When a deadly plague hits, the guards disappear, leaving the kids at Hope Juvenile Treatment Center to learn to survive on their own. With half the kids deciding to risk it on the outside, the rest decide to stay back, care for the sick, and work to keep each other alive.

Oh hey another plague/pandemic book! In all seriousness though, this book was about found family, about caring for and helping save each other when it seems the world has forgotten about you. We see a lot of situations very similar to ones we are currently seeing today, and while it can be so disheartening, I have also seen how truly wonderful people can be. I really enjoyed this book and the cast of teens just trying to survive one day to the next while the world falls apart around them.

An attempt to remake Lord of the Flies. And a very poor attempt. Throw in anything the author can think of as hot topics - race, sexuality, etc. - and you have a poorly written story. Oh. And of course. Throw in a pandemic. This book has moved up to my list as the worst book I have read this year. I am giving it a very generous two-star rating.

I absolutely adore Marieke Nijkamp, and I'll read all of her YA books. So, when given the opportunity to read At the End of Everything, I put aside my reticence around pandemic-themed novels to give it a chance. What I found was a surprisingly (to me) tender and thought-provoking novel about juvenile justice, the concept of reform, acceptance, and chosen family.

Told in the varying perspectives of the teenagers left to fend for themselves at Hope Juvenile Treatment Center (insert irony), Nijkamp's book explores what happens when those who are left behind are fighting to survive when society has cast them aside.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

At the End of Everything is a very good read. There are books you wish could go on forever and this is one of those. It will suck you in from the start and leave you wanting more.!

I read this book while I was waiting in an emergency department, in a lot of pain. And I am 100% sure that I wrote a review for it! Bust, seeing as how I can’t find said review, I may have just imagined it while on a lot of painkillers. So, here’s (as far as I’m concerned anyway) review #2!

I picked up the eARC for this book from Netgalley for a couple of reasons:

It’s Nijkamp. Like, if you haven’t read her work, do so! I loved This Is Where It Ends (school shooting) and Even If We Break (thriller with RPG elements). She writes #ownvoices queer and disabled characters, and I love it.
It’s set in a juvenile detention centre. PRISON! I love books in prison… And inpatient wards and boarding schools…
IT’S got a plague! And not just any plague.... (that’s all I’ll say, because spoilers).

And I inhaled it. It was so good. It’s a little different than your standard post-apocalypse story, in that it’s more of a slice-of-life story. Yes, there’s a plague, yes, life changes and people die, but it’s more about a community coming together and learning how to live with the changes than a mission to save the world.

Our characters are many; we see the world through a number of eyes. We have a wonderful cross-section within the facility - mental health conditions, variations in gender and sexuality, reasons for being in a correctional facility. It was nice to see Nijkamp showing that people who end up in these facilities AREN’T ALL “BAD”. Sometimes people commit crime because they feel they have no other choice, not just for sh*ts and gigs. Anyway, before I fall down that rabbit hole, I was just glad to see some of the less talked about aspects included here.

I think my only negative was that I wanted this book to be so much longer. There were so many characters, and while there was enough of each to make them all feel fleshed out and real, I wanted their backstories, and I want to know what happens after the credits rolled! I did also enjoy the snippets of phone conversations and the like, they added the outside element that made the centre feel more grounded in the “real” world.

Content Warnings: Okay, so like I said, I was on a lot of pain killers, but there were a lot of warnings. Mental health, gender/sexuality-phobias, injuries, death (lots of death), self harm (I think?). Just go into it knowing it can get a bit rough.

I was a bit worried to read a book about a plague regarding the current pandemic but it’s spooky season so I gave it a try. The symptoms are a bit similar to covid-19 but in my head it was more like the walking dead even though people didn’t turn into zombies.

I really enjoyed the structure of the narrative with multiple points of view, phone conversations and articles.

In this book, the main characters are teens who have been put in a juvenile treatment center. They can be violent but you learn to care for them as they have been abandoned by the system not once but several times. It’s interesting to see how they’ve been treated and how they react and try to organise the center.

It’s inclusive but it can be triggering for some readers.

