The Bean Town Reader: April 2016

Book Review: This Is Where It Ends

This Is Where It Ends

By: Marieke Nijkamp

This is where it ends is the story of a school shooting. The whole story takes place in a 52 minute period. Written in multiple perspectives the story is told from four different characters that all connect at some point along the way. 

The story opens on an everyday school morning. After the principle gives the mundane everyday speech at the normal everyday assembly students start to migrate towards the doors…but the doors are locked and no one can get out. That is when the first bullet leaves the shooters gun and everything the students of Opportunity High School hold most dear is uprooted and changed forever.

Just looking at the cover before cracking the spine I could tell that this book was going to be a tough one to get through. The dust jacket features pieces of chalk that have been shot through and are broken and falling in midair. After finishing the book I can say that the cover makes much more sense to me. In my mind the chalk all being a different color represents all the different individuals who are effected by the events that take place throughout the book.

This book was extremely hard to read at times. Nijkamp writes with such detail and passion that everything she wants the reader to feel, the reader will feel. Growing up in the United States this has always been a touchy subject. School shootings happen quite often around the country and every time it happens it stops the nation. Everyone holds their breath as they watch the news hoping and praying the culprit is caught and no one else gets hurt. 

I have never been personally effected by a school or mass shooting but no matter where it happens, my town or across the country, it always upsets me and makes me wonder what could have been done to prevent it.

Marieke Nijkamp made me feel as if I was in that school, a member of the town, and that I had a personal connection to the characters in the story. 

I loved that This is Where it Ends was written in multiple perspective. It made it much more atmospheric and kept me as the reader personally ingrained in the story. To see the shooter from different perspectives was helpful. With such a hard subject to write about it is easy to write the shooter as a horrible monster and I feel some authors would allow the reader to believe that he/she is a terrible human being, but Nijkamp made me, the reader, see the shooter as a person. Someone who has been hurt and someone that feels lost. Not that someone is right for taking another life, but we often lose sight of the big picture in situations like these. It is hard to understand how someone can feel so lost and angry and think that the only option left for them is to take such extreme measures, and Nijkamp did a great job at telling all sides of the story.

Each perspective being personally involved in each other, whether they be siblings, family, or significant other, helped me to feel just how terrifying this situation is from all points of view.

In a nutshell this book was a harrowing tale of how an individual can change the lives of an entire community and how those choices effect everyone involved. 

I gave this book 5 out of 5 cups of coffee and recommend it to everyone. Though it is a tough subject, it is an important subject and everyone should read it.