This novel is one that I picked up a year or so ago with the thought that it may have a slightly Breakfast Club-esc storyline to it. A group of teenagers at the end of the world: that is the essence of what this novel is.

An asteroid is on course to hit earth and destroy the planet, so we get to follow Eliza, Peter, Andy, and Anita as they take their different approaches to the end of the world. So let’s get into it before our world ends.

Rant:

• The novel’s ending leaves a lot to the imagination, which is both interesting but also slightly aggravating because you want to know how it all ends.
• The main characters are really the only ones that the reader interacts with strongly, so I personally would have appreciated a bit more development, but I’m a stickler for a complex character.
• Going off of the character development, I would have loved to get a bit more background on everyone. We get taste of who everyone is, but parts of each of them are left a bit blurry and open for interpretation.
• I felt like there was a significant lack
  f imagery despite the opportunity for interesting portrayals (considering it is the apocalypse).
  • We get some for each character, but I would have loved some more scenic description because of the circumstances.

Rave:

• Again, the ending is up to interpretation. And for this particular novel, I think it works so well. The story concludes, the only loose ends are similar to those from The Breakfast Club: “what happens on Monday?” it’s that style of ending.
• I’m also a sucker for woven storylines, each character begins with an individual story and as they unravel everyone’s story begins to fit into the others until you have this big puzzle.
• This novel is unique in that I haven’t heard of one like it before, and I love that! It stands out because of its unconventional storyline, it’s a realistic fiction but at the same time feels unrealistic because of the topic it deals with.
• There is vulgar language in it, but personally, I find that some novels almost need it because of context. When you’re writing about teenagers at the end of the world, it makes sense that they’re going to be swearing every now and again. I appreciate that only because it makes the story feel real and accurate.
• The entire teenage/high school stereotypes in it are also much more accurate than those of something like Mean girls or High School Musical (basically any teen movie).It emphasizes that yes there are “groups” in schools, but they aren’t so segregated as a lot of media makes them out to be.

My overall favorite part of this novel is that Wallach takes a terrifying situation and shows two completely different outlooks. The first one being: whatever, the world’s going to end so screw it and everyone else. And the second being: I have to leave a mark on the world if this is how it’s going to end.

I love books that turn out to be nothing like what I was expecting and this definitely is one of those books. This is a situation where I love the vagueness of the blurb because it turned out to be so fantastic.