This Is Where the World Ends

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Author(s)

Amy Zhang

Publisher

Greenwillow Books

Genre(s)

Contemporary

Age Range

13+

Release Date

March 22, 2016

ISBN

0062383043

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The heart-wrenching new novel about best friends on a collision course with the real world, from the author of Falling into Place. Janie and Micah, Micah and Janie. That’s how it’s been ever since elementary school, when Janie Vivian moved next door. Janie says Micah is everything she is not. Where Micah is shy, Janie is outgoing. Where Micah loves music, Janie loves art. It’s the perfect friendship, as long as no one finds out about it. But when Janie is date-raped by the most popular guy in school—a guy she’s had a crush on for years—she finds herself ostracized by all the people she thought were her friends. Now only Micah seems to believe she’s telling the truth. But when even Micah expresses doubt about whether or not she was “asking for it,” it leads to disastrous consequences, and Janie Vivian goes missing. Using a nonlinear writing style and dual narrators, Amy Zhang’s astonishing second novel masterfully reveals the circumstances surrounding Janie’s disappearance.

Editor reviews

2 reviews

Dramatic.

February 09, 2016

Overall rating

3.0

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There are so many things in this book that made me angry. But I feel wrong for being angry because the circumstances are less than desirable and they could’ve been prevented and the outcome of this book could have been avoided.

But teenagers are stupid and think that the way things are in high school is how the rest of their life will be and they make drastic, life changing decisions. For the worst.

But I’m still angry about Janie being a horrible friend and making people, particularly Micah, do what she wanted. (This reminded me of whatsherface from Paper Towns and I HATE that book).

I’m angry that Micah allowed her to act as such, thus potentially ruining a good friendship with Dewey.

Dewey, who had a very limited vocabulary outside of curse words, was one of the only people I could stand.

Janie and her group of jerk friends, especially Ander. (The hell kind of name is that anyways?)

Ander, rapists and overall douchebag, playing the blame game on everyone but himself (which is guess is how all rapists think).

Back to Micah, who also blames himself because he has been so brainwashed by Janie that he constantly hates himself.

How about the lack of parents in all of this? None of these kids felt comfortable enough to confide in a parent (much less the police) about the things going on in their lives.

Besides all of that, this was a very well written book. And sadly, it’s almost too realistic because situations like this do actually happen.

I sped read this, partially because it was a consuming read, partially because it made me uncomfortable and I wanted to finish it quickly.

This Is Where the World Ends is a tragically real look at what happens when you have toxic friends. A quick read that will appeal to fans of John Green or Nova Ren Suma.

Emily Savant, Staff Reviewer Top 50 Reviewer 300 reviews

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Review: This is Where the World Ends

March 30, 2016

Overall rating

3.3

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I was really excited about this book because I enjoyed Falling into Place by the same author last year. I loved the writing style and the way the author chose to tell the story so I was eager to see how the plot of this new book would play out. It sounded like it could be a similar style to the first, just with different characters and a different plot.

I did find that I had a harder time getting absorbed into this book than with Falling into Place. The friendship between Janie and Micah wasn’t fun to read and I never really understood why they were still friends at all. It was a toxic friendship and since I don’t really enjoy reading those and the friendship was a huge part of the book, it made it hard for me to really get into the overall story.

Both main characters on their own were interesting. I liked Janie’s personality, her free-spirited way of looking at the world. Micah was the complete opposite, subtle and easily overlooked. The contrast between their POVs worked well, highlighting how different they were and using the non-linear style with Janie in the past and Micah in the present.

The writing was very addicting to read, just like in Falling into Place. It flowed well and even when I wasn’t enjoying reading about the toxic friendship, I was still enjoying the writing. I didn’t find the switch between POVs or from the past to the present to be abrupt or out of place, which was good. With how much enjoy the writing style alone, I look forward to more from Amy Zhang.