Rating: 2/5

Woof this was rough. End of the World House follows two best friends, Bertie and Kate on one last girls trip to Paris, France. Both girls have been living together in the Bay Area since the world has started imploding (post-semi-apocalyptic America - or at least that’s how the story is marketed) and with life starting to move on, Kate has decided to move on as well in Los Angeles (away from Bertie, who makes this sound like Kate is moving across the world).

On the last morning of the trip, the girls decide to visit the Louvre and in doing this find themselves in an endless time loop where they continue to relive the same last day in Paris in a variety of scenarios that they can’t remember, until one day Bertie does and Kate vanishes. As Kate vanishes from the loop, Dylan, an old boyfriend of Bertie reappears and explains the time loop and how Bertie may possibly explore other scenarios and opportunities throughout her life by simply “pushing” herself there.

If those last two paragraphs didn’t already warn you, this is where things start to go drastically downhill. Dylan is a co-dependent narcissist that tricks Bertie into staying with him and being his girlfriend even though she subconsciously knows he’s doing it to her, while she isn’t consciously aware that he’s pushed her into another loop where they remain together.

Bertie for her part is intolerable. Besides being extremely unlikable as a main character, I couldn’t stand her constant fluctuation and her own co-dependent need for both Dylan and Kate. So much so that when she winds up reconciling with Dylan at the END of the story I literally wanted to throw the book in the garbage. And Kate? I don’t have words. Unlikable, mean and just flat out horrible, there was not a single likable character.

Thanks to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and Adrienne Celt for the ARC of this book - sorry it wasn’t a winner for me!

Thank you for the opportunity to read this novel. I was not able to get into the storyline and did not finish.

I was a little hesitant to dive into this because I thought it might be too dystopian for my current mental state, but I am so glad I found the opportunity to come back to it - so well written and ultimately such a true meditation on friendship. This book successfully crossed so many genres and the twist was so well done.

After the initial pages, I found myself not connecting with the story or characters, so I decided to pass on this book. Did not finish

The title of this book made me expect more of an apocalyptic scenario, but it ended up being a bit more philosophical. I thought it told an interesting story, though parts were (intentionally) a bit repetitive, and a little confusing at times.

A sci-fi, end of the world following a pair of best friends from High school. I felt mostly underwhelmed and put off by the toxic masculinity. I wanted to love this and am still interested in what this author writes in the future.

End of the World House centers on Bertie, a corporate cartoonist, and her close but fractured friendship with Kate. The friends travel to Paris during the middle of the end of the world, amidst climate disaster and worldwide terrorism. But something is off. It begins to feel like Bertie is stuck in a loop, living the same day over and over again.

I really enjoyed the concepts that were brought in End of the World House. It was a really new experience for me and held its cards close to the chest for more than half of the novel. The book was a mix between Groundhogs Day without the comedy and an intensive on the multiverse theory. As a reader, you begin to understand that something weird is going on, but the jumps back and forth and time bury the lead for a while so it is a very slow build.

I can't say that I fully understand the culmination of the book, but I think that was probably the point. All in all, it was a very captivating read and I am really excited to see what else this author has in store.

There were a lot of interesting concepts explored in this book. It felt like a pertinent mediation on how the COVID-19 pandemic affected personal relationships without being overt in its intention, which I thought was well done. Additionally, I feel that Celt is very good at crafting an interesting conversation to read, and often times the dialogue had me laughing. Unfortunately, the structure of the novel prevents it from gaining any forward momentum, changing direction drastically at the halfway mark and really turning into a slog that never quite picks back up. A good concept that I feel could have been executed better.

2.5 stars. Bertie and Kate, friends since high school, have traveled to Paris together. The world is falling apart around them -- dirty bombs, food rationing, increasingly devastating weather events, escalating global conflicts -- and they want one last chance to see the city before international travel is no longer an option. While on a private tour of the Louvre, they argue and become separated, and Bertie begins to realize that she is living the same day over and over again in an endless quest to be reunited with Kate.

End of the World House is a strange book, to say the least. It's a book about female friendship, millennial ennui, contemporary life, and "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff." Speculative fiction is very difficult to do well, and I'm not sure Adrienne Celt completely succeeded with the time-loop/multiverse aspect of the plot, which felt to me a bit messy and under-developed. I never felt fully invested in the story or the characters, and the ending didn't work for me either. In a book centered on Bertie's quest to be reunited with Kate, the ending became about another person entirely and it was just odd.

