Review: The Last Letter by Rebecca Yarros

Updated: Jun 26, 2021

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Please be sure to check the content warnings at the end of this review before reading this book)

“Say it. I need you to say the words.”

My call sign is Chaos. I miss you and your letters so damn much. I crave your words more than oxygen. I’m so sorry about Ryan. I don’t deserve to be here. He does.

The options played through my head. Instead, I steered to the safest truth I could give her without ripping her to shreds or blowing the most important mission of my life.

“Ryan sent me.”

The Last Letter is heart wrenchingly wonderful contemporary romance by Rebecca Yarros.

Ella Mackenzie is raising twins alone while trying to keep her Bed and Breakfast afloat.

With her parents and grandparent’s dead, her ex-husband who walked out on her the moment she found out she was pregnant, and her brother Ryan serving in a special ops team in a classified location overseas, the last thing she needs is the knock on the door saying her brother has been killed in action.

Ryan Mackenzie was one of the only people Beckett Gentry, call sign Chaos, cares about. That is until Ryan’s sister Ella starts writing him letters. Initially reluctant to take part in Ryan’s Pen Pal set up, Beckett soon finds that Ella’s letters bring light into his otherwise dark life.

Although he had made plans to visit Telluride, Colorado with Ryan when they were stateside, those plans change when Ryan is killed.

No longer is he going to Telluride with his best friend, to meet the woman who he’d fallen for through the written word, but to look after his battle buddy’s little sister and help her through one of the most challenging times of her life.

Because not only is Ella facing the challenge of losing her brother, she’s at risk of having the remainder of her family torn apart by even more tragic circumstances.

When Chaos stops replying to her letters around the same time as her brother’s death, and the army refusing to answer any of her questions due to the classified nature of their work, Ella is left with no other choice but to assume Chaos was also killed.

Little does Ella know that Beckett Gentry, the man who just booked a cabin at her Bed and Breakfast for seven months, who served in her brothers’ unit; is also Chaos - the man she had been writing to and even starting to fall for.

Beckett,

If you’re reading this, well, you know the “last-letter” drill. You made it. I didn’t. Get off the guilt train, because I know if there were any chance you could have saved me, you would have.

I need one thing from you: Get your ass to Tellurid...

… If I’m gone, that means I can’t get home in January like we’d planned. I can’t be there for her. I can’t help Ella through this, or play soccer with my nephew, or hold my niece. But you can. So I’m begging you, as my best friend, go take care of my sister, my family…

Please don’t make her go through it alone.

The Last Letter is a heartbreakingly beautiful novel with writing and characters so spectacular it’s like the story lifts off the page and comes to life.

This book is a rollercoaster that will have you laughing one moment and reaching for the box of tissues the next, before realising that you’ve used them all already and now need to open another new box.

As emotionally bruising as The Last Letter is I LOVED everything about it.

I have been a fan of Rebecca Yarros’ since the moment I read her debut novel Full Measures back in 2014, and I was so excited about reading The Last Letter.

The Last Letter is spread over a period of about two years, and combines the letters between Ella and Chaos, with present day narration from both Ella and Becketts point of view.

I loved the pacing of this book, which allowed the characters to work through their grief in a realistic manner. It also allowed for their relationship to develop without rushing into it which really allowed the chemistry to build between Ella and Beckett, as we saw them go from a strained meeting, to friends, and to a couple.

“Don’t let go,” she whispered. Her hands were still between us, but she wasn’t pushing me away, they were simply resting on my pecs. If anything, she leaned in. “I’d forgotten what this felt like.”

“Being hugged?” My voice was sandpaper-rough.

“Being held together.” Never before had a single phrase brought me to my emotional knees.

There is so much more I want to say about this book, but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone (and partly because I can’t actually put into words just how much I love this book) so I’ll just leave it at this: The Last Letter is a tragically transcendent story about love, loss, and family that will make you feel such a chaotic mix of emotions it leaves you wondering how you’ll ever move on from what you’ve just read, but loving absolutely everything about it.