37 Followers
26 Following
carolesrandomlife

carolesrandomlife

This is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

This Is Where It Ends - Marieke Nijkamp

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life in Books.

I hate the fact that we live in a world where school shootings happen. I have mixed feelings about the fact that a book like this even exists because I don't want to use a tragedy as entertainment. I have had a review copy of this book for years but never got around to it. My daughter actually encouraged me to read this book because she thought it was well done. I didn't grow up in a world where school shootings happened with alarming regularity but my daughter has and it is something that she thinks about. I found this to be an engaging story and a really quick read.

This book is told from multiple points of view while a school shooting is taking place. We see what is going on in the locked auditorium and outside of it as well. This is a tragic story filled with needless death but there is also a bit of hope and a few individuals that prove to be heroes. This book doesn't really get too deep into why the shooting happened but I can't think of a good reason or one that would make sense so I am okay with the decision to focus on the students fighting to survive.

The story did have a few problems. Students do call 911 as things start and the police in this little town must have been out having a few doughnuts because it takes them forever to actually get to the school. I had some pretty big issues with that delayed response and I think it made the story very unrealistic. I also never felt like we got to know any of the characters very well. I didn't want any of them to die but I wasn't particularly emotional when it happened either. 

I did really like the fact that this audiobook was narrated by a full cast. Each point of view had its own narrator which made it very easy to keep track of who the focus was on. I thought that each narrator did a fantastic job with the story. I know that I liked this book a lot more because I decided to listen to the audiobook.

I would recommend this book to others. I thought it was a well-told story despite having a few issues. I wouldn't hesitate to read more of this author's work in the future.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Sourcebooks Fire via NetGalley and borrowed a copy of the audiobook from my local library.

Initial Thoughts
So, I have had this book for a long time and am just now getting around to reading it. I think that I did start to read it a while ago and it didn't grab me in the first few pages so I moved on to something else. This subject matter is hard to read about but my high school age daughter encouraged me to give this book another try since she thought it was well done. I listened to the audiobook which I thought was very well done. The cast of narrators did a great job of bringing the characters to life. This isn't a story that dives deep into reasons behind the shooting or how it could have been stopped. It is just a play by play of what happened from several points of view and I think it captured the fear and bravery of the students. It makes me sad that we live in a world where this kind of thing ever happens.