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A review by deedireads
End of the World House by Adrienne Celt
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
TL;DR REVIEW:
End of the World House is a trippy literary page-turner with a great premise and an ending I’ll be thinking about for a long time. It manages to be very readable and also very smart.
For you if: You like novels that border commercial and literary fiction with a weird, speculative premise.
FULL REVIEW:
Thank you, Simon & Schuster, for the review copy of this book! As soon as I saw the synopsis, I knew I had to read it — and it did not disappoint.
End of the World House is about a young woman named Bertie who is a cartoonist at a tech startup in a near-future, apocalyptic, WWIII-type world. She and her soon-to-move-away best friend, Kate, decide to go on a vacation to Paris while the world is at (what could be its last) ceasefire. A man they met in a bar gets them into the Louvre while its closed But in the midst of their exploration, Bertie finds herself not only separated from Kate, but also in a Groundhog-Day-esque time loop.
I don’t want to spoil anything, but one of the best parts of this book is that it goes in a totally different direction than you probably expect based on the synopsis. I was totally hooked and finished the book in one sitting — it’s not a thriller or anything, but it’s definitely got a good pace to it.
This book is readable and also smart, a great fit for people who like to land in that sweet spot between a contemporary and literary type of feeling. The apocalyptic state of the world feels eerily possible and only a few steps up from how things are today, which makes for resonant ideas to ruminate on — that we are all wildly imperfect in relationship to one another, and all just doing our best; the way we cling to those imperfect relationships when things are scary and we are lonely; the feeling of futility around going to work and leading normal lives as society crumbles around us; the question of whether it’s worth following our dreams as the world burns.
I can’t wait for more people to read this so I can talk to them about it!
End of the World House is a trippy literary page-turner with a great premise and an ending I’ll be thinking about for a long time. It manages to be very readable and also very smart.
For you if: You like novels that border commercial and literary fiction with a weird, speculative premise.
FULL REVIEW:
Thank you, Simon & Schuster, for the review copy of this book! As soon as I saw the synopsis, I knew I had to read it — and it did not disappoint.
End of the World House is about a young woman named Bertie who is a cartoonist at a tech startup in a near-future, apocalyptic, WWIII-type world. She and her soon-to-move-away best friend, Kate, decide to go on a vacation to Paris while the world is at (what could be its last) ceasefire. A man they met in a bar gets them into the Louvre while its closed But in the midst of their exploration, Bertie finds herself not only separated from Kate, but also in a Groundhog-Day-esque time loop.
I don’t want to spoil anything, but one of the best parts of this book is that it goes in a totally different direction than you probably expect based on the synopsis. I was totally hooked and finished the book in one sitting — it’s not a thriller or anything, but it’s definitely got a good pace to it.
This book is readable and also smart, a great fit for people who like to land in that sweet spot between a contemporary and literary type of feeling. The apocalyptic state of the world feels eerily possible and only a few steps up from how things are today, which makes for resonant ideas to ruminate on — that we are all wildly imperfect in relationship to one another, and all just doing our best; the way we cling to those imperfect relationships when things are scary and we are lonely; the feeling of futility around going to work and leading normal lives as society crumbles around us; the question of whether it’s worth following our dreams as the world burns.
I can’t wait for more people to read this so I can talk to them about it!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Death of parent, and War