This is the first of Claire Messud's work I have read, but I liked it, and will read more by her. The pacing of the story is good, character development isn't extraordinary, but is satisfactory: I can't say I really got to know Sagesse all that well. It's not clear she knows herself, either, as evidenced by the varied origins she gives herself at her boarding school. Even at the end of the book she is searching. I think I understand her grandparents better, as unlikable as they are, and her brother was well drawn and recognizable to me from my experience working in a home for severely developmentally disabled people as a young adult.
I kind of feel the events in the book that shape the individuals: her father's history and his family's lives in Algeria, the sense of dislocation throughout the book, the grandfather's act of violence, etc., do not adequately explain the pathos of the book, though hidden secrets affecting a family's relationships in later years is a lesson to be learned from it. The two things in Sagesse's life that do explain her estrangement from her family more immediately (her brother's birth and her father's death) are most important to the narrative I think, and drive the action.
All in all a pleasant read. I like Messud's prose style and word choices. I don't really know how the title fits, or what it means...

Evocative novel about French Algerians returning to France in the 60's. Seen through the eyes of a precocious adolescent, it is a good read but ultimately lacks finish.

This was very readable, with some beautiful prose, but it didn't quite soar for me. It read like it had been slightly unnaturally translated, although as far as I can make out Claire Messud writes in English. Like many new books I read now I felt it could have done with a good edit.

I enjoyed this moving and illuminating literary novel, The Last Life, by Claire Messud. It focuses on French Algerian emigrants, the LaBasse family living in Colonial Algeria, the south of France, and NewEngland. I learned so much from this interesting story told through the voice of the 14 year old daughter....Messud nails her so well. Messud must have teenagers or recent teens or just knows them deeply. She shows us the moody, flippant, egocentric, full-of-angst teenager, coming of age in many ways and desires. Through her voice we learn about her imperfect parents and grandparents (hotel owners), and her friends and cousins. We learn also about many lies and deceptions in a directly, roundabout way.

I listened to this on Audiobook and the narrator Saskia Maarleveld, as usual, is great.

If you’re looking for a rich, multileveled story, with viewpoints of 3 different generations, this is for you. I enjoyed learning more about the French Algerians history, and I always enjoy a good novel set in France and New England. Parts of this novel are marvelous and so beautifully written, that I could have reread it. I also found that some other parts dragged a bit and, since it's a lengthy novel...it was tedious, but don't let that deter you because the "golden gems" of her writing are just that.

Publisher's Blurb: It features the "LaBasse family, whose quiet integrity is shattered by the shots from a grandfather's rifle. As their world suddenly begins to crumble, long-hidden shame emerges: a son abandoned by the family before he was even born, a mother whose identity is not what she has claimed, a father whose act of defiance brings Hotel Bellevue--the family business--to its knees. Messud skillfully and inexorably describes how the stories we tell ourselves, and the lies to which we cling, can turn on us in a moment."

Loved this book. The Algiers /France history/turmoil, interesting characters, and a coming-of-age story

Could barely finish this book. Started off good and interesting family dynamics and then I suffered through the rest of it. Not sure how it has such a high rating. One of the most boring books ever …

I stuck with this book through to the end (though I barely skimmed the last 20%) because I have great respect for thr author's talent. I found almost everything about this book to be screamingly, frustratingly unpleasant. I very much wanted to be interested in the subplot about the dissolution of French Algeria, the theme of which feels very relevant today. The characters were all unlikeable. The narrator was a navel-gazing teenager and my god she navel-gazed. Age appropriate, perhaps, but there is a reason I don't hang out with teenagers and in my limited reading time I am angry that I gave Sagesse so much of my headspace. Perhaps this book would speak better to a 17 year old grappling with ideas of identity and family in an insufferably self-important way . 20 years past that point in my life, I wanted anything to hook onto with my adult brain. Some scrap of humor would have been nice but there was a startling lack of any semblance anywhere in these pages. I endured this book, and I feel faintly beaten up by it. The editor who took this to press without crossing out fully 2/3rds of the adjectives should be fired. There is no, and I mean absolutely fucking zero reason to use "inundating chevalure" to describe "hair," let alone TWICE IN THREE PAGES. I am thoroughly disgusted with modern lit right now. Just- god. Give me a minute. I can't even.

The Last Life was movingly written; not happy, but deeply affecting. The last third of the book was the best, as the protagonist reflects on what has happened and the personalities and motivations of family members driving the story's action.

For me as a young middle-aged adult, the book raised a lot of interesting -- sometimes painful, but also hopeful -- questions about identity, choice, 'starting fresh,' and many other issues. Sagesse, the narrator, did a beautiful job of communicating the (often frustrated) desire to have others 'do what they say they're going to do, and be whole.'

I was also struck by the truths, which many of us in our independence-minded society are loathe to admit, that 'freedom is a terrible thing...,' that 'we long to be sentenced,' and that 'our constrictions define us.' Lots of food for thought and feeling here.

Only the beginning is interesting; the tale is long, drawn out, and uninspiring.

Well written book, but not a happy book.

It's a little hard to connect with Messud's characters. At her best, it's more like being benignly haunted than reading.

This book is enriched with the tales of growing up in a Patriachal family and the oppression this brings on a families life. I thought it floundered towards the end but a deep and meaningful coming of age novel.