TW: abuse, transphobia, ableism… (the list is a bit longer and at the beginning of the book)

At The End of Everything by Marieke Nijkamp is a hard book to talk about. It took me quite a bit to get into it, probably because I tend to struggle with prison settings – I didn’t look up what the book was about before I started reading as I loved their last book, Even If We Break, and knew I would want to follow what they wrote. That the book deals with a virus breakout doesn’t help either, it hits very close to home as the characters struggle to survive after they’ve been forgotten by the world around them. But damn, once you get into the book, it grips you. The way Nijkamp manages to build tension through the rapid switch of PoVs, the addition of lists, transcripts of phone calls and left messages and similar scenes is brilliant, and as the story goes on, you end up not as close to any single character as you’d be in a traditionally told story, but caught up in the fraught atmosphere of the world. It is an excellent book, and one with great disability rep – there is a deaf character and an autistic character, both of which are really well written. Generally, Nijkamp’s a great bet if you’re looking for queer and diverse YA, and this one in particular is one for you if you like to tear your heart out and stomp on it. Be prepared for all the pain.

This book was... okay. Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for my copy of this book. I appreciate it very much.

This book hits really close to home by centering around a government shut down due to a respiratory disease that reads as being so much worse than Covid. Taking place in Hope Juvenile Center which is situated in the middle of the Ozark mountains cut off from civilization. Once the virus hits, the teens find themselves abandoned after the guards up and leave.

It did not bother me to read a book such as this so close to the happening around us here. I was lucky, Covid never hit my family, of the four or five different houses in my family, we buckled down and stayed home and none of us caught the virus. I imagine however that this book could be a major triggering point to some people because of the realism of the story. It is funny, if I had read this book before 2020, I might not have thought it so realistic, never have we experienced something like this in our lifetime, so I figured it would almost feel a bit dystopian to me.

The story is a very character-driven slow burn. The events that happen are slowly fed to the reader, paced throughout, but as you read, the dread and tension will be felt on the pages.

The characters in the book do a great job of taking hold of the situation and have strong wills and resilience. The writer has chosen very diverse characters for the story, for instance, a deaf girl, and another trying to find a God that will be accepting of their queerness. They are all written fantastically with different personalities and abilities but it is great watching them grow and learn to work together. I would have liked a bit more backstory on the characters however, I felt this would have given them each a bit more depth, and a chance for me to know them better.

The one thing I really enjoyed about At The End Everything was the author’s inclusion of things that drove the story forward but were not actually written as the story. Included were phone transcripts and a few other things that seemed to give the story a realness to it.

I do not read a lot of YA books, but this one surprised me and drew me in. It was heartbreaking, and despite that these teens were left to survive alone with sickness and other harsh obstacles surrounding them, this book is also full of hope, love, and survival.

The teens at Hope Juvenile Treatment Center all have one thing in common, they've broken the rules and ended up residing at a "treatment center" that isn't really treating them or cultivating hope; In fact the only thing the treatment center does for these kids is force a routine and strict rules on the young adults. Every day is exactly like the previous day....until it isn't.. Suddenly the guards don't show up at all. A deadly plague tears through their ranks and they must act quickly as supplies dwindle and panic spreads.

At the End of Everything is full of suspense as we follow the teens left alone in a world that didn't want them to begin with. Tackling many social questions with expertly written prose this post-apocalyptic novel is scarily relevant.. With brilliant metaphors hiding between the lines, At the End of Everything is sure to keep readers intrigued, and on the edge of their seat.

A big thank you to Netgalley and publishers for providing an e-copy so I can share my honest opinion with all of you..

Hope Juvenile Treatment Center is a home for delinquent teens. When the guards start acting strangely, and quit showing up altogether a number of the kids break out of the facility in attempts to run away. They encounter a blockade of military personnel forcing them back to Hope. They are told of a plague ripping through the nation, and everyone outside Hope is in lockdown. As the delinquents are faced with minimal supplies, and illness spreading through the facility they realize they must band together and leave their misdeeds behind in order to survive. All while wondering if anyone has remembered they are there.

