How are you?
Today I am going to be reviewing This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp. I read this as part of a research project for college and ended up giving up 3/5 stars on Goodreads. To read my Goodreads review, click here.
This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp- Contains Spoilers
Non-Spoiler Thoughts
This Is Where It Ends is a really fast read because of the writing style. Although I read it over 6 days, I read quite a lot when I was reading. The four main characters are all very different and this book does have some diversity in it. It features two characters that are Hispanic and a Lesbian couple. It also talks about living with a severe health issue. It is about a school shooting, so if this is something you feel uncomfortable reading about then this book won't be for you.
Cover Chat
I really love the cover for This Is Where It Ends. I love how it has four pieces of chalk and that there are four main characters. This cover is really striking and is one of the reasons I picked it up.
Opinions
I was really excited to read this book and had had it on my TBR for almost a year, however, it was a bit of a disappointment for me. The premise of this book is really interesting, however the delivery makes it feel a bit cheesy. When I was reading through Goodreads to see what other people thought, I saw lots of people saying that it was insulting to people who had been involved in a school shooting and to some extent I have to agree. At one point, one of the characters saves a girl because he fancies her and hopes she'll remember him when he asks her out. I felt that this was really unnecessary to the plot as well as it being very unrealistic. If you're in a building where a shooting is taking place, you are not going to be thinking about asking someone out.
One of the main problems I had with this book was that the main characters were portrayed as being completely innocent and good. They were very two-dimensional characters. The shooter was also made to be completely evil, which I understand from the characters perspective, but from the author, I found this really off. People are never completely good or bad, they are usually a mix of the two.
Another problem I had with this book was the random texts, blog posts and tweets the author included. People inside a school would not start tweeting if someone was shooting them. I found it really unrealistic that they would start tweeting. I also found it odd that they would create a hashtag.
One thing I loved about this book was the diversity. Like I said in my Non-Spoiler section, this book has two people that are Hispanic and there is also a Lesbian couple. I was really happy that this book didn't just focus on white people and that it had more than one race and sexuality mentioned. I recently decided that I was going to participate in Diversity Bingo and I am hoping that I can use this book for one of the options.
Something I want to quickly talk about is when Sylvia briefly mentions that Tyler raped her. I understand that rape is a serious thing and that it should be addressed in literature, but it was mentioned once and felt like it was put in to make Tyler look bad.
So those were my thoughts on This Is Where Ends, let me know what you thought of it in the comments.
Love,
Carenza x
Another problem I had with this book was the random texts, blog posts and tweets the author included. People inside a school would not start tweeting if someone was shooting them. I found it really unrealistic that they would start tweeting. I also found it odd that they would create a hashtag.
One thing I loved about this book was the diversity. Like I said in my Non-Spoiler section, this book has two people that are Hispanic and there is also a Lesbian couple. I was really happy that this book didn't just focus on white people and that it had more than one race and sexuality mentioned. I recently decided that I was going to participate in Diversity Bingo and I am hoping that I can use this book for one of the options.
Something I want to quickly talk about is when Sylvia briefly mentions that Tyler raped her. I understand that rape is a serious thing and that it should be addressed in literature, but it was mentioned once and felt like it was put in to make Tyler look bad.
So those were my thoughts on This Is Where Ends, let me know what you thought of it in the comments.
Love,
Carenza x
