The End We Start From, an evocative debut from young British author and poet Megan Hunter
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Longlisted for the inaugural 2018 Aspen Words Literary Prize, “a $35,000 annual award for an influential work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture.” This prize is new to me but it has longlisted some impressive works; winner will be announced in the spring.
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Shortlisted for 'Books Are My Bag' Novel of the Year Award 2017 (a new to me award as well; it’s curated by bookshops and voted on by booklovers, says their website!)
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“The End We Start From is a beautifully spare, haunting meditation on the persistence of life after catastrophe. I loved it.” Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven
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Per Amazon (and the publisher): “An indelible and elemental debut—a lyrical vision of the strangeness and beauty of new motherhood, and a tale of endurance in the face of unimaginable change. … This is a story of new motherhood in a terrifying setting: a familiar world made dangerous and unstable, its people forced to become refugees. Startlingly beautiful, Megan Hunter's The End We Start From is a gripping novel that paints an imagined future as realistic as it is frightening. And yet, though the country is falling apart around them, this family's world—of new life and new hope—sings with love.”
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This is a very interesting and unique book and I found it a very unusual, sometimes uncomfortable, reading experience. It’s short but very powerful … the poetic prose is lyrical but sometimes harsh, due to its sparseness. I am impressed by this young author’s creativity and innovation but I didn’t really love this book. That said, I will be interested to see what Hunter writes next.

What’s it about?

London is underwater, and a woman gives birth to her first child. She and baby Z flee north, looking for shelter and dry ground to rebuild their lives on.

My thoughts

I’m going through a bit of a apocalypse-dystopia phase, but this book is so different to everything I’ve read recently. The most effective dystopian narratives are the ones that are just one or two steps removed from your own present. This does that, to some extent. The skill of this story lies in how Hunter matches the normality of day-to-day living with the extraordinariness of disaster. The reader navigates environmental disaster, marital ups and downs, and the first years of motherhood right beside the main character but is held at arm’s length.

This is as a result of Hunter’s very spare style. None of the characters have names beyond the first initial, which aids this distance. It’s written in short bursts of poetic prose, and much of the action lies in the picturesque language used. My opinion is divided on this. On the one hand, it echoes the landscape surrounding the characters and the passivity of being in the face of a natural disaster. Yet the narrative as a story could have done with more structure, some more detail to hold on to.

I enjoyed it and it stayed with me, but I feel it promised more than it delivered. Hunter’s use of language is lovely but she left a bit too much space between the words.

Would I recommend it?

Yes, I would. My nearest river bursts its banks with unexciting regularity, so the flood idea appealed to me in a kind of way. I hear that Benedict Cumberbatch has bought the film rights, and I’m quite excited to see what comes of that; I think it would make a really super film.

This book made me feel so many different things and took me on such an emotional rollercoaster. I felt such a deep connection to all the characters and loved the story all throughout. This was an amazing read with such strong characters. So glad I was able to read it!

*I received this ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

Really sparse and well-measured writing. Simple and quick to read. Nice.

One thing is for sure, Grove Atlantic really did an excellent job in promoting this book. Profiles of various book bloggers were flooded with copies of this book. And I'm going to be honest, I completely fell for their commercial and I couldn't wait to finally read a book.

First of all, I must say, there is an excellent cover that does not reveal much about the content of the book. There's a beautiful, simple and modern design with perfect colors. A short description of the contents was also promising, but I still had some problems with this book.

First of all, I have to say that I failed to connect with this book. The story is told in a relatively small number of pages, the characterization is almost non-existent, and even the names of the characters are kept only at the initials. Communication among the characters is so compressed, expressed in just a few short sentences. Their story has no clear beginning and ending, it lacks some background or explanation, and it all adds up to something resembling a diary which is missing some pages. For me, it definitely was not enough to visit the world that the author sought to display.

Hunter introduces us with an apocalyptic atmosphere of flooded London, the city in which everything that was once familiar and safe, was now covered with water. Also, those refugee camps and escape from natural disasters, that she describes, carries a direct link with the refugee crisis that has affected the world in recent years.

The symbolism of a new beginning at the very end of the known world is certainly present, and has not escaped my attention, and yet, it managed to remain sketchy, incomplete, scattered in fragments through the course of the action. Megan Hunter, in my opinion, failed to put her thoughts to the pages of this book, and therefore, she also failed to keep the reader's attention on them.

