ARC Review: This Is Where the World Ends by Amy Zhang

This Is Where the World Ends by Amy Zhang

Genre: YA Contemporary, Romance

Publication: March 22nd 2016 by Greenwillow Books

Series: n/a

Length: 304 pages

Format: eARC from publisher

Goodreads

A heart-wrenching novel about best friends on a collision course with the real world from Amy Zhang, the critically acclaimed Indies Introduce and Indie Next author of Falling into Place.

Janie and Micah, Micah and Janie. That’s how it’s been ever since elementary school, when Janie Vivien moved next door. Janie says Micah is everything she is not. Where Micah is shy, Janie is outgoing. Where Micah loves music, Janie loves art. It’s the perfect friendship—as long as no one finds out about it. But then Janie goes missing and everything Micah thought he knew about his best friend is colored with doubt.

Using a nonlinear writing style and dual narrators, Amy Zhang masterfully reveals the circumstances surrounding Janie’s disappearance in an astonishing second novel that will appeal to fans of Lauren Oliver and Jay Asher.

Thank you to Greenwillow Books for providing me with this book in exchange for an honest review.

Trigger warning: rape

To be honest, I had pretty high expectations for this book. I loved the cover, I thought the synopsis was interesting, and I adored the writing style. But despite how much I enjoyed the outside premise of this book, I was very disappointed.

The plot was confusing. Although the novel is written in a non-linear writing style with point of views from the two main characters, it was personally confusing for me to switch perspectives between both Janie and Micah. To add on, the plot was dry and cliché, and although I did finish reading this book, I had little motivation to continue reading on when I reached around halfway through.

The characters were simply okay. One of Micah’s friends is in love with Micah, Micah is in love with Janie, Janie is dating other people while she claims that she and Micah are soulmates. Although there seems to be more layers to Janie as the novel goes on, I felt as the events that shaped her toward the end were unnecessary. Moreover, Janie and Micah are apparently not allowed to be seen together or be on talking terms throughout the novel. To me, this seemed strange, and frankly, stupid.

The only aspect that I enjoyed of this book was the writing. It was creative and lovely to read; there are also little snippets from Janie’s journal in fairy-tale-type entries, and they were very interesting to read. However, there were some aspects of this book that I felt were too John Green-ish, and if you know me at all, I’m not that huge of a fan of his work.

 

Overall, I thought this book was boring and dry. It didn’t really have a plot that I could follow or characters that I really enjoyed reading about. If anything, buy this book for its pretty cover and little journal entries that have drawings.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Have you read this book yet? Are you planning to? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!