This book was just an okay read for me. The premise sounded interesting and I’ve read a book from this author before and loved it, but this book’s premise does not exactly line up with the actual purpose of the book. Sure there’s a pandemic that happens and the kids in this rehabilitation center are left alone- but the book is extremely light on action and focuses more on trying to make it a big point that these kids are people too, and they aren’t accurately seen or treated fairly. These things are true in real life but they don’t make for a very compelling or even realistic story. Sadly, not a book I will recommend to my friends.

Hope Juvenile Treatment Center is full of teenage delinquents--all in the facility for a range of bad behavior. A sudden unexpected exit by all facility staff leaves the teens feeling lost and confused. After learning about a devastating plague spreading rapidly, a group of teens decide to leave the safety of the facility to seek refuge in the next closest town. After one of the teens is shot by a solider, the group became divided on how to proceed. The teens are tasked with trying to survive with the little means they have. The characters in this book were all different and complex. I enjoyed the change in POV and perspectives.

3.5 stars out of 5. I was surprised to have struggled reading this book because overall, I like it. I think that the elements of the pandemic, abandonment, and anxiety about where the next meal would come from really hit me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the advanced e-copy for review.

The Hope Juvenile Treatment Center has teenagers that are required to follow a set of strict rules. If they don’t follow the rules, the guards will remind them if not punish them. The teens are asleep when they disappear leaving them without any message. While they don’t mind the guards being gone it is discover everyone else is missing too. A group of teenagers decide to go to a nearby town to find out why they have been left alone. Sadly the road is barricaded with soldiers and Reid, a delinquent is killed by one of the soldiers. The rest of the group returns to Hope Juvenile Treatment Center. Hunter and his followers decide to grab supplies and leave for good. Grace tells the rest of the delinquents that she is staying here at Hope for different reasons. They did find out from the officer of the soldiers that there is a plague that is easily caught and often kills the sick person. Who will survive this plague — Hunter’s group or Grace’s group?

The story reminded me of our current pandemic. The author has written a story with different characters telling their view of how the plague has disrupted their safe life. It is heartbreaking, timely and kept me in suspense. It is a story of bravery, love and loss. The novel explores the topics of ableism, racism, transphobia and juvenile justice reform plus more.

At The End of Everything

By: Marieke Nijkamp

SourceBooks Fire

Sourcebooks Fire

Teens & YA

Publish Date 04 January 2022

100 Book ReviewsProfessional Reader

I would like to thank both NetGalley and Source Books for allowing to me read and review this book.

Good Reads Synopsis:

The Hope Juvenile Treatment Center is ironically named. No one has hope for the delinquent teenagers who have been exiled there; the world barely acknowledges that they exist.

Then the guards at Hope start acting strange. And one day…they don’t show up. But when the teens band together to make a break from the facility, they encounter soldiers outside the gates. There’s a rapidly spreading infectious disease outside, and no one can leave their houses or travel without a permit. Which means that they’re stuck at Hope. And this time, no one is watching out for them at all.

As supplies quickly dwindle and a deadly plague tears through their ranks, the group has to decide whom among them they can trust and figure out how they can survive in a world that has never wanted them in the first place.

Book Review:

I gave this book 5 stars. At first I wasn’t sure I was going to finish it because I didn’t like how it started. As I read on I couldn’t put it down.

There are trigger warnings at the beginning of the book so please read those before you start the book.

This book is about a group of teenagers in a juvenile treatment center. They are there for different reasons. Some you will learn about and others you won’t.

As I said before the first few chapters are rough and I almost DNF it.
But once you get past those chapters the true story takes place. The teens learn how to survive and get along with each other even if they don’t like one another. As the story goes on you discover the reason why they are there.

I also recommend that you read the author notes at the end because it gives you the reason why she wrote the book.

This was an eye opener to me because I couldn’t image that the government would do this to these teens in the real world but I could be wrong.

It is amazing how she wrote this book because you go from wanting to dnf it to you can’t put it down.

The reason I wanted to dnf it was because the adults were not nice or gentle with these teens. They allowed things to happen inside the building that shouldn’t have happen and the guards didn’t care. I also couldn’t believe that the adults in charge would just leave them alone during this time. Not one adult question that order.

