End of the World House is a playful, compelling novel about intimacy and free will, and about art as a bridge between times and realities.

In "End of the World House" Adrienne Celt creates a surreal tale of two friends who accept a private tour of the Louvre, and find themselves in a day that keeps repeating itself. After being separated, Bertie tries to solve the mystery and get back to Kate -- in a process that forces Bertie to address deeper emotions and what she wants for the future.

While the ending didn't resolve everything in the way I was hoping for, this is a book that I found to be incredibly thought-provoking and impactful. I love reflecting on friendships and how they affect our lives, in both good and bad ways, and this novel certainly provided an opportunity for me to be immersed in a story of friendship in the face of adversity.

Did not connect to this book. It was too confusing, too repetitive, and not fun to read. I really wanted to like it, but unfortunately I did not.

I really wanted to like this story because on paper it has so many elements I love. A messy friendship, groudhog day style loops, and a narrator questioning their own reality but in the end it left me feeling pretty underwhelmed. The climax of the story was very anti climactic and while i did enjoy the somewhat open ending, I wish it had come sooner. There was so much time spent building up to that final confrontation that looking back it felt like a waste of suspense and time. This could have easily been significantly shorter and it would have been better off for it.

Reading Adrienne Celt's End of the World House is like viewing an MC Escher drawing if Escher had also managed to capture a realistic portrait of his times. In the way that Escher will depict a flock of tessellated birds emerging from the negative space of the sky and the farmland below, Celt's novel shifts gradually but unmistakably in ways that leave the reader constantly off-balance but also intrigued, drawn along. I use the word "drawn" intentionally--Celt herself is a visual artist of no small talent, and she uses this visual ability both in shaping her prose (a character's "face had Picaoss-ed out, becoming shapes and colors, colors and shapes"), but also as a means of developing characters and unleashing her thematic concerns. Bertie, the protagonist, draws an iconic dinosaur for a tech company; we learn that she went to art school but found herself having graduated with a solid understanding of painting but little knowledge about illustration, which is what she loves to do and which, professionally, calls for a different kind of hustle from that of the world of galleries and exhibitions. She falls into a Silicon Valley company and stays. The novel has a bit of the spirit of such companies--defying the sorts of boundaries of linear plot and development that define most novels' narrative arcs, instead it mirrors one of those startups that eschew clear dividers and walls, where time itself is also warped or suspended because everyone is working late into the night, and where fluidity and inventive moxie win out over the daily grind. Some readers might find this frustrating, but I found it bracing. Along the way, Celt manages to explore friendship, the power dynamics of relationships both romantic and platonic, the way radical contingency can impinge upon our lives, all while also capturing the dizzying repetition of office life, media consumption, the news cycle, and, in recent years due to Covid, so much of daily life. Indeed, the apocalypse arrives in this novel quietly, stealthily, which makes it that much more ominous. Celt also explores questions about art, about why we like certain works, and whether such liking is actually an exercising of aesthetic discernment or is simply because they have been foisted upon us as "great." The same question goes for people--do we seek, in a partner, someone who fulfills our every desire, or does that itself become stifling in short order? Do we seek a friend with whom we can merge most fully in shared jokes, taste, habits, or someone who pushes us, challenges who we are? Toward the end of the End of the World House, these questions continue to multiply even as we start to grasp some of the narrative physics that's been at work. I wasn't exactly sure about all of the rules of Celt's multiverse by the end, but that felt beside the point. To return to the Escher analogy, once we realize that the negative spaces of the birds' wings are also birds flying in the opposite direction, all that matters is that we are soaring alongside them. Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an ARC of this book.

A time warping, claustrophobic, apocalyptic novel that was sometimes difficult to track the storyline but overall a wild reading experience.

An interesting premise, clunking executed. The characters were so unlikeable I had a hard time rooting for any of them. And I understand why the girls were treating each other poorly, but I wish we had more examples of their genuine friendship before the time loop kicked in- as written, I wasn’t completely sure why Bertie cared so much about finding her way back to Kate.

This one had me guessing til the very end. Very twisty and kept me turning the page to see what happened next.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy!

Unfortunately, this was not for me. I was unable to get past the first few chapters. I believe this is just an issue of my taste not aligning with the story. I recommend others try it!

Unlikable characters. Disjointed writing. Would have done better to DNF the book. But I made myself finish. If someone would take the time to grant me permission to read an ARC, I had to complete and do an review.

