A review by pickletree_books
This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.75

This book was an interesting foray into the minds of 4 individuals during a school shooting. Their feelings and thoughts were portrayed well, but sometimes I'd be annoyed that we'd have to leave one persons POV to go to someone else's, but we were trying to see what each person was doing during the 1-4 minutes that each chapter covered. The ending made me sob. I did have some issues with the ending and other things:
Sylvia seemed way more worried and torn up about her girlfriend being shot in the knee than she was about her twin brother being murdered while she was in a classroom nearby. I would have thought that, even though she had been avoiding him for months due to a rape and (assumed) pregnancy/abortion that she didn't want him to know about, she would have been way more torn up about her twin brother, someone she shared a womb and lifetime with, than her girlfriend. Heck, her girlfriend (Autumn) was grabbing onto her brother's hand after he shot himself, and he was the school shooter! Sylvia pretty much walked past her brother's body and didn't react much. I'm sure shock was part of it, but it didn't feel real. I also stopped caring about Claire and her story once the cops showed up and was annoyed every time we were brought to her POV except for her conversations with her brother, Mark.
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