Jonathan Tropper’s One Last Thing Before I Go has a nice conceit: protagonist Drew Silver is a washed up musician, divorce husband, absent father and disconnected son and brother. In the early chapters he has some kind of Heart Incident (that sounds entirely made up) that means if he doesn’t have surgery he can drop dead at any moment. And because he thinks his life isn’t worth living he declines the surgery, choosing instead some kind of protracted surprise suicide. For the remaining time he has he makes a list of what he will do that boils down to be a better father and man. It does, and doesn’t, go well.
But while this reader found the first few chapters a sort of delight in the creative descriptions of misery, these quickly wore and became grating and predictable. Likewise, the initial interest that the somewhat novel plot offers wanes as it becomes pretty clear that he’s not going to die and will get the surgery in the end and so any suspense or emotional investment just kind of… peters out.
That said there are some funnier moments and some gentle scenes of someone Trying To Be Better. But I’d file this one away under mostly forgettable, if somewhat heart warming (but not so heart warming as to cause a Heart Incident).
Literary Vice 