#NETGALLEY #ENDOFTHEWORLDHOUSE

Two women friends and a spooky tour of a museum? Sign me up. But wait. Ah. Please execute the fascinating premise!! Dang!! I should have been more specific. The thought of a Groundhog Day apocalypse twist sounds fantastic, but this fell flat for me. It felt oddly young and confusing and the complexity didn't pay off.

A book revolving around two female friends? And a spooky private tour of the Louvre? AND a time loop? Yes, pleeeease.

And that COVER? Stunning.

However, I don't feel like it completely delivered on the potential laid out in the descriptions. This book moved a bit slow to me and the ending felt lackluster. I wanted to love it, I really did.

A surreal, trippy, and inventive novel - END OF THE WORLD HOUSE had a super strong start, but I found it hard to follow as the plot developed and new characters were introduced about halfway through. I loved the setting of the Louvre, and the strange nature of Celt's writing, it just wasn't for me in the end.

One of the most original, post apocalyptic, fantasy love stories I’ve read. I mostly enjoyed this book! 3/5 ⭐️

What a unique, thrilling book! I highly recommend this to book clubs who want to have a wonderful story to discuss with many talking points. Engaging & awesome!

Comped to Ling Ma? Oh I am IN. This book absolutely lived up to its gorgeous cover. It was engrossing and beautifully written, and I was captivated by it. I know this review is late; I'm finally getting through my backlog to the ones that slipped through the cracks, and I'm so glad I did. This was worth the wait. Thank you for the chance to read it!

I really liked this until the wholly unsatisfying ending, but I won’t spoil that here. It’s an apocalyptic ‘groundhog day’ meets ‘endless sunshine of the spotless mind’ that focuses initially on a friendship between 30-something’s Kate and Bertie. As a world ravaged by climate disaster and terrorism surrounds them, they take a trip to Paris before Kate leaves their hometown of San Francisco for a new job. As tensions arise, the time-loopy stuff commences, and Things definitely take a turn. A great premise, great writing… but that ending…..

This thought-provoking book is a reflection on a friendship -- it's meaning and power in our lives, and how hard it is to move on from it -- told through the lens of an apocalyptic, sci-fi, time-loop narrative.

Bertie, a cartoonist for a Silicon valley tech firm, and Kate have been a constant presence in each other's lives since high school and have seen the advent of the apocalypse together. Moving forward in life, Kate gets a job offer and decides to move to LA, leaving Bertie behind in her depressing job.

Taking a trip to Paris as one last friendship hurrah, they get invited to a private showing of the Louvre where things quickly start getting weird. The museum isn't acting right and Bertie's living the same day over and over again. When she and Kate get separated in this new, unstable reality they're experiencing, Bertie traverses the multiverse -- blending past, present, and future in unexpected ways -- to find Kate.

If you're a sci-fi fan, I have some bad news for you: The focus of this book is NOT on the sci-fi, time-looping narrative. It's more of an introspective look at Bertie, her life, and her relationship with Kate. Large portions of the novel focus on her job and what it would look like if certain things did or didn't happen in her past. As a fan of character-driven narratives, I actually appreciated this and thought that the deep-dive into the inner workings of friendship and the grief one feels when a friendship ends or changes was very eye-opening.

Celt's writing is also stunning -- I could picture the world she spun here perfectly and felt that her characters really leapt off the page. I can't wait to see what else she writes!

I will say my only complaint is that Bertie meets and begins dating someone partway through the book and I feel like, at the point, the narrative shifted away from her friendship with Kate and more toward her romantic relationship, which I didn't care about nearly as much. I wish these sections would have been condensed or re-focused.

I also thought some of the mechanics of the time loop became confusing, but maybe that's the point! How much control do we have over our past, present, and future trajectory? Where will we go when the world ends? Who will we spend our final moments with? If we could live in a day, a week, a moment forever onward, would we? All of these are mind-numbing questions brought to the forefront by this book.

An interesting read if you like character stories with a sci-fi twist.

I think the idea behind the book was great, but the relationship aspect seemed to overshadow the plot from the blurb, and the relationship was not great. I couldn't take the gaslighting and had a hard time reading it.

I received an advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

End of the World House by Adrienne Celt is a surprising meditation on friendship with an apocalyptic Groundhog Day slant. It's definitely original, though the absurdist elements are certainly high concept.

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