"No one else will write it for you," -Unknown
Like with many books, it's a mixed bag. But that doesn't mean it's not worth it.
I read This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp for mostly research purposes. If you're not aware, I've got a school shooting story boiling on the backburner, and I wanted to read this so I could get an understanding of what other school shooting fiction is like.
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Bad first, then the good.
1. Tyler (and Autumn) Browne
The bad or negative things I have to say about this book are more nitpicky than anything else. Tyler, the shooter, I felt, was one of the problems. He grew into more of his character as the story progressed. However, his character and who he actually was was unclear in the slightly slow beginning. I wanted to see the kinder, more damaged side of Ty. Fortunately, he becomes more sympathetic through the eyes of Autumn.
A lot of my problems with this book focus on Tyler Browne and on his sister, Autumn, who serves as a narrator in the book. A problem I found with them is that while Tyler is a cold-blooded killer, Autumn is this shy, sweet butterfly. However, their father abuses them, and their mother died tragically, and they are ostracized from the rest of Opportunity, Alabama. However, Tyler kills 39 people, and Autumn is quietly discontent with her dancing and girlfriend. One could argue that this is because they are inherently different: Autumn is inherently good and Tyler is inherently bad. However, we are shown that Tyler has the capacity to be good and, many times, the author shows us that Tyler was good, he was just beaten down by the world.
Then, the latter supports the statement: then why isn't Autumn just as screwed up? She possesses almost no negative character traits that would be indicative of her awful backstory. Autumn is passionate and brave and kind almost to a fault, and while this makes her an admirable protagonist, it does not at all fit with the trauma she's been through.
While I will praise this book for being a disturbingly real and gripping psychological thriller, it seemed so out of place for Ty to be monologuing like a supervillian in the Batman cartoons. I get his anger and his hardness towards what's going on, but I feel like he should have been more emotional and brooding. At times, he seemed idealistic, and this kind of took me out of the story since the rest of it was so viscerally real.
2. Passive Characters
On to Autumn. And partially Sylvia. While I didn't hate their characters, I felt that they weren't active enough. Claire as well. While all of this hell is happening, they personally don't do much. At times, I just wanted Sylvia to break out and run to her brother and protect him. At times I wanted Autumn to stand up to her brother, and it's beautiful when she does. I desired for Claire to rush in and be with Matt. But many times the characters, while good and developed, were stagnant. While I understand why, this doesn't deny the simple fact that we WANT to see our beloved characters fight back against the villain. Tomas comes the closest to being the most active character in the story next to Tyler, next to Claire, and next to Autumn, and then last would be Sylvia.
3. Tension/Pacing Changes
After Tomas opened the doors, and people started getting out, I just felt the tension drop like a brick, and the focus was turned off of Tyler, whose level of terrifying kind of just went down after that. The pacing after the auditorium doors opened, which was near the middle, just slowed way down. Whereas in the middle, the tension was consistent.
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However, like many things, there's both sides to the cons of this book.
1. Thoughtful Storytelling and a Smart Author
You could tell that the author was writing smart. Now, this might be a new concept to some, but usually a reader can tell when the author is a plotter or a pantser, or if they had any idea where the story was going when they started. An example of a writer who wasn't very smart was Rick Yancey. You could tell that he didn't know where the story was going in Book 1, The Fifth Wave, and the voice and themes developed as the series went along. However, THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS had smart writing and storytelling. This gives a comforting feeling to the reader, because the author was definitely in control when the story and characters themselves were not.
2. Characters
Nijkamp does an amazing job of developing characters in a short amount of time, and even with characters we get barely any page-time with, for example, Matt and Jonah and Jennifer.
Some standout characters were Matt and Claire. I found Claire to be passionate and active, in contrast with Autumn and Sylvia. Tomas was probably one of my favorite characters; he had a great and lovable personality, and his conversation right before his death is beautiful and stunning and truly shows his character. I loved Autumn's bravery and kindess; like I said before, it was all very admirable, but I still had my problems with her. I must admit that I was crushed when she got shot in the knee.
3. Great Usage of Flashbacks
The backstories and flashbacks - which is a favorite storytelling element of mine - were perfectly placed to not break up the flow and tension and to develop characters. The flashbacks just enriched the story so much more because the entirety of the story takes place over fifty five minutes. The flashbacks were amazing and intense and dark and twisty and added so much to the story.
4. The Intense Realness
What I must give to this book is how viscerally real it felt. I could totally imagine this nearly exact same thing happening at my high school. The reactions and the passage of time and all of the characters were all so relatable and real. Sometimes it was so intense I had to put the book down, and I even had physical reactions to this book, like the boiling in my gut. It was terrifying and heartbreaking all at the same time.
I loved seeing Ty develop. As we were given more and more insight into his character, you just kind of loved to be afraid of him and hated to feel bad for him. This was masterfully done and wasn't as strong at the beginning but accumulated in the end to a stunning suicide. Amazing messages about school and social interactions and even mental health were weaved in and out through Ty's story.
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Overall, this book wasn't flawless or outstanding or anything, but it had it's good notes and I'm glad I read it for research and context purposes. It was terrifying and real without being too gory.
7/10 would recommend
~The WordShaker