I highly recommend this book everyone should read this book because it really makes you think.

Thank you to Net Galley, the author, and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

At the End of Everything isn't the first book I've read about a pandemic. I was the psychopath that determined reading Stephen King's The Stand at the start of COVID-19 was a good idea... (spoiler alert: it wasn't). However, this was the first book I've read about widespread illness after years and years of our society trying to eradicate it.

Obviously, the plague mentioned in At the End of Everything isn't exactly COVID-19. However, the author knew what she was doing when writing this, creating a number of parallels between the characters' situation and the one we've unfortunately been facing for far too long.

The story starts at Hope Juvenile Treatment Center, an institution responsible for housing juvenile delinquents. We get small glimpses into the personalities and backstories of a number of different residents, with viewpoint chapters alternating between Logan (a young woman relying entirely on a personalized form of sign language to communicate, as a result of what seems to be trauma-induced selective mutism), Emerson (a non-binary teen from an oppressively religious family), and Grace (the group's eventual - and reluctant - leader). Once a severe and deadly respiratory illness surfaces, the facility is abandoned. Forgotten. Deprioritized completely. And while many of the "inmates" choose to seize this opportunity and break out, these are roughly 20+ who stay behind, finding safety within the secure walls of Hope.

Problem is, they have limited resources and no guidance from anyone as to how to handle their situation. We see these young adults assume different roles within their small community. The plague inevitably makes its way through the ranks, forcing the characters to look death in the eyes. To quarantine, isolate, and even bury their friends.

This was a wild, sometimes difficult ride, that's for sure. I think that many of my students would enjoy the commentary Nijkamp made throughout regarding our current societal issues -- specifically as it pertains to gender identity and the poor state of the incarcerated in this country. However, I didn't always love the way the story was being presented. I liked the way the author broke up the story with different pieces of outside information (phone calls, articles, inventory, etc.), but I would have liked a more fleshed out, cohesive backstory for our main characters. I feel as though too many names were thrown our way in the beginning and when the story became more focused, we didn't get the satisfaction of having some of our questions answered.

That aside, I love that YA-texts are trusting their audience/demographic to consider serious issues. The representation was good and I appreciated the rationale the author posted at the very end regarding some of the choices she made.

This was my first Marieke Nijkamp since their debut so I was hopeful that I would enjoy this more given the context. Unfortunately, similarly with their debut, I felt the conflict to be very surface level and wanted more.

At the End of Everything, by Marieke Nijkamp, follows the teenagers at Hope Juvenile Treatment Center, after they are abandoned by the guards during an unprecedented outbreak of the plague. The story is told in multiple POVs through the eyes of Grace, who becomes the leader of the group, Logan, a girl with disabilities limiting her ability to speak, and Emerson, a nonbinary teen. At the start of the book, we get a glimpse into the inequities in the justice system and the way that Black and Brown teens, as well as those who are not cisgender, are treated differently than White, cisgender teens in the system. As the story moves on, we see an acceptance among the teens of one another, something we did not see early on when they were guarded at the center.

The writing in this story was excellent, and I loved the format. Between the alternating points of view, we also got to see phone conversations between the teens and their families, as well as news reports about the plague and inventory supply lists. These added pieces made the story more engaging and whole in parts. The story took me awhile to get into (around the 35% mark I reached the point where I couldn’t put it down) but the content was jarring to me at first. Though the disease that ravages the world is not Covid, but a strain of the plague, it was presented in a Covid-like manner and that was a bit hard to read about. Once I got past that, I settled well into the book, and by the end, was crying as I finished the epilogue and author’s note.

I also loved the own voices aspect of this book and was heartbroken by Emerson’s story. Nijkamp’s ability to write about Emerson through the lens of being nonbinary themselves was powerful. Overall, I was greatly moved by the book. My only issue is with the Author’s Note at the end. As Nijkamp states they wanted to include the “overwhelming racial inequalities in the juvenile justice system” and while this was addressed a bit in the first few chapters, after that it is not highlighted much at all and certainly not the focus of the book. I wish there had been more on that aspect and a larger highlight on these negative effects of mass incarceration.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for a free electronic ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

It was okay. I think I would have liked it a lot more if it didn't so closely mirror what's going on in the world right now. Some of it used such identical language and scenarios as we're seeing on the news that it didn't feel very original.

