This Is Where It Ends

The first day of the new semester at Opportunity High starts out as it usually does. But at the conclusion of the first day-assembly, everyone is strangely trapped. That's when Tyler Browne appears and starts firing his gun. This story, taking place over less than an hour, is told from the perspectives of Autumn, Sylv, Claire, and Tomas, all having some sort of past relationship with Tyler. As this horrific event unfolds, the students show their true colors and become more united than they ever have for the same reason: survival.
This is a beautifully written book that totally destroyed a part of me. Likely the detail I hated the most (but made the writing quality so much better) is how at the end of every chapter, social media posts show more about the school shooting are displayed, just making everything feel even more real. It makes you feel sympathetic for side characters that don't even show up in the actual story. This book is super heavy and just a lot to take in, but it does an incredible job conveying messages about the world we live in that really just make you think. show less

The school-shooting book. It is heartbreaking. Through pov chapters and social media, it tells the stories of teenagers during the first day of school, when most of them are in the auditorium for an orientation, some are at cross country practice, some are home, and some are up to mischief, and one has decided to come to school and kill people. Marieke Nijkamp never shies away from the bad and the ugly so we find ourselves in the heads of the shooter's abused sister and beloved girlfriend, for example, both of whom knew a very different person until this day. I reiterate, this is a heartbreaking book. You're going to love these kids you meet and grieve when some die, and you're only going to know them for the worst hour of their lives. show more I recommend it but be very careful with yourself. show less

REVIEW ALSO ON: http://bibliomantics.com/2016/01/07/bang-bang-he-shot-me-down-cassie-la-delves-i...

Set in a high school in Opportunity, Alabama, This is Where it Ends is a quick read written by a member of We Need Diverse Books that follows several students after one of their former classmates returns armed and ready to take revenge.

From multiple intertwined POVS to tweets, text messages and even online journal entries, Nijkamp tells her 54 minute story -- broken apart by times -- with modern considerations in mind, lending the tale slightly more credibility.

Due to the shifting narrators (who are all good, bland and just and deserve to be more fully fleshed out), readers gets multiple looks at the same story, from the girl who can do show more nothing but wait, to the boy who wants to save everyone, the students who have nowhere to run and the girl related to the shooter.

The only people not represented are the adults, including the teachers and the parents of the potential victims. Despite there being zero adult representation however, the teenagers are written as if they're much older. Granted I don't know what being in an active shooter situation is like, but the actions and even the speech patterns of these kids do not feel genuine.

It also seems like a huge missed opportunity to not give the shooter (who while ostracized by the community is also painted as a one dimensional child-killing monster) his own POV to explain what led to his actions. To boil everything down to a simplistic answer seems like cheating, and does a great disservice to the plot and to real life victims.

Perhaps its biggest failing however is that while This is Where it Ends focuses on telling messages of love, courage, hope, loss and the importance of living for today, it doesn't really do much to open up a dialogue about gun violence in America, or abuse, sexual assault, mental illness and depression -- all subject matters that the victims are dealing with throughout the course of the novel.

Despite the very serious subject matter, the novel isn't entirely bogged down in dramatics. There are a few moments of brevity (because coping mechanisms), some of which work and some that don't. For example, mentioning that the school mascot is the Ocelot of Opportunity seemed a tad out of left field.

While I didn't find myself on the edge of my seat throughout the narrative, there were a couple of moments where I genuinely felt something in the dry husk I call my heart. Perhaps if we were given stronger characters I would have been less detached.

While I didn't hate the book (in fact I read it in a few hours), the flaws -- particularly in the character building -- really let me down.

This is Where it Ends, you could have been so much more! show less

My ultimate issue with this book is that it was written by someone who's never lived in the town that Opportunity seems based on. Perhaps if the author did a better job of generalizing the town it wouldn't have bothered me so much.

But I lived in that town. I did. The author talks able it this fancy new high school because the other was blown away in a tornado. Not to claim credit for all tornadoes taking out schools but in 2007 my alma mater Enterprise High School (as well as a good chunk of the town) in Enterprise, AL was destroyed by a tornado. "The final death toll was set at nine, including Ryan Mohler, Peter Dunn, AJ Jackson, Jamie Vidensek, Michael Bowen, Mikey Tompkins, Katie Strunk, Michelle Wilson, and an elderly woman named show more Edna Strickland.[5] It was the first killer tornado at a US school since 1990."

While it's not directly part of the story it remains to this day a sad and sore area for many of the people who have lived multiple generations in that small town.

Besides the glossing over of the devastation the tornado caused the students, their families and the citizens of the town, what bothered me most and what stopped me from reading the entire book was the fact that this story is not hers to tell. I read the acknowledgements in the book to see if she had gone to the town to do research about it but it looks like it was just something friends told her about - something they saw on the news and hey wouldn't a school shooting add extra drama as it's such a news item right now?!?!?

What bothers me is that this author has no idea what life was like living In that town. Pre-tornado our schools were extremely old and the generations of families living there even older. To be someone without "kin" in the town meant that I was a second class citizen. Many of us army brats forced to go to school in the town felt segregated and alone. We received little class attention when we needed help, often times hearing teachers ask students who they were related to and then watching as those students got special attention. Knowing that my parents asked the school to help me find tutors because I was struggling so much with math (later learning that I have the numeric version of dyslexia) and being told tutors were not a good idea and the teachers were doing a fine job. Except of course anyone who wasn't upper middle class and related in some way to the teacher was often ignored altogether.

