This Is Where It Ends

by Marieke Nijkamp

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

This is Where it Ends is a terrifying, intense, and gripping book. It's set over the course of about 50 minutes, and alternates between several POVs. It was suppose to be just another Monday morning. The new semester was beginning and the principal was giving her start of semester speech. And then, he calmly walks in after having secured all of the doors. He starts shooting, locks everyone in the auditorium, and makes them listen while picking off those who wronged him one by one.

This is Where it Ends is absolutely horrifying, and the unique format really added to the sense of dread. Each chapter covers only a couple of minutes, and switches between four main POVs, a blog, and Twitter. It took me about 3 hours to read this less than an hour event, which made it feel like it was happening in slow motion. I imagine that's how it felt for those students and teachers trapped with the shooter. I couldn't put it down, because I had to know what was going to happen. I was inwardly screaming, "Where are the police?!" only to see the timestamp was only two minutes later!

The only thing that kept me from giving This is Where it Ends five stars was that the flashback sections felt distracting. I get that these students were thinking about these past events, but as the reader, I didn't care what they did for their 15th birthday. I wanted to know what was happening NOW and what led to it. I wanted to get back to how these teens were trying to rescue their friends and families from this horror! There was also a point near the end where I didn't quite believe the choices made. It was quite stupid for them to do, but led to a really tragic finale.

This is Where it Ends was really incredible. It hooked me from the beginning and kept me furiously flipping pages. I believed the terror and disbelief that these characters were going through. It is not a happy book by any means. There's no rainbow after the storm. It's just a hard, real look at school violence. It definitely shows that awful truth that there are usually signs, but no one knows what they mean until it's too late.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.