I'm just not sure what I was supposed to take away from this story. I didn't find it deep enough to be insightful, and it was too esoteric to be relatable. I think there is definitely an audience for this story, but I'm just not it. Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for my digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As with most genre tropes, I’m a fan of time loops provided the execution is there. If the writer is lazy or uninspired, the loops quickly lose their luster, fading into a spiral of repetition that leaves us bored and disinterested.

But if the writer comes in hot, with thoughtful ideas and narrative clarity, the time loop can be a powerful storytelling weapon, providing an altogether different (but no less effective) path to character development.

Adrienne Celt comes in hot.

Her new book is “End of the World House,” a taut and tightly-told tale of one woman’s journey through the same day over and over again – a journey that leaves her entangled in mystery even as her memories begin to bleed together. The fact that the day in question just happens to be one where she has access to a private tour of the Louvre is just icing on the proverbial cake.

(In case you haven’t worked it out yet, the title of this review translates roughly as “Groundhog Day at the Louvre.” I frankly don’t care if you’re amused or not, because I am delighted with myself.)

This is a story that takes place in a world where the end is looming, where everything exists in a state of perpetual precariousness. And our heroine Bertie is left to navigate this world with companions who may or may not actually be there with her, a messy mélange of memory that leaves her questioning not just the reality of the present, but the truth of the past.

Bertie is a cartoonist who abandoned her artistic dreams for the opportunity to draw the goofy dinosaur mascot of a massive tech conglomerate. It’s a lucrative gig, albeit one that is slowly grinding her creative soul into dust. However, her biggest concern – far beyond the mundanities of her job – is that her beloved Kate is moving to L.A., leaving Bertie alone in San Francisco.

In a last-ditch effort to keep Kate close to her, Bertie agrees to a whirlwind trip to Paris, even though the sociopolitical climate makes such tourism more than a little dangerous. Sure, there’s currently a ceasefire, but that could change at any minute. Before you know it, the bombs are raining down.

Still, the Paris trip proves engaging. But things get weird when Kate meets a stranger at the bar, a guy who offers her a private visit to the Louvre, one that takes place while the museum is closed. It’s odd, but who can resist the opportunity to see something so public in such a private manner?

But when Bertie and Kate go to the museum, their isolated wanderings change into something else. There are others present, just outside of the frame, and things get weird and blurry and … different.

And then the day begins anew.

We walk alongside Bertie as she spends time with Kate, yes, but also Dylan who is Bertie’s boyfriend(?) that sometimes knows who Kate is and sometimes doesn’t. And over and over again, she goes on the prearranged private tour of the Louvre, but every time she enters the museum, she’s tormented by a whirlwind of confusing thoughts. Has she been her before? Does she really know who Dylan is? And what happened to Kate?

It's relatively rare for me to have to put the brakes on in a plot synopsis for a book, but there’s a TON going on in “End of the World House” – far more than I’m interested in sharing. Suffice it to say that the spiraling impact of Bertie’s revisiting of this single day has wider consequences than anyone involved might have expected.

I’ll be honest – I wasn’t sure how I was going to engage with this book. As I said, I’m a fan of time loops, but I’ve been burned too many times. Not an issue here, as it turns out; Celt does a masterful job of navigating the complexities of time shifting. She manages to make each new day into both its own thing and a meditation on the days that have gone before. Unspooling this kind of narrative demands a delicate touch – and Celt proves more than capable of the requisite delicacy.

The joy here is the puzzle-piece complexity of the narrative. Celt has taken the standard time loop trope and given it a tweak; we get the same day over and over again, with the major pieces remaining the same, but with loads of wiggle room in the details. That flexibility gives the reader a sense of constantly being ever-so-slightly off-balance, leaving us all the more invested in engaging with every new bit of information.

Love can evolve when given a chance, just like anything else. “End of the World House” finds a way to give love the necessary space for that evolution – all within the same singular time period. It is a deft and intricate novel, woven together so neatly and tightly that one can’t see the seams, no matter how hard one strains.

Exploring the ways in which relationships can change and grow is pretty standard stuff for literature. Using the same day for those myriad explorations is something else entirely. And that’s what Adrienne Celt does with “End of the World House.” Starting over, starting again, starting anew – it’s all here. And here. And here.

What a difference a day makes.

I liked the premise of this book but I just couldn’t bring myself to really feel for the characters.

When I was recommended this book as someone who loved "Leave the World Behind", I immediately requested it hoping to find the same sense of wonder. Adrienne Celt did not disappoint! End of the World House is a time-loop epic that kept me turning pages!

