How It Ends

How It Ends

A Novel

Book - 2016
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Jessica is a good student who hates school because she is bullied by the "cool" girls and she is startled and grateful when Annie, the new girl in her southern Ontario high school, seeks her out on the first day of tenth grade and defends her from the bullying--it is a friendship that both girls need, but one based on assumptions and misunderstandings that ultimately threaten to drive them apart.
Copyright Date: ♭2016
ISBN: 9780544540064
Characteristics: 293 pages


From Library Staff

Although opposites in many ways, Jessie and Annie become best friends. However, high school, misunderstandings and secrets interfere and the friendship is threatened in this realistic, touching novel.
Losing your best friend can be incredibly painful...

From the critics

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The book was well written, and at times left me hungry for what's next. At the same time there is a few parts that didn't get me as excited as the others. It's about Jessie, a girl with anxiety who manages to hit it off well with the new girl, Annie on the first day back to school. They have many ups and downs in their friendship when Annie becomes friends with the girls that bullied Jessie. What I especially like is how well I was able understand how the girls were feeling. Such as when Annie was getting the abortion, the situation was well fleshed out. A small detail I don't like is a few words and references, that would be difficult for the audience they're trying to reach to understand. Such as trolled for scrolled, since for people our age the word is used in a completely different way. The imagery and characters are described vividly that I can visualize them easily. Jessie and Annie start off already as round characters, but it's because they evolve that they're dynamic characters. With the conflict, I vaguely saw it coming as Scott and Annie were having a lot of sex and I wondered if they used protection or not. Nevertheless I was still surprised when Annie found out that she was pregnant. Someone around the age of 13+ with the language and topics in the book, and like romance and drama would like this book. I recommend this book.
-Review from Fleetwood Teen E.F.


Rating: 4/5
Likes and Dislikes: I felt like when I started the book, it was going to be one of relationship and friendship dramatic books and wasn't what I liked. It turned out to be really interesting, and I couldn't stop flipping the pages at night. I didn't give it perfect rating as sometimes I feel like it's too rushed, something is missing. I'm not sure, but one point is where Annie yells at her step-sister, Sophie when they were getting along and that problem wasn't solved. I loved how they got along because I, myself never get along with my brothers and I just wondered what happened next between Annie and Sophie. Overall, great book..!
- Kaniel

Jul 24, 2016

Best book ever minus the swearing

samcmar Jun 24, 2016

I admit, I've been coveting this book since last year's #TeensReadFeed event hosted by Raincoast. The premise seemed so simplistic and yet so appealing at the same time. This is the tale of two girls befriending each other in tenth grade, at what seems to be the perfect moment in time. The reader gets to watch their relationship organically grow and transform. We see how these two friends grow together, as well as fall a part.

I was completely captivated by this novel right from the get go. It's a novel that gradually builds and builds, as we watch Jessie and Annie work through high school. I found myself nodding along with the feelings of both characters, as I've been in both their shoes in different situations. I remember wading through high school the way Jessie did, living with anxiety and worrying how I would be seen and accepted by others, and it was something that carried with me well into my first few years of university.

When you suffer from anxiety of any kind, you do in fact see the world so differently compared to others that it is often seen as a "paranoia" meanwhile, that isn't entirely the case. Lo examines Jessie's social anxieties with such a fine tooth comb, and to the point where even when Jessie is at her worst, she is still someone who is redeemable and someone we as the reader can sympathize with. I've also been in Annie's shoes -- the person who is attempting to take care of someone else and is trying to understand their ways and behavior but never feeling like you entirely get it.

Annie is strong, sassy, and she wants to see the good in everyone, whereas Jessie can't because the fear of being hurt is just too strong with her. Both share similarities in that they both have walls that are hard to break down, and watching how there friendship develops and breaks down is what makes this book so interesting. When we start to see how their relationship falls apart it is just so heartbreaking, and I found myself just wanting to shake both of them and say that things can be mended, they can be repaired.

This book is such a raw experience, full of open wounds that need mending. It is such a realistic look of friendships and how we value people in a lot of ways, and when things are not okay, how that value is quickly taken away. How it Ends is a beautiful examination of how beautiful, complicated and messy friendships can be.

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