Began reading: 21.8.2017
Completed reading: 23.8.2017
Overall rating: 4 stars
10:00 a.m.
The principal of Opportunity High School finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and encouraging them to excel and achieve.
10:02 a.m.
The students get up to leave the auditorium for their next class.
10:03 a.m.
The auditorium doors won’t open.
10:05 a.m.
Someone starts shooting.
Told from four different perspectives over the span of fifty-four harrowing minutes, terror reigns as one student’s calculated revenge turns into the ultimate game of survival.
Trigger warning: this book contains school shootings, alcoholism and sexual assault.
This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp is a contemporary young adult fiction novel. I purchased this book as soon as I laid my eyes on it. I noticed that there were so many negative reviews for this book, but I thought it was BRILLIANT!
It started as an ordinary day at school – a welcome back assembly kicks off the first day back at school. After the principal’s speech, the students begin to file out of the auditorium, only to find that all of the doors and emergency exits have been locked. Two minutes later, a boy enters the hall and begins shooting. Autumn and her secret girlfriend Sylvia are two of the students trapped with the gunman, doing their best to survive without bringing attention to themselves because their relationship has the potential to be catastrophic. Claire is another student at the high school, but hears the gunfire from track practice. It is up to her to seek emergency help for her disabled brother and fellow classmates. Tomás is also outside the auditorium at the time of the shooting, but he fears that his sister could be a target. He will have to work together with his best friend to enter the auditorium and help students escape, but will his bravery attract the attention of the gunman and cost him his life?
The book was well-written, and I loved the fast pacing of the narrative. The literary techniques that were used, including flashbacks, point of view and and tragedy, successfully portrayed the tense and upsetting events within the novel. There were also some great quotes, including:
The only things that give us purpose are the stories that tie us together (p. 50).
Fear and survival are two sides of the same coin (p. 57).
‘We’re more than our mistakes. We’re more than what people expect of us’ (p. 100).
We’re not just fighting for survival – we’re fighting for hope and a thousand tomorrows (p. 142).
If you’re afraid, think about tomorrow, because tomorrow will be a new day. Tomorrow, there’ll be new chances (p. 220).
More quotes from the novel can be found here.
This story is broken up and told in four perspectives: Autumn, Sylvia, Claire and Tomás. As well as these characters, we are also given others, which provides us with a variety of characters to like, dislike and relate to. I came to love this group of characters because each of them told the story from various perspectives, with two inside the auditorium and two outside of it. So, we were given a well-rounded story which made the narrative twice as interesting. As well as the different perspectives, each character had a unique back-story or relationship with the gunman, and this heightened the tension. The fact that the four main characters shared a past with the gunman was a clever way to provide insight on such a distressing situation.
When I pick up a book, I expect to feel a rollercoaster of emotions for the characters – isn’t that what separates a good book from a great book? I knew from this novel’s context that it was going to be turbulent, but damn the emotions! Just thinking about the storyline as I type this is making me tear up. The atmosphere in the auditorium felt palpable, and I felt like I was there with the students. I was terrified, but I almost cried when the shooting began. I cried over the deaths of some secondary characters, and those emotions continued as one of the students kept tweeting his friend. These feelings, as I’ve mentioned in past reviews, demonstrate that I was able to form connections to the characters. I don’t think I’ll be moving on from these character deaths any time soon.
The blurb of the book was the primary reason why I decided to buy the book. It projected mystery, drama and tension and it didn’t let me down. The plot was incredibly dark, but I have to admit that it was morbidly intriguing. I wanted to know what was going to happen, how the students were going to react, and how the authorities were going to handle the situation. Of course, this topic is relevant in the present-day, but I have only ever seen these stories told in the media. Being able to read the book through a student’s eyes made it feel like I was experiencing it first-hand, which cannot be achieved through the media. I was able to read about the students’ thought processes, and experiencing the shock that they felt when they saw victims of the shooting.
One of the downsides to this book was the amount of unanswered questions. The novel itself was fairly short (282 pages) and covered a lot in the space of fifty-four minutes, so it was a quick read. However, I felt like there were some details that could have been added to answer questions and it wouldn’t have affected the overall book. Some of the questions that I’m left with include: who is Jay Eyck from Twitter? What drove Tyler to this point? I understand that he felt isolated from his family and the community, but that wouldn’t have driven him to do what he did. Also, how did Claire’s family react to their loss? After the tragedy, there is a time skip but there is no mention of how the families with lost loved ones were coping. It would have been nice to know if everyone was coping, or if they moved away.
Another issue with this novel was how unrealistic some of the sections were, and I believe that this was why there were so many negative reviews. I was hoping that the writing in this novel would accurately portray the various aspects of a school shooting. I understand that balancing realistic features with fictional plot lines can be difficult, but accurately presenting a character’s emotions isn’t too difficult in these circumstances. In the book, the characters who lost friends or family didn’t even really cry – I’m pretty sure that if I lost a sibling, I’d be bawling my eyes out. I felt like they didn’t even shed a tear. It was bordering on romanticising or sensationalising school shootings because there were a few inappropriate or irrelevant plot lines or character thoughts that would never have happened in real life.
My favourite character was Claire because she proved that she was stronger than she thought she was, protective of her friends and family, responsible, empathetic and caring.
The biggest disagreement that I had in the story was Claire and Chris’ relationship. Like I said, I felt that some things were inappropriate in such a dark narrative, and this was one of them. I think that it would have been better if they grew close, but kissing crossed the line. It just felt inappropriate, even as a sub-plot.
My favourite part of the novel was Tyler’s entrance into the auditorium, as it was dramatic and oozing with suspense. It was a shock to learn about who Tyler was and how he was linked to the protagonists, so discovering these connections really made the scene dramatic and intense.
Recommendation time! If you like Hate List by Jennifer Brown, Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, Give A Boy A Gun by Todd Strasser, and Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll, you will love this book. Also, I recommend this book to anyone who likes We Need To Talk About Kevin, Home Room, Beautiful Boy, Zero Day, and Bowling For Columbine.
Happy reading!
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