I LOVED this book and finished it in one sitting. This doomsday story was so unexpectedly adventurous and intriguing. It gave me the same vibes as “Pretty Little Liars” and “Ace of Spades”. The plot continued to build from simply being about a girl in private school to much larger themes of privilege and white supremacy. It also incorporated climate change and brought attention to various disabilities. I could easily picture this as a movie and I hope it becomes a book series!

Jen Wilde's "This is the Way the World Ends" is a dynamic story of a queer, neurodivergent girl on scholarship at an elite private prep school. There is a lot to love in this book, Waverly, the main character and her small group of true friends are fun and funny, and engaging, Additionally, the concept of the book is a lot of fun. However, I think this is one of those stories where you either love the first half or the second, as it's very different. Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed the story's first half, but the second fell short for me. I do see a lot of promise in Jen Wilde's work, and will definitely be checking out her next novel.

This is the Way the World Ends is a YA apocalyptic thriller. When Waverly, an autistic scholarship student at the prestigious Webber Academy in NYC, plays Cinderella and goes to her schools masquerade ball as Caroline, a rich socialite, not everything goes as planned. What should be Waverly’s dream night quickly turns into her nightmare when a murder and a blackout caused by a solar flare throw the night into chaos.

I had high hopes for this book at the beginning and was really getting into the whole Cinderella theme with Waverly masquerading as Caroline at the ball, but the book took a few twists and turns that weren’t for me. I enjoyed some of the characters, but when the storyline started turning apocalyptic it was a bit much for me. About halfway through the book I’m lost interest and found myself wondering how the beginning of the book had devolved into this. I feel like a lot of the time I was having a hard time keeping up and following along with what was happening and then the ending kind of left me hanging. It isn’t a cliffhanger, but there really isn’t any resolution to the chaos that is taking place. I’m not sure if another book is planned, but the way the ending was left open definitely gives this potential.

Overall, I enjoyed the beginning of this book and would have loved to see the Cinderella-esque theme played out in a different way, it this book took too much of a sci-fi turn for me that didn’t interest me. It’s not a bad book and it was a quick read, but it’s not my cup of tea.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book!

What was most intriguing to me was that this book is like Gossip Girl taking place in an Escape Room - I was hooked from the beginning! I will also read and recommend anything with a cult in it, and those details about its inner workings were some of my favorites as they were uncovered. I will definitely be recommending this as something more diverse in the YA thriller space that can especially feel overwhelmingly homogenous. More sapphic thrillers like this, please!

I picked up this book because I saw the MC was autistic and kept turning the page as I was drawn into a fast paced story. Waverly is a scholarship student in the world of the elite, trying to find a way to beat the system and help her parents who are struggling financially and, in the case of her mother, physically. When one of her friends Caroline, one of the elite and most popular students, suggests that Waverly go in her place to an exclusive party being held by the dean of their school Waverly does it when she finds out her ex-girlfriend Ash is going to be there. They ended things on a very sour note, Ash disappearing across the pond without so much as a goodbye, and Waverly looks at this as a way to get answers.
But what starts as a way to get closure in her love life, turns into a night of murder and apocalyptic nightmares.
I LOVED this book so much. The diversity of the characters was refreshing, from characters with physical disabilities, neurological disabilities, different ethnicities, etc. The villains of the story were almost stereotypical, but at the same time I can think of twenty real life people I could 1000% doing the same thing so the stereotypical becomes chilling.
The story does start off a little slow, as we get to know Waverly and the world around her. But once she arrives at the party, hold on because holy shit.
The romance is there, but it's definitely not the forefront. This focuses more on Waverly's growth and damn does she. Never does she lose the fact that she has panic attacks, meltdowns, that she is autistic, but she shows the rich and powerful that she isn't someone to be messed with. Especially when they hurt her friends.

Thank you so much @prhaudio & @wednesdaybooks for the Alc & eArc! I love a book about the end of it all.

Review:

This is a story about the way it ends, not with a bang, but with champagne and beautiful dresses.

I’m very torn on this one, because the first half of it was aggressively meh for me.. it was a lot of pining, relationship development & angst, which while fine, wasn’t super interesting to me. Then, it rapidly switched gears into being a book about a party at the collapse of society! Once it picked up it didn’t stop and I was all in until the end. I think I would’ve enjoyed it as a whole more if it had been 20% world & character ground work and 80% action.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️. 💫 rounded to 4!

This book was okay. It was a quick read. I think high schoolers would really like it. I enjoyed some of the surprises, but others I saw coming. This is not your typical thriller.

This Is The Way The World Ends by Jen Wilde was a wild ride! At first I wasn’t sure if this was the book for me (I’m not big into thrillers) but the fact that it was YA with a queer, autistic protagonist had me curious. I am so glad I read it!

Filled with your typical YA school drama that I’m a sucker for, fantastic supporting characters represented from other marginalized backgrounds and some romance, the beginning was good. Then about 40% into it, the twists and turns began and I was even more hooked. As much as I wish the book didn’t end when it did, it was the perfect ending and this book as a whole was fantastic!

