Originally posted on my blog, With Her Head in a Book. 
 I received an eARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 
 This Is Where It Ends happens to be one of my most anticipated reads of 2016. I immediately requested the novel upon reading a sneak preview in the BuzzBooks YA collection of Fall/Winter 2015. Very unexpectedly, the novel left me wanting more and very disappointed upon reflection - an unfortunate way to start the new year. 
 I expected a social critique or at least a look into the shooter's mind. Instead, we get none of that and a whole lot of drama. I know it's high school, but come on. The novel does bring up critical issues of our times like school shootings, rape, abuse, and racism, but the author doesn't address any of these problems in depth. Readers are given a rather shallow analysis. To be honest, TIWIE is more like an action movie, focusing on the shock value rather than the reality of the situation. Actually, it's a lot like listening to newscasters during a disastrous event: inaccurate and unbearable. 
 We follow the point of views of four students and none are the killer, Tyler, unfortunately. Not one chapter. We never get to see inside of his head to understand the why. Tyler is essentially an evil villain without any rhyme or reason. Those four narrators also have very similar voices; I often mixed up the characters for the first half of the book. The only reason I eventually got down who's who is because the chapters are named after the character narrating. I personally love multiple POVs and that worked out in favor of this novel, excluding their similar voices. I've read very few books that can enjoyably stretch out a short period of 56 minutes into a full length novel. Here in TIWIE, that short stretch of time was a bit more dragged on than I would have liked. 
 Also due to the characters being so alike, I ended up not caring deeply about the narrators or any of the other students or teachers. Everyone seemed so underdeveloped and meaningless. I couldn't connect to anyone. The other victims' existences were short lived excerpts thrown in right before their impending death. The author told us why we should care about them, but never made it feel realistic. And, for an author that's the executive member of We Need Diverse Books and the founder of DiversifYA, I was pretty disappointed in the "diversity." The author relied on a lot of outdated and particularly questionable stereotypes. Way to develop your characters. 
 Sidenote: there are occasionally tweets and blog updates which seemed unfitting and juxtaposing to the novel, especially since they didn't really offer any value. 
 For all that the book flopped on, it is a thrilling read. It's full of action and I got pretty teary at the end. I caught myself asking over and over, "things will get better, right? Right?" and things didn't get better. . .in fact they get worse. Especially daunting when it wasn't even the end of the book. This Is Where It Ends is pretty much like that, yet worse. I know a lot of people are going to pick this novel up; I understand why because I felt the same desire, but I honestly recommended passing on this read. There are better material out there. 
 (P.S. Anyone else still trying to figure out why Tyler went out of his way to look so nice other than to be fly?) 
 Plot: 3/5 
 Characters: 1/5 
 Writing Style: 2/5 
 All Around Idea: 3/5 
 Total: 2/5