The End We Start From is a stunning book.

First, its style is unique and powerful. Hunter uses staccato-sharp prose to punctuate the page, giving just enough detail to shape the narrative while leaving the reader to connect the dots. Her sharp verse acts as a mirror that reflects the reader’s beliefs and perceptions.

With this book, Hunter has proven herself to be an accomplished writer who can stir up raw emotion in the shortest of phrases. She’s a poet who can write prose and a writer who can compose poetry; it’s a unique gift.

The End We Start From is occupied with fertility. It explores the biological absurdities of reproduction, and the destructive effects of societies that value women only on their ability to procreate. In the vein of The Handmaid’s Tale, it considers the mechanics of motherhood and the industrialisation of women’s bodies to create and sustain life.

There is a constant sense that something sinister is at play in this book but you never quite know what. Characters are known only by letters and we don’t fully know what has occurred to cause the chaos or, indeed, who continues to encourage it. Hunter reveals very little but creates extremely vivid scenes at the same time, building a hugely compelling and disorientating narrative.

The untraditional format and structure of The End We Start From won’t be for everyone, and I imagine many readers will be put off by the brevity and sharpness of the prose. However, the overall tone of the book is very strong and Hunter is adept at creating an all-consuming narrative that provides a massively entertaining read.

The concept of this novel is fascinating and usually I LOVE dystopian novels and reading how people make their way in a world where the old verities and values have been washed away (literally in this case). The biblical tone was interesting, too. Unfortunately, I found the author's use of initials instead of names a stumbling block. It is probably intended to make them appear more archetypal (everyman, everywoman, everybaby), but for this reader it made it harder to engage with them as real people.

Sparse but a promising first novel. Will be interesting to see what she does when she doesn't feel compelled to have a "USP"

The End We Start From was very promising - a literary take on the post-apocalyptic genre with a fresh voice and a disassociative narrative. Trouble was, I found the voice of the main character too hard to empathise with and using initials for the characters names didn't help. Because of the shortness of the book, the brief, almost clinical style, and the lack of concrete descriptions about the world or events, it was very hard to get into the storyline or to empathise with the characters. A for effort, but, for me, it didn't quite hit the mark.

London is submerged after an unexplained environmental crisis hits the world. A new mother is on the run north, going from refugee camp to refugee camp, trying to survive in an increasingly uninhabitable world.

I knew I wanted to pick this book up immediately after reading the synopsis online. I love dystopian novels and this felt like a break from the norm. It is such an incredibly relevant novel, exploring socio-political upheaval and climate change as well as fleeing your country and living as a refugee. At the same time, it was not completely what I expected. Whilst everything I seen referenced the fact that the unnamed narrator is a new mother, I did not realise that parenthood would be such a primary theme. The macro level of the narrative - this catastrophic environmental disaster - really parallels the more domesticated angle as our protagonist experiences her first year as a mother. It really is a very interesting read so if any of these qualities piques your interest it's definitely worth a read.

The End We Start From is an incredibly well-constructed novel with a unique style. Its minimalist, poetic writing with sparse narrative flow makes a very interesting reading experience. It is the perfect novel for writers, other creatives and any reader who loves fiction that piques their imagination. We do not know what has happened to the world, for example, nor about much about what happens during the disaster. We never know about any of the characters' names: the narrator is nameless and her family and friends are referred to with letters (e.g. Z, N, G). It really makes the story universal and works really well with what Hunter was trying to achieve. On the other hand, many of the characters do not come truly to life; they are defined by their relationship to the narrator rather than on their own merit and personality. I also thought that, in some parts, the novel would have been stronger with more narrative force; sometimes I did feel that Hunter focused too far on style at the detriment to substance. I am very interested in the socio-political aspects of dystopia and this really fell to the wayside in favour of mediations on motherhood. With that being said, I think this was intentional, as it just reinforces the blank slate aspect of the narrative.

I am not sure if it entirely worked for me, but I am very glad I had the chance to pick this one up. It is a unique and special book and definitely memorable. The writing is exquisite and thoroughly moving (though it must be said some passages and images worked better than others). I really enjoyed the first half in particular, but the latter half the speculative fiction aspect really fell away in favour of musings of a new mother observing the milestones of her growing baby.

Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Megan Hunter has nailed the emotional upheaval of new motherhood in a terrifying world in this lovely poetic novel. In a futuristic setting, London has been submerged underwater and the narrator, with a new baby, must learn her new role after being unmoored. The novel is short and the prose is spare, but is able to capture so clearly the feelings of love and anguish that overtake new mothers. My own daughter was born mere months before September 11, 2001 and so many of the feelings of new motherhood as well as uncertainty of the world came flooding back to me. Highly recommended.

Breathtaking verbal visualization and mesmerizing prose. A magnificent story that both enriches the heart and mind; truly a talented author evoking such a beloved tale.

