The End We Start From
Megan Hunter
Grove Atlantic, November 2017
ISBN 978-0-8021-2689-4
Hardcover

From the publisher—

As London is submerged below floodwaters, a woman gives birth to her first child, Z. Days later, she and her baby are forced to leave their home in search of safety. They head north through a newly dangerous country seeking refuge from place to place. The story traces fear and wonder as the baby grows, thriving and content against all the odds.

It doesn’t happen often but, every once in a while, I encounter a book that just leaves me cold and this is one of them. On the surface, I should have loved it because it’s apocalyptic (one of my preferred subgenres) and follows the physical as well as mental/emotional journey of a young family trying to cope with a world gone sour. To my dismay, I couldn’t connect with this in any way.

Characters, worldbuilding and plot are the three main components of any work of fiction and there is an interesting plot here in that the protagonist and her husband and baby are forced to find a way to escape the floodwaters and the devastation that has crushed London and the English countryside. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no worldbuilding; we know the water has risen to submerge much of England but that’s all we know. What caused this? A meteor strike, global warming, some dastardly act of a mad scientist, an alien attack of some sort? It’s hard to really feel what the survivors have to deal with when we know so little.

Worst of all, the characters are close to being cardboard cutouts when no one even has a name, just an initial. To me, this is a writing style that is almost pretentious and, coupled with the first person present tense that I so dislike, well, I just didn’t care very much. I find this happens fairly frequently when I read what’s called “literary fiction”.

The one thing that helps to lift this above the abyss is the author’s attention to the bonds between mother and child and she does that extremely well. I think perhaps that was intended to be the core theme and the apocalyptic elements just got in the way. Certainly, a lot of readers and inhabitants of the publishing world have a much more favorable reaction and, although I didn’t care much for this story, I think Megan Hunter is an author to watch..

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, November 2017.

This is a unique take on the apocalypse genre. At first, I didn't know what to do with it. Told in small segments from a single, first person perspective, with bits of poetry or quotes sprinkled regularly in, I wasn't sure what I was reading. But the longer I read about the life of this first-time mother with her infant son, during some kind of catastrophic flood, the more engaged with the narrative I became.

This is what I came to realize: this isn't an apocalypse novel; this is a novel (almost novel in verse) about motherhood. How obsessive and full of love you become when you give birth, even to the point where you forget your spouse. The apocalypse is a backdrop, easily forgotten.

And I did like that aspect of it. I mean, I'm soon to be a mother, so reading about motherhood always sucks me in! But, at the same time, I needed more.

It's an interesting take on motherhood. It only took an hour to an hour and a half to read. I'd recommend it if this review sounds interesting, but I'd also say it's not a buy.

2.5/5

[Posted on Goodreads 10/26/2017]
[Posted on Amazon 11/12/2017]
[Posted on Blog 11/10/2017]

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter is a recommended debut dystopian novel.

An unnamed narrator is pregnant and gives birth to her first child, a son called Z. Simultaneously an apocalyptic flood hits London and the women is forced to leave her apartment with her husband, R, a few days after giving birth. They make it to the home of R's parents in the country, but have limited supplies there. Eventually they are forced to leave for a camp for displaced persons, hoping to find safe shelter and food. R ends up taking off for a "few weeks" but is essentially gone. Our narrator makes friends with other mothers of young children, O, and evens travels with her to find another place of safety.

This is a difficult novel to review. It is a dystopian, but we never exactly know the what and why's (global warming? a natural disaster?). What we have is a new mother, marveling at her son's development and surviving the disaster. What we don't have is information about, well, much of anything of significance beyond what the narrator mentions. While the novel is almost poetic in its descriptions and phrasing, Hunter left out an important part, a definitive plot and narrative for us to follow while appreciating the well written turns of a phrase. We have a light plot - a woman has given birth to a son and a disaster of great magnitude has happened - but no great substance and details in the body of the novel.

Now, I say novel, but, at 160 pages this is close to a novella. It is a very fast read. With the lyricism in what Hunter does write, I do wonder if it was a choice to pare the novel down to the bare bones, just as the character's names are reduced to an initial. Are we supposed to extrapolate the missing details and infer what happened? However, there are cases when her descriptive prose is overwrought and not conveying just the essential information. It's a quandary. This is Hunter's debut novel, however, so she is a writer to watch for future novels.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Grove Atlantic via Netgalley.
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3.5 stars

In this, her debut novel, Megan Hunter sets the shock and joys of new motherhood against the backdrop of impending environmental disaster. London is under threat from apocalyptic floods while a woman gives birth to her son, Z. The family move from camp to camp in search of shelter and food, while baby Z grows, learns and flourishes under his new mother's loving wing.

