All That's Left to Say

By: Emery Lord

Narrated by: Krystal Hammond

A poignant and powerful story of a grieving girl willing to risk everything, perfect for fans of Robin Benway and Jandy Nelson.

On prom night, Hannah MacLaren sits in the headmaster's office in her fanciest dress, soaked to the bone. She pulled the fire alarm right as the queen was about to be crowned, and she's in huge trouble. But Hannah had her reasons for ruining the biggest night of everyone's lives.

One year ago, her cousin Sophie, who was also her best friend and the person she loved most in the world, died of an overdose. Drowning in grief, Hannah became obsessed with one question: Who gave Sophie those pills? Then she concocted a plan: enroll at her cousin's fancy private school with a new look and a mouthful of lies, and find out the truth once and for all.

But she didn't expect all the lines to blur. She didn't expect Sophie's friends to be so complicated. She didn't expect to fall for her longtime enemy. Now, she has a choice: let herself really mourn Sophie and move on, or see her search through to its explosive end—even if it means destroying herself.

©2024 Emery Lord (P)2024 Spotify Audiobooks

The wrong message

When Sophie, Hannah’s cousin, dies of an overdose, Hannah vows to find the person who killed her (sold her the drugs).

Emery Lord gets so much wrong in ALL THAT’S LEFT TO SAY, I can’t justify giving it more than one star, despite that Lord shows the grief process quite well.

ALL THAT’S LEFT TO SAY is set upon the premise what whomever sold or gave the drugs to Sophie killed her. Instead of Hannah spending 2 years looking for the dealer, I’d rather have had her invested in when the drugs started and why, signs she missed etc. If Sophie had been drugged, I’d have understood the “investigation”. I wondered if Lord thought making an “investigation” would appeal to mystery readers.

Lord must have repeated Substance Use Disorder 25 times in the book, which is the new way substance abuse is categorized and which virtually no one uses in daily life. It sounded clunky in the narration. I wish Lord had talked more about personal responsibility.

Lord’s word building and character development, though strong, weren’t enough to overcome that the MC wanted to blame another kid who probably wasn’t a drug kingpin for her cousin’s death.