A lot of substance for a small book - I was pleasantly surprised.

This book was so confusing but there were quite a few parts I liked it just glossed over stuff very quickly and the plot twist seems to just be in there to be a twist. I think it would have benefited from being longer. 3.5/5

Great story.

This was an entertaining juvenile fiction book-on-tape.

keep in mind I read this book almost two decades ago as a young reader. That being said it left such an impact on me that I have never forgotten it. It was one of the very first books I read (or in my case listened to) for fun. It lead to a lifetime interest in dystopian futures and sci-fi. Would highly recommend for tweens.

In my opinion this is not Philbrick's best book but it still is an interesting read.

From the very first sentences in The Last Book In The Universe “If you’re reading this, it must be a thousand years from now. Because nobody around here reads anymore. Why bother, when you can just probe it?”, the reader’s attention is grabbed immediately. This science fiction book is excellent. Rodman Philbrick creates an alternate futuristic world with invented vocabulary to describe this new world, the people, and the items used in it. From the Urb, to the Proovs, to the Takvees, to the latches, this new world comes alive. The reader finds oneself transformed into this new world. One part of the new world is the burned- out Urb and the other part is the perfection of Eden. Both the strengths and weaknesses of both worlds are noticed. The themes of addiction, abandonment, poverty, environmental concerns, and violence of the 21st century are still prevalent in The Last Book In The Universe’s new world of the future. However, Spaz, Little Face, Ryter and Bean capture the reader’s heart evoking a sense of empathy and possibly sympathy for one if not all of these characters. One realizes that we all have a story to tell. Those stories need to be protected and passed along to future generations so that they may learn from our mistakes. At the end of the book is a list of “New Words for a New World”.

A dystopian future, where books no longer exist, an adventure brings a young boy to lead a kind of life he never expected.