This is where the World Ends

Zhang, Amy. This is where the World Ends. 2016. 304p. 391 mins. ISBN 978-0-06-242141-8. Available as an audiobook from Overdrive.

Micah’s life changed forever when Janie moved in the house next door. Their bedroom windows were so close to each other that it was easy for them to move from one to the next. They immediately became best friends, and did everything together. Except in school, where they had to keep their friendship a secret at Janie’s insistence. Now in their senior year of high school, no one knows that Micah and Janie are best friends. Micah is shy, but Janie is exuberant. Micah doesn’t talk much, but Janie talks for the two of them. Their favorite place of refuge is the quarry, where they go every Thursday after school to spend time by the foot of the Metaphor, a large pile of concassed rocks left over from excavations years ago.

At the beginning of the year, for their English senior project they must choose a theme. Micah chooses the Apocalypse. Janie chooses Angels. Both joke that the quarry and the Metaphor is where the world will end. When Micah wakes up in the hospital in November, he doesn’t know why he’s here, and he remembers nothing of what happened. He keeps texting Janie, but she never writes back. Did she go to Nepal like she wanted?

Told in alternative chapters from Janie and Micah’s point of view, the story is divided in the before Micah’s memory lost, with Janie as the narrator, and the after, told by Micah. Struggling to rebuild his life and remember what happened, Micah is at a loss as to why Janie would leave him alone. Can he retrieve enough of his memories to finally piece together what happened on that fateful day where he was hurt and Janie disappeared from his life?

Fans of dark emotional stories that don’t end well will appreciate the issues that plague both teens. For a similar read, take a look at All the Bright Places or Zoe Letting Go.