Bertie and Kate met in high school and are now best friends. They support each other as the world around them collapses. But when Kate decides to move away, Bertie is left floundering. The friends decide to travel to Paris as a last hoorah. One day, they get lost in the Louvre and enter a vortex of experiencing the same day over and over. When will the loop end? Who will survive?
I appreciated the premise that we can make positive changes in life. It's never too late to switch jobs, move into a different house or travel. But this book is fairly lightweight. It didn't make me care for any of the characters. And the title doesn't exactly match the content. I did like the descriptions of the artwork and could taste the Parisian food.

I'm giving this book 3 stars because I want to give it 2 but I didn't finish it and so that wouldn't be fair. Maybe it gets better, but I just don't have the time to keep pushing through it. It's set in this ambiguous future, or alternative reality I don't know it's not clear, and it vaguely references global happenings without enough detail so I was just kind of confused the whole time. And while they are living this same day over, there isn't anything really going on except they are bickering and having a toxic relationship and honestly I hear bikering like that every day from my young children I don't need to read about it. To be fair if there is some meat to this story I didn't get there but there could be and it could be good I just had to cut my loses and move on

I wasn't sure what to expect going into this book. I didn't even read the synopsis after I first requested a copy on NetGalley, so I let the story take me to all its crazy corners. I was immediately drawn in by Bertie & Kate's story, two millennial-types living life at what feels like, or is(?) the end of times. Bombs are exploding around the country, coffee is hard to come by, gas costs close to $10 a gallon, and the world is in turmoil. It all feels eerily possible in the real world, which makes the atmosphere of this story feel all the more real and entrancing. The two venture off to Paris, and things... happen... and happen again. I'll leave it there. Read this book without spoiling it for yourself. Ignore the jacket synopsis and just dive in; you'll be glad you did. If you liked "Leave the World Behind", this feels adjacent.

I’m not a big fan of time loop and time manipulation fiction, but the idea of a sort of Groundhog Day in the Louvre intrigued me, so I decided to give this one a whirl.

Unfortunately, it suffers from the same problems so many time manipulation books ail from, namely a lack of originality and a lack of any real narrative purpose for the characters’ time-related issue.

If characters are going to live the same day over and over, they need to make some kind of progress, learn something, or change something significant in order to make the repetitiveness worth the readers’ time. Though the circumstances did change in this one from loop to loop, in the end, the entire journey is pretty meaningless.

The characters are fairly flat (and mostly unlikable), which doesn’t help the meandering plot and the lack of gravity and meaning in the narrative. The Louvre itself doesn’t play much of a role other than as a backdrop, and the semi-post apocalyptic setting felt both oppressive and half-formed.

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.


End of the World House by Adrienne Celt is a quirky novel set in the near future, partly in Paris and partly on the U.S. West Coast. It is billed as reminiscent of Groundhog Day, using the structure of repeating or reliving a day with slight variations. Presumably, the character would eventually get something right that had been wrong in their life, and thus break from the loop. But it’s not clear that happens here.

Bertie is the protagonist. A late twenties or early thirties woman, her career as a graphic novelist has stalled. She works for a large tech firm as a sort of graphic designer. She doesn’t know what the company actually does, but she is very well paid and her job comes with perks (free food, after-work cocktail parties, health insurance). In the current economy, she is very fortunate and recognizes it, even if she feels her actual job is meaningless.

Bertie’s best friend is Kate. They’ve been friends since high school and have a complicated past. They bonded during the recent crazy years (representing the end of the world as they knew it.) However, Bertie is more attached to Kate than Kate is to Bertie. Rather obsessively so. Kate has decided to move to L.A. for a new job, and Bertie is both furious and devastated.

As a way to salve the pain, Kate agrees to a Paris vacation with Bertie.

The novel opens with the two on their way to the Louvre on a day that it is closed. They had met a man in a bar the previous night who, after flirting with Kate, promised to sneak them into the museum for a private experience. Here things go haywire.

The museum is odd. They wander aimlessly through it. They are separated. Bertie panics. Then she wakes up in the hotel room with Kate and they start the day all over, with similar results.

The two are separated again. But instead of finding Kate, Bertie finds her old boyfriend. He is a stalker it seems, but he understands what’s going on and she doesn’t, so she falls in with him. They end up back in the U.S., living a semi-idyllic life as boyfriend and girlfriend. She has odd compulsions about an old friend she never sees anymore (Kate), and eventually pulls the boyfriend back to Paris.