But, in the end, even though I believe that Megan Hunter did not fully fulfilled the potential that story had, I appreciate the idea which is the starting point of this book, as well as originality and courage to bring something new and different on the market. I look forward to her future works.

Talk about a beautiful book! The cover is stunning - gold foil that shimmers in the light?!!? Yes, please!

A few days after giving birth to her son, Z, a woman and her husband are forced to evacuate London as it floods. They are forced to become refugees as they go from shelter to shelter. As if new motherhood isn't terrifying enough, this novel forces us to look at the bond and love between a mother and her child. While you'd expect it to be very dark and gloomy, the book is filled with love and hope. The mother's spirit is strong and resilient as she raises a baby - that continues to grow despite the odds.

I didn't expect to be captivated by this book. I misjudged its size (only 160 pages) as being puny. I wasn't sure how good it could be with such little content. BUT, I WAS SOOOO WRONG! This {small} book packs a punch! I read it in one sitting because I could not walk away. I had to know what happened to this family!

As we as a global family face the uncertainties related to global warming and catastrophic weather events, this one is definitely worth adding to your list of must-reads!

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter has been on my to be read list for a few months now but a reading slump meant I only got around to reading it today.
I was disappointed in this book and found it difficult to read from the beginning. Firstly, I didn’t like the way the characters in the book we referred to only by letters rather than by names. I felt that this distanced the reader too much from them.
It only took me two hours to read The End We Start From but I can’t say that was because I was eager to find out what happened. Equally I cannot say it was because I hated it and wanted to get it over and done with. The best I can say is that this book made me indifferent.
The book begins with an unnamed pregnant woman about to give birth in London. Sometime before the birth reports start to come in off floods in the capital and there are some suggestions she and her husband R may need to move.
Before they can move she goes into hospital to give birth and whilst there hears news reports stating that her flat is no under water. Later R brings the news in to her in person.
When she is discharged from hospital she and R and baby Z head for his parents house in the mountains.
As the book progresses there are riots and refugee camps and abandonment but through it all the woman clings to the hope she feels when she sees her little boy.
I would say The End We Start From was nothing special but it was readable.

I recommend this fabulous debut novel to those who like literary fiction with strong motherhood themes and a tender, understated love story. Hunter writes with a poetic, first-person style that resonates like a personal journal. The narrator never names herself; in this sense she's an archetypal everywoman or, more specifically, an archetypal new mother. She refers to other characters by initials. Her beloved is R and their infant son will be named Z. Water imagery flows throughout, connecting amniotic dream-states of pregnancy, birth, and nursing with a cataclysmic flood that displaces millions of people from London and the surrounding area.
Under the surface, this is a flow-of-consciousness story about the terrors of new motherhood, recounting the emotional, physical, and spiritual adjustments one makes. The exterior plot is a natural disaster survival struggle, where a young family seeks refuge in a series of more or less risky situations. These two strands of narrative are braided with fragments of myth. Incredible book for a rainy day - the near-future setting is so close to current realities with worldwide floods and other natural disasters.

Thank you to Grove Atlantic for providing me with a copy of Megan Hunter's novel, The End We Start From, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT - In the not-too-distance future, a major flood has destroyed London and the unnamed narrator must try to survive with her newborn baby.

LIKE- The End We Start From is a survival story at a break-neck pace. Although due to family visiting, I had to read it in small chunks, Hunter's novella can easily be read in a single sitting. Due to the fast pacing and intense subject of the story, I would highly recommend setting aside a few uninterrupted hours and diving in. 

I liked that Hunter left a lot of mystery, she does not spell things out. Although we know that there has been extreme flood, we don't know more details. For example, we don't know the range and extent of the disaster. This put me in the mindset of the narrator, as she struggles to survive with a lack of direct information. The larger scope of the disaster is really irrelevant to this particular story. The focus is on her survival, the immediate situation, and deals with the rumors and misinformation that she receives as she moves to different refugee camps. She must assess her best move on the fly, including dealing with dangers.

The End We Start From reminded me of The Walking Dead or Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road. The themes and general story line are not a new idea, however, The End We Start From remains compelling because of the narrator and the exploration of how humans react in extreme circumstances. 

The ending was very interesting to me. It switches from a story of physical survival to one of emotional survival. Hunter ends the story at a precarious moment. The only thing that I was left feeling certain of, is that the narrator is a survivor and will continue to survive. 

