Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

The Beauty of the End follows twins Charlie and Maggie in a sort of alternate history where scientists discover that every creature -- including humans -- have a date of extinction encoded into their DNA.

There was a lot that I thought was really strong about this book, most especially its funky ending and its overall premise. The entire opening, where we get to experience the discovery of the limit through a vanished cicada brood, had me absolutely hooked, and I was looking forward to the way the book would explore the implications of this limit on humans. What I didn't expect, and what I really struggled with pretty much up until the end, was that our two girls would become scientists whose involvement in the social crisis of the discovery of the limit is one where they surrender any potential they have of experiencing it in the name of finding a cure. I thought at least one of them might go the route of trying to do her duty to the species or something, but instead that was explored very little, and exclusively through characters we only briefly met. I found myself wanting to know more of what this world was like outside of their labs and offices, and I wanted the book to dig far more than it did into the experience of being a woman in this society. At the time I read the book, I didn't know about Lauren Stienstra's involvement in public health, specifically during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic response, and that certainly informs a lot of the trajectory of this book. I don't think that knowing this ahead of time would have made me feel too differently about the sequence of events, but it would have set me up with better expectations.

All that said, I don't think wanting far more than a book provided is necessarily a bad thing. The world Stienstra sets up is compelling and intriguing, and the characters were beautifully complicated and nuanced. I'll certainly be picking up more of her writing in the future.

I tried to read this, but I could only get 10% through the version that NetGalley gave me access to.

The writing was very clunky, both at the sentence level ("Don't you worry your precious little head about what's going on in here. Remember what your mother always says: if you wait patiently and quietly, everything will turn out fine.") and structurally: exposition, obvious exposition, plodding exposition.

[a few spoilers follow, though if they occur in the first 30 pages, are they spoilers?]

When news of global infertility of all life gets announced, it happens "...on Friday, the thirteenth of May. The date was, of course, a coincidence. At least that's what they told us." Because, the other explanation is, what? That world governments would intentionally announce catastrophic news on a day that's a superstition for bad luck? It was paragraph after paragraph of things like this that didn't make sense.

If the writing had been gorgeous, I still probably wouldn't have continued. The premise is that scientists discover that all life (or maybe just animal life) has a pre-programmed number of generations remaining until it stops being able to reproduce. Nope. That's not how genes work. Moreover, it is this genetic issue that was actually behind extinctions like those of the dodo and the woolly mammoth. "Geneticists located the cursed gene in every single [species]. Much to the misfortune of life on our planet, these creatures hadn't fallen victim to overhunting or habitat loss or climate change, as previously hypothesized. They'd simply expired according to a preordained genetic schedule."

I couldn't go on. I get that Stienstra wants to get to a world where some kids know they're the final generation. But just start it there. Don't give this weird setup that feels more like Koch Brothers' revisionist history than justification for a speculative novel. I was angry and insulted by the writing AND the plot. Too bad. The cover is lovely.

I hate to give ARCs a low rating, but this took me a month to read because I just hated picking it up. Which was so disappointing because the premise and the first third of the novel were really engaging! I love how it started off feeling very dystopian and from a child's point of view and the creation of a government solution to extintion was interesting, but then it just continued to decline. The scope of what Stienstra was working with felt extremely large and I think that it why a lot of the holes in the plot started to surface. This could have all been fine (not great, but fine) if the ending didn't make me so mad. I hate when the childless woman (who didn't want children in the first place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) ends up having kids because she feels some higher purpose in doing so. It invalidates women's choices and it felt so tone def for a story about the end of the world idk.

3.25⭐
Thanks to NetGalley, Little A, and the author for the advanced copy!

The Beauty of the End follows twins Charlie and Maggie, adopted into a working-class family after being born to Marshallese parents.

As the world faces human extinction due to genetic decline, the two become involved in a scientific group called the Mendelia, which tries to save humanity through selective breeding.

Maggie is fully committed, but Charlie remains doubtful and conflicted. The story spans about fourteen years, showing how Charlie struggles to balance her love for her sister with her own beliefs and the weight of the world's future.

Though the book explores interesting themes like medical ethics, adoption, and sibling bonds, it doesn't always feel focused. The pacing is uneven, and Charlie's passive nature can be frustrating, especially compared to Maggie’s energy.

The final part of the novel feels off-tone and might be uncomfortable for some readers, especially around themes of birth and trauma. Still, it's a bold debut with big ideas, and the author shows promise for future work.

