You & Me at the End of the World by Brianna Bourne

This is no ordinary apocalypse...

Hannah Ashton wakes up to silence. The entire city around her is empty, except for one other person: Leo Sterling. Leo might be hottest boy ever (and not just because he's the only one left), but he's also too charming, too selfish, and too devastating for his own good, let alone Hannah's.

Stuck with only each other, they explore a world with no parents, no friends, and no school and realize that they can be themselves instead of playing the parts everyone expects of them. Hannah doesn't have to be just an overachieving, music-box-perfect ballerina, and Leo can be more than a slacker, 80s-glam-metal-obsessed guitarist. Leo is a burst of honesty and fun that draws Hannah out, and Hannah's got Leo thinking about someone other than himself for the first time.

Together, they search for answers amid crushing isolation, but while their empty world may appear harmless . . . it's not. Because nothing is quite as it seems, and if Hannah and Leo don't figure out what's going on, they might just be torn apart forever.

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Mixed review. I liked the idea of this, and the main part of it, while they're going around looking for answers. I just found the actual answers didn't live up. But that's so often the way of things.

I liked the characters. I liked watching them become who they really were and not who the people around them thought they were - and there's a great scene between Hannah and her mother that was wonderful, if painful, for all involved. I always enjoy seeing people realise what they really are inside.

The descriptions and scene setting are amazing, too. I've never been to Houston, but I could imagine it easily, the emptiness and eerieness. (also the music festival sounds awesome.) I'd have read a book twice as long about them wandering around the empty city, looking at things.

Please highlight the below for spoilers:

I don't understand how they were able to see things together that neither of them knew about in real life. What was shaping their shared world?

Overall, I enoyed this and I'm glad I read it, but I wish things had made a little more sense at the end.

You & Me at the End of the World publishes on the 20th July, 2021. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.