Review: This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

This Is Where It End by Marike Nijkamp

Sourcebooks Fire

Young Adult, Contemporary

E-Arc

Source: Publisher

10:00 a.m.The principal of Opportunity, Alabama's 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.10:03The auditorium doors won't open.10:05 a m. Someone starts shooting.Told over the span of 54 harrowing minutes from four different perspectives, terror reigns as one student's calculated revenge turns into the ultimate game of survival.

I received a review copy from the publisher in exchange of an honest review. This in no way affects my review.


I am an American high school student, and school shootings are a terrifying reality. We practice drills are told what to do if this ever happened to us, but no one is ever really prepared. No one ever believes it will happen until sadly, it does. I feel like the subject this book talks about is very important and should be talked about more. Although, this books did not really work the subject as well as it had the opportunity to.

The is book takes place over 54 minutes. Yes, just 54 minutes. We get the POV of many students during this short span. And unfortunately, I didn't enjoy it. I found the characters to be somewhat repetitive in the sense that I got multiple characters feelings and opinions in just what was suppose to be a three minute span. I understand that the author was probably trying to express how every person will react to the same problem, but it didn't work for me. 

This book really had potential and it was interesting enough, as well as fast paced. The only way to connect with our vast amount of characters, was through flashbacks which again, did not work for me. But I have to say, my least favorite thing about the novel was the shooter. I dislikes the way he was portrayed and I don't actual understand him or his motivation even now. 

 I am a very moody reader in the sense that I have to be in the mood for a book to even want to glance at it. I was in the mood to read about this topic, and well, it wasn't what I wanted it to be. Overall, I'm not upset that I pushed through this book as it did provide some insight on the controversial topic.