“This Is Where It Ends” addresses sensitive topics through interesting characters

THIS IS Where it Ends is a #1 bestselling book written by Marieke Nijkamp. I was really not surprised by this ranking, considering how interesting this book actually is.

It’s not the best I’ve read, and I only actually shed a few tears, but it was definitely a good read. You also have to take into account the fact that I was in the middle of school while reading this, so crying was not a very valid option at the time. Were I at home, things may have played out differently.  

This is Where it Ends is a book taken from the perspectives of four high school students in their senior year of high school.

They are going about their normal day, though things seem off. People are in deeper thought, there are things that just seem odd, and you really question a lot of things in these first few chapters.

As an assembly that nearly all of the school is attending begins, things go alright, until a shot rings out, and bodies drop. The students realize they are locked inside a school auditorium with a former student turned shooter.

As I said before, this book was an amazing one. There was a lot of really good foreshadowing, and it really had me asking myself what certain signs meant, especially towards the beginning. What was good about this was that it made me want to keep reading, but it also ended up answering all of my questions in the end.

There were some parts that were really predictable, but I was overall happy with everything I learned and figured out in the end.

Now, recently there have been multiple cases of school shootings in our real world, and as its an extremely heavy topic that is hard to get into. Regardless of your viewpoint or stance on this issue, this is a very good book to pick up and read.

This novel gives a prime example of how everyone is affected in the events surrounding a school shooting. So often we think of what we can do to stop it and more recently what we did to wrong the shooter, and this book touches on all of these along with how it affects the survivors involved.

This book has amazing characters, taking perspective from Autumn, the mysterious Tyler’s younger sister, Sylvia, Autumn’s girlfriend, Tomás, who is Sylvia’s twin brother, and Claire, who is Tyler’s ex-girlfriend.

The better the characters, the better the book, and I can definitely say that this book was amazing in this aspect. I could really connect with Autumn, and Tomás turned out to be one of my favorites despite him supposedly being the troublemaker.

I loved Matt, who was not a main character, but was Claire’s younger brother. Almost every character in this book I found some way to connect with, even if they only had one or two lines, and the deaths of some of them hit me pretty hard.

The author did an amazing job at keeping the book full of so many emotions without making it too gruesome or horrific so as to keep me from finishing it.

I think one of the biggest things I took from this book was how precious life is, which seems fairly obvious, but it was different as I read this.

As I said, I was really able to connect with all these characters, and the author kept touching back on this thought of “the moments before your death.” As I read all of the things that each individual thought about, all the regrets, loves, precious moments and memories, it really made me think about myself and what I would think about in a situation like this.

Would I be brave enough to survive what they did? What choices would I make? Would I have sat in the shadows or stood up to the shooter?

The reflection this brought upon me was really quite interesting and I think it’s a good thing for people to experience; to not only draw you to what you are reading and the people in the novel, but also to your own reality and what’s happening around you.