I am new to reading Jen Wilde and I am a fan!

Thank you NetGalley, author Jen Wilde and Wednesday Books for the ARC!

I read this a few weeks ago and I barely remember anything. Was fast and chaotic. I liked the representation especially of chronic pain but this book just felt too everywhere and super unrealistic.

This Is the Way the World Ends by Jen Wilds is a really interesting young adult novel that I really enjoyed.

The main character, Waverly is a queer young woman with autism. I absolutely LOVED the way the author portrayed Waverly. This was definitely a character driven story with Waverly at the center.

Definitely part YA and part dystopian, the author brings readers on a wonderful and fast paced adventure with well written diverse characters.

Review will be live 5/7/23

I do love books that feature the potential end of days, don’t I? I have at least three happening in this post alone, in fact! This one was a little different than the others, and definitely worth chatting about so… let’s!

What I Loved:

-It features a queer, autistic main character. That is a win right there, yes? Extra because the author is both queer and autistic also! Add to it, I quite liked Waverly as a character too.

-Who doesn’t love a masquerade ball? I mean, that is cool! And then you tell me that shit’ll hit the fan during said ball?! Yes please! Fancy apocalypses are kind of the best!

-The story itself kept me intrigued and reading. Look, I wanted to know what was going on, full stop. So the author definitely did a good job of making the stakes high and the story exciting and readable. The action is pretty on point, and entertaining. And, I enjoyed Waverly enough to want to know her fate (and that of her friends).

What I Struggled With:

-I read some reviews that talk about the author maybe trying too hard to appeal to teens, and I have to agree. Part of this is a personal thing, I don’t love an overabundance of references to current cultural icons and media, as it has a tendency to date the book. It also really takes me out of a story, and again, I am not even sure why, it just does. And there is a lot of it in this book, and it isn’t like, necessary to the story in any way.

-I wish we’d delved into Waverly’s autism a bit more. She tells us about it a lot, but we don’t actually get a sense of what she is dealing with. There were a few very random moments where her autism shone through in her behavior, but it was incredibly inconsistent, and I didn’t just want her to tell the reader she was autistic. I hate being nitpicky about this because this is #ownvoices, but as someone who works with kids with autism every day of the week, I know it is more than just a stereotypical “clapping excitedly” and then sis can go about her life totally fine even during super stressful situations. So I guess I wish we were shown instead of just told.

-It requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. I just didn’t buy a lot of what happened in this story, especially in the second half of the book. As such, I can’t say a ton about why, but I’ll do my best. Basically, the “bad guys” were just… over the top? And their reasoning didn’t make a ton of sense? Also, I felt like a lot of questions that I personally had went unanswered.

Bottom Line: It was entertaining and intriguing, though I did feel a bit let down by the reveals.

This book was not for me. I think this is an age thing, because I would have enjoyed it more as a teenager than I did today, and that's totally a me thing rather than a book thing. I liked Waverly and I liked that the autism rep was really well done, but that's about where it ends for me.

First of all, this book was very political, and that totally pulled me out of the story. And that's really saying something because I 100% support the politics the book is pushing, but it just felt like it was all telling and no showing, making it seem very performative.

The actual storyline was super confusing and the pacing was off in the middle to the point where I had to force myself to keep reading. And then there's just a tonne of stuff that doesn't make any sense. For example, there's an evil lair type situation with a maze and a video that is playing on a loop for some reason that isn't explained, and a diorama of the evil plan in the middle and initially the space is supposed to be for adults only but it doesn't seem like the adults ever actually make it there. So it was just a very elaborate way of displaying the evil plan that only Waverly ever sees? Make it make sense.

This was a very frustrating read for me because, again, I was really invested in the MC. She's the only reason I kept reading. But the plot was just all over the place and totally ruined it for me.

This Is the Way the World Ends is a YA thriller that unfolds during a elite private schools masquerade ball. The story includes characters who are neurodivergent, or have chronic illnesses which were handled respectfully. Waverly is a scholarship student who is attending the ball incognito hoping for a second chance with her ex-girlfriend. As what the significance of the night and the ball is eventually discovered by Waverly, she and her friends must work together to save each other. The story turns into a full out action filled story in the second half of the book. The story was chaotic at times. I found it hard to understand some of Waverly's actions. The story hinges on the fact that no one in the government knew in advance about the apocalyptic event that would be happening that night, which bothered me. I guess I needed this part of the story explained more.

Thank you NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the advanced reader copy. This is my honest review.

While I thought this story had an interesting premise, it ended up just not being for me. A young girl changes places with her rich friend in order to attend a masquerade ball she could never afford otherwise. While at the ball, Waverly (I love that name btw) witnesses a murder, then there is a global blackout before Waverly can figure out what to do about what she saw. In the ensuing chaos, Waverly and her friends have to figure out how to escape the party.

