fresca5467's review against another edition
2.0
I felt a bit gross while and after reading this book.
fresca5467's review against another edition
2.0
Felt gross after reading this. It was very engrossing, but then left you feeling confused at the end. Not really anything redeeming, and it seemed to be justifying some really unacceptable, inappropriate relationships.
greatbutuseless's review against another edition
3.0
Super creepy... Had a lovely bones feel to it in my opinion.
sde's review against another edition
2.0
This was a creepy book. Why were all the teen girls in love with adult men? What was the role of the Dr./Lizzie's mother's boyfriend? The other men and boys in the book other than the doctor seemed to be always lewdly looking at the 13 year old girls. What was the deal with Evie and Dusty's father? Was he really coming on to the girls, or was that their imagination?
It probably would have been better as a print book because I could have skipped over a lot of the text to figure out what had happened. I kept thinking that Lizzie was an unreliable narrator, and there was going to be some twist in the story, but there wasn't. I also thought that perhaps Lizzie was hanging on to Evie's father as a fill in for her missing father, and the tone of the reader was misleading me, but, alas, I wasn't misled.
It probably would have been better as a print book because I could have skipped over a lot of the text to figure out what had happened. I kept thinking that Lizzie was an unreliable narrator, and there was going to be some twist in the story, but there wasn't. I also thought that perhaps Lizzie was hanging on to Evie's father as a fill in for her missing father, and the tone of the reader was misleading me, but, alas, I wasn't misled.
trudilibrarian's review against another edition
4.0
Can you remember the first time you ever had the wind knocked out of you? I was about ten. I was playing with my cousins out in their front yard. There was this fence that ran about 2 feet off the ground that we liked to walk along, imagining tight ropes and balance beams. It was during one of these wobbly walks when my ten year old body lost its balance and I came crashing down hard upon that low fence. It caught me right across my stomach where my diaphragm lives.
In a swift "whoosh" all the air was pushed out of my lungs. Every bit of it, or it seemed so at the time. I fell over onto the ground curled protectively around myself. In a blinding moment of sheer panic that exploded into terror, I found I couldn't actually catch my breath. As hard as I tried, I could not breathe in and in those few seconds of sickening realization, I was sure I was going to die. It's one of the clearest childhood memories I have.
Reading Megan Abbott's version of a coming-of-age tale shot through with dark secrets and unbidden impulses is like getting the wind knocked out of you for the first time. It's sudden, inexplicable, frightening and leaves you breathless. When it's all over and done with, you feel a little nauseous, a lot bruised and newly wary of the world surrounding you. It's as if your senses have been heightened, and a forbidden knowledge passed onto you that you don't ever remember asking for, or wanting.
The End of Everything is a story about that tender, delicate, powerful place girls find themselves in before they become women, when they cling to each other like life support systems, sharing breaths, secrets, curiosity and hormones. Hug your daughters close, because I did not need Megan Abbott to grip me by the throat and show me that when our girls are laughing the hardest, and tumbling cartwheels in the sunshine, that is when they are at their most vulnerable. How they yearn for what they cannot name and do not understand, moving towards it like moths to flames, ignorant to the perils, to how much something can burn and leave scars.
Thirteen-year-old Lizzie is our narrator, which makes for a brilliant choice. We see events from her innocent eyes and as she is thinking one thing, we are thinking something else.
Spoiler
I'm still not entirely certain exactly what was going on between Mr. Verver and his daughters (especially Dusty). I don't think there was actual physical molestation, but there was something about his behavior that unsettled me and made me extremely uncomfortable. His actions, the way he spoke to the girls, teasing them, flirting with them...I don't know. He also curried favor and created tension between all of the young women, even pitting one sister against the other as if they were rivals for his devotion.That Dusty should have felt so proprietary over her father's affection and to react so violently to Evie's accusations proves to me there was something going on that should not have been. Then we get to his treatment of Lizzie herself. What should have been innocent and real and shot through with trust, felt predatory and rotten. The fact that Mr. Verver gives Lizzie the same speech he once gave Dusty about how he's the first man to see how lovable she is and how many hearts she's going to break made me feel icky.
This is a sad story, and it is a difficult read. There are many times where you will feel deeply uncomfortable. There are truths here that we do not want to know, do not want to ponder, and for some readers, truths they will not want to remember. But it is also a beautifully constructed piece of prose and if I wasn't a fan of Megan Abbott before now, this novel has clinched it.
P.S. A quick note on the audiobook: I did not enjoy the reader at all. I found the voice too childish, hyper and nails-on-a-chalkboard squeaky. The way she spoke for Mr. Verver really rubbed me the wrong way too. If I could have, I would have finished this in print. Don't listen to this one. Read it.
floorflawless's review against another edition
3.0
Liked to story, didn't like the writing. Not sure if it got lost by the translation though.
sonia_reppe's review against another edition
5.0
Meg Abbott is one of my new favorite authors. I like her style. In this book she stayed close to only three characters: the first person narrator Lizzie (14yr), Mr.Verver, and Dusty. I would say this book is psychological suspence, but if you like a faster plot this isn't for you. If you like to simmer on one character for a long time, then you will like this as much as I did.
leeleeinok's review against another edition
2.0
I found this one gratuitously disturbing when it was not necessary. The author had some nice descriptive language, but the plot overshadowed the positive aspects unfortunately. I am no prude by any means, yet this was too much.
notlikethebeer's review against another edition
Don't know how I feel about this one. I think at times it risked glamourising pa*dophilia, but at other times it clearly spoke against glamourising pa*dophilia. A complex read for sure.