To know that the principal and vice principal of the high school out right bullied students, especially the non-sports kids and anyone who their children weren't already friends with. To watch as the leaders of the school were the perpetrators of meanness and nastiness of non-conforming kids (my dearest high school friend was extremely over weight and was teased mercilessly not by students but by our assistant principals every single morning as he walked in through the front doors of our school).

To know what it was like to be different and in need of help and being tossed away like a used napkin and in your heart wishing so badly for someone to hurt these people as they had hurt me, us.

And never once did we have a shooting. Problem kids were shipped off to local private Christian academies in hopes that a coming to Jesus would solve all their problems is probably what kept us from having a shooting rampage.

So no this wasn't a good book especially from someone who lived in the real version of Opportunity and the problems that reside there. I haven't been back since 2006. I refuse. i still have good friends there and it hurts them that I never visit. I haven't seen the new school in person, and yes there is some slight jealousy that we never had the classes or opportunities these kids have with a new school and then only because a tornado took away the safety of never changing. That we were expected to be farmers, go into the military, become housewives and do a little teaching on the side is all that was expected from us even though many of us left to find our own way unassisted by this s***hole town to our true dreams.

This is not the authors story to tell. It's the survivors stories to tell. The ones who never acted on the impulses to do harm but suffered every single day and did no harm. show less

Beautifully written, suspenseful, and heartbreaking, this is a terrifying portrait of a single morning that I couldn't stop reading once I'd started. I really appreciated the realism of a diverse student body because it made the story feel so true to life, and as a further testament to the writing, the only thing I could picture while reading was my high school.

I wouldn't call this a pleasant story, but if you have a reader searching for a fascinating and well-executed realistic book this would be a great choice. The issues raised are thorny and I think it could be a gratifying book club choice simply because of how much there would be to discuss. I'd also add that the violence is chilling and, while not described gratuitously, it is show more vivid, just as a heads up.

If you're on the fence about picking this up: I don't normally read realistic fiction, and I found myself wishing for a companion novel that deals with the aftermath of the day. It’s a really good book. Maybe just don't read it without some tissues close to hand.

One last (spoilery) note that I appreciated: the author didn't kill the lesbian characters! I was just talking with a friend about this recently, and there's a massive list of lesbian characters on TV and in movies who end up dead. I was just really relieved to not run into that particular trope, although the setting of this book might have mitigated the sting a little if it had happened. Maybe.

(NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire provided me this ARC to review for our collection and teens.) show less

In a word, melodramatic. In many other words...

The tone of this story skews so heavily effeminate it's distracting. I'm not saying femininity is a bad thing, but an event like this is going to have different reactions from different people, except they all sound the same. It's supposed to be about a real school shooting, but it's so cheesy it doesn't feel real.

The narrative is split into the perspectives of four victims in four different situations. One is the ex-girlfriend of the shooter, another is the sister of the shooter, another is that sister's lesbian girlfriend, and last is the trouble-making brother of the lesbian girlfriend (do you see how relationshippy this is?). Two are trapped in the auditorium with the shooter, the show more brother is trying to get them out, and the ex-girlfriend is ROTC and running for help.

The sister, who I guess is the main character because she's the closest to the shooter and has the most to lose, is obsessed with dance. Her dead mother was a dancer. Dancing is the "only time she feels free." And of course she's going to Julliard. Maybe it's because I'm not a dancer, but this feels like cliched rhetoric. See any dance movie or book in the last ten years. You cannot combine "Bowling for Columbine" with "Save the Last Dance". The shooter makes his sister dance on stage, like he's the Joker. Don't you want to mix it up a bit and make her want to be an astronaut?

And there's way too much thinking. Four different narratives + limited amount of time (about an hour) means minute by minute breakdown of each POV. In high-risk situations, there is NEVER this much thinking going on. No thinking about the past or "why does he like her and not me?" high school junk. That all drops when you're just trying to survive. Even with the wordiness, the lack of detail is appalling. The author never even mentions what kind of gun the shooter has. Is it a rifle? Shotgun? Handgun? Automatic? That's an essential detail, to know what kind of damage can be done, what the stakes are. I'd venture to say the author didn't research school shootings, instead opting to make a soap opera around a dramatic event.

There is so much Lifetime-worthy drama cheese it's embarrassing. The name of the town is Opportunity, and the author never lets you forget it. Lines like "the sky feels endless" and "she looks so beautiful" and kissing a guy during a crisis like at the end of "Speed". Is this really your biggest concern with a gunman? Was there kissing going on during Columbine? Because no one reported any post-tragedy romance. Add in a nice dose of parent abuse, sexual assault, and all the other things you expect from a "serious" YA novel about "serious issues" that belong in a CW show. This is not worth your time. Read "Columbine" by Dave Cullen instead. show less

Speechless. Horrifying, all too timely, senseless killings at the hands of those hurt by life.
Nijkamp tells a harrowing, real-time story, with supporting stories throughout the horror, of a school massacre in action. The stories of the young killer, his sister, ex-girlfriend, and their friends, weave together, as all do at some point, into a blanket of a town and its young inhabitants and their multi-faceted, private, secretive lives.
The emotions brought forth while reading this are palpable and abrupt, and will leave you breathless, dazed and heartbroken while trying to find some hope and humanity for the survivors. A must read for young adults and anyone who wants to understand that their struggles and mindsets are undeniable and show more that there is a breaking point for everyone.

*I received an arc for an honest review show less