Thanks to Netgalley and Little A for this ARC in exchange for an honest review! The premise of this story intrigued me and, weeks later, it is still memorable. However, I felt the writing style was more junior than expected and the characters were not very fleshed out. You knew everyone in a surface level manner only but either didn't get any detail or got too much unnecessary detail. The science behind this concept also has to be taken with a grain of salt as it wasn't very believable to me (and I don't know much).
I'd recommend this for fans of YA and as a 'sci-fi' ish palette cleanser between heavier reads.

I was really hoping for something dark, like Handmaids Tale, but I feel like either the author or publisher wanted to hold back.

This is a book about two sisters trying to save the world in the face of near-future extinction. It tackles themes of reproductive ethics, parenting, and how we as a society should act facing imminent extinction, among other things, themes that are very much relevant in our real world situation. However, the book doesn't seem to be very interested in deeply exploring all of those things, instead, it focuses more on the main character, the people around her, and all the things that happen to them. The themes are just there to be touched upon when the story calls for it. The fact that it's so plot-centric makes this book a thrilling read that's hard to put down, but at some point, it becomes clear that this book is more interested in that, and shocking readers, instead of exploring the themes. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just something that should make readers adjust their expectations accordingly.

Sisters Charlie and Maggie adoptees in a dystopian society, but feeling very much of today, are being raised in the “before times” when their president announces there would be no more babies. Soon extinction talk was rampant, from cicadas to rats- the story of a crumbling society told through the eyes of children.

A crumbling society may be hard to read right now but this was easily written and flowed, so I found this a quick read. We are too dismissive of children at times, telling them not to worry, just be kids; when they understand more than we know and want to help. So many lines where you really needed to read between the lines, where you could see where the author got some everyday inspiration from. The innuendoes were not subtle.

The plot moved quicker through an idea when I wanted the book to sit on it for a little, add some detail, and really flush it out. The middle did drag a little. And a lot of it dragged, as it switched from a plot story to be more focused on the character development of the sisterly bond and I was really craving the plot. The author unfortunately softened a pretty deep plot line into a young adult love triangle for a bit.

The strength in the story is when it focuses on scientists playing God, and their implications. The decisions either main character made, felt like it was motivated by selfish means and the plot was flip flopping between whether letting Maggie and Charlie show signs of any humanity or not. So the depth of the development of the characters strongly showing in the middle, was disregarded for the end. Almost as if the novel couldn’t decide what it wanted to focus to be.

Overall, an interesting story but may not be for everybody.

This book was so up my alley. Charlie and Maggie are twins in a suburb of Pennsylvania who live a relatively normal life, until scientists discover that humanity will be extinct in four generations due to a genetic mutation. 10 years later, Charlie and Maggie graduate high school and join the Mendelia, the government agency tasked with trying to find a cure through any means: principally, by having scientists combine eggs and sperm in interesting combinations to see if they can create babies that do not have the genetic mutation (it's more complicated than that of course, but I don't want to give anything away). Charlie and Maggie have very different feelings about the Mendalia, and their bond is tested as they navigate being adults in a fragile world.

I really enjoyed this book. It raises incredibly interesting questions about whether sacrificing a few is worth it to save the many, how much of the present we should let go for the future, and how ethical it is to play God with people's reproductive choices and futures if they give you "permission." It's also a really moving story of family and sibling love, and what we do when we don't understand or agree with each other. And, it's a fast-paced story that sucks you in right away with just enough context before getting into the action. This story feels particularly relevant at a time when it's becoming more and more possible to make custom embryos, and I was fascinated by the candid conversations the characters had about the implications of their work. I also appreciated that the book did not shy away from the fact that the government scientists sought to take advantage of marginalized populations and capitalized on people's trust in science to mislead them and cover up way too many things, as that is unfortunately how these situations generally go. This book covers a lot of ground in not that many pages, and I left the book with a couple questions, but overall this was extremely satisfying!

Thank you to Little A and NetGalley for an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an advanced reader's copy!

While this is a dystopian type plot, the main storyline isn’t really about that. It’s mostly about how these two characters respond to the circumstances and then a weird journey of attempting to help the problem. The setting isn’t really that fleshed out, it doesn’t always make perfect sense. The character motivations were not always clear to me either. Overall it was an interesting idea and I was interested.

