Reviews

The End by Charlie Higson

itsgack's review against another edition

5.0

God this series. There is no other series that compare to the love I have for this one. The stories, the writing, the characters - are perfection. There is something about this series that gets me every time and the fact that I’ve never met someone who has read them just leaves me sad because I could talk about it forever.

The End is everything you could ask for. The perfect bow on a present. Everything comes to a close beautifully and you get everything you wanted. This series is just amazing because Higson makes us root for the children and cheer and cry for them. Hell yeah I cried because the story is just so beautiful and the deaths of characters serve purpose and you never know who won’t make it. The fight, the victory, the end. I will always cry when Sam finally sees Ella. Ending with them reuniting is all we wanted and needed. “She was Ella. Just as she’d always been. His sister, Ella. Ella. Ella. And now they were together and nothing was ever going to separate them again.” This was perfect end of Sam’s journey to find his sister.

I’m terrible at reviews bc I don’t know how to express all I feel. This book makes me want that so that more people read it bc it needs to be read. God I love this series. It will always be my favorite series.

univerzaldad's review against another edition

3.0

I am mostly upset with how rushed this book felt. It should have been longer and should have been more detailed.Why was there no explanation of Chris being able to see ghosts? Was he crazy? He have powers? It was mentioned once in book 3 and then mentioned again at the very end of book 7. That’s lazy. Malik’s story was really interesting, but then he had a couple lines in the last book? The final pages of Sam seeing Ella felt so lame and rushed, as if this was some coincidence thing that happened. Easily my favorite character, or one of them, is Ed. He was around since book 2 but for some reason almost an afterthought in this book…I don’t get it. So many things left unexplained and I understand not everything needs or will get a proper explanation but some of these things NEEDED to be addressed.

At the end of the day this book had some really great characters, fight scenes, and gross but fantastic detail of deaths, sickos, etc. I do recommend this series to anyone who loves these types of stories, some who don’t too. I finished these 7 books in 3 weeks, they do really grab you and pull you in and make you want to keep reading.

Thanks!

artemis's review against another edition

i havenʼt reviewed past parts of this series, so this is just going to be the summary of my feelings towards the books.

and the feelings are, to say the least, mixed. some parts of this series got 5 stars from me, some others got 3 stars, there was also one that got just one star.
the reason? the characters. even though they started it all, i completely hated the waitrose crew. there wasnʼt a single person who i wouldnʼt find annoying, except for arran, who died right away, unfortunately. although i have mad respect to the author for making me so attached to characters who would die in the same parts they were introduced. (yes, my favorites in the series were arran, jack,

Spoiler

ed, sam and the kid, who were thankfully spared. i feel like i would lose it if yet another of my favorite characters died.)

the spread of characters throughout the series was just so uneven. sometimes i would skim-read a whole book, or completely omit some fragments. because i couldnʼt care less about the characters who i found annoying, and honestly, they hadnʼt even contributed that much to the plot, after all, so maybe it was a good idea to skip their parts.

if i was to rate all the parts together, i would go for a 3-star rating. like i said, the quality of the books, for me, would vary from excellent to worthless, depending on which people showed up in them.
iʼm not a fan of that myself, but when it comes to this series, i can say without a heavy heart that skipping some books is sometimes okay.

criticalreader's review against another edition

3.0

3.5

jah7507's review

adventurous emotional

4.5

jackisfast's review against another edition

4.0

Easily my favorite end of the world series. Wrapped up well and was a pleasure to read.

meganders22's review against another edition

5.0

It’s been over a year since I finished the series, and I wish I could restart the entire series over again to enjoy the same thrill and suspense I received the first time around. There haven’t been many books that I’ve read in the past few years that I’ve wanted to reread as much as this particular series. I cried, laughed, smiled, cheered, jeered. I felt it all with this wonderful series.

ahoke1990's review against another edition

5.0

This is all wrapped up and explained with all the other books before it. This is one of my favorite zombie-like series. This guy is a good writer I hope he has something new coming because I will probably read it. Thank you for writing this series I enjoyed it.

reuben_books's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Overall I did enjoy this one, but it felt like a slog at times, mainly in the middle chapters. A bit too much 'political intrigue', and not enough shocking action in between. 

I also find it a bit weird that life outside London is never brought up (obviously apart from in The  Hunted). For example, surely there are sickos in the rest of the UK? Did they spawn in other places? Though they do mention being able to work on the cure (more like vaccine) in peace, so maybe they'll be safe then venture out to other places when they've figured it out?

I really liked the ending of the battle, a great way to end a great series. 

jakewjerrard's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark fast-paced

4.25