I liked the beginning where we meet Waverly and her two best friends Franky and Pari, however, once they arrive at the party things just start going bananas.. like completely bonkers. There is a murder, and a global blackout, and most of the adults at the ball seem to be a part of this villainous plot and the girl whose place Waverly took at the party seems to be key to everything. I just felt like it went too far with too little explanation of how we got there, I also really didn't connect with any of the characters, and I just felt myself not caring what happened to any of them.

This premise of the book immediately caught my attention. I was excited to read a suspenseful book featuring a queer character who was also Autistic. The way Wilde depicts Autism was authentic, and the first 50% was really solid. I enjoyed the Gossip Girl meets Cinderella vibes. However, the "suspenseful" aspect gets too over the top and oddly dystopian... like to the point where it is absurd and made me lose interest. As with other reviewers, I also think that this book tried to cater too much to Gen Z readers by being overly "woke." I am all for representation, and I think that some of the characters were well done; however, it also seemed like the author just threw a bunch of identity traits together for the sake of it. I am walking away from this one having enjoyed the characters and prospect much more than the executed plot.

This wasn’t what I expected it to be—which isn’t necessarily bad, but it also wasn’t necessarily good. There was a lot that I liked. But there was also a lot that could have been better developed.

I heard the premise and it immediately sounded like Cinderella if it was a queer disabled modern-day thriller—and with a pitch like that, what’s not to love? Waverly, the story’s lead, is queer and autistic and still pining after the girl who ghosted her and mysteriously fled to London. Her mom has MS, and her best friend has hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS). As someone who has hEDS and is neurodivergent, I was beyond thrilled to see the representation at the start of the book. But what started as casual representation quickly morphed into side characters whose only traits were their disabilities—and you are reminded of this every single time the disabled side character is on the page. While I did feel like disability was dealt with sensitively, I would have really liked to see more emotional depth from each of the characters. The writing lacked the necessary emotional weight to really carry the plot and endear you to the characters.

I liked Waverly well enough as a main character. And unlike the side characters, she was well developed. Her autism was a part of her that impacted every aspect of her life—and I think the story did an excellent job of showing that. I know the author wrote from her own experience and you can definitely tell that they put so much heart into the story.

The plot was somehow like nothing I’d ever read before and too cliche for my taste. The writing reminded me a great deal of The Selection by Kierra Cass, if it took place in a modern day high school with queer kids. I never knew what was going to happen next, mostly because what happened next was always the next most dramatic, outrageous, unexpected-in-a-bad-way thing to happen. Every time something bad happened, I didn’t really care enough to worry about the characters. I especially disliked the love interest, Ash, who felt too complicit in the heinous acts of her father most of the story for me to root for her and Waverly to end up together.

Overall, this book was just okay.

*Thank you to the publisher and Wednesday books for the eARC! All views reflected are my own.

Traditional YA queer romcom with a neurodivergent main character which then turns into a sci-fi apocalyptic thriller towards the end which I wish wasn’t the direction the book went in.
Waverly is fortunate to attend one of the most prestigious prep schools, the Webber Academy, thanks to a very generous scholarship. Being a gay, autistic student, she struggles to fit in with the other students. As a low income family, she tutors other students on the side to make money. One of the students she tutors is one of the most popular girls in school, Caroline, who wants a break from her life. So when the annual masquerade ball comes around, they decide to let Waverly go in Caroline’s place. And Waverly sees it as her one chance to reconnect with her ex girlfriend, Ash. But nothing goes as planned and Waverly ends up seeing a gruesome murder during a worldwide blackout.
The supporting characters could have been fleshed out better and the ending was vague and inconclusive. I’m mixed about how I feel about it overall.
Thanks to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for this eArc in exchange for my review.

𝚁𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐: 3.5⭐️
𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: YA LGBTQIA+ Mystery 📚

𝙼𝚢 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜:
This book is a wild ride and was not at all what I was expecting. It’s part mystery, part sci-fi dystopian fiction, and part second chance queer romance.

𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎:
Crazy apocalyptic plots
Side plot of queer romance
Fast paced and interesting reads
Quirky queer FMC
Prestigious prep school setting
Masquerade ball with a murder
Quick one sitting reads

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚍:
Autism rep
LGBTQIA+ rep
Disabled rep
Diverse characters

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗’𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛:
I enjoyed it but there was too much going on
I wanted more from the ending

dnf @ 24%. honestly, i didn't have any big issues with this book, i just wasn't vibing with it. i had no desire to pick it up, and it didn't feel worth forcing myself through. i would definitely consider picking it up again at some point, but right now i have so many other books i want to read and give my time to over this one.

Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the ARC of this book. All my opinions are my own.

I am a sucker for prep school/high school thrillers, so the minute I heard about this one, I absolutely had to read this one. I am so glad I did! Wilde crafts such a unique and interesting plot and story line. I loved how different it was from the typical plot line in these type thrillers. I was hooked on this from the first chapter. It was engrossing and enthralling. I could even feel my heart racing at times. This was great! If you're a thriller lover, you don't want. to miss this one. It's super good!