This Is Where It Ends takes place in the span of 54 minutes. After coming back from winter break, the (almost) entirety of Opportunity, Alabama’s high school gathers in the auditorium to hear their principal’s annual inspirational speech to get them through the rest of the year. Everything changes when an ex-student shows up and starts shooting.
I really wanted this book to change my life in some way. I knew this would be a difficult read, but it sounded interesting to me and I was interested in that it’s from the point of view of four different students with various relationships to the shooter and locations throughout the shooting. The multiple points of view ended up being difficult to keep up with at first, but I understand why the author ultimately chose to write in this style. I wasn’t immediately pulled in to this book even though it doesn’t take long for things to start happening. I was just too busy trying to connect characters to each other- flipping back multiple pages to find relationships and getting confused with names, etc. as I went. I also felt like the shooter’s character and psychology could have been elaborated upon quite a bit. This is by no means a fun subject, and I enjoyed the book overall, but I was never really completely drawn in.
Kaitlyn Reads 