One Last Word by Suzanne Park
What's It About?
Sara Chae is the founder of One Last Word, an app that allows you to send a message to anyone you want after you pass. When another Sara Chae dies and her obituary is posted online, Sara discovers that drafted messages she had drunkenly uploaded on one night have been released to her mother, her ex-best friend, and her former crush.Suzanne Park demonstrates her former competition-winning stand-up comedian chops in her latest novel One Last Word. The emphasis is on smart comedy in this laugh-out-loud rom-com replete with heart and social commentary.
Narrator/protagonist Sara Chae, a 34-year-old brilliant Korean American woman who works in mid-level management for Los Angeles-based Color Wheel Communications, a high-profile tech company that develops and markets software apps. (App: a small software program designed for mobile devices to complete specific tasks.) There are thousands if not millions of apps with a myriad of purposes and competition is fierce to attract users sufficient to recoup development costs with the hope of generating high revenue.
Sara is the problem solver in her office; the employee most willing to sacrifice any semblance of social life to come in early and work late as the “fix-it” person who is also highly creative and excels at marketing other people’s ideas. However, the dream tech job obtained after years of endless hours studying in high school and college where she graduated among the top of her class has resulted in disappointment. Her salary has remained stagnant and it’s becoming increasingly clear she is valued more for her administrative skills rather than her initiative and technological skills, training and experience.
For several years, Sara plastered a smile on her face, gritted her teeth and ignored sexist and racist comments and the obvious preferential promotion of men within the company as well as higher pay for new hires. At last, when her merits as a software developer of a promising new app are summarily dismissed in a key presentation, Sara reaches her breaking point, stops playing it safe and abruptly quits.
Laugh Out Loud Rom-Com
Sara developed a unique app she christened “One Last Word” designed to deliver messages after a person has died. It scans posted obituaries, matches the user’s established profile to avoid same name errors and once their final demise has been verified sends stored messages previously written to friends and family, colleagues; anyone who has been specified with an accurate mobile or email address.
Testing has indicated the coded safeguards are adequate to avoid projected errors. Who hasn’t wished for one final conversation or message from beyond when a special someone has died?
The messages can be long or short and unrestricted by any arbitrary length. They can be sweet and loving or can scathingly deliver to a rival, backstabber or former partner zingers the dearly departed really wanted to convey but wouldn’t or couldn’t while living. Thanks to this app, although the user is dead and gone their unexpurgated thoughts, opinions and feelings, be they loving or caustic, will be delivered to the intended recipients.
She envisions this application could be extended for other purposes like party planning for special occasions such as “reserve the day” for weddings and could also be packaged with a template of appropriately thoughtful phrases for people who are unaccustomed to writing.
Fun-Filled Romp
As the elder daughter of Korean immigrants, Sara Chae has been an obedient overachiever her entire life. Her Appa and Umma (father and mother) are dictatorial helicopter and tiger parents pushing for excellence in all aspects of her life. Jobless, unmarried, unattached and now sleeping in her 8 years younger sister Jia’s walk-in closet, she knows their disapproval will be immediate, vitriolic and loud. As the second child, Jia was under less pressure and had successfully learned to outmaneuver their parents.
The worst was yet to come. Two weeks into unemployment, the sisters meet for drinks in a bar across the street from their apartment and proceed to get hammered. Responding to Jia’s interest, Sara explains how her app will work. Enjoying a rare night out together, they draft a series of semi-comic, no-holds-barred messages to Sara’s former employers, parents, a friend who was unintentionally ghosted and her high school crush, Harry Shim, a hot-shot venture capitalist who after college had married his prom date, a beautiful, successful classmate rival of hers.
Fed up by frustrations in life, love and work, our heroine has become empowered to speak up but only for the purpose of demonstrating the potential joy of using the app. All in great fun but the drunken duo neglected to delete the inflammatory messages and they remained in queue.
Disaster struck when another Sara Chae with a similar profile died suddenly and her obituary was posted. The One Last Word app functioned as designed with only one small error; the deceased Sara Chae’s obit triggered the delivery of our heroine’s test messages! The giddy messages were sent.
Readers will savor Sara’s predicament and now chaotic life as she contends for a “Pitch Warriors” televised show and is accepted into a highly competitive venture capital mentorship. Much to her chagrin, her mentor is venture capital superstar Henry Shim. Let the fun begin as this new phase of Sara’s life and career begin.
As the back cover inquires: “What would you say … if you didn’t have to face the consequences?”
Author Suzanne Park deftly balances humor and romance with universally relatable workplace issues and toxic people and comes up a winner with One Last Word. Her witty, clever and heartwarming writing will certainly appeal to fans of Emily Henry, Sophie Kinsella, Jenny Colgan, and Lauren Kate, among others.
About Suzanne Park:
Suzanne Park is a Korean American writer who was born and raised in Tennessee.
In her former life as a stand-up comedian, Suzanne appeared on BET, was the winner of the Seattle Sierra Mist Comedy Competition, and was a semi-finalist in NBC’s “Stand Up For Diversity” showcase.
Suzanne graduated from Columbia University and received an MBA Degree from UCLA. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband, female offspring, and a sneaky rat that creeps around on her back patio. In her spare time, she procrastinates. Her comedic novels have been featured in “best of” lists in NPR, Elle, Popsugar, Real Simple, Country Living, Bustle, Buzzfeed, Marie Claire, Parade, Shondaland and The Today Show.
