This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

 This is Where it Ends Book Review

Rating: 3/5

This book contains mature themes such as school shootings and death. 

This is Where it Ends is about a school shooting. I've read many reviews on this book, and it's as if this book has split the reading community in half. Some people have said that it has brought awareness and attention to the subject and captured these shootings realistically, and others have said that it was very black and white, and it took school shootings and compressed it into a simplistic, short book. 

The book was told from four different perspectives, which was confusing. There were so many characters, and they were all related in some way. I think it's clever to tell the story at different angles, but the four characters were very similar. At the same time, it was an emotional book, that captured the emotions of the characters well. I wanted to find out what happened, regardless of what I thought about the characters. It was heartbreaking and tragic.

Students from Opportunity High prepare to come back to school after winter break. Each year, Principal Trenton gives the same speech to the students, and this year, it's no different. However, towards the end of the speech, there seems to be a holdup. The doors of the auditorium are locked, and people start to notice Tyler, an Opportunity High dropout, entering the auditorium through the front, wielding a gun. Soon after, 54 minutes of terror engages, and students are held hostage. We read the perspectives of four students - Autumn, Sylvia, Tomas, and Claire, as they and other students go through one of the most traumatic and terrifying moments of their lives. 

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