This book is more a novella in length; a short, fragmentary telling of a fate or future that is as possible as it is frightening. The structure is unusual; it is set in short paragraphs and short, staccato sentences, with quotes from the book of Genesis interspersed throughout. It contains absolutely no dialogue and all characters are given just a single letter as their name. While this didn't deter me too much, I did find it hard to remember who each character was, especially when I left the book a while. This shouldn't cause a problem for some, especially if you read it in one sitting, which is entirely possible given its length.

This was a concise and interesting read about the absolute resilience of a mother's love in the face of adversity. With a dystopian tone and a brave new voice in Hunter, The End We Start From is a bold debut that will please many?

This dystopian novella is a quick read, but it packs quite a punch. The changing climate has raised ocean levels forcing those living in flooded London to search for higher ground. The story follows a woman and her baby as they move from safety to danger, as food and energy resources dwindle and as mob rule and riots develop. Names are reduced to single letters, Z, R,O as if the narrator has little time or paper to record more than the basic facts in her struggle to survive. Or maybe the initials symbolize anonymity. This kind of catastrophic event would impact everyone with no heed to race or economic standing. The author uses passages from the book of Genesis as harbingers of things to come.

It was interesting watching the mother adapt to this new and dangerous world while protecting and nurturing her young son. Her chronicle of his development runs parallel to the slow rebuild, post flood and fire, of the dystopian world which they now inhabit. I admit to wishing more time was spent on the impact to society of this new normal rather than all the focus on Z’s development.
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A lot is packed into these short sonnets. Some are lyrical, some are maybe too ambitious. Always the author comes back to Genesis, taunting the reader into wondering if climate change will one-day force us onto arks like the one built by Noah. Food for thought.

ARC received with thanks from NetGalley for review.

I like dystopian novels, but this one didn't make a big impression on me. I liked the little details of the novel that gave it personality: the unnamed woman; the people whose names are only a letter (and of course this made me wonder what would have happened if there were two or three people with the same letter name); the span of the novel from the birth of the child, Z, to the moment he takes his first steps; the lack of emotion throughout the novel - facts are presented, no details; to quote an excerpt in the novel, they left behind sadness and happiness.

It didn't read like a substantial novel - the plot was minimal, really. It read like an anonymous person's journal entries, as if the reader didn't need to know all the details. And I do want to know the details, actually - how did R's parents disappear? Where did he go when he went away? What was life like, really, in the shelters? All these gaps in the plot would make for a great discussion point, I am sure, but it's difficult for the reader to understand the characters better.

The novel has a poetical tone, but at some point it started to drag on. However, it's a short novel and it's a fast read. It's not a bad novel, it has it beautiful parts, but I wanted more from it plot-wise.

I received a free e-book copy of the novel from the publisher via Net Galley. All thoughts expressed here are my own.

I didn't notice on any descriptions for this book that it was intended to be a work of poetry but that is how I felt while I was reading it. This book absolutely relied heavily on mood, tone, and other abstract ideas- often present in poetry.
I didn't really care for the style it was written- short and choppy phrases. The author seemed to want to imply that things were happening but it didn't read well. The story didn't have a good flow. And it certainly lacked dialogue and character development.
Even though many of the events and characters in the book are very abstract, one clear element in the story is that we must make connections with other people if we want to succeed and put ourselves ahead. It was also unique that the story focused on a mother's bond with her child and how easily the baby's needs can be fulfilled, even in a global catastrophe.
I am giving the book 4 stars because I could tell how the characters were feeling even though the author didn't express it in words. I also enjoyed the ending of the book.
Thank you, NetGalley and Grove Press for a chance to read this book.

A woman gives birth in the midst of an epic flood. She and her partner flee to higher ground, but their reprieve is only temporary, as their family suffers horrific and violent losses. Hunter gorgeously captures the bliss, rinsing tiredness, and tunnel vision of new motherhood, as the woman's attention focuses, laser-like, on her infant son in the midst of the larger catastrophe. Will she and her child survive? Will anyone? I read this stunning debut in a single sitting,

Megan Hunter's debut novel, The End We Start From is set in and around London after water levels rise quickly and dramatically. It's dystopian, it's short and it's about one woman and her newborn baby trying to survive in a new world order.

