read into the early A.M.'s because of the delicious and booming sense of dread that Abott is so delightfully good at building up. but I'm still loathe to accept that a quick and neat tie-up and explanation at the end of nearly 250 pages of winding your reader up so tight is anything remarkable. definitely a subtly, and then deeply, disturbing read, and I don't regret it. but I'm not sure that I wouldn't have rather spent my hours on something else.

If I am a swimmer, this book has drowned me.

I was enjoying this for the first three-quarters or so, but then it rapidly got too squicky for my tastes. It starts out as a rumination on preteen/early teenage girl life, with Lizzie and Evie as close as close can be until the latter suddenly goes missing. So far, so similar to The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone (which I only read a few months ago, and did a great telling of this kind of story). However from there, The End of Everything morphs into something more reminiscent of Lolita, with a steadily increasing amount of emphasis on pubescent girls getting inappropriate attention from fully-grown men (not wanting to spoil too much). But see, in Lolita, the whole point of the story is that Humbert Humbert is completely fucking delusional in his belief that Lola has knowingly seduced him. The End of Everything has missed this point, and plays its story straight as one of mutual attraction and seduction. Now, Megan Abbott's storylines are usually pretty dark and twisted and I certainly wouldn't say enjoying this one means you must be a bad person. It was just too dark for me. However, I do think the blurb did the novel a disservice by not making it clear what the core theme of the novel was. No one sells Lolita as, like, an odd couple fugitive novel, and in being more disturbing this one needs the warning much more! Some people in the comments of other reviews have claimed that if you warn people what the central theme is then that's a “spoiler”, but wtf, people need to be able to make informed decisions about what they read too. This is not an objectively bad book - indeed, if you don't think your sensibilities will be offended by the major theme then you can expect the reward of a well-written thriller with some real relatability for anyone who's ever been a 12-13 year old girl. But also know that if you are interested in that kind of story, The Van Apfel Girls does a very similar thing without the Lolita element, and I thought it was better.

Blog | Twitter | Instagram | ...like all that you are is the wanting, and the rest of you just burns away? If there's only one thing to be said about an author like Megan Abbott, it should be this: she breathes life into her words and the characters only grow from there. She understand the complexities of being a young girl or woman--she just knows how the tone of life is for us. More than this, she is able to speak to parts of us that are often ignored in literature; teasing us with that ounce of fiction mixed in with what connects us to the characters. The End of Everything is just the same, a story of girlhood and the possible loss of innocence. There's a dreamy quality to it that bridges the characters thoughts (both realistic and not) to our own way of processing things. As usual, the flow of it is vivid and velvety smooth, exactly what literature is meant to be. It is thought provoking and compelling, tying us to the pages of the bigger mysteries we see unraveling. I've always felt that Abbott understands things about what a reader finds captivating better than her peers and even in some of her weaker releases, this much is clear. Something about The End of Everything feels like real time. Abbott writes the story in a way that pulls you from the start and holds you firmly. Each chapter provides an insight the previous didn't and keeps readers on their toes. The further you fall, the more you find yourself lost in the most delicious ways possible. The End of Everything feels like more than a book. It feels like a world or a film all in its own right. We've got nostalgia and mystery. Youth and adults. Relationships that may or may not border on inappropriate. Characters that are quite close to being reliable but just aren't. There's a lot going through your mind as you dive into Evie's disappearance, Lizzie's desire to help her best friend's family, Dusty's mysterious air, etc etc. All of ties into a bigger picture that you may or may not see coming and that's what's always compelling. That's what Megan Abbott does best. She messes with your mind in the most mundane ways and it is chill inducing. I love the way her mind works and the way she spins stories from thoughts and words. No one can pen a teenage girl's mind half as well as she can--and the same can be said about the way crimes, violence, mystery and sexuality are woven into her novels. The End of Everything has more than enough to offer a reader and is a story you won't soon forget.