At The End of Everything

I'm obsessed with everything Marieke Nijkamp writes.

At The End of Everything is set in the fictional Hope Juvenile Treatment Center, essentially a detention center for juvenile offenders. The government gets away with calling it a "treatment center" by having one therapist work with literally all the teens there. All the guards are concerned with is getting the teens to follow the rules, however ridiculous they may be.

 

This book is told through multiple characters' points of view. There's Grace, the girl who somehow got promoted from solitary confinement to leading the teens through a literal plague. There's Emerson, who feels like they just don't belong in this facility. Then there's Leah's nonverbal twin sister, Logan.

While all their story lines coincide, reading Logan's chapters were my favorite. Social cues are a critical necessity when interacting with someone nonverbal, which is why it's absolutely amazing to me that Marieke Nijkamp managed to portray Logan as such a spunky and charismatic character in this book.

Okay, so let's actually get into the plot of the book.

Most of the novel takes place within the confines of Hope Juvenile Treatment Center. Right away, Grace notices something weird is going down but she never expected all of the staff to disappear. The guards, the wardens, the therapists....gone. All these teens have been left alone, but why?

A group of them gather up the courage to leave the facility they've all lived in for months. During their trek for answers, they get stopped at a roadblock. The National Guard informs them of the virus/disease spreading rapidly all over the country. The Guard then gives them the chance to head back to the Hope Facility or be met with gunfire.

Realizing there's no help coming for them, the teens are left to fend for themselves. They have little skills, little food, and little hope of getting out of there alive.

Immense thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing me with an advanced copy of this book! At The End of Everything hits shelves on January 25, 2022!

Looking for other books by Marieke Nijkamp?

This Is Where It Ends

Before I Let Go

Even If We Break