourths into the book and then rolls downhill until the end. I think the novel presents several interesting dilemmas and situations that will facilitate lively conversations for book groups.

The Last Romantics deals with a family coping with the loss of a family member and a change of finances is how this novel develops. One of them "pauses" their life and the others must find a way to survive. The characters are well developed. The book was interesting but I can't recommend it.

I enjoyed reading about the Skinner family in Tara Conklin’s latest book. The characters are very well developed, and the techniques used to introduce you to the family members and their activities are well done. The siblings are familiar in some ways, due to the timeline, and unfamiliar in others – odd, crummy and tragic things happen to this family. The author deftly illustrates the impact of those events. Because of these underlying tragic events, the book struck me as a bit of a downer. Basically, every single family member had sad things happen to them, and it seemed like upbeat events did not counteract the feeling of sadness. I wondered: why did the author write this way? Why are we having to read about weird and crummy things such as Fiona’s blog that was 10 months old, and described the first 78 men she slept with. Huh?

As well-written as this book is, I don’t recommend it. It wasn’t until the very last page that I discovered the answer to my question: why did she write this? That last page was absolutely excellent.

I wanted to like this novel much more than I did. Tara Conklin’s first novel, The House Girl, appealed to me far more. She’s a very good writer and that is apparent in The Last Romantics too. I can flip back, reread sections here and there, and thoroughly enjoy her prose. And it was the writing that held my attention enough to finish reading the book. But the novel’s story line got lost in so many fragments of the lives of siblings Fiona, Renee, Caroline and Joe. And as a reader, I remained much less concerned about Joe than his sisters.

After thoroughly enjoying The House Girl by Tara Conklin, I was excited to receive her new book to review. I found The Last Romantics disappointing. It took me quite a while to really "get into" this book. I can usually becomes involved in the characters in a story and found that this just didn't hold my interest as I would have liked.

While this book definitely had its moments, I couldn't help but wonder when it would be over. I definitely appreciated some of the dysfunction that took place among the characters, but overall I didn't feel there was much plot going on. That's not to say that I can't appreciate a good character-driven novel, because I can. I just don't think I was invested in either the plot or the characters. The writing, however, I really felt was strong. I do think I'd give Tara Conklin another chance. Her writing was poetic and mellifluous.

I really wanted to like this book, however, the author kept interrupting a good story with fifty year "anecdotes". She ruined a good read by inserting unnecessary narrative that added nothing to the book. Even worse, we never learned who the character of Luna, introduced in the first few pages, really was. The air raids, climate change references, etc. added nothing to this work of fiction. " A good book spoiled"..