Luke's Book Reviews #8: This Is Where the World Ends by Amy Zhang

Do you ever have those authors who wrote a first book that you absolutely loved, and because of that, you wait for their next title with bated breath? That happened to me with Amy Zhang's debut Falling into Place, a skillfully written novel about the most popular girl in school attempting to commit suicide following Newton's Three Laws of Motion. Not only was the novel published when Zhang was only 18 (*applause*), but I remember sitting on the couch back in December 2014 and reading the last 100 or so pages while holding back tears/squealing because I loved it so much. The book was written in an interesting fashion, utilizing the nonlinear style and an interesting narrator to tell the story from multiple points of view. Although the subject matter itself had been seen before, it was done in such a unique way that I couldn't help but find it a gem.

Due to my love for her debut, Zhang's second release was eagerly awaited by me, and although all it had was a title for nine months, I was excited nevertheless. When the cover came out, I was more excited than ever because a) LOOK AT THE PRETTY! and b) the synopsis sounded amazing. However, reviews for the ARCs started rolling in a couple months later, and a lot of people had mixed feelings about it. For one thing, they said that the synopsis actually had a huge spoiler in it (you might be able to guess it from the cover), and that although the writing was good, they didn't seem to like our characters and found them really unlikable. I was surprised by these reviews, most notably because I wasn't getting any particular predictable vibes from the novel, and the fact that Zhang had made Liz sympathetic in Falling into Place even though she could be incredibly cruel to her fellow classmates and even her friends. I had some mild hesitation going into this, but I still had high hopes, and once this came into the library on hold for me, I swooped it up and immediately dug in.

So, how was This Is Where the World Ends? Was it on the level of Amy Zhang's debut novel, or were there some pieces missing to make everything complete?

I can't deny that Amy Zhang has something magical inside of her that will only get stronger as she continues to write. She's able to craft these realistic and flawed characters that you would probably hate if you saw them in real life, but in the context of her books, you understand their pain and actions and eventually empathize with them. There's a lot more to them than the bitterness they carry, and once you really start to look at the cracks, there's a lot more to their outward personas than what meets the eye.

Although I feel like the main protagonists and other characters aren't as likable as I would like (excluding one who deserves no redemption), This Is Where the World Ends is a heartbreaking if not always sad book, yet it still contains the little joys in life and captures two different high school seniors with the grace and finesse that shows just how much Zhang is connected to their world. It's a rare gift that she wields and one only found in writers like Sarah Dessen and Maggie Stiefvater (two of my favorites), and it's one of the many reasons why this novel works as well as it does. There may be some predictable elements to be found here, but this second novel is refreshingly unique and not reliant on many of the story tropes it uses. Before a psychological thriller (on our male character's side)/doomed romance (if you want to call it that), it's a contemplative character study, one that had me both thinking and tearing up.

Our story begins with 18-year-old Micah declaring how he views the world.

'Everything ends. This is obvious. This is the easy part. This is what I believe in: the inevitable, the catastrophe, the apocalypse.' (pg. 1)

He then goes on to say that he figured out the sign of the end when Janie Vivian moved out of the house next door on the final day of summer break before senior year. The two had shared a short but distracted conversation where Janie had said what she always did: it was her and Micah, Micah and her, and that she loved him more than anything. That's the last thing Micah remembers when he wakes up in the hospital, diagnosed with selective retrograde amnesia. With only his other best friend who's mostly a jerk, Dewey, to keep him company, he slowly pieces together what happened: there was a party, there was a bonfire, it got out of control, the house Janie moved into has burned down, and Janie is gone.

Meanwhile, before the accident, Janie drives over to Micah's house in order to initiate another one of their nightly ninja missions. She's the exact opposite of Micah in every way. When he is quiet, she is unapologetically loud. Where Micah seems to be more interested in video games and music, Janie loves art, and she's got big plans for her senior English project: a series of fractured fairy tales with their own set of wings to match. However, although she loves Micah, she likes to keep the friendship they share private in order to not disrupt the world's natural order of things. That doesn't stop that love for him, though.

'Come on, Micah. Let's pretend. Let's pretend, just this one night, that nothing is wrong. That nothing has changed. If we can get through tonight, everything will go back to normal. We will be us. He will stop ditching me for Dewey most weekends and I will stop moping in my stupid new house every night. We won't have to worry about going to college and growing apart and forgetting each other in favor of bland significant others, because this is real and always and forever.' (pg. 15-18)

But for now, Janie is pursuing her longtime crush, blonde wrestler and popular boy Ander Cameron, leaving Micah in the dust and never giving him the chance to try and do anything. As their two POVs alternate, Micah's grayness contrasting against Janie's color, Micah slowly regains his memories while Janie moves on with her plan, never forgetting that Micah is one step behind her. The true nature of their friendship is also slowly revealed, and just as Micah recalls the answer to What happened to Janie?, something happens to Janie that changes her forever. And nothing will ever be the same.