The novel moves along pretty well. The plotting is clunky, but that is how it’s structured. The characters live superficial lives and are not, in themselves, very interesting or likeable. Even the friendship between Bertie and Kate doesn’t ring true, since they spend their short times together getting on one another’s nerves and apologizing passive-aggressively.

The true star in this novel, the thing that kept me reading, was the setting. The disturbing atmosphere captured the disconnected weirdness of a slow crawl to the end times. People know the world is falling apart yet strain for some semblance of normalcy. Looking at it from the outside is horrifying. Particularly because it is holding a mirror up to our current day.

Rather than a pandemic, there was a worldwide series of unexplained bombings. People hunkered down. They chose buddies for sheltering in place (like Covid pods.) Political upheavals, border closings, supply chain issues, gas rationing, the rich getting richer while the poor get left behind, living lives through social media, and the omnipresent evidence of climate change is all here. And people’s response (or lack of response) to it all is realistically, depressingly, portrayed.

Human interaction becomes very superficial. Best friends can be discarded, or maybe they were never all that close. It was easy for Bertie to become fragmented, for her reality to dissolve, because there was so little real there to begin with. The ending is not hopeful. Nor is it satisfyingly sad. It’s just unsettling.

Bertie and Kate have been best friends (somewhat codependently) since high school. Since then the world has been taking a nosedive -- climate change, bombings, food shortages, etc. When Kate announces she's taking a job in L.A. and moving away from Bertie, the two decide to take a last-hurrah trip to Paris, in particular, the Louvre. The famous museum becomes ground zero for what I'll call Schrodinger's Bertie, wherein she experiences a time loop wherein there are, have been, and will be multiple Berties. It's a bit convoluted and I'm not sure how I feel about Bertie or Kate or Bertie's love connection, Dylan, but the novel kept my interest throughout.

[Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an advanced reader copy of this book.]

I found it really hard to get into this book, but the premise sounded so up my alley that I have to believe that this is a case of the wrong book at the wrong time. I think if I came back to this later I might feel differently and can definitely understand that others would love this book. For that reason, I give this 3/5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

End of the World House is a dystopian science fiction novel set in a future where wars and climate change have caused fires, floods, shortages and closed frontiers throughout the whole world.

Bertie and Kate have been best friends since high school. They live in San Francisco. With everything that’s happening, Bertie wants to buy a house with Kate and live together until the end of the world (literally). But one day Kate tells Bertie that she decided to take a job and move to Los Angeles. Bertie feels hurt and betrayed, so they decide to go to Paris while traveling is still possible, as a way to save their friendship.

During their trip they meet a mysterious man that offers them a private tour of the Louvre, but when they get there, they end up trapped in a time loop.

The story is narrated through Bertie’s perspective, alternating between their present in Paris and her past. It also jumps from timeline to timeline, playing not only with time but with different realities. I honestly felt like I was as confused as Bertie through the whole story.

The premise was very interesting and I love books and movies that play with time but the plot felt convoluted and I couldn’t really connect with any of the main characters. Also, the ending was wrapped up too quickly and I feel like the main issue between them wasn’t really resolved.

Overall it was an entertaining read and I couldn't help but feel envious of them having the Louvre all to themselves. Also, the cover is beautiful!

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review. The book came out April 19, 2022.

Kate and Bertie have been best friends since high school. Kate has decided to move from San Francisco to Los Angeles for a new job. Bertie tries to get Kate to stay but her mind is set in stone. They decide to go on a trip to Paris as a final way to celebrate their friendship. They are also in the middle of a world apocalypse with war, fires and bloods, and shortages of supplies.

In Paris they meet a man who offers them private tours of the Louvre. The women find that the day continues to repeat itself. The book alternated between the girls friendship in the past and their current situation in Paris. I was super excited to read about females trying to navigate not only an apocalypse but also their possible crumbling friendship. Instead, I found it extremely boring honestly and a little repetitive. Obviously the whole ground hog day thing can be repetitive but I don’t like the way it was written. I found myself bored and then of course a man comes in and it becomes all about him. The man also can change the future with the snap of his fingers? Like what are you, Thanos? Cliche and unoriginal. As you’ve guessed, I was sorely disappointed.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advanced copy of this book. Side note, this cover is amazing.

