Book Review
Title: You and Me at the End of the World by Brianna Bourne
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Dystopian
Rating: 3 Stars
From what I can gather this is a dual perspective novel following Hannah Ashton and Leo Sterling during the apocalypse, like 28 Day Later style where everyone just vanishes so I am intrigued. At the opening of the novel we know through Hannah that five days ago basically everything and everyone like people and animals disappeared and she has lived for the past five days thinking she is the only person in her city as she hasn’t gone beyond that. Hannah is very anxious about the situation and upon visiting the bookstore owned by a friend’s family she meets Leo. She knows Leo from school even though they don’t run in the same circles and she is delighted as there is another person. Leo is just as delighted even if he doesn’t show it at first because he like Hannah has felt an increasing anxiety stemming from being alone all the time. The first interaction between the pair is extremely awkward as neither can believe it is happening, Hannah is also a little dumbstruck by the fact the only other living being she has seen in five days is one of the hottest boys at school and someone she might have had a crush on for a long time. We can immediately see that each has pre-set ideas about what the other one is liked based of their knowledge from other people not knowing that person themselves. I did like the fact both have anxious tics, Hannah acts out her ballet choreography with her hands to calm herself down where as Leo uses music but he bounces his leg a lot which was nice to see in both a male and female character.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Hannah and Leo form an immediate bond stemming from the fact both of them have been alone for five days which is uncommon for them as they are used to being surrounded by people. They decide to stick together and Leo encourages Hannah to do things she wants to do rather than what her schedule has always demanded she do. Hannah isn’t sure what she wants to do so they travel to a nearby festival that was supposed to be taking place so Leo can locate a guitar belonging to a singer he knows as claim it for his own. During this time both of them get to know each other a little better, Leo is surprised by Hannah’s knowledge of music despite her classical background mainly because of her father and Hannah is coming to see Leo as shy, awkward boy rather than the confident singer he projected at school and on stage. However, we do get the sense that something more is going on as they constantly reference the weather which is extremely warm for April even by Houston standards. Both also experienced a loss of memory on the days leading up to and the day of the disappearances, Hannah also has something else going on. When she gets into Leo’s car, the aptly named Thunderchicken, she feels something hard on the seat and an image of gun hardened into the shape of Italy pops into her mind and that is exactly what she sees when she looks down but she doesn’t say anything about it yet as they don’t know each other well enough for that conversation yet. Leo, however, is feeling an attraction to Hannah that she also feels but both ignore it for now which I liked as there wasn’t this insta-love situation being given to us. I also liked the fact that Hannah is presented as being internal awkward while Leo is outwardly awkward as this is usually reversed in contemporary romance novels.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, Hannah and Leo are getting closer but both have their own insecurities and secrets that they don’t want to share with the other as they have only really known each other for 12 hours. However, strange things keep occurring first with the it suddenly going dark and then being bright again which they believe might be an eclipse. During their time at the abandoned show they ride some of the carnival rides, however, during this they experience sudden and drastic changes in the weather which Hannah believes might be an invisible tornado but the gusts of wind seems to rhythmic for it to be completely random acts of weather and I am itching to know what has really happened and what is causing all these strange events. With it seemingly turning to night time at only 5 in the afternoon they decide to head back to Hannah’s place together since she has a spare room to accommodate Leo and the fact that neither of them wants to be alone. At Hannah’s place they have some tea while she shows him around the house and the class difference between them becomes apparent even though it doesn’t really matter given the situation they are in. It is also here that Leo warns Hannah not to get to attached to him which upsets her even though she doesn’t show it. Leo doesn’t do this because he doesn’t like Hannah it’s because he is used to disappointing people when their expectations of him are too high and he doesn’t want to disappoint her. Leo also clearly has some abandonment and commitment issues due to his neglectful parents and this reputation as a bad boy that he is almost expected to live up to. Hannah has a similar issues with dancing as her mother seemingly pressured her into it as a child as her own career as a dancer was cut short due to injury and the only times her mother every showed affection towards her or praised her was when she excelled at ballet.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, I was getting a little bored with the back and forth interactions between Hannah and Leo and I wanted to focus more on the strange circumstances rather than the relationship between them. We see Leo trying to keep his distance from Hannah even asking her not to get attached to him when it is already pretty clear that both of them are attracted and attached to each other given the circumstances. However, this clear shift in the dynamic between them put Hannah on edge and she uses dancing to try and escape from reality. I did like how Hannah in insecure about her feet as it is well known that ballet dancers can end up with major problem due to the walking and dancing on blocks. The pair spends some time together when Leo watches Hannah dance before they see a light in the distance moving over the town. Hannah believes it is a searchlight on a helicopter looking for them but Leo isn’t optimistic about it, by the time they drive into town and the light passes over them it disappears immediately followed by them being hit with a literal wall of rain. They take cover in the local museum and Hannah realises something must have hit her in the face as it is becoming badly bruised but being in close proximity to Leo isn’t helping her attraction to him. As they wander around they discuss the ballet exhibit but they find a painting Hannah falls in love with and they decide to take it. This sets off the alarms but that isn’t their only problem as the museum seems to be flooding, they manage to get out and make it back to Leo’s car where they decide to head to Hannah’s grandparents to see if they can escape the freak weather there. Hannah is upset throughout this as she was looking forward to being reunited with her family and friends and it is taking its toll on her. At this point I was getting a little bored with the repetitive nature of the characters actions, I wanted something to change externally where maybe Hannah and Leo find a clue to what is going on or something to happen with their relationship to make it more exciting for the reader.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, things started to get very strange and twisty. I honestly thought that this book was going for a more sci-fi, dystopian-esque kind of vibe but it ended up being pretty much fantasy and contemporary fantasy is just something that doesn’t work for me. I don’t really want to talk about the second half of the novel in depth because of the conflicting feelings I have about it. On the one hand, I love both Leo and Hannah but on the other hand their characters did start to bore me by the halfway mark and feel a little flat. The plot and premise of this novel also seemed really interesting but it took almost the entire first half for the book to begin going anywhere and then it went wild. Going wild isn’t a bad thing some books like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy do it really well but this didn’t work. To go in the direction Bourne wanted this needed a lot more groundwork and buildup in the first half that was sacrificed to make the relationship between Leo and Hannah seem less like insta-love when Hannah herself comments that it is insta-love and all that effort was wasted on it. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about You and Me at the End of the World, I think back when I was a little younger this would have been a book I greatly enjoyed but as a 24 year old I expect a lot more from my fantasy novels and the mixing of genres here just didn’t work for me on a personal level, if I want a fantasy book I want it to be 100% fantasy not taking place in a contemporary setting.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
I received this review copy from Terminal Tours.
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