The Beauty of the End by new to me author Lauren Stienstra, published by Little A; is a heartwrenchingly beautiful story that gives all the feels and deserves all the stars.
Well written, intriguing, literallyunputdownable, a real pageturner.

The world is coming to an end. Each human has been coded with a finite number of generations that will come after them. For some it will be the end of the family line. For others they may have 2 or 3 more generations that can come into being. Soon the human population will die out. The book focused on the Mendels, who were scientists trained especially to harvest eggs from donated ovaries and sperm samples. The Mendels would implant different combos of egg/sperm in women, attempting to create the DNA that would allow for increasing the number of generations. The science was hard for me to understand but it didn't detract from the novelty of the story. The book was not a doomsday story, painting the earth as desolate with dying people. There was no panic. No riots and looting. It was the story of twins, their life as Mendels, and the ethics of implanting mutant DNA. This book earns itself 3.5 stars for its novel and interesting story line but rounded down for it's slow pace. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the complementary digital ARC. My review is my own opinion and not coerced in any way.

A great speculative fiction novel.
The story was absolutely engaging and the setting was noticeable and superb.
The story has many twists and turns, which kept me reading for more.
A really good debut!

This book has some very interesting themes that feel more timely now than ever before. Reproduction rights, ethics, personal freedoms, etc. This was just dystopian and speculative enough to scratch the exact right part of my brain!

I always enjoy books about sisters, so I knew I would like this one. I sometimes worry I won't be able to follow speculative fiction or scifi but I followed this easily enough. This one made me think and compare to our society and how it could be in the future.

Imagine an alternative version of our world in which humanity discovered that its own extinction was encoded in its DNA. How would our lives look? How would we think of our own bodies? How much control would we have over our own futures? The Beauty of the End by Lauren Stienstra is a very ambitious novel. While I'm not entirely sold on the execution, I think there are interesting questions being asked her. Thanks to Little A and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Bodily autonomy is one of those topics that can shift a conversation into a surprising number of directions. For some, like me, it is a major element of our belief in a right to abortion, a key cornerstone in feminist arguments. I imagine it is also an important topic in the trans community and in conversations around disability. However, ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it has become a talking point on the right side of the political spectrum as well, with people arguing for their right to not mask or get vaccinated. I had all of this and more in mind when I began reading The Beauty of the End by Lauren Stienstra. The alternate version of our world which she creates is one in which the body suddenly becomes both a threat and a potential salvation. If the cure against human extinction is hidden in your eggs, womb, or genes, do you have the right to deny humanity that salvation in favour of body autonomy? If humanity requires you to have children (as some right-wingers are already arguing), how do you justify being childless? And where does the line lie between "saving humanity" and eugenics, messing with the genes of future generations for your own sake? As I said, heavy topics. Stienstra used to work for the US government and it is clear she has done research and extensive thinking on these themes. For me, personally, I don't know if her writing is strong enough yet to fully wield these heavy themes in a way that feels consistently intentional.

Charlie and Maggie are twins from Marshallese parents, now adopted into a suburban, working class family. Their lives are largely normal, until the news begin to affect them directly. It turns out most humans only have a few generations left in their DNA, meaning the extinction of humanity is on the horizon unless a scientific breakthrough happens. Charlie and Maggie become part of the Mendelia, who are trying for this breakthrough through a form of human-husbandry, matching up interesting genetic adaptations in the hope of changing humanity's fate. While Maggie has fully bought in, Charlie is skeptical, unsure of where this is all heading. This all comes to a head in various dramatic ways, ending with Charlie having to find a path between remaining loyal to her sister, sticking to her own ideals, and, perhaps, saving humanity. The Beauty of the End is told entirely through Charlie's perspective and covers a period of roughly fourteen years, I think, from ages 8 to somewhere around 22. I have to say the timeline isn't super clear to me. The early childhood years, up until maturity pass pretty quickly, with us mainly getting an insight into important events and decisions. I did enjoy the world-building in these early chapters, which looked at some of the immediate fall-out of the extinction becoming known. But there is a speed to this, as well as the more detailed years after Maggie and Charlie turn 18, which made it hard for me to keep track. Unfortunately Charlie was a tad annoying to me, which perhaps is also caused by the sheer effervescence and intelligence that is given to Maggie. Charlie doubts everything but she makes no choices and it is hard to truly engage with a character who is so removed, for most of the novel at least, from taking any action.

