Book Review
Grief is one big, gaping hole, isn’t it? It is everywhere and all-consuming.
‘This is Where It Ends’ is a YA by Marieke Nijkamp and I can’t even recollect for how long I wanted to read this fascinating novel (bookstgram reviews). It was different than my usual genre. I’m more of a romance girl but I relished reading something different. It’s a story about a school shooting narrated by 4 high school seniors, Claire, Autumn, Slyvia, and Tomas. It is a 45-50 minutes long story that embraces moments before, during, and after the shooting. The chapters are broken into mostly three- and two-minute, episodes. In addition, each chapter concludes with either tweet between students and community members or a blog entry from Mei, a student who skipped school the day of the shooting.
“I didn’t need to die for him to kill me.”
Review:
The story is a lot more than just a school shooting. It goes into the background of each narrating character which weighs upon them thinking all the moments they ignored when Tyler ( the shooter) showed signs overpowering them. They narrate their history, their relationship with Tyler, his behavior as a brother, boyfriend, and a very cold side of him no one knew existed except Slyvia. Even though the mystery surrounding Tyler is quite intimidating, I personally feel if the author would have introduced Tyler’s pov too, it would have given great depth to the story and would have done justice to the character. Things like what was clearly going on in Tyler’s mind were absent in the story.
“I never realized that courage was so terrifying.”
Even though the characters were a bit distant from one another, be it Slyvia’s relation with her brother or Autumn, the novel highlighted how rough situations could make us forget all the grudges and bet our own life for the ones we truly adore.
Without going into further details and delivering spoilers I would wrap up the review by saying this is a wholesome novel. Teenagers will enjoy this novel and find it difficult to put the book down but I am not so sure about adults. Anyhow, get yourself a copy because the only things that give us purpose are the stories that tie us together.
Bookstagram you did not let me down
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