There are good reasons why this book sparked a hotly contested auction among 5 publishers at the 2016 London Book Fair, and why Benedict Cumberbatch’s production company has now paid good money for the right to turn it into a film.

This book is more art than fiction - the language is truly exquisite. It's a little jarring - there are no names, only first initials (which reminded me at first of the Story of O , which has absolutely nothing in common with this book...).

Phrases are short and words are simple, but they add up to so much more. Like poetry.

It's a classic dystopia - there's nothing new in the story line, except that it's told through the lens of a new mother, and I wonder if that's the point? So much end-of-the-world stories are told from the point of view of soldiers and scientists who are trying to beat the threat. Alien invasions, meteors headed for earth, nuclear holocausts.

But what if you happened to be pregnant at the end of the world? What if the people who were supposed to be protecting and supporting you and your newborn disappeared or died, one by one?

Not surprisingly, given its abbreviated and poetic prose, this is an incredibly short book. I found this probably the most upsetting of anything about the book. It ended so abruptly and with no sense of the ending coming.

It did, however, suit the book well - trying to find any real sense of of time, emotion and pace in The End We Start From is like wading through thick treacle. And yet, wade through it impatiently, I did.

In sparse, meditative prose, Megan Hunter recounts all the ways life continues after a catastrophe. We follow a family as floodwaters rise, and they are forced from their home into makeshift camps with their young son.

We see the son's developmental progress throughout this short novel. Despite the hardships, Z continues to thrive and learn as he grows. We are witness to his mother's feelings of inadequacy and amazement.

Although, short this novel packs an emotional punch.

This was a sitting type of book. I was intrigued by the beginning of this child's life corresponding to the end of life as she knows it for the MC. Beautifully written but hard to fully engage in because of how thin it is. I truly did not become fully invested in the story or characters but thought it was good still.

A dystopian novel that reads like an allegory of current day. You will fly through this short novel.

This book is written in spare, stark prose that underlines the desperate situation that a London couple faces with the birth of their child into a post-apocalyptic world. As refugees, they must struggle for everything, with their baby coming into a much different world than they are used to. Touching and mesmerizing.

First of all, if you love Dicken's novels because of how wordy they are this book is not for you. The prose is minimalist; allowing the reader to fill in most of the gaps. However, it still does not answer all the questions that I have. This made me wonder whether or not I liked the novella, as the sparse prose allows one to focus on just the narrator and her small world. 

On the flip side, I love world building. I love to know what makes the world tick. From the small world-building that I could glean from the prose, it seems that it took place in a present-day England as there are phones and televisions and modern medicine. The best way to describe it is a mash-up of Black Mirror and The Road by Cormack McCarthy. There is no explanation as to why the flood is occurring. It could be due to a natural disaster or from the small quotes that were sprinkled throughout the text it could be a sort of biblical flood. This latter idea does not hold much water considering that the book does not seem religious, to begin with.

Another point of the world-building that I did not care for was their names or the lack of. I know that names are used in the society because after Z is born the narrator and her husband go through which names they think would fit the best. After they pick a "name" the child is only referred to as Z and everyone else is referred to by a letter as well. This is annoying because I, at some points, forgot who was who and having actual names would have helped. However, this also goes with the minimalist aspect of the book so I am willing to overlook it. 

For the synopsis, I don't want to spoil anything but I like how it came full circle and the title makes so much more sense now. 

Overall, I did enjoy this novella but I don't know if I would read it again. I loved how short it was; I read it under 2 hours. It was also very peaceful to read, which is nice when you are a stressed-out college student. I encourage you, dear reader, to pick it up and see if it suits, maybe you will find a new favorite.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic/Grove Press for the ARC of this book, provided in exchange for my honest review.

I read this book in an hour and a half sitting, it's that short, but that's not really a compliment. While reading it, I had the distinct feeling that I wasn't reading a novel but a draft, or not even that. An outline. That's what reading this felt like. I was reading an unfinished outline.

The premise of the book, a strange post-apocalyptic London, caught my eye and made me push the request button. The atmosphere is what this book does best, you can definitely sense the despair and anguish. However, it's just a quick feeling, it doesn't linger because the moment you're starting to feel something, say when the mother-in-law of the protagonist disappears, the storytelling yanks you out of there and on to the next thing, without a chance to truly absorb what happened.

