Thank you netgalley for my review copy of this book. This was an interesting and odd little book but I enjoyed it.

An environmental crisis leaves London below flood waters and forces a woman who has just recently given birth to her first child and her husband to flee from their home to find safety. In fear of her husband disappearing and for her son’s safety things become even more terrifying and even more wondrous as time goes on what with being in an unstable world that seems to be falling apart more each day.

This is a very dark but lyrical little book that never gives up on hope and love even when the world seems to be ending.

I took my time reading "The End We Start From" as I enjoyed the prose and the way the book was written very much. I found myself sometimes going back and reading a paragraph again.
A mysterious and catastrophic event is occurring: London is underwater because of flooding. We are never told the exact cause of the event. A pregnant woman is the center of this new strange world where they are forced to try to survive.
I was a little disconcerted by the lack of first names but on hindsight, I think it was brilliant. It could be any woman, any child, or anyone.
I received a copy of this book from the publishers via Netgalley for free in exchange for my honest review.

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter
Publisher: Grove Atlantic

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Grove Atlantic for the ebook ARC of The End We Start From by Megan Hunter.

In the middle of an environmental crisis as London is submerged below flood waters, a woman gives birth to her first child, Z. Days later the family is forced to leave their home in search for safety. The move all around, from place to place, shelter to shelter.
The journey follows the fear and wonders as Z grows.

I give this book a rating of 1 star and I don’t recommend reading it. I thought I would like this book based on the description. It was a fast paced read and I am not really sure how I feel about it. It left me very confused. I found it odd that the author decided not to name any of the characters, they were known as a capital letter. It didn’t even really seem like a story to me, just a bunch of notes written. Not a fan. If the book would have been any longer, I would not have finished reading.

Fascinating concept and story, but the execution leaves something to be desired. It's clear Megan Hunter is a talented writer. The apocalyptic setting, the literary and biblical references, and the sparse yet powerful text kept me intrigued. But it feels like this is a book that wasn't fully fleshed out, that it could have had a greater impact if the story, setting, and characters were more developed.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this book. Unfortunately, I did not finish it. I will therefore not be posting reviews of it.

****4.0****
Short Debut Novella by Megan Hunter is about a woman who gives birth during a flood in London. She along with her new-born baby Z and husband R is forced to flee their home and find refuge in different places/camps etc. And how she finds back her place again in the same place where it started along with Z and R. There are no disturbing events or horrible twists and turns, but gentle lyrical prose.

I loved the narration which was really beautiful, though there was no huge plot design. It’s a simple story of a huge change in the world (ofcourse, fictional) in a very simple way. It’s definitely a one-sitting read and a nice one too!



Happy Reading!!

this wasn't what I thought it would be. I feel like she never finished it or that she wrote it while distracted. Not for me

I was drawn in by the stunning cover, and the blurb did make it sound interesting. It wasn't for me, though. The story was so sparse as to be almost non-existent, I didn't know any of the characters, and I just finished it thinking – so what? I found Megan Hunter's writing style careful and appealing, so I'd give her next book a go if it had more things happening in it.

I grabbed this book because it was short and would easily fit in my carry on. I did not take it with me, I read it on my couch in about 1.5 hours. I was sick and only had enough attention span for 137 pages. I was worried I would fall asleep if I read something that needed me to focus. After finishing, I saw someone describe this book as beautiful and frustratingly sparse. I agree. It was so quick and lacked so much but didn’t seem that way at the same time. Read it so you can pretend you know what I’m talking about. Typical prose in an end of the world Great Britain.

I'm not surprised that the film rights for this have sold. I enjoyed it immensely with its echoes of Margaret Atwood.

This is such a lovely little book, the kind of thing which you can read in one sitting during a very long bath. I loved the prose and the sparseness of the language used. It makes you wonder what you would do in that situation - the world you know being swept and under by a devastating flood - and how your relationships (and you!) would survive. I loved the main character's resilience and her ability to find humour and strength in terrifying circumstances (in this case being left alone and afraid with a newborn.) If I have one (tiny!) qualm, it's that its impersonality sometimes holds you at a distance meaning that you can't quite have the level of empathy with other characters that you would like. It can sometimes get a bit confusing to follow (characters are referred to by their initial rather than a full name.) But otherwise, what a delicious gulp of a story. I am so looking forward to seeing what Megan Hunter writes next.

I loved this book - lyrical, haunting and beautifully written.

It was refreshing to read such an unusual books and I savoured the language the author used.

I have been recommending this to all of my friends and look forward to reading more from Megan Hunter.

I really wanted to love this and I was anticipating really enjoying it. It's a short read, written in a dreamy manner. This was just an okay read for me, with how it was written, I had a difficult time connecting with the story and getting into it enough to care for the characters or where it was going.

Wonderfully written- Powerful

Megan Hunter creates a world so shockingly real, a reality so devastatingly vivid. This is a short novel but so much is said: it is the dystopian future- a mother with her child and his father. Together, they try to survive a humanitarian disaster- living in refugee camps, the dangerous long drives across the border...