Initially I wasn't keen on this book, I found the sparse writing style distanced me to begin with. However, I persevered and was so glad I did. I became totally gripped. My imagination was invited to fill in the spaces between the prose, creating a vivid picture. The surroundings of this post apocalyptic novel felt familiar as if in a near future or a parallel present. The experiences of the protagonist felt believable and responses understandable. A short novel- I was sad to finish reading it so quickly,

I read The End We Start From in one sitting. At first I was mystified, waiting for the real, conventional story to begin. It never did. There is nothing conventional about this beautiful and poetic book.

The story is tightly focused in one way, as it is written intimate first person, showing the world only as it exists in thoughts and feelings of one new mother. It's also disjointed, floating, amorphous. Everything we know about the outside world is seen obliquely, we guess what's happening, we assume. But the only real, true thing is the baby, who's every breathe and dribble is noted, chronicled, as it is with new mother's. When he rolls over, smiles, laughs for the first time, that moment is more important than all the tragedy that may be happening outside their tiny circle.

The author has chosen to identify people only by a letter. Her baby is Z, her husband is R, her mother-in-law, G. I don't know why she did this, but it made the book feel a little like a private diary. Interspersed with the mother's thought are brief italicized quotations.
The Daily Mail said it better than I can:
“Written in a stripped-back, detached prose that is all the more powerful for its economy, this is an uplifting celebration of the reality of motherhood in the face of terrifying global disaster.” —Daily Mail.

I wasn't sure what to make of this book. I received it as an ARC from #netgalley. It was a short, quick read that I finished in one sitting. The descriptions and haziness of being a new mother were pretty accurate. The descriptions of what were happening in the outside world were more fuzzy and confusing to me. I felt that I had to read the parts in italics a few times to try to see how they corresponded to the story. Overall, it was good... but not great. I think maybe the sci-if-ish part of it wasn't for me.

This is a small but well written dystopia book. The main idea for the story, focusing more on the family ties than on the actual dystopia, is a new one to me in this genre.
However, probably because of the size of the book, I didn't have the opportunity to connect with the characters and that's why I'm only giving it 3 stars.

I am not sure how I feel about this novel. Firsty, I was drawn to the gorgeous summary and intriguing plot. In a world where the water is rising in a massive flood in London, a woman gives birth to a child. People go missing. Many are dead. Survival is necessary -- and a struggle. It had high stakes galore and I loved that part of the book. The consistent but not burned out high stakes that kept moving the story forward. It's very much a post-apocalyptic story.

The narration was not the best but it also wasn't the worst. Every character was named with a single letter, which was interesting but it made it harder for me to personalize with the characters. It left me torn between how little info I received to identify each person and the harsh reality of it all. There's no dialogue at all....which is fine with me. I think it worked well to bring the horrors witnessed to the front but other readers might not like that.

There wasn't enough of a story for me to fully enjoy it but I will say that it's an intriguing plot that doesn't shy away from harsh reality. It doesn't have that "hero will save the day" vibe at all. In fact, it reminded me of The Walking Dead, with a massive flood in the place of all the zombies. I liked it but I also wanted more.

This was an interesting and poetic little book about new motherhood during some sort of post-apocalyptic scenario (London flooding, refugee camps, etc). I think this would have resonated more with me if I actually had kids, but it was very well written and compelling. A-/B+.

I did like the sparse writing and sometimes that things were left unsaid, but I was often confused and some phrases made no sense to me whatsoever.

A woman by no name has a baby she calls Z. The world appears to be falling apart. Her husband leaves and she is left to find safety for herself and her little one.

This was….okay? Not as good as I was expecting. The main problem for me was not knowing exactly what was going on. There were talks of flooding and fire, and Noah. That made me think that maybe it was a climate change but then there were borders and guns and people being killed so maybe it was some kind of civil ar too? I honestly didn’t know and I would have liked a bit more of an explanation.

This book is very short, at just over 150 pages and it could certainly have been branched out a little bit more. The reader is left with tidbits of information we need to try and string together and i wasn’t overly fond of. Also the use of using just the first letters of names to identify someone was a strange styling tactic and while I didn’t find it too bad, there were times that I found myself trying figure out who was who again.

I would definitely like some kind of longer novel in this strange post-apocalyptic world.

”What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets


”I am hours from giving birth, from the event I thought would never happen to me, and R has gone up a mountain.”

She is thirty-two weeks pregnant when the announcement is made that the water is rising even faster than they thought. She is thirty-nine weeks pregnant when they return to tell them they don’t have to move, it was all a miscalculation.

R returns from the mountain hours after their son is born, they name him Zeb, but he is forever after referred to as Z. Z – the sound of soft slumber.

Forced to leave their apartment soon after Z’s birth, they go to the home of R’s parents, where they stay a while in their countryside home. Eventually they leave; they need to keep going to find a place of their own. A place where the means to survive are not quite so meager.

