Book Review
Title: This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp
Genre: Contemporary, Crime, Thriller
Rating: 5 Stars
I remember when this book came out and it came onto my radar and I am ashamed to say it has taken me years to pick it up. All I knew about This is Where it Ends before getting into it was that it follows a school shooting minute by minute. The opening of This is Where it Ends wasn’t eventful but it was ominous as we are introduced to what I believe is going to be our man cast of characters. We have Claire and Chris who are both on the track team with enlisted family members, Tomas and Fareed who are breaking into the Principal’s office for information on a student, Tyler Browne and finally we have Autumn and Sylvia, best friends and Tyler is Autumn’s brother. I have a feeling that Tyler after he left school the following year and is returning now might be the shooter but we don’t know why yet. We are also introduced to these children’s lives and not all of them are good but I hope these issues are expanded on. As the assembly, held by the Principal of Opportunity, Alabama's high school draws to a close people begin to realise they can’t leave the auditorium.
Seconds later, Tyler enters the auditorium and shoots the Principal in the head and guns down several students who try to escape. At this moment we begin switching perspectives between those that are trapped with Tyler and those that are outside. We instantly Fareed keeping a level head as he and Tomas recognise the gunshots and phone the police well hidden in the Principal’s office and the footsteps they heard early must have been Tyler moving through the school. Claire and Chris are also outside and hear the shots and they come up with a plan. They send two of the track team to see if the emergency exits are open to get inside to a phone if they can, while she and Chris are heading to find Jonah, the security guard and if they can’t find him they will run to the local gas station in order to get help. As they head to the parking lot they find Tyler’s car filling with guns and ammo and Jonah’s dead body before they head to the gas station. Back inside we learn that Sylvia and Autumn are dating and Sylvia has been psychical assaulted by Tyler before for “corrupting” his sister which is why she was terrified of him returning to the school. Autumn is also reeling that this person killing people is her brother but she knows they can’t stay where they are but they are locked inside and don’t seem to have a way out.
Tyler takes control of the situation inside and several people that know Tyler begin to realise that he has been planning this for a long time and has come prepared for anything. He terrorizes the students inside as he kills their teachers and friends while some desperately try to contact the police, their families or their older siblings in the case of Claire’s younger brother. Claire and Chris after finding Jonah’s body begin running to the gas station which Tyler and Autumn’s father owns and here we learn that Claire has been dating Tyler for a while and she can’t bring herself to accept that he was capable of this but all the evidence points to him. Tomas and Fareed also try to help by finding the janitor Neil as he might have tools to help free those trapped with the shooter only to find him dead as well. It seems Tyler systematically moved around the school killing anyone who would have been able to help those trapped and its lucky that Fareed and Tomas were silent as he passed the office. They load themselves up with tools preparing to tackle the doors but they don’t know whether the shooter is inside or outside meaning as far as they know they could be walking into the firing line but they have friends and family in there and they refuse to leave them behind. We also get small messages that have been sent to the outside world and many don’t believe that the shooting is really happening and some do and they argue over it rather than doing anything to help. At this point it has been 13 minutes since the shooting started and the police haven’t arrived yet.
Nearly twenty minutes after the shooting began Chris and Claire are picked up by the police as they head back towards the school. Despite all the radio chatter Chris and Claire both know that Opportunity only has two police cars and backup from neighbouring towns is going to take time and Claire is frightened for her younger brother, Matt who is still at the school. Meanwhile, Fareed and Tomas are working on opening the doors leading to the front door of the school, which Tyler chained and padlocked on his way around the school and they know even if they can’t stop the shooter they need to be able to get people out. He also briefly manages to communicate through knocking softly on the wall so they both know the other is alive when Tyler continues to kill people. Finally, Autumn responds to her brother and faces him but it seems like he is going to kill her but she and Sylvia are the objects of his rage right now and Autumn wants to protect her girlfriend and friends from her brother if she can. We are also bouncing around in time developing a picture of what lead Tyler to this. It seems after his mother’s death, his father began drinking and taking his hate out in Tyler until Tyler began to change so he hit Autumn instead. Even Autumn despite knowing her brother was lost to her didn’t think he was capable of this even with his hatred of her relationship with Sylvia.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, we know the police are on their way and the students outside of the shooting area are relatively safe right now but Tyler has no intention of stopping now. As the police turn up and try to contain the situation, Fareed and Tomas have opened the doors and begin getting students out of Tyler’s path while he is distracted by Autumn. Sylvia helps by moving around the room informing people that the doors are open but Tyler quickly catches on. As he opens fire on the escaping students Sylvia makes a move in turning to face Tyler distracting him again before she is dragged out by Tomas. At this point students begin flooding out of the school and the police begin rounding them up and trying to figure out what is going on and who the shooter is. However, Matt, Claire’s brother and Autumn were still there with Tyler the last time we saw them and they might be casualties of his rage. So far the novel has been gripping but as we cross into the last 100 pages I was eager to see how Nijkamp would bring the novel to its conclusion.
I don’t want to talk about the last section of the novel too much but by the time the shooting comes to an end, 39 students and staff have been killed including some of the characters we have been directly following throughout the novel which was heart-breaking. What is even more heart-breaking the lives destroyed, Autumn and Sylvia’s relationship might never be there same and Autumn might never dance again. Autumn, Claire and Sylvia all lost their brothers during the shooting and many more have been hurt and traumatised by Tyler’s actions. Overall, This is Where it Ends was the most heart-breaking novel I have read in a long time and it reduced me to tears by the end of it. I am ashamed I waited six years to pick this up and I can’t wait to read more of Marieke Nijkamp’s books in the future. Highly recommended!
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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