The Last Party

“Smiling at the room, I raised my hand in acknowledgement of their recognition. Everyone was beaming—everyone except for my husband, who glared at me, his face dark with anger.”

With this sentence, Torre briefly sets up a red herring, positioning Grant as a villain and Perla as a potential victim. This perception is quickly reversed in the following chapters, highlighting one of the novel’s key themes: The Deceptive Nature of Appearances.

“Saving a life had been thrilling. Too bad it couldn’t compare with the inverse.”

This line flips the dynamic hinted at in Chapter 1. Subverting the more common trope of male perpetrator and female victim, Torre establishes that Perla is the novel’s villain and that Grant faces danger at her hands.

“The predictability had annoyed me early on. Now I appreciated it. The ultimate in a marriage is the manipulation ability of knowing how and when your spouse will act and react.”

Throughout the narrative, Perla tries to control Grant through an intricate system of emotionally abusive tactics, introducing the theme of The Danger of Control in Relationships. She weaponizes his love for her and her intimate knowledge of his personality and behaviors to manipulate him into doing whatever she wants.

“They worry that I don’t understand when lying is acceptable, but I know more than they think. I’m smarter than both of them, and I’m smart enough to realize that I should keep that knowledge to myself.”

This excerpt from Sophie’s journal evinces two key aspects of her character. The first is that she is learning from watching her mother’s behavior, and the second is her sharp and observant nature. Perla’s arrogance prevents her from realizing that Sophie is not just a helpless pawn but a keen-eyed witness who is processing and judging her parents’ behavior.

“I understand why my father bought the rabbit, why he brought the story’s main character to life. The psychological impact of Piketo’s tale was instrumental in creating a relationship of ironclad confidentiality and trust.”

The tale of Piketo the bunny is one of the novel’s central symbols. Leewood told Perla the Piketo story to scare her into keeping his sexual abuse of her friends a secret, illustrating how control within relationships can enable victimizers.

“No male had ever made me feel the way Grant had, except for my father—and his love had come with conditions and boundaries and, always in the back of my head, the understanding that being a parent wasn’t a choice but often a chore.”

Perla has been irrevocably shaped by her relationship with her father, reflecting The Lasting Effects of Childhood Trauma. Among his myriad faults, Leewood was a neglectful parent who made Perla feel like a burden. His love for her was predicated on her taking care of him and keeping his secrets. In Grant, Perla seeks the unconditional love and safety that Leewood could not provide her.

“People loved to hear about little girls dying. They said they didn’t. They made all sorts of sad faces and winced and waxed on about how horrible it was—but every one of them wanted a front-row seat.”

This line from Leewood calls out the hypocrisy of a society that abhors criminal behavior but consumes the details of victims’ suffering for entertainment. Within the narrative, this functions as a meta-critique, encouraging readers to question the ethics of reading graphically violent novels for fun.

“I was devastated when I heard what happened to her. I organized a little memorial for her in our break room. I tried to send something to her funeral but…obviously, I couldn’t. Not once I found out everything.”

The novel is interspersed with quotes from secondary characters that foreshadow the climactic event. By leaving it unclear who the deceased “her” is, Torre hints that either Perla or Sophie will not make it to the end of the narrative alive.

“Closing my eyes, I quickly went through the execution and then took my time with the aftermath. The attention. The sympathy. A warm glow traveled through my chest at the vision of the crowds that would line our street, the media vans, the pile of flowers and mementos, the front-page articles, the trending hashtags, the soft voices and concerned faces of the interviewers. I would only do one, maybe two. Very high-profile sit-downs, with perfect lighting, a line in the contract that would grant me control over the final edit.”

This quote from Perla conveys her fixation on attention and her need for control. While contemplating murdering her daughter, she thinks only of the way the public will perceive her after the act. Her need to control “the final edit” reflects her need to control the narrative of her life, reflecting the danger of control in relationships.

“You could recognize us by our cars—Range Rovers were preferred, but any luxury SUV or six-figure sedan was accepted. Our husbands worked long hours; our kids attended the same elite schools; and if the wife worked; it was in a job like mine, something flexible enough to allow for long lunches at the club, afternoons at the spa, and vacations in Italy or Paris.”

Brighton Estates is a homogenous community. The cookie-cutter nature of the neighboring families provides Perla with the perfect opportunity to camouflage, presenting herself as the “right” kind of woman to throw off suspicion, invoking the deceptive nature of appearances.

“There was definitely something wrong with him. I never told anyone about that, and maybe it’s not important. I just thought that maybe it was.”

This quote, spoken by a childhood friend of Perla’s about an uncomfortable encounter with Leewood, highlights the danger of uneven power dynamics in relationships. As a child, the woman declined to report the incident, likely fearful of consequences. Since Leewood’s victims did not feel safe speaking out against him, his abuse continued unchecked until the Folcrum Party.

“Oh, I understood that. It was why I didn’t want him to touch the scar. It was mine, proof that I could withstand anything and proof that those who love you the most can be the ones who hurt you the most.”

Perla’s mysterious scar is one of the novel’s key symbols. The scar eventually connects her to Jenny Folcrum, becoming a literal symbol of the marks left behind by her traumatic childhood and the lasting effects of childhood trauma.