Loved the idea of this and honestly loved where the story went, I just felt like the characters were hard to get to know/understand? More character development would have pushed this over the edge for me but still enjoyed it. Would love to see it as a movie!

This story takes place in a society that is falling apart, bombs going off, an increase in police presence, shortages of food, rationing of utilities, without much explaining how or why this came about. The main character Bertie, an illustrator who lives in the Bay area, decides after multiple bombings in Paris and with vacation sales plummeting that she wants to take a vacation with her best friend Kate before Kate moves to LA. They are offered the opportunity to explore the Louvre on a day when it is closed to the public and while there, some kind of time warp (?) things happens (?), Bertie repeats the same day over a few times, not really remembering the previous day, maybe remembering a few things... like something is off. Anyway, during one of these time warp-y episodes, this guy appears who then becomes her boyfriend, Kate seems to have disappeared completely. Back to California with the boyfriend before returning to France again later in the book.
I think this story had potential but the set up was not well defined, there were too many characters that were unnecessary to the story, it just didn't work for me, unfortunately.

I wanted to like this one – the premise sounded right up my alley. But unfortunately it felt scattered and chaotic, leaving me confused and wondering what I was reading for most of the 50% I read. Plus, I just wasn't compelled to keep picking it up. This could have been a case of wrong book for me, so please read other reviews if this is one you're interested in.

I couldn't finish this book. I tried, I really did, but life's too short to read something that doesn't excite you. It has such potential, but there's a trick of making a repitious day/event interesting and engaging and unfortunately, Celt wasn't able to find that trick. I found the characters droll--Bertie is needy, lost, and annoying while Kate is selfish and obnoxious. Other characters popped up, but I didn't care about them. I didn't care about the end of the world going on outside and around them, and I didn't care to finish the book to find out why they're stuck in a timeloop. It was just really disappointing.

Like other readers, I was excited about the setting and dynamics in this book. I like books that focus on female friendship, and who can resist long stints of time spent in the most famous art museum in the world? I looked forward to figuring out the whole time loop thing the main characters were stuck in. Unfortunately, as other reviewers noted, secondary male characters were introduced, and with their introduction came some issues related to what might be best categorized as 'informed consent.' The main male character introduced definitely seemed to know more about the nature of the situation they were all stuck in, and seemed to have some abilities over it...which gave him more power over his 'romantic interest'...thus their relationship was not equal and her involvement with him felt as though it was under false pretenses on his part...the way it worked out made it feel even worse, especially when society is generally endeavoring to do more aware of these sorts of issues in the wake of movements such as #metoo. I think the author has promise, and I hope to read more from her in the future--perhaps with more care given to these sorts of issues.

Bertie and Kate are the kind of friends who reconnect in an instant, have inside jokes and their own universe when they are together. The world around them is falling apart with bombings and refugees, and Kate decides to move to Los Angeles instead of buying a house in northern California like they'd planned.

They end up in Paris on a last hurrah, where they meet a mysterious man who can get them into the Louvre even though it is closed for safety. And that's where the strangeness begins, or at least, when they start to notice it. Is it part of the apocalypse? Is someone experimenting with them? Is it the museum or the world? Regardless, days seem very familiar, and then Kate disappears.

This was a fun read..I'm not sure I'm satisfied by the ending entirely but I did enjoy the journey. I feel like this is a mix of Piranesi and the film Seeking a Friend for the End of World, but I liked it more than Piranesi. Another reading friend also found the tone to be similar to Leave the World Behind, and I thought that was a good comparison, the doom of the surrounding events that aren't entirely understood, and knowing that what is happening simultaneously has something to do with what is happening and that it wouldn't be happening without those events.

End of the World House
by Adrienne Celt
Genre: Fiction / Sci-Fi / Fantasy
Pub Date: 4/19/22
A propulsive, dystopian journey of two best friends through an all-too-believable multi-verse.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞: Bertie & Kate have the kind of age-defying, sibling-esque friendship that defines one's life in the way only a great, platonic love can. In part one, we find Bertie experiencing a Groundhog Day like repetition of a day at the Louvre with various outcomes as she navigates, or circumnavigates, to the truth. A very Jeremy-Bearamy situation for all my Good Place heads out there. Part two examines how and to what extent Bertie & Kate's friendship will always exist in the wake of grown up problems, interfering parties and the choices we make as individuals.

