The Last Word

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of mental health conditions, suicidal ideation, child death, and substance use disorder.

“The End. Like surfacing from a deep dive with aching lungs, she has never been so grateful to see those two words on her paper-white screen.”

Ironically, these are the very first lines of the novel, and the oblique references to water and drowning are intended to foreshadow the ending of the book-within-a-book, Murder Beach, which has a very different ending than The Last Word. The underwater imagery hints at the fact that Deek will try to kill Emma by drowning her.

“For a week or two prior, his board had contained a friendly invitation (Want to play hangman), which sounds like something Jigsaw might say if you’ve never heard of the popular whiteboard game Hangman.”

This passage introduces the character of Deek and immediately associates him with villains in the horror genre. By referencing Jigsaw, the iconic murderer in the highly successful Saw franchise of horror movies, Adams implies that despite Deek’s outwardly friendly overtures, he is deeply invested in playing games far more sinister than the faintly macabre games of Hangman that punctuate his first interactions with Emma. Thus, even this introduction is a clue to his true identity as the mastermind behind Howard’s attack on Emma.

“She’s aware of her senses, but she can’t really feel them.”

This passage highlights the numbness and dissociation that Emma experiences in the wake of her daughter’s death, and as the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Emma’s entire sojourn in the Pacific Northwest is an attempt to avoid her feelings, just as she ignores her senses. As Emma struggles to work through her grief, her desire to avoid her feelings causes her to become numb and desensitized.