DISLIKE- I'm a bit uncertain as to whether only naming the characters by their first initial was a good move. As a reader, I sometimes found it to be confusing and distracting. I had to reread sections to remind myself of a character, which took me out of the story. From a storytelling standpoint, it creates a necessary barrier that the narrator must put up for her own survival. It also quickens the pacing.

RECOMMEND- Yes. The End We Start From is a fast-paced and emotional journey. It's filled with danger and tension. I never quite knew where it was heading and I found the ending to be quite a surprise. I'd seek out future novels by Hunter.

The writing style, the initials, and the lack of description means that The End We Start From by Megan Hunter takes work to follow and interpret. At times, it's too much, and the book feels like it's trying too hard to be original and philosophical. At times, it works. I am left somewhere in between. I will remember it, but as a book that I am unsure about. As it is a debut novel, I will look for more of Megan Hunter's work to see what direction she pursues next.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2018/01/the-end-we-start-from.html

Reviewed for NetGalley

I read this book last month and still can't decide exactly how I feel about this book. It was confusing, weird and yet something different. There was some hidden things behind the story.

I certainly liked the style in which the story was presented. It was something different that I had never seen. I read Letter From Skye last year and quite loved it, partially because of its format. The whole book was in letters. However, The End We Start From was quite different. It was more like personal notes.. broken in between. It seems to be an unique idea but sometimes it just felt weird to read.

This story is about dystopian era where London is suddenly submerged in water. The story is from the perspective of a young mother. She is thirty-nine weeks pregnant when she has to run to save her family from the havoc that has grasped London. She shares the experience of giving birth to her son "Z". The characters are not named in this, rather has been called just by their initials.

After the birth of Z, she flee with her husband R and take refuge with R's parents. Even there, they are not safe and are constantly in fear about the dreaded. While the whole world seems uncertain and R is behaving all strange, the woman is all lost in her motherly feelings and busy in nourishing his son. She has been constantly shown amazed by the miracle that she has created.

When they move to camp later, where most of the refugees were staying, R panicked and he left the camp and went to find a better shelter for his family. During this time, the woman is forced to move to another camp and there she made friends and embraced her motherhood while waiting for R to return.

Megan Hunter words sounded lyrical and as if she has chosen them carefully. What I feel is, she wanted to give a different kind of experience to her readers. Though I appreciate this prose like writing, the story itself was lacking of plot. There could have been so much more in the story but I felt as if the main focus was on the woman itself and her motherhood.

Being a dystopian novel I think the story should have been somewhat focused on that situation in which London was at that time. The narration was definitely weak. Also, I am not that much happy with the way the characters names were given. Though it was an interesting idea, I struggled to remember the names and the relationships. Most of the time I kept wondering what will happen if all the letters in the alphabet are used :D It constantly bugged with throughout the story, making it more confusing.

I guess Megan Hunter wanted to depict some important issues of the society like environmental changes and its effect on humans, but in my opinion, telling the story in this manner definitely failed that aspect.

The thing that I am certain that I liked about this book, is the depiction of feelings of a new mother. Though out of context, those proses were beautiful. The feeling of holding your son for the first time in your arms, his first laugh, his first word.. all these moments were captured beautifully.

Though this book didn't work for me in the way I expected it to be (from the cover), I am sure that many will like this unique manner of writing. The story had so much potential but I feel that execution was not done well.

Different type of read for me. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't what I thought it would be. It was also choppy and hard to read- I read it was a poetic style. Not for me. I would recommend to friends that I know would enjoy this writing style and dystopian genres.

A beautiful book that made me angry at the same time. The book is extremely short, reading much like a short story. I finished it in less than an hour. The prose is magnificent and reads like poetry, but it is frustratingly sparse. Two-to-four lines before a break and just enough detail to leave you wanting more but hanging. All the characters were only known by their first initial... Z, O, R... To me, this felt like the sketches of a first draft in which the details hadn't been fully mapped out. I both loved it and hated it.

*I received an advance readers copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.*

This book was an interesting debut, with a unique writing style. It was prose with poetic timing and spacing, and painted a surprisingly deep picture, considering that all of the characters are known only by an initial and there is no conversation. I am interested to see where the author goes from here.
3.5 stars

Quite the odd story this one. Sometimes, i thought it would finally be my first 2 star read in a while but the writing is good. Set in dystopian London gone under a flood of sorts, an unnamed woman gives birth and then has to leave her home as the waters keep rising. The premise is fascinating, but I’m not a fan of unnamed characters or the way the author only uses initials for every character. To me, it created a distant, almost unreal feel to the characters that I didn’t enjoy.