I absolutely could NOT put this book down--start to finish it is a race through tension, time, and circumstance. It's troubling in how plausible and real the world of Bertie and Kate feels in light of today's current slate of potentially apocalyptic problems and, for that reason, I both loved and feared this book's ultimate conclusion.

"No experience was real anymore unless it was photographed and shared; everyone's dreams were full of screens to swipe left or right on. A museum, in particular, cried out to be documented: like a phone, it was a space that made its own context, a zone of curation."

Also, Celt writes of Silicon Valley and the tech world with such piercing deftness it is both hilarious and horrifying--I mean here I am evaluating her words on an app that most certainly tracks my metrics and analytics in catering to my engagement, but yet I can't help but participate because it is often the greatest source of content curated to my specific interests!

"The thing that made the world's collapse so hard to parse was the regularity that persisted, in spite of everything."

There's also something incredibly surreal with how well Celt describes a post-pandemic, pre-climate failure world. AND as much as that sounds depressing, I assure you it was not. This book is a wallop; it's a thinker, but in that metaphysical, beautiful and grateful to be but dust in the wind kind of way.

Perfect for fans of Russian Doll; LOST; The Leftovers. Thank you @simonandschuster for the finished copy. I am totally in love with this book!!!

Thanks #netgalley for this book in exchange for an honest review. I read this entire book, thinking it would help wrap up some part of the story. But alas, I feel that I wasted my time. The premise is about the main character's struggles with her friendship with Kate. But almost half this book is about her romantic relationship and work. I didn't need all the details in the work section - skip because it doesn't really do anything for the story. Unfortunately, I think the idea behind this book could have been written into something enjoyable but the author missed it for me.

For the first half of the book I was happy to go along with the different themes, but the author lost me with the second half. This was a case of me wanting the book to go in a different direction than what was intended. I wanted the book to focus on the friendship of Bertie and Kate, but when the story changed to focus on Bertie and her boyfriend I lost intetest.

I'm actually heartbroken that I didn't enjoy this more. I was immediately drawn in by the amazing cover and the intriguing summary that promised a gripping comedy, but that didn't come through in this book at all. It felt overly repetitive and the underlying tone of the whole thing just put me off in a way that's hard to describe. I hope others like it more than I did!

This is a hard book to rate, because I really loved the beginning, and where I thought the story was headed/was focused on. But the last 15-20% kind of disappointed me, and kind of made me wonder if what I thought was the point of the story was what the author was trying to say at all. I did enjoy quite a bit though, so let's break it down!

What I Liked:

►Loved the take on this particular apocalypse! The author explores the ways the world has (or in many cases, hasn't) changed since things started going wrong. People are, for the most part, in complete denial that the lives that they once knew are over. And honestly? It tracks. Didn't people try to do just that with COVID? I found it so fascinating and thought provoking, that people will, even at the end of the world, pretend everything's just fine.
►The exploration of the ups and downs of friendship into adulthood was fabulous. Bertie and Kate had been friends for a long time, and I really appreciated that the author examined how much relationships like this can change over the years. As time and distance change us, how does friendship evolve? That Bertie still felt so protective of her friendship with Kate, even as they have both taken different paths in life, was great, even if it happened to be not always the healthiest.

►The mystery itself definitely kept me intrigued- what was happening to Bertie? I love a mystery, especially when it involves sci-fi elements. Obviously, Bertie reliving the same day fits into this category, but it is clear that there is more to it than that. She keeps experiencing some bizarre events- bizarre even for someone stuck living the same day. I'll leave it at that, but suffice it to say, it was intriguing.

What I Didn't:

►I kind of guessed some of the ending earlier in the book, and when I did, I wasn't thrilled? It seemed to sort of negate the entirety of events in the first part, in some ways. Again, I have to be purposely vague about this, because spoilers, but I just thought that the story was about one thing, then it takes a pretty big 180 into another altogether. One I liked less, too, as it turned out.

►I did not like the romantic interest that was introduced. Oh, this guy. Again, he's not a thing at the start of the story, which is why I am going to be vague about him here (honestly all this vagueness is getting pretty annoying, sorry about that). But he sucks, frankly, and I didn't want nor need him in this story.

Bottom Line: I loved the first part of the story, especially the time loops and apocalypse friendships. The latter part, less so.