Megan Hunter can certainly turn a beautiful phrase, but I wish she'd developed her story more. I just couldn't get into it, feel for the characters, or anything else. Giving the characters only letters for names didn't help me connect. It was like reading a cold case report.

I truly wanted to like this book, it is certainly innovative, but in the end, it felt gimmicky and the gimmick did not pay off with this reader.

This was an incredibly uncomfortable yet beautiful read. The entire book feels like poetry in its exquisite sparseness and stark description. There is a plot, but despite the dystopian setting and dramatic premise, it feels more like a journey of the mind -the point here is not the plot. We are in London and the story opens with a great flood that is beginning to cover the Earth. The couple at the beginning have just given birth to their first child and the story takes off from there. Hunter's exploration of humanity, and what makes us human when stripped of all "things" and societal constructs is incredibly thought-provoking, and lingers long after finishing this short 160 pages. The emotional challenges that these characters face in the face of an apparent apocalypse are raw, touching, and surprisingly relatable. Pick this one up for a quiet day when you can sit, read, and digest it all in one sitting.

When I finished this short, thought provoking novel, which I read in almost one sitting, my reaction on the one hand was that this could be seen as a bold debut or on the other as an overly ambitious one. There is no dialogue, the characters are nameless except for an initial, and the structure of the book is different than most novels. I lean toward the bold even with a reservation about nameless characters.

Some catastrophic event is occurring. Though we never are told specifically, the devastating floods leaving London under water and surrounding areas in danger, there was for me an innate understanding that it was brought out by mankind, by perhaps a lack of acknowledgement of the causes of climate change. Our narrator gives birth at the beginning of the story and immediately I felt the hope and beauty of this set against what was happening. The imminent danger of the water, the food shortages, and the instinct for survival, for themselves and the new baby Z , is the impetus for moving north to her husband R's family. It is here that the direness of the circumstances which up until this point seem removed, hit home . The world around them is flooding and society has fallen apart. People are lost to "the disturbances" looking for food and to survive they must move from place to place , shelters and camps . Yet in spite of it all, a new born baby thrives, a woman moves through the beginnings of her journey of motherhood.

Right from the beginning I didn't like the use of initials instead of names . Maybe this is a way of making them appear as everyone, anywhere , but for me it removed a level of the connection I want to have with characters in the book I'm reading. Having said that, I loved the structure, short chapters with short paragraphs interspersed with biblical quotes and some lovely lyrical lines from other places. There are beautiful passages of a new mother's awareness of the baby she holds in her arms. Eerie and haunting, a little hopeful, this is a warning call in what could happen. Im looking forward to what Megan Hunter will do next.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Grove Atlantic through NetGalley.

I really liked this book and how it follows the birth and development of the child, Z, in relationship to the hardships and ultimate survival of the family. I really wanted more. The prose was beautiful and painful at times, and the relationships, though brief, were well developed. I just would have liked to know what really happened to R and what happened on the Island.

An extremely short and fast read, the narration is blunt but managed to leave me wanting for more. The writing style reminds me of the running notes we all tend to make in our personal diaries/journal. For starters, the characters have names that have been reduced to the first alphabet. So we have character names as R, Z, C, H etc. The book isn’t detailed but metaphors have been used to covey the severity of the situation. The tiny details one notices, the hope we all cling to for survival has been penned down to perfection.

Sometimes its difficult to catch hold of the events/thoughts the author is trying to convey but those are rare. Its an emotional and touching ride through the hardships the family had to face. Not just one family, but all those homeless people trying to survive and give a better life to their kids.

The protagonist is a woman who stays quiet, notices almost everything and clings to her newborn for survival. Her days pass noticing all the tiny changes that the baby undergoes as time passes. She loses her family during this process of evacuation but stays quiet and never asks why/how. Even when she does, she is denied answers.

The End We Start From has left me agitated and terrified with those subtle sentences and metaphors that carry the dead weight of destruction and loss. The book is full of promises and proves that hope is the only constant companion in the catastrophic dystopian world the author created for all of us.

This starts on a real high. Mother giving birth, father gone, London is flooding, the end has begun. Unfortunately there just isn't much to this. The people don't even have names, just initials. It's hard to tell what is happening in the world. After a while, it is hard to care too.