Still, I liked the author’s language and the fact that the book is short and you do become engrossed at certain points in the story. If you like dystopian novels, you’ll like this.

"Our city is here, somewhere, but we are not. We are all untied, is the thing. Untethered, floating, drifting, all these things."

This was such a weird and uncomfortable read. While I thought the style in which this short story/novella was written was rather artistic, I disliked the crude manner in which everything was described.

This story tells about a futuristic dystopian era where London is suddenly overtaken by water. Families are forced from their homes, and many separated in the flooding. Written from the perspective of a young mother, she details the experience while nurturing her new son "Z" (Zeb but characters are only mentioned by the first letter in their name) through explanations in the past and present tenses and sometimes somewhere in-between.

Along the way, she is separated from her spouse, "R" and was left to fend for herself and child. While there is certainly a lot going on in their lives with trying to survive, Z serves as a lantern in the dark to those around. The reader passes through stages of the book as Z grows from an infant into a toddler. Everything around him is so dismal and hopeless, yet, he lightens the mood with his meager but notable milestones.

"Luck is one of those words that has no meaning any more, if it ever did."

While I've never quite read a book in this fashion, I appreciated its attempts at originality. However, I believe it may serve other readers better, who may enjoy the writing style of someone similar to Margaret Atwood. The vulgar ways of explaining different things (mainly with Z and the motherly roles required of the main character) were most off-putting. I couldn't help but be reminded of the descriptive writing tactics of The Handmaid's Tale which I absolutely loathed.

Overall, I appreciated the artist manner in which the author told this story. However, the off-putting way in which she described things and need for more atmosphere and grounding made this less enjoyable in my eyes.

Vulgarity: There are a few swear words, I believe. The entire writing style could be considered as vulgar (as stated above) as the author uses descriptive and unpleasant ways of describing bodily functions and reactions between mother and child.
Sexual content: While there are no scenes to be spoken of, there are references to sex in somewhat graphic manners. In particular, in the beginning where the main character is discussing her plans for childbirth, along with reminiscing about her significant other and how he "moved inside her."
Violence: None.

1.5 stars.

Agh. I really thought I would love this. I'm a huge fan of dystopian novels, and I love reading poetic, elegant writing. I wasn't sure how they would work together, but after reading this book - I'm not too sure it works.

There were definitely places where the writing style was beautiful, but overall I think it worked against the story. Because it was so soft and airy, the story lost a lot of its intensity and speed - things that are typically very important to a dystopian universe. In fact, if I hadn't read the blurb that said that this book followed a newborn as London was flooded, I'm not sure I would have known that that was what was happening.

In addition to that, it felt really hard to connect with the characters because they were named only by a single alphabet letter, and sometimes I got confused with who was who. Understandably all of these aspects come together to make a disconnected and jarring writing style that parallels the story's situation, but it was simply a little hard to understand for me.

If you're looking for some really beautiful quotes to write down, then go for The End We Start From. But if you want a true dystopian with harrowing action, look elsewhere.

This book is brilliant; I finished reading it a couple of months ago and still find it coming to mind even now. This on face value is a dystopian novel set in a London that is badly flooded and local people are having to flee to safety. The main character is heavily pregnant and resists leaving but is eventually forced to. What follows is her journey as she tries to survive in a rapidly changing landscape but it felt to me that it was really more about motherhood and all the changes and anxieties that this stage in life brings. At times the rising water seems to mirror the anxiety around her new baby and how they were going to get through. This is a short book but it really is worth reading it slowly and making time to take in all the layers within the story. I highly recommend this book.

The End We Start From focused on the devotion of a mother to her son following a family who had to flee from their flat after a cataclysmic flood. At parts, the prose is beautifully written, even poetic. However, I finished the book with unanswered questions, such as what happened to R? Overall, I came away wishing there was more substance.

An original dystopian story that focuses on motherhood and the lengths we'll go to protect our family. This story is very short, and doesn't worry too much about the details of disaster, but instead on the human stories that sometimes don't get told in a crisis. The writing was sparse and beautiful and the story haunting. I read this in a single sitting over a month ago now, but the story has stayed with me. Recommended.