The Last Boy and Girl in the World Review

Distiller: Hikari Loftus
4/5 Stars



The Last Boy and Girl in the World
by Siobhan Vivian
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (April 26, 2016)

432 pages

Keeley Hewitt’s small town, Aberdeen, is flooding. With the unending monsoon scale rains and their proximity to the river—not only is there water damage to much of their town, there are entire houses that are floating away.

The Hewitt family has lived in Aberdeen for a hundred years—generation after generation—and when Keeley’s dad hears that Aberdeen is going to be evacuated forever and then turned into a lake, he isn’t having it.

While the adults deal with losing their town in the political way, Keeley and her friends are trying to make the most of their time together. And for Keeley, this is her last big shot to make a play for the boy she’s been in love with forever, Jesse Ford.

When you know you have nothing to lose and your time is suddenly limited, it inspires a kind of bravery that Keeley doesn’t usually have. But the end of Aberdeen is putting strain on ALL types of relationships, and Keely’s way of handling things doesn’t seems to be working out very well in her favor.

On the surface, this is a story about losing a town. But really, this is a story about relationships between friends, family, boyfriends and girlfriends and how complex and fragile they can be some times, and how nothing is always as it seems.

This story is hard for me to explain. I could probably talk about this one A LOT. High School Hikari and High School Keeley are SO similar. Using humor to deflect situation or taking the most special relationships for granted—Keeley brought back so many memories, good and bad. So for that reason, I felt more involved in this story than most others.

Even though this story took place within a couple of weeks, it felt like I had read about a couple months of time. It felt long and there were a lot of plot points that this story shifted between several different stories. Usually, I’m not into that, but I personally wasn’t bored at all with this story. I couldn’t put it down.

I have to say this was one of the most nostalgic reads I’ve had in awhile. Maybe it’s because I related so much to Keeley and lived some of those relationship dynamics or treated similar situations the same way Keeley did that I thought this was super believable and authentic.

I loved and hated this story, but I definitely recommend it. I think you’ll find mixed reviews on this one, but its one of those you really have to try on your own!

There were some things about the ending that I didn’t like at all, and some things that I was okay with, even though it was super sad. I knew from the first chapter how the romantic relationship was going to go and, well, I guess I can’t say anything else about it without spoilers. ha. 

You will get a lot of feels in this story. Good, bad, mad, sad... I'm sure I'll be reading this one again.