“The liposuction would help, but it was only one heat in a losing race, and I refused to watch Sophie grow tall and lean, with perky little teenage breasts and a firm ass you could set a cup on. I was already sick of the teenagers at the club, all shiny hair and glowing skin, turning all the husbands’ heads.”

Perla displays a disturbing fixation on, and jealousy of, Sophie’s body. This is later revealed to be a result of witnessing Leewood abuse her friends, highlighting just how deeply her childhood experiences affected her development.

“‘You could tell she wasn’t like the rest of us. She watched everything, that little girl did. Saw what the drugs was doing to her momma, saw…’ He grimaced. ‘She would, like, study you, in a creepy kinda way. Like, whenever you’d look over at her, she was always watching you, or watching something, and taking a mental note of it.’”

This quote, spoken about a young Perla (then Jenny), raises the question of whether Perla’s amorality is inherent or a result of a childhood filled with trauma, neglect, and abuse, reflecting the lasting effects of childhood trauma.

“When I had only had a father, one who worked long hours at a hard job, I was the one who had cooked. Who had cleaned. Who had made sure that his clothes were washed and my own lunch was packed. I signed permission slips and took money from his wallet when I needed it, and each of those small things fortified the woman I eventually become.”

Here, Perla describes taking care of both herself and Leewood as a child. Being prematurely forced into the role of an adult likely fed into her lifelong fixation on receiving Leewood’s love and validation, as well as her need to achieve total control over her life.

“The girl stood with her feet spread, her weight on one hip, the stance sloppy. I wondered how much training it had taken for George and Janice to turn me from what I had been into what I am now. I had found them so critical in the beginning, but now I could see how much there had been to fix, and I had to remind myself that I didn’t need Paige to be perfect.”

Looking back on her time with George and Janice, Perla is grateful to them for “fixing” her. She fails to see how their attitude toward her influenced her self-perception, setting her up to strive for an unattainable vision of perfection.

“Sometimes it’s not the people that change. It’s the mask that falls off. That is so disturbing to me…the idea that the people in my life could be like you, and just…”

This quote from Grant foreshadows the eventual reveal of Perla’s identity. The idea of a mask falling off to reveal the true face behind it reoccurs throughout the novel, as several characters key characters are “unmasked” when their facades crumble, invoking the deceptive nature of appearances.

“I felt a tenderness for Jenny Folcrum and her sad little life. No mother. No money. No substantial role models other than her father—an alcoholic electrician who would eventually slice her open like a deer.”

Here, Perla expresses sympathy toward her childhood self while simultaneously displaying a complete disconnect from Jenny. In reinventing herself, she has attempted to sever her traumatic past, but the lasting effects of childhood trauma permeate every aspect of her adult life.

“‘How do you think you would handle it if I died? What do you think your reaction would be?’

‘I would be destroyed.’ He reached over and grabbed my hand. ‘I know what it was like with Lucy, and it…I stopped knowing how to live for a period of time.’”

The Last Party explores how traumatic childhood experiences can affect relationships in adulthood. Grant is particularly vulnerable to Perla’s manipulations because the death of his sister has made him deeply afraid of losing other loved ones. Perla takes advantage of this to manipulate him, reflecting the dangers of control in relationships.

“When Jenny killed that bunny, she didn’t feel anything about it. When her mother died, when the girls died at that party…She’s empty inside. Like she missed the step in the process when that thing inside us, the thing that tells us what’s right and what’s wrong…like she didn’t get that piece.”

Here, Leewood offers his understanding of Perla’s psychology. He describes her as inherently amoral, unable to feel remorse since childhood. His characterization of her lets him evade responsibility for his abusive parenting, suggesting that he is still unable to come to terms with his own bad actions.

“I was paranoid—I realized that—but I was also suddenly seeing things I’d been oblivious to before. The pause before she smiled, like she was processing what reaction to deliver. The manipulation of the girls, of every single aspect of this party, even minor details that didn’t matter. The way she ordered me to do something and didn’t wait to see or hear my reaction or opinion.”

After learning Perla’s real identity, Grant can see her manipulations and character flaws clearly for the first time, recognizing the dangers of control in relationships. The drastic shift in his perspective before and after Perla’s death evinces the intensity of the control she exerted over him during their marriage.

“It was like the final twists and turns of a Rubik’s Cube. Click. Click. Click. Everything finally matching up, confirming my superior level of intelligence.”

Perla’s extreme cockiness eventually plays a major role in her downfall. Her inability to anticipate that anyone would catch on to her behavior leaves her vulnerable to Grant’s intervention. This moment provides a bit of levity and dramatic irony, as readers know that Grant has caught onto Perla’s plan.

“This was almost better than a cannibal ritual or sex party. A tie to one of the most famous murders in history, happening right here inside their jeweled enclave.”

After Perla’s death, the Brighton Estates rumor mill fires up, with the community eagerly ingesting the details as if it’s a piece of harmless gossip. This voracious appetite for the tragedies of others highlights the darkness beneath the community’s perfect exterior and serves as a meta-critique of viewing suffering for entertainment.