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lilbittybritty1's review against another edition
1.0
I do not understand the point of this book. What was the author trying to prove? We know that there are perverted people in the world, but now are we saying that they include children. Was she maybe trying to point that things may not always be as they seem? Well she should have said it outright. Make the father a child molester and leave it at that. Honestly, I have never read a book so complicated and frustrating. I kept waiting for the story to turn, but it never did. I unsure if I'll read anything else from this author. Her writing is simply too incoherent for me.
amyv's review against another edition
3.0
Sometimes Abbott writes beautifully, and precisely captures the experience of being a (certain type of) teenage girl. Other times she uses purple prose, meaningless descriptions, and too many instances of "I felt something," "I knew something," "I saw something" to count. I was engaged enough to move through this book pretty quickly, but there were long sections that dragged between suspenseful scenes. And the end left me feeling... unsettled, but not in a way that felt deliberate.
Spoiler
I share the uneasy view of some other reviewers that the narration seems to frame these preteen girls as inviting their own abuse. Perhaps this reflected the immaturity of the narrator's worldview, but since Abbott begins the book with an older narrator reflecting back, it's hard to understand why that older voice couldn't provide some additional reflection at any point. I felt the book veered uncomfortably close to treating these girls as sirens, or to enjoying the consequences of their naïveté in a lascivious way.kphelps's review against another edition
3.0
Family can hurt you the most, because they know they can.
jlinn96's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
ridgewaygirl's review against another edition
4.0
Lizzie and Evie have been best friends for forever. They're next door neighbors and have shared everything for as long as Lizzie can remember. Evie's family is perfect, too, from her charismatic father to her queen bee older sister. And then Evie disappears and Lizzie is left to wonder what happened, while feeling that she should know, that the clues must all be there since she and Evie were closer than sisters and told each other everything.
Megan Abbott has crafted a tense and finely tuned book about loss and growing up and the way memory can turn on you. Lizzie's determined to get her friend back, to put that golden family next door back together, even as she learns that nothing is perfect.
Megan Abbott has crafted a tense and finely tuned book about loss and growing up and the way memory can turn on you. Lizzie's determined to get her friend back, to put that golden family next door back together, even as she learns that nothing is perfect.
alison_marie's review against another edition
3.0
The ending...whoo boy. Pretty intense/borderline disturbing.
ali_nf's review against another edition
3.0
I put this on my reading list a very long time ago, and I'm not sure why I thought the story of a disappeared 13 year old girl would be a fun read. I felt a vague sense of unread throughout the book and after it ended. Which I guess means she's a good writer.
sandin954's review against another edition
3.0
This book takes the reader through the dark secrets of a 1980s suburb with a 13 year old girl as the guide. The narrative voice really captured the emotion of adolescence but the plotting was just a bit too circular for my taste. I listened the audio version which was wonderfully narrated by Emily Bauer.
dantastic's review against another edition
4.0
Teenage neighbors Lizzie and Evie are thick as thieves. When Evie disappears, Lizzie's world is shaken to its foundations. Who was driving the maroon car Lizzie saw circling the block when Evie was abducted and does he have a connection to Evie's disappearance? And will Evie be found alive?
I initally discovered Megan Abbott through her noir works like Queenpin, after hearing people mentioning her in the same breath as Christa Faust. While her latest books haven't been noir, she sure paints a dark picture of what life as a teenage girl is like.
The End of Everything is about what happens to a child's family after the child is abducted. The Ververs and their friends and neighbors cope in different ways. Mrs. Verver hits the pills. Dusty Verver, Evie's sister, gets even bitchier than normal. And Mr. Verver leans on Lizzie, the neighbor girl who happens to be Evie's best friend. And Lizzie takes it upon herself to unravel what happened.
Even in the suburbs, evil is afoot, something Lizzie gradually pieces together. She makes some questionable choices but I can't imagine things going a different way if I were in her place. Her dealing with Evie's disappearance makes The End of Everything something of a coming of age tale. The entire cast gets tossed into the crucible and not a one comes out unscathed.
This book reads like one of those cheesy Lifetime made for TV movies, only deadly serious and written by the literary offspring of S.E. Hinton and Richard Stark. To paraphrase something I've said before, I'd rather be an expendable partner in a Parker caper than be a teenage girl in one of Megan Abbott's novels.
There's not a whole lot more I can tell without spoiling any of the details. Things went down about the way I thought they would but that didn't make things any less chilling. If there's one thing I took from this novel, it's that I do not want to father girls. If you have a male child, you only have to worry about one penis. If you have a girl, you have to worry about all of them.
Four out of five stars. The Megster ran wild on me again this time.
I initally discovered Megan Abbott through her noir works like Queenpin, after hearing people mentioning her in the same breath as Christa Faust. While her latest books haven't been noir, she sure paints a dark picture of what life as a teenage girl is like.
The End of Everything is about what happens to a child's family after the child is abducted. The Ververs and their friends and neighbors cope in different ways. Mrs. Verver hits the pills. Dusty Verver, Evie's sister, gets even bitchier than normal. And Mr. Verver leans on Lizzie, the neighbor girl who happens to be Evie's best friend. And Lizzie takes it upon herself to unravel what happened.
Even in the suburbs, evil is afoot, something Lizzie gradually pieces together. She makes some questionable choices but I can't imagine things going a different way if I were in her place. Her dealing with Evie's disappearance makes The End of Everything something of a coming of age tale. The entire cast gets tossed into the crucible and not a one comes out unscathed.
This book reads like one of those cheesy Lifetime made for TV movies, only deadly serious and written by the literary offspring of S.E. Hinton and Richard Stark. To paraphrase something I've said before, I'd rather be an expendable partner in a Parker caper than be a teenage girl in one of Megan Abbott's novels.
There's not a whole lot more I can tell without spoiling any of the details. Things went down about the way I thought they would but that didn't make things any less chilling. If there's one thing I took from this novel, it's that I do not want to father girls. If you have a male child, you only have to worry about one penis. If you have a girl, you have to worry about all of them.
Four out of five stars. The Megster ran wild on me again this time.