I love love LOVED “Even if We Break” by Marieke Nijjkamp so I was VERY excited to receive AT THE END OF EVERYTHING from NetGalley at no cost which thus resulted in this review. I downloaded this the instant I got it, read a few chapters, took a break to have dinner and hang out with my roommates, and then it was 3am and I was finishing it. It follows the pattern of one of my other favorite books, LIFE AS WE KNEW IT by Susan Beth Pfeffer, where a huge event happens (in that book, when an asteroid hits the moon and the tides change completely) and it changes everything, and the government isn’t doing anything so it’s up to the characters to continue to figure out how to live. It’s basically LIFE AS WE KNEW IT smash cut with THE SOCIETY, but it takes place at a juvenile detention center, and the huge event that happens is a pandemic that’s much worse than the one we are currently living through. The feeling of dread that surrounds the entire book reminds me of WILDER GIRLS, which is also about girls surviving in a remote location while terrible things happen.

This story is told through first-person narration of three main characters interspersed with phone conversation transcripts. It’s extremely effective and evocative, especially as more of the characters and residents of the facility succumb to the pandemic. I loved all three of the main characters in this book: Grace, a headstrong girl who just wants a future, Emerson, a nonbinary teen who plays violin, and Logan, who is a _nonverbal autistic character_, something that I have literally never seen in a book.

Was it rough reading this book during a pandemic, as cases are getting worse and worse? Yeah, a little. But it’s worth it. This ranks as one of my favorite books this year. Five stars.

enjoyed At the End of Everything. I liked the different viewpoint of a pandemic (not COVID)….the forgotten and how they coped with surviving. It made me think about what I would do in similar circumstances and how realistic that scenario could be.

The kids in this book had to deal with a lot including surviving with minimal resources and learning to trust each other. And I respected them for being able to put issues aside to work with each other for the most part.

At the End of Everything also reminded me that not everything is how it seems. You only see what you want to see. A lot of these kids in the juvenile center weren’t only left alone in a pandemic but also in regular life. And maybe they wouldn’t be in the position they were in if someone had notice their struggles and helped them versus locking them away.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending but it wasn’t a deal breaker for the book for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and SOURCEBOOKS Fire for a copy of At the End of Everything in exchange of an honest review

At the End of Everything centers around a Juvenile Detention Center during a pandemic. Obviously given what is happening in the world right now this hits pretty close to home, government shut downs and all. I don't want to be too harsh with a rating or review as I knew going into this book it was pandemic related and I don't really want to read about that given we are living it. I think it was an interesting choice to release this type of book right now.

I enjoyed the multiple perspectives and I think it was a good choice for this type of story. The ending felt rushed or just not executed properly? It wasn't any awful reading experience I just didn't find it enjoyable either or something I had to keep picking up to finish. I would still chem out books by Marieke Nijamp

This book was creepy, hit way too close to home, and perfect all in the same breath. I wasn’t sure I’d want to read a pandemic book while in a pandemic, but it totally worked. Character development and plot was great. Lots of action, enough suspense for the pages to continue flying. Great read!

I absolutely LOVED this novel! Sometimes I enjoy reading young adult novels and just about every time I do, I end up loving it, so I think I need to read more of them. I have watched so many series and movies with my teen son over the last two years (since COVID struck), and this novel reminds me so much of a combination of several of the ones we watched. I was enraptured and fully immersed throughout the entire book and could not read fast enough.

At the end of the book, the author shares her/their motivation behind writing this novel and touches upon the “overwhelming racial inequalities in the juvenile justice system, the lack of support for disabled youth, … mass incarceration, and criminal reform”. Recognizing these truths and to be able to expose them in a creative outlet such as this novel is incredibly commendable. I have no doubt that this novel, this author, and these topics will gain immense attention and hopefully enough to bring us a few steps, leaps, or bounds towards support, equality, and reform.

