Friday, 24 September 2021

At the End of Everything by Marieke Nijkamp



The Hope Juvenile Treatment Center is ironically named. No one has hope for the delinquent teenagers who have been exiled there; the world barely acknowledges that they exist.

Then the guards at Hope start acting strange. And one day...they don't show up. But when the teens band together to make a break from the facility, they encounter soldiers outside the gates. There's a rapidly spreading infectious disease outside, and no one can leave their houses or travel without a permit. Which means that they're stuck at Hope. And this time, no one is watching out for them at all.

As supplies quickly dwindle and a deadly plague tears through their ranks, the group has to decide whom among them they can trust and figure out how they can survive in a world that has never wanted them in the first place.

I wish I could rate this higher.

It has everything I love! Dystopia, apocalypse, teens having to fend for themselves...the elements just didn't come together properly to form something great. It's still good, I finished it and I'm recommending it, it's just not as good as I hoped.

Part of the problem, for me, was the multiple points of view. I felt like I was just getting to know one character and I was flung into another's point of view. It took me a while to get everyone down - a consistent problem with me - and when the POV changed I had to spend the first page or two reminding myself who this was and what had been happening with them up until now.

I did enjoy the story, though. The teens were very resourceful and they came up with some really clever ideas. It was a great look at how things might have gone if we'd been a little less lucky over the last two years. I enjoyed getting to know them and watching them come up with their solutions.

I enjoyed this, but I feel like for me it could have been better. Still a definite thumbs up, though.


At the End of Everything publishes on the 22nd January, 2022. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.

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