This book surprised me. Somewhat in a good way, but mostly I was disappointed at where this book went. As it begins, friends Bertie and Kate are visiting the Louvre with the backdrop of a slow apocalypse. Slowly Bertie begins to realize things are not quite what they seem as she keep revisiting the museum. However, this then take a very different turn (I initially thought this was going to be like the time loop episode of the Twilight Zone revival with Topher Grace, it only somewhat is like that). I think the middle of the book really dragged, but the ending somewhat redeemed the book for me even if it was not wholly unexpected. The anecdotes and discussions of friendship and drifting apart were well done, and it was an intriguing concept, even if not executed perfectly.

The premise of End of the World House, along with a blurb comparing it to Severance and Groundhog Day, sold me on this book. But ultimately, I was left a bit disappointed by it.

Things I loved:
-The female friendship. The relationship between Bertie and Kate was well-written. I could really feel the strength of their bond, bordering on co-dependency (at least from Bertie's end). It felt real and I honestly wanted to hang out with them.
-The dystopian setting: This also felt (a little too) real. As you read, you get glimpses of Bertie and Kate's world falling apart: climate change, bombings, etc. With everything going on in the world right now, I could see this scenario playing out in real life.
-The French setting: I love Paris and am a sucker for anything set there. Bonus points for being largely at the Louvre. Who wouldn't want a private tour of that museum??

Unfortunately, the parts that didn't work for me overshadowed those that did, namely the pacing of the book. I LOVED the first part of this book, set at the Louvre, with Bertie and Kate reliving their day over and over. However, once Dylan shows up, the pacing becomes weirdly slow and meandering. The whole reveal with Dylan/Kate/Javier was just bizarre and not in a good way. I wanted more from the ending. Plus, Dylan is incredibly toxic and I was so upset that Celt teases him and Bertie possibly getting back together in the end. For a book that focuses so much on female friendship, Bertie's time with Dylan just annoyed me.

In short, loved the time-bending aspect of this book but I wanted more from it.

Give this book until the end of chapter 7, and it will hook you! The first few chapters set the scene and don’t make much sense unless viewed from the hindsight of later chapters. Once the hook was set, I thoroughly enjoyed following Bertie on her adventure. Contains some adult themes and profanity.

This was a beautifully mind-bending novel about friendship and what shapes our reality. Super trippy in all the right ways.

So this book is really hard to rate.... on one hand, I was really intrigued by the premise and overall concept of the apocalyptic setting and the time loop. It's a premise that I haven't really seen before and I was excited to explore it. The nature of this apocalypse felt very timely to our 2020-2022 experience.

I really enjoyed the exploration of friendship that we see through Bertie and Kate. There was something so relatable about growing up and growing apart but still trying to maintain that closeness that really hits close to home.

Unfortunately, I did not really enjoy the last 20% or so of this book. The ending just didn't seem to line up with the earlier parts of the story. And I did not jive with Dylan or his character at all.

End of the World House by
What if life really is a multiverse and you could relive moments in a time loop by visiting the Louvre in Paris? End of the World House deals with this topic and the topic of friendship and love. Written in loops as well, this novel is very different from many I have read.

This just didn't... work for me? The way it was pitched in the synopsis made it feel as though it legitimately was the same day playing over and over again while this was not???? That???? The 'loop' didn't work. The characters felt flat. There isn't a clear thread / tone running through the story.

Bertie and Kate have been best friends since high school (which is a big deal, especially in a post-apocalyptic world). Before Kate moves from NYC to LA, Bertie and Kate decide to go on a big trip to Paris. Little did they know they were about to embark on a timeless journey.

The first part of the book sets the scene and explains the intricate folds of Bertie and Kate’s friendship / explains why Bertie has basically become emotionally dependent on Kate. Although it is all understandable in the grand scheme of things, the pace of the book makes it feel like Bertie is in a one-sided friendship with Kate - which leaves the reader to either empathize or be annoyed at Bertie’s dependence.

Overall, the writing style wasn’t my cup of tea. At first it was easy to be engaged but as the story went on, it dragged and felt monotonous and never ending. However, I will say that the ending (so the last few chapters) were actually solid and well-written.

Do I think you should drop everything and go get the book? No, but the ending makes up for a dragging book. Do I think you’ll dread having picked up the book? No…actually, maybe? Depends on how good you are at staying engaged with monotonous books.

Regardless, thank you to Goodreads for the ARC!