I was fascinated by these vibrant and colorful characters and found myself captivated by them and their lives. I had to take notes about the characters in the beginning to keep track, but I soon was able to remember who was who and it all fell into place. The author did such an outstanding job at creating personalities and mannerisms that fit each character perfectly. We are introduced to a myriad of personalities and backgrounds and there are quite a few controversial and uncomfortable scenes. There is even a content warning stating that “this book deals with ableism, abuse, death, illness and implied eugenics, imprisonment, and transphobia. In addition, it includes mentions of assault, blood, gunshots, racial profiling, and (sexual) violence.” These scenes are necessary and fitting to the story and are also REAL topics that happen in real life and I think they make the story and characters even better.

This is a new author for me and I am eager to read more books by her/them.

At The End of Everything
Marieke Nijkamp

Marieke Nijkamp’s new novel, At the End of Everything, is a dystopian post-apocalyptic novel that hits very close to home with the talk of the pandemic - it always gives me an eerie chill. The story may be grim but also hopeful - I really enjoyed the writing of the characters and the resilience, the fight within them. The setting is the Hope Juvenile Treatment Center in Arkansas, where these unwanted teens are housed for many different reasons, and one day they wake up and realize they’ve been abandoned.

The story line is suspenseful and thrilling from the perspectives of the three characters. I really enjoyed this one.

This one definitely has some trigger warnings that aren’t spoilers. The book centers around children in a justice center during a respiratory plague. While the plague isn’t Covid, it kinda is and for some it will be a little too close to real life.

It is a very emotional ride for the reader and intense as you wonder if the kids will have enough food and if anyone will come back for them.

While told through the eyes of three of the kids, you get to know quite a bit about many of the other characters. While I thought we might head towards the walking dead type conflict, this is more about survival amongst outcast kids.

“ The world changes and changes again, but I’m growing used to it. One day, one step at a time.”

We’re at the end of the world. The plague has come and wiped out most. But the kids at Hope Juvenile Deletion Center don’t know it yet. They’ve been locked away from their routines, until it happens.

Told from multiple points of view, we meet a rag tag team of kids going through the motions of every day life for them. Sort of a Lord of the Flies meets Covid.. so if you’re still not over pandemic, I’d wait to read this. The cast is diverse and there’s a lot of potential for the story. They are struggling in most ways some of us, so they’re definitely relatable. I was mislead but the synopsis thinking this was a thriller but it’s not really, more survival.

An updated, more hopeful Lord of the Flies, this is definitely not the book to read if you're experiencing COVID burnout. Although it doesn't lean as heavily on the mystery element as the summary presents, the plot moves along quickly, covering the practical and emotional elements of trying to get through a plague in a manner both readable and heartfelt. The cast was diverse and the philosophical discussions were interesting. However, I did feel as if the cast of side characters was a bit unwieldy and didn't get differentiated enough, and although the main characters were interesting and relatable, it still seemed as if I wasn't getting very deeply into their heads. I also didn't necessarily find that the non-POV insertions added to the story. Perhaps recommend to those who enjoy the procedural elements of survival stories more than those who are looking for truly dystopian/postapocalyptic works.

I started this book and was quickly swept away in it and felt every emotion imaginable. A timely tale that opens your eyes to the forgotten ones, this story was well written. The characters were likeable - even the ones who at first didn't seem that way. They all experienced great growth through the story and it was clear to see the how's and why's. The ending was not rushed at all but did leave me with alot of questions and hope (ha).

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys thier fiction with a bit of end of world/survival thrown in.

Great job!

This book hit home. The author even stated she wrote this while recovering from Covid. I felt for each of the kids that were locked up in the Hope Juvenile Treatment Center. To be left and forgotten when then world gets sick is so scary. These kids were brave, though. Society basically gave up on them, but they came together the best they could. They took care of themselves and the sick the best they could. Wow...what a story. Marieke Nijkamp grabs you by the heart with this book.

This was a really good read for myself. I found I got through it quite quick as I wanted to know what happened next and also related to it a lot due to the current events happening around the world. I loved all the characters and how each of them narrated the story!
Defiantly recommend if your looking for a gripping, action packed YA book.