The Island of Last Things

Slow, boring uninteresting. Weak characters. Waste of time.

Suspenseful. Keeps you guessing all the way to the end. Author sucks you in til the last page. Great story and written with heart.

Emma Sloley’s The Island of Last Things is one of those novels that feels both intimate and sweeping at the same time. On the surface, it’s about the last zoo in the world, improbably located on Alcatraz, where Camille spends her days tending to the few remaining creatures: chimps, frogs, and a restless jaguar. But beneath that, it’s a story about what it means to keep caring for fragile things in a world that seems determined to let them vanish.This isn’t your typical dystopian novel—don’t expect nonstop action or elaborate worldbuilding outside the island. Instead, Sloley zooms in close, letting us sit with Camille’s quiet rituals and her growing connection with Sailor, the new arrival who disrupts her carefully ordered life. Their relationship is tender, complicated, and sometimes unsettling, pulling the book into psychological territory as much as ecological. I loved how the novel balances the personal and the political, showing us that the smallest choices can ripple outward in dangerous and unexpected ways.The prose is stunning—lyrical without ever being overdone. Alcatraz itself becomes a paradox: a sanctuary, a prison, a symbol of both survival and confinement. Sloley wrings every ounce of atmosphere from it. The pacing is slow and contemplative, but I found it engaging rather than frustrating. You don’t race through this book; you sink into it.The theme also, is impossible to shake: the way humanity relates to the natural world. The book is part elegy, part love letter, and part warning. It asks uncomfortable questions about whether saving something in captivity is really saving it at all. I found myself thinking about it long after I finished.The audiobook deserves a spotlight, too. Suzy Jackson’s narration is beautifully matched to the material. She has this quiet clarity that makes Camille’s introspection feel even more raw, and she shifts just enough in tone and cadence to capture Sailor’s restless energy without ever overplaying it. Jackson gives the story room to breathe, leaning into its moments of melancholy and fragile hope.Overall, The Island of Last Things is not a book you’ll forget easily. It’s haunting, strange, and gorgeously written, with an emotional resonance that lingers.

Camille is a zookeeper at one of the last zoos on earth on Alcatraz Island. She forms a friendship with new zookeeper from a zoo in Paris. Most of all the animals are the last or close to last of the species. You get a nice glimpse into the lives of the keepers and the relationship they develop with the animals. The black market animal trade is going strong, the ultra rich and animal cartels compete to own these animals. This was more of a slow burn dystopian story.