Trigger warnings: The Last Harvest focuses on a very religious town and some dark rituals, so there are numerous scenes where characters are covered in blood. Some characters are shown eating animals in a rather graphic depiction.
Synopsis: “I plead the blood.”
Those were the last words seventeen-year-old golden boy quarterback Clay Tate heard rattling from his dad's throat when he discovered him dying on the barn floor of the Neely Cattle Ranch, clutching a crucifix to his chest.
Now, on the first anniversary of the Midland, Oklahoma slaughter, the whole town's looking at Clay like he might be next to go over the edge. Clay wants to forget the past, but the sons and daughters of the Preservation Society—a group of prominent farmers his dad accused of devil worship—won't leave him alone. Including Ali, his longtime crush, who suddenly wants to reignite their romance after a year of silence, and hated rival Tyler Neely, who’s behaving like they’re old friends.
Even as Clay tries to reassure himself, creepy glances turn to sinister stares and strange coincidences build to gruesome rituals—but when he can never prove that any of it happened, Clay worries he might be following his dad down the path to insanity...or that something far more terrifying lies in wait around the corner.
Review: The Last Harvest is a Children of the Corn style horror novel where we follow Clay as he learns his hometown is hiding something sinister. I wanted to like Clay, mostly because of how sweet he was to his youngest sister, but he seemed really judgmental towards other family members and others in town. At the start of the book, we see that Clay has been going through a lot with his dad passing away in a shocking manner. This leaves him with the task of taking care of his family, and handling harvesting the wheat. It's a lot of responsibility for one teenager, but it doesn't justify him being a jerk to the people around him. As the book went on, I was sympathizing with Clay less and less.
Like I said, The Last Harvest hits some of the same beats as Children of the Corn, but it isn't even done that well. This story focuses heavily on Christianity and Catholicism, but I wish it delved a little deeper into specific religious thought processes. There's one scene where someone tells Clay that he needs to be baptized, he says that he has been, then they say he needs to be baptized as a Catholic. I wish there was a bit more to this conversation about how baptism is viewed in different sects of Christianity. I grew up in a Christianity heavy area, but I get frustrated when people act like Christianity is a single thing when there are actually a lot of different teachings within Christianity. I don't think I actually understood the importance of Clay harvesting the wheat. His sister, Noodle, kept him on track with it, but I feel like the entire thing was pushed aside. Which is particularly sad considering the name of the book is The Last Harvest. I just felt like more could have been done with that aspect, but it was just dropped.
Interesting premise but, overall, underwhelming.
3 howls
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