The Last Session by Julia Bartz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars**
The Last Session is a slow burn, psychology-fueled, suspense story following a social worker named Thea.
Thea works on a psychiatric unit and one day, when a catatonic woman arrives, having been picked up on the streets, Thea feels moments of deja vu looking at her. She swears she knows her, but can’t figure out from where.
Even more strange is how similar the woman looks to her. Once out of her catatonic state, the woman claims she can’t remember the events leading up to her memory loss, and her being in the psych unit in the first place.
When Thea finally places who the woman is and how she knows her, she can hardly believe it. This person played a huge part in Thea’s own traumatic past. She offered her a sense of comfort and inspiration.
But just as suddenly as the woman appeared on the unit, she disappears. People claiming to be her parents came by and picked her up. Shortly thereafter though, her real parents arrive. So, who took her and where did they go?
What is going on here? Is this woman still in further trouble? Thea feels compelled to help her. She cannot let it go. She feels too strong a connection to her.
Following a trail of clues, Thea ends up in a Wellness Center in a remote area of Southwestern New Mexico. It’s there that a charismatic, New Age couple counsel individuals through a 1-month retreat focusing on romance and intimacy issues.
Thea enrolls herself in the program, and while she gets closer to finding answers for her missing patient, she’s maybe even more importantly, edging towards answers about her own past, and resulting hang-ups.
The Last Session is yet another story that immediately intrigued me, but started to lose me as it went on. Don’t get me wrong, Bartz did succeed with a lot of things here, but it veered too far into fever dream territory at the end for my liking. Ultimately, that did sour my experience a bit.
I did appreciate how bold the content was. The conversations about sex, and in particular, the MC’s explorations of her own issues surrounding sex and intimacy. I really enjoyed that side of the story.
I also loved Thea’s determination and how the whole mission evolved into not just being about her saving this mystery woman, but also saving herself; aiming to regain her own power and self-confidence.
I feel like the retreat, and the characters involved in that, were also really well-developed conceptually. It reminded me a lot of the cult of Mother God, or even Heaven’s Gate. I feel as far as cult stories go, it’s a good one, so if that’s something you enjoy, you should absolutely check it out.
Overall, I enjoyed this. While it was a little uneven for me, as far as my personal interest level goes, I still can appreciate its many strong attributes. Yet again, I am impressed by the risks that Julia Bartz takes with her stories.
Thank you to the publisher, Atria Books, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I look forward to seeing what Bartz comes up with next!