goodreads | This is Where it Ends

Title: This is Where it Ends
Author: Marieke Nijkamp
Genre: YA
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 288
Date read: July, 2015

10:00 a.m.
The principal of Opportunity, Alabama's high school finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and encouraging them to excel and achieve.

10:02 a.m.
The students get up to leave the auditorium for their next class.

10:03
The auditorium doors won't open.

10:05
Someone starts shooting.

Told over the span of 54 harrowing minutes from four different perspectives, terror reigns as one student's calculated revenge turns into the ultimate game of survival.

I am having a really hard time figuring out what I think of this book.

It was horribly, heart-wrenchingly devastating.
It was so well written that I felt physically sick with worry.
It made my heart break for the people involved.

But at the end of the day, I don't know what the author wanted to say. There seemed to be no resolution, no closure of any kind. It was just "something horrible is about to happen", "something horrible is happening", "something horrible happened", "the end". That didn't work for me. Rather, it seemed as if the author had a great idea for 90% of the book, and then instead of trying to figure out what to do with the last 10% just ended the book then and there.

It may work for you though - in which case this book will blow you away.

This is Where it Ends - Marieke Nijkamp