Erica’s Experience
Title: This Is Where It Ends
Author: Marieke Nijkamp
Genre: Current Teen Lit
Page Count: 336
Publication Date: January 5, 2016
Interested? Buy This is Where It Ends here
Trigger Warning: This book is about school shootings/ gun violence and may be triggering to some readers.
Review
I turned to This is Where it Ends on May 1st to give myself a breather from Flannery O’Connor. I finished it May 3rd.
The title was recommended to me back in 2021 by my 18-year-old cousin (16 at the time) while we were talking books in my parent’s hotel room during another cousin’s wedding weekend – I have a lot of cousins. I didn’t realize what the story was about while we were chatting but promised I would buy it when I got home. I do this a lot – buy books because of word-of-mouth praise without even reading the back cover. Some people call it impulsive shopping; I call it being a lit lover.
This teen lit novel, written by Dutch author Marieke Nijkamp, is about a school shooting in small town America – the fictitious town of Opportunity, Alabama to be exact. The story takes you through the experience of five students during a harrowing 45 minutes that changes their lives forever.
I found Nijkamp’s telling of a very American epidemic upsetting, infuriating, but most importantly, compelling. The fact that she is from the Netherlands and has never lived in the U.S. is what really stuck with me. This is an outsider’s interpretation of an everyday U.S. occurrence; a glimpse into the global view of gun violence in America. To put it into perspective, the year this book was published – 2016 – 383 mass shootings (a shooting where 4 or more people are injured) took place in the United States. 244 have occurred this year alone; there have only been 147 days so far in 2023. In the history of the Netherlands, a total of 2 mass shootings have occurred.
I appreciated the amount of empathy that went into this book. The incorporation of viewpoints from people inside and outside of the school felt so real. The pages highlighting text bubbles between anxious friends and siblings and commentary on social posts about the event instantly made me think of when friends mark themselves as “Safe” on Facebook when a shooting occurs in their area. It was all too relatable.
There was clear research put into this book as well. Nijkamp’s shooter, Tyler, a white male, fit the stereotypical demographic description of a mass shooter (the actual description of 52% ). His experiences with personal trauma and abuse are also issues that plague most mass shooters. After doing more digging myself, I found that the underlying focus on LGBTQIA+ teens within this book, particularly with the relationship between Autumn and Sylvia, was also backed by facts. According to Sandy Hook Promise, approximately 1 out of 5 LGBTQIA+ youth have been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property. Top it off with mischief makers Tomás and Fareed, both boys from minority backgrounds coming to save the day while worrying about being pinned as the ‘bad guys’ made this book, This Is What’s Wrong with America 101.
Instituting stronger gun control laws in the U.S. is a passion of mine. Someone very dear to me has been in two mass shootings and if they weren’t here, my life as I know it would not exist. Their experience has fueled a fire inside of me to speak out against gun rights in the United States; #sorrynotsorry to those of you who get to see my rants on my personal Instagram and Facebook.
I don’t think kids or teens need to read this book – they already deal with the fear of their school becoming Opportunity High every single day. The people who need to read this book are the lawmakers, superintendents, and civil servants who have committed their lives to serve and protect our society – the ones who have failed the current generation quickly coming into adulthood and the next that are still in school each day, worried about dying during history class.
I’m at a place in my life where the idea of having kids is on the cusp of, hopefully, becoming a reality and the idea terrifies me. Not because I’m scared of becoming a mom, but because I’m scared of the world my kids would be entering. A world where senators care more about their money from the NRA than their kindergarteners. Currently, as of today, there are states where guns have more rights than I do over my own bodily autonomy. For a place that defines itself as a First World country, how does that make sense?
If you are interested in learning more about ways you can fight for more gun control in the United States, here are some resources that can help:
You can also take action against assault weapons right now by filling out Brady United’s easy-to-use email template which will directly connect you with your state’s senators. This Is Where It Ends came out 7 years ago, and is more relevant today than the day it was published.
It’s time we step up and be the adults kids in this country deserve.
You can purchase This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp here.
The Book Nook Chronicles 
Leave a comment