For a debut novel I think the aim and thought behind The Beauty of the End is impressive. Stienstra clearly went into the novel with ideas she wanted to discuss and explore in this alternate version of our own world. As I said above though, I wasn't always convinced she was fully in control of the messaging. Of course there is the chance that some of the things I picked up and thought "yikes" about were intended that way, in which case Stienstra messages successfully, but I am not sure about that. I went into The Beauty of the End expecting a novel which would deal, intensely, with the pressure of having children many women experience, but in a heightened way due to its dystopian-esque setting. While this theme is a part of the novel, it isn't really at its heart. Instead, The Beauty of the End focuses much of its energy on considering medical overreach, the cruelty of adoption malpractices, the push and pull between siblings, a love story that made me roll my eyes a bit, and something of a revenge plot. All of these are interesting themes worthy of discussion, but they just don't come together into something that felt fully cohesive to me. Especially the last third or so of the novel felt a little gross to me, which might just be me and my childless self, but it didn't feel entirely in keeping with what I thought the book wanted to say. For those who have medical trauma or trauma regarding birthing, I'd probably not recommend this book. For those looking for a real deep dive into the themes mentioned before, I also am not entirely sure it is the one, although it is sure to ask some questions you'll be thinking about! I would be intrigued to see what Lauren Stienstra does next, though.

I was very intrigued reading The Beauty of the End, despite in the end not being fully sold by it. I wanted to know where Lauren Stienstra would guide us and yet by the end I felt a little betrayed by my guide. It almost felt like an attempt at social commentary wrapped in a dystopian YA suspense jacket and that is, as Suzanne Collins proves consistently, a very difficult balance to strike.

The Beauty of the End delivers a hauntingly plausible vision of the future, blending speculative fiction with stark realism in a way that feels both urgent and deeply unsettling. The novel examines how societies react when faced with an existential crisis and not just in terms of survival, but in how people rationalize, resist and adapt to an unfathomable new reality.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its ability to tap into the psychology of catastrophe. The characters aren’t just grappling with the mechanics of survival; they’re forced to reckon with the absurdity of continuing daily life when the world as they knew it is crumbling. It’s an eerily familiar theme, echoing the strange dissonance we experience when global crises collide with mundane responsibilities. Do we keep going to work? Do we still make plans for the future? What does hope look like when the rules we’ve lived by no longer apply?

The novel builds its tension gradually, using intimate, character-driven moments rather than large-scale chaos. While this makes for a deeply personal reading experience, I did find myself wishing for a broader lens at times. The narrative hints at unrest, paranoia, and the unraveling of social order, but I wanted to see more of how the world outside the main characters’ bubble was handling the crisis. The glimpses we do get - hushed warnings, fractured relationships, the slow collapse of normalcy - are interesting, but a deeper exploration of the societal impact would have made the story even more gripping.

That said, The Beauty of the End is a novel that lingers. Its quiet dread and thought-provoking premise make it a standout in speculative fiction, offering both a compelling story and a chilling reflection on our own world. It’s a book that leaves you questioning how you would react when faced with the unimaginable - and whether, in the end, that choice even matters.

Thoughtful and thought provoking. Charlie and Maggie make different choices but their love for one another runs true. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Would make a good book club read,

The premise is serious and very enticing, but the book fell short for me. First half was kind of okay, but I didn't enjoy the second half. Perhaps I am not the right audience and this should be considered YA. Thank you, NetGalley.

This book really tried to be something unique but it really just fell short for me. I was really interested in the first half of the book, but it really fell apart for me in the second half. The motivations of the characters were so different from the first half that it just felt so disjointed. I’m frustrated with a few things that occurred plot wise that didn’t make any sense to me. Having a science and nursing background, some things really annoyed me because they were highly improbable (specifically getting cancer in 3 years because of “x-ray and other radiation exposure”). I really liked the initial idea of this book, and exploring the moral and ethical implications of humanity ending via reaching a “reproductive limit” should have been so much more fascinating than it was. The author swung hard but ultimately missed many opportunities for moral and ethical discussions. I didn’t mind our MC Charlie but I have to say I absolutely LOATHE when women who are firm on not wanting children change their minds (this is a minor spoiler but to be honest this enrages me so much, so I’m sharing it for those who might want to know). These narratives serve to invalidate woman who want to be child free and present a situation in which they fully change their minds and now want to be mothers.

Thank you Netgalley and Little A for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. “The Beauty at the End” will be published April 1, 2025.