This story itself might not seem original at first (heck, you might be able to guess the plot twist based on the cover or figure out where Janie went by the time you're done reading this review), but Amy Zhang does a wonderful job of keeping the reader in the story and wanting to know what happened. Micah and Janie's narration is captivating not just in their contrast but in the way they're written. Zhang may be only 19, but she clearly sets her two characters apart by how they're portrayed and how beautiful and broken everything seems. From Micah's vivid glitches of memory that are somewhat dulled,

'"She's doing her senior project on fairy tales." Out loud, deliberate. Sudden, because that's how the memory comes and goes. Papers by the Metaphor, my voice and hers. Feathers. Scissors. Senior projects. We are seniors, because Janie moved the day before senior year. Her hands with chipping nails, her voice laughing....Her eyes were pale that day. Her hair was everywhere. Fairy-tale miracles. And I chose religious apocalypses. She had laughed when I told her, because we didn't even plan this. We balance the world, accidentally. And now it's tilting. It's tilting and tilting.' (pg. 31)

to Janie's devotion to Micah that seems both improbable yet possible due to her broad nature,

'It's like all Micah wants is to disappear, and he thinks if he's quiet enough, if he keeps his eyes on the ground and barely breathes and treads lightly, people will forget he exists. But he has it all wrong. Here is how you disappear: ....You apply to college because you're supposed to and then you complain about debt and the classes and the whole system because that's what everyone else does. You run into businessmen in untailored suits and you marry the lamest one and you move into a nice picture-perfect house full of clock hands that point at the cemetery. Don't worry. The tide will sweep you right in. Oh, Micah. I'll never let the tide take us.' (pg. 47-48)

you want to keep turning the pages and discover what went wrong. Despite This Is Where the World Ends being only 287 pages, a lot of content is packed into it. making the act of putting it down impossible. Micah's struggling alongside Janie's ambition creates strings that thread the narrative together, and every single time Micah remembers something or a bit of bitterness pops into Janie's words, the change in the book's tone becomes much more stark and hard to nail down (although the majority of it is sad).

Another interesting thing about the characters is just how full of contradictions they are. Micah trusts Janie and follows what she says more than having faith in himself, although his true desires and Janie's may be one in the same. Janie tells Micah to stop '[being] the cliche' even though that's what she's doing by falling in love with Ander, who is really a jerk. Dewey acts like a jerk and says that he's only taking care of Micah because Micah's father is paying him, but deep down, he really does care. Piper, Janie's best friend, is part of what Janie calls a 'no-commitment, zero-accountability, convenient-as-hell' friendship, but that might be a downfall for both of them in the end. Ander seems like the safe choice for a high school boyfriend, but there's an inner darkness lurking inside him that leaves Janie lonely and yearning for more.

What I like so much about this cast is that we see them through many different angles from our narrators, creating a clearer picture than if we only had one person telling the story. The teenagers in this book feel authentic and appropriately messed up, and I found myself rooting for them and screaming at them to wise up.

I think one of the book's downfalls comes in the fact that after a revelation that should change a character's habits, they still perform those habits regardless. This happens to Micah after he gets out of the hospital and after therapy, where he continues to drink alcohol and is revealed to have maybe a high tolerance or an addiction to it. While I do think not having him immediately change is realistic and better than an 'I SEE THE LIGHT' moment, it just disappointed me that Micah would continue consuming cheap whiskey and vodka even after having therapy to put a stop to it. You think he would have realized something. I don't think this happened as much with the other characters as with Micah, but regardless, it still irked me.

I also feel like the ending, while not as abrupt as some people found it, did tie up rather quickly. I wanted to spend more time diving into Janie and Micah's relationship, maybe go back to when they first met to figure out their beginning, as I found that to be the best part of the story. However, I think we did have an overall hopeful if incredibly sad close to This Is Where the World Ends, but it fit the tone of the book and brought everything to a natural if kind of rushed final pages.

I also want to bring up an interesting feature to this book. Much like the snapshots from Falling into Place, This Is Where the World Ends contains more peeks into the brain of the main character. In this case, we get to see Janie's journal and her fractured fairy tales. They take the normal tropes and make them into something unsettling, further clarifying how Janie feels about her parents, her classmates, and even Micah himself. Plus, they have beautiful doodles framing them, courtesy of Zhang herself.

'Once upon a time, there were twelve princesses. No, wait. There was only one princess, and one prince. They snuck out of the house at night and danced in the moonlight. They climbed pebble mountains. They put masks over their faces and punished the wicked. They loved each other. They loved and loved and loved, and the whole point wasn't the dancing, really, or the climbing, or the punishing. The point was each other. They knew each other in their atoms, and the point was that they were together. They never talked about it, but they both knew what they feared. More than anything, they feared that they wouldn't have each other someday. And without each other, there wouldn't be much of a point at all, would there?' (pg. 91)

There's also a lot about the perception of young women and how good people are ultimately blamed for bad things that happen to them. These messages are ultimately heartbreaking and definitely the darkest parts of the novel, but they also make the reader ponder on their own decisions and have them wonder if they can make a difference in their own lives. That is definitely the most powerful thing about this book, and that's predominantly the reason why I really like This Is Where the World Ends: it's sometimes dark and can be depressing, but it's ultimately powerful and moving, unflinching in its content. If this were a person, they'd be holding tissues in their hands and have a tentative smile on their face, sad but hopeful that things could get better. I believe that's how Amy Zhang intended readers to come out of this book, and that's how I felt: I was broken but found something to patch me up.

This Is Where the World Ends is available from Greenwillow Books (an imprint of HarperCollins) in hardcover, digital formats, and an audiobook. I really recommend this one, so pick it up and see for yourself the magic Amy Zhang has created. Until next time!

Rating: ****

Highly recommended