Sam & Ilsa's Last Hurrah by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Sam and Ilsa’s Last Hurrah by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Published: April 10, 2018

Publisher: Knopf BYR

Format: audiobook via Overdrive

Rating: 2/5

Synopsis

Siblings Sam and Ilsa Kehlmann have spent most of their high school years throwing parties for their friends--and now they've prepared their final blowout, just before graduation.

The rules are simple: each twin gets to invite three guests, and the other twin doesn't know who's coming until the partiers show up at the door. With Sam and Ilsa, the sibling revelry is always tempered with a large dose of sibling rivalry, and tonight is no exception.

One night. One apartment. Eight people. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, we all know the answer is plenty. But plenty also goes right, as well...in rather surprising ways.

My Thoughts

Let me start off by saying I’m a fan of Rachel and David’s previous novels so when I heard they were coming out with new read I couldn’t wait to read it but sadly this isn’t one of my favorites from them. In this read, we have twins Sam and Ilsa whose lives are at a crossroads. They are about to graduate and Sam is the apple of his grandmother's eye and Ilsa isn’t sure what she wants. They are known to throw dinner parties at their grandmother's lavish apartment but this one will be their last. They soon will move on and their grandmother is giving up her apartment and moving so they want this one to be best.

Needless to say, nothing goes as planned. Each one invites three guests and when everyone arrives its all a mess, no one gets along and the food is awful which is crazy since Sam is a great cook. Soon there are arguments and Sam and Ilsa must confront each other and say whats really bothering them not only to each other but also to themselves. I was really looking forward to this one but the story just fell flat to me. I thought this was just an unbelievable story not to mention I just saw these characters as pretentious and whiny rich kids. There wasn’t any real story for me to connect to and I just found myself rolling my eyes and waiting for this short read to be over. This was one read I couldn’t wait to be done with.