Parker Peevyhouse

4.5 stars! Where Futures End is a YA scifi story moving steadily forward through time. It consists of five novelette length stories that are loosely interconnected. Readers who enjoy character driven stories, unique worldbuilding, and who love the idea of multiple dimensions and other worlds will really enjoy this! It seems to be hit or miss for people, but for me it was definitely a hit!

If I could compare Parker Peevyhouse’s writing to anything, I would say it feels kind of similar to show more Kazuo Ishiguro in thoughtfulness and aims, but geared toward a YA audience. I also detected hints of Ursula K. Le Guin here and there.

This is definitely a book for readers who enjoy imagining possibilities. Her worldbuilding and innovation is truly next level. My mind had a blast imagining all of the future stuff she came up with! And the voice and tone of the writing changes every time we shift into a new novelette, so you really feel like you’re being taken on a journey through time, as culture and circumstances shift.

The only reason it wasn’t a full 5 star read for me is that she lost me a little bit in the fourth novelette. It felt like things got too complicated and I struggled to fully connect with the storyline. Every other story was right on target, though!

If this sounds like it might be up your alley, I highly recommend reading it! Don’t be dissuaded by the lower ratings. For the right reader, this will be a 5 star, unforgettable book! show less

Soooo, my heart wants to give Where Futures End 6 stars, while my brain keeps telling my feely place to pump the brakes and rate with more objectivity. Therefore I'm compromising with 4 stars - seriously, though, I think Parker Peevyhouse just raised the bar on YA by, like, THIS much.

Summarizing this book is difficult: there's science and magic and it definitely has some timey wimey bits. The author describes it as"Donnie Darko + Cloud Atlas"; I can see that. Aside from the overall vibe, I show more most enjoyed the worlds. They're not shiny, happy places, that's for sure, but they felt real and entirely possible. Surprisingly I found the ending rather uplifting...I'm probably in the minority there.

Do I recommend Where Futures End? 100% yes! Only, I'm not exactly sure who I'd recommend it to.

4 stars

"Five interconnected stories that weave a subtle science-fictional web stretching out from the present into the future, presenting eerily plausible possibilities for social media, corporate sponsorship, and humanity, as our world collides with a mysterious alternate universe." show less

The only readers I could possibly fathom recommending The Echo Room to are die-hard fans of the last couple of seasons of Lost (which are the seasons I think of as going downhill quality-wise). It’s difficult to give my rationale for this without revealing specific spoilers, though.

It’s hard to imagine a book being more unnecessarily repetitive than this one, which made it an extremely boring read for me.

Peevyhouse’s previous book, Where Futures End, was excellent. It’s a collection show more of loosely connected short stories that ended up being a 4.5 star read for me! But because her first book was made up of short stories, I think she might not have known how to write a full length story. This feels more like a very dragged out, pantsed rough draft than a finished book. It also lacks the heart that her other book possessed. I didn’t care nearly as much about the characters as I wanted to.

Even though this was only a 2 star read, I’m still going to give her third book, Strange Exit, a chance, because I’m hoping it’ll be more in the vein of Where Futures End than this one. show less

I’m not a big fan of sci-fi, but this was ok. If the story was supposed to confuse the reader, like Lake, then it was well written. Never could tell when she was in the Sim, or not. I had a feeling she was stuck, hiding...hiding from what, leaves me to wonder.