The End We Start From

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter is a descriptive but fragmented story about a dystopian Great Britain overrun by global warming floods. If you are looking for an apocalyptic type story dense with action, this is not it. Instead, The End We Start From is an exploration of motherhood that keeps the reader at arm's length.

The story is about a group of characters, all given a letter instead of a name. The husband R and wife give birth to a baby named Z. As the floodwaters begin to rise, the scramble for shelter and flee to Scotland. Z eventually becomes ill and ends up in a hospital. R leaves due to... reasons, and the story is told during Z's first year. It is quite the contrast of early motherhood woes and childhood milestones juxtaposed against the terror of unstoppable world events.

“We are told not to panic, the most panic-inducing instruction known to man.”

Both nature and the nurturing of a child stops for no one. Time and life must go on even in the direst of circumstances. However, the distance that the author puts between the reader and the writing didn't allow me to connect my own experiences of motherhood with that of the mother. I wanted to empathize with the characters, but aside from well-written language and dialog, the story fell ultimately flat.

Events are vaguely described, often to the point that I felt like I was watching a school film about devastation or war for educational purposes rather than living the character's life. I am not sure I understand the unusual choice of not giving the character's full names. If the author intended to create even more distance between the characters and the readers, it was effective. I remained a passive observer throughout the novel.

“When I was a child, my mother told me she would die for me, of course. I asked her all the time. Tested her.”

However, on a more positive note, while the language and dialog are sparse, it is compelling and well thought out. The End We Start From has a poetic feel to it; instead of reading a short story about a flooded Britain, we read about a dystopia in verse. It is highly stylized language; some of it is brilliant, “The water rose and rose, and they could not recognize each other in the torrent, in the endless rain from above.”

In the end, this will be an extremely polarizing book. You will either love it or be baffled by it. I am sorry to say that I am in the latter camp. I could not get past the distance and lack of description. However, I recognize that this story will speak to some readers, and I recommend it for readers who want a more experimental story.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley. Opinions are my own.

I can't say much about this book because it's so short, and therefore I'm not sure what's a spoiler. But it's a story about a woman and her baby and how they're surviving in a dystopian type of future. The writing is good and very descriptive at times, but it surprisingly lacks emotional depth. There's also no big, overarching plot points or character descriptors. For example, none of the characters have complete names. They're just referred to as letters - R, Z, O, etc. For the first third of the book, I thought this may be because the author wants the reader to latch onto the emotions of the story, which center around a woman trying to survive with her baby. But without anything of substance to hold onto, the story came off as shallow and underdeveloped. I have a lot of questions that I can't pose here because they may be spoilerly, and the story just fails to answer any of them. After the first third, I thought the book was hitting its stride, and I was really enjoying it. I read the entire thing in two sittings, which is rare for me. But as I was reaching the end, I realized I wasn't going to get any answers, and became annoyed and frustrated. I think this is one you can skip.

These are just my quick thoughts after just completing the book. A more comprehensive review will be coming on my YouTube channel (youtube.com/allisontheresa) and on my blog (allisontheresa7.wordpress.com).

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter is more than just an “end of world as we know it” story; it's a story about relationships and strength in an uncertain time. The narrator is a new mother, a nameless woman who manages to remain strong in a world that is chaotic and unstable. She must continue to move forward, with her infant, trying to find a place that is safe and dry.

The narrator uses initials when referring to people she meets along her journey. She loses people she knows, meets new people, builds new relationships, and appears to be more calm than she should be. This is a woman who knows that she must survive for her son, and she must continue to work her way through a world that is changing around her.

I enjoyed the way the author told this story. Ms. Hunter weaves an engaging story, sharing the Narrator's life with us, both in the present as well as the past. The narrator tells the story in a very matter of fact way, she doesn't sugar coat anything and she isn't flowery, she just tells the reader what happened to her as London experiences a major natural disaster. The way Ms. Hunter wrote the narrator, there were times when I felt awful for her, yet, there were other times when I said “You go, girl”, because she has a quiet strength. I enjoyed this story and would definitely read it again.

Reviewer's Note: I received an advanced e-galley of this book from the publisher through the NetGalley website. I did not receive any form of compensation in exchange for my review of this novel.