I loved the relationship these kids eventually develop with each other. They each find their niche, and so what they have to to try and survive. The author said in the author note that she wrote this book while recovering from illness, and it makes total sense where her inspiration for “the plague” came from. It was thought provoking to see the perspective of children that “no one remembers” during times of pandemonium, and although I’m sure similar things have and are happening we need to make sure we are doing better for those that need help.

Thank you so much @netgalley and @sourcebooksfire for the advance copy of the e-book in exchange for an honest review. This one is set to be published Jan 4, 2022 so be sure to watch for it!

I loved this book! It kept me on my toes and dying to know what happens next. The situation may have once been unimaginable but now we all can see how something like this could happen. The only question is who will we be or become when it really matters.

This book was pretty good. At the End Of Everything is a novel about a juvenile detention center that gets left behind when a global plague begins. The novel covered a couple of the kids perspectives, which helped to get a sense of how things were going for each of them. I liked all the characters, but somehow; by the end of the novel, it didn’t feel like it really came to a close. However, there was a good group of diverse characters, so it was a true reflection of a juvenile center. Author did a great job.

Teenagers are left at a treatment center while a plague runs throughout the world.

They must come together and find food and help eachother when they get sick.
I felt like there wasn't really a plot. Nobody ever comes for them and nothing really happens.

The teens at Hope Juvenile Treatment Center aren't really receiving much "treatment" and they certainly don't have much "hope." Admitted for various reasons, the teens follow the rules of the center and don't really form relationships with each other. When the guards don't show up for work one day, the teens venture outside, only to discover a respiratory plague has hit the area. Can the teens learn to work together and survive? Or will the plague and infighting take them out?

At the End of Everything is a survival dystopia set in the very near future. A little eerie to be reading about a respiratory plague, and there are definitely elements that mirror the societal effects of Covid-19. A nice standalone title that incorporates many characters that are failed by the justice system. Includes some language, but otherwise, a pretty PG title.

This was a good read but nothing really stood out or kept me on the edge of my seat. We follow a group of kids left to die in a facility when an deadly outbreak hits. Some leave to find a better way to survive. As the story goes on we see bits and pieces of the kids' background in the form of phone calls. The kids that we follow do tend to grow into their new roles as providers and survivors quite well but the odds are stacked against most of them.

This was a hard book to read, with the pandemic not over it just felt too close to what we are dealing with, as a book overall it worked but i wished there were fewer character/pov to get more emotionally involved with them. I would read other books by this author and I appreciate the attempt to deal with the subject

This book started out strong! I love a good YA dystopia book, particularly pandemic-related. The tension and world-building in the opening chapters was great. However, I found the multiple POVs difficult to keep up with and lost interest about halfway through. Perhaps it was characters I can't relate to or there wasn't enough suspense/underlying fear for my taste.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

This book felt super eerie and uncomfortable with the current pandemic but the author managed to hit the nail on the head. I really like the cast of characters but I wasn’t rooting for anyone or convinced by the voice/actions of the individuals. It’s an interesting story of survival but a bit jumbled. 2.75/5

“At The End Of Everything” will keep you on the edge of your seat the first the whole story. It’s creepy, timely, and hits very close to home. This is the kind of book that you will stay up all night to finish, the kind of book that gives you goosebumps.

Set in a juvenile rehabilitation facility known as “Hope For Bright Futures”, the story follows a group of teens cast out by society for various reasons. Told through three main narrators, they tell of their fight for survival. They are all alone and left to figure out how to make it through. They are cut off from society, and can only get very rare contact from anyone on the outside. Some come together despite their differences, and some decide to flee. Each teen steps into a role no one asked for. It’s a harrowing account of our worst fears when society collapses.

The characters are outstanding, especially my favorite, Emerson. I don’t want to spoil anything, but their story is the most heartbreaking. They do realize their strength and get not only a sense of being accepted, but gain their power back. I really appreciate that the author was so inclusive and how she built her characters. They were relatable, and their stories will stick with me a long time.

I would like to thank Marieke Nijkamp, Sourcebooks Fire, and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Publication date: 01/04/2022