Hunter paints a poignant picture of children growing up to that kind of uncertain life. A heart breaking novel but truly similar to the natural, or otherwise, catastrophes scattered across the globe. It's rather terrifying that this kind of world can occur in an instant- as Hunter describes, a world in which words like recovery, missing, shelter are thrown around like a language of their own.

Hunter doesn't ignore the human emotion in her writing, she conveys maternal instinct, the prospect of motherhood, the familiar in a time of unfamiliarity. She writes with an observer's eye, with profound compassion and patient understanding. Her words will steal your breath.

I received this book through NetGalley.

"The news on the hour, 14th June, one o'clock. Tina Murphy reporting. An unprecedented flood. London. Uninhabitable. A list of boroughs, like the shipping forecast, their names suddenly a perfect and tender as the names of children. Ours."

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter pits the consuming nature of new motherhood against the dangers of survival in the post-apocalyptic world. With our narrator on the brink of parenthood, the world as she knows it is about to change in more ways than one.

The moment of birth looms ahead of my like the loss of my virginity did, as death does. The inevitable, tucked and waiting out there somewhere.

"While in the hospital, it is revealed that a mysterious flood has overtaken London— water rising fast and destroying everything in its path. She is now forced to pack up her day old infant, Z, and venture out into the world with her partner, R, unknown dangers awaiting at every turn."

Metaphorically, the world is made anew through this flood, as our narrator is through the trials and tribulations of motherhood. Concise and meditative, Hunter crafts a story that highlights the enduring spirit of mothers as we grow, birth and care for our children in an ever-changing world.

"The city is here, somewhere, but we are not. We are all untied, is the thing. Untethered, floating, drifting, all these things. And the end, the tether, the re-leash, is not in sight."

I found this book beautifully written. It reminded me of poetry in a sense. The only thing I had an issue with is essential the characters were nameless and i felt was unable to keep track and connect.

The End We Start From, an evocative debut from young British author and poet Megan Hunter
**
Longlisted for the inaugural 2018 Aspen Words Literary Prize, “a $35,000 annual award for an influential work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture.” This prize is new to me but it has longlisted some impressive works; winner will be announced in the spring.
**
Shortlisted for 'Books Are My Bag' Novel of the Year Award 2017 (a new to me award as well; it’s curated by bookshops and voted on by booklovers, says their website!)
**
“The End We Start From is a beautifully spare, haunting meditation on the persistence of life after catastrophe. I loved it.” Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven
**
Per Amazon (and the publisher): “An indelible and elemental debut—a lyrical vision of the strangeness and beauty of new motherhood, and a tale of endurance in the face of unimaginable change. … This is a story of new motherhood in a terrifying setting: a familiar world made dangerous and unstable, its people forced to become refugees. Startlingly beautiful, Megan Hunter's The End We Start From is a gripping novel that paints an imagined future as realistic as it is frightening. And yet, though the country is falling apart around them, this family's world—of new life and new hope—sings with love.”
**
This is a very interesting and unique book and I found it a very unusual, sometimes uncomfortable, reading experience. It’s short but very powerful … the poetic prose is lyrical but sometimes harsh, due to its sparseness. I am impressed by this young author’s creativity and innovation but I didn’t really love this book. That said, I will be interested to see what Hunter writes next.

*I received this ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

Really sparse and well-measured writing. Simple and quick to read. Nice.

One thing is for sure, Grove Atlantic really did an excellent job in promoting this book. Profiles of various book bloggers were flooded with copies of this book. And I'm going to be honest, I completely fell for their commercial and I couldn't wait to finally read a book.

First of all, I must say, there is an excellent cover that does not reveal much about the content of the book. There's a beautiful, simple and modern design with perfect colors. A short description of the contents was also promising, but I still had some problems with this book.

First of all, I have to say that I failed to connect with this book. The story is told in a relatively small number of pages, the characterization is almost non-existent, and even the names of the characters are kept only at the initials. Communication among the characters is so compressed, expressed in just a few short sentences. Their story has no clear beginning and ending, it lacks some background or explanation, and it all adds up to something resembling a diary which is missing some pages. For me, it definitely was not enough to visit the world that the author sought to display.

Hunter introduces us with an apocalyptic atmosphere of flooded London, the city in which everything that was once familiar and safe, was now covered with water. Also, those refugee camps and escape from natural disasters, that she describes, carries a direct link with the refugee crisis that has affected the world in recent years.

The symbolism of a new beginning at the very end of the known world is certainly present, and has not escaped my attention, and yet, it managed to remain sketchy, incomplete, scattered in fragments through the course of the action. Megan Hunter, in my opinion, failed to put her thoughts to the pages of this book, and therefore, she also failed to keep the reader's attention on them.

But, in the end, even though I believe that Megan Hunter did not fully fulfilled the potential that story had, I appreciate the idea which is the starting point of this book, as well as originality and courage to bring something new and different on the market. I look forward to her future works.