”At first there was only the sea, only the sky. From the sky came a rock, which dropped deep into the sea. A thick slime covered the rock, and from this slime words grew.”

As the world they knew grows more distant from the life they are living, Z grows, as well. An infant whose daily, weekly, monthly changes are visible, a living reminder of the hope that comes with new beginnings.

Interspersed are snippets of apocalyptic projections, some are biblical in nature with a mixture of various cultural myths of creation thrown in, all read as though they were written with a heavenly touch. However, there are some exceptions in this novel where the writing is overwrought and some exceptions where, to me, a chosen phrase makes little sense.

A cautionary tale about climate change, an ode to the bond of a mother and child, to the bonds we form to help us better weather these tumultuous days. A reminder that, sometimes, in order to get where we want to go we need to find a way to make a new beginning.



Pub Date: 14 Nov 2017


Many thanks for the ARC provided by Grove Atlantic / Grove Press

The book reviews will continue until morale improves. This one’s for The End We Start From, the upcoming debut novel from new author Megan Hunter.

Told in the first person, The End We Start From is a tale of motherhood at the end of the world. It opens with its protagonist, a woman living in a near-future London, giving birth to a child. Her maternal bliss is short-lived, however, as a distant catastrophe fills the city with flood waters and forces her, her partner and her child to flee to the countryside. They head north, initially finding refuge with her partner’s parents, only to have to move on even further as food and safety become scarce. As civilization strains and finally collapses around them, the bonds connecting the protagonist to the other people in her life fray and snap, until finally it is just her and her child, hanging on for dear life.

The End We Start From is a difficult book to summarize, due at least in part to the way Hunter chose to write it. Her prose style is austere enough to at times approach willful obscurantism. The book’s characters are only ever referred to by their initials, for example, the protagonist’s partner going by “R.” and her child by “Z,” which can give some parts of the narrative an alphabet-soup quality. And, since its perspective is first-person and the protagonist copes with the ever-increasing turbulence of the world around her by focusing her attentions more and more tightly on her child alone, it can feel like the real action in the story is always happening offstage somewhere, in places we’re not allowed to see.

But you shouldn’t let these challenges stop you from reading it, because The End We Start From is a wonderful book. The shelves are groaning with apocalyptic narratives these days, but Hunter makes her tale feel fresh by keeping her focus not on the gory details of the crisis but on the evolution of the relationship between a mother and her newborn son who just happen to be caught up in it. Her interest is not in apocalypse porn, but in the way her characters react and change when put to a difficult challenge. I’m a big believer in the idea that the best stories are the ones that put characters first, so Hunter’s approach here put the book squarely within my personal wheelhouse. And while the tight first-person perspective might strike some readers as constricting, I thought it put a tingly frisson on the story’s developments; nothing’s scarier than something scary you can’t quite make out the dimensions of, and by distancing us from the story’s worst events Hunter encourages us to let our imaginations run wild.

So, even if you’re heartily tired of end-of-the-world stories, you should not let this one pass you by. It has a lot to offer: an apocalypse plausible enough to be terrifying, characters who are firmly grounded and believable, and some real insight into both parenthood specifically and human behavior in the large. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.

I wasn't expecting the book to be quite so short; I had it finished in maybe half an hour? It's not heavy on the plot, which is the reason I picked it up, as it had an interesting premise. It's more a tribute to motherhood. I found it well written but overall I guess it just didn't capture my attention or move me as much as I'd been hoping for.

I don't really know how to feel about this novella. It was so much that was shoved into one little novella. And also with the characters not having any actual names and just being called letters made it very hard to connect to them.

Highly Readable Debut of A New Literary Talent:
The End We Start From is the debut "novella" by Megan Hunter. Difficult to categorise, it is written in a unique style of story, prose and verse all bundled together.
Set in the near future in an England ravaged by war and the consequences of Global Warming this short story is just so refreshingly different!
The narrative style in part owes its origins to the narrative style favoured in modern social communication media. It successfully engages the reader in a manner I haven't come across before. Megan Hunter empowers the reader to construct and imagine the missing detail whilst painting us a backdrop against which the storyline is based.
If you're looking for a book with a difference and a challenge, this delivers both. The author displays a keen eye for human behaviour against what is an almost apocalyptic reality. Humour abounds, I particularly liked the description of hospital staff assuming R was the patient when Z is ill. And Z who woke up "approximately thirty eight times during the night".
The book lives up to its title, taking us full circle back home. R disappears to reappear. It is multi-themed and layered. Very intelligently written, you can make of it what you want.
I sense that Megan Hunter's debut novella promises great things to come. It is a short read suited to a book of this style. A wonderfully rewarding read, this debut represents that which is unusual in literary fiction: a real challenge. I really enjoyed it. It is just so different! Read it and I am certain that you will agree.