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sarpdem's review against another edition
5.0
Sometimes I do wish that goodreads had a rating system greater than 5 stars.
Just for this book.
For it deserves the world and the stars that shine beyond it.
Just for this book.
For it deserves the world and the stars that shine beyond it.
the8th's review against another edition
4.0
There's nothing he makes that doesn't make me cry. I love this guy's work - so honest, artful, genuine.
segza's review against another edition
1.0
I know we all grieve differently but I just couldn't get on-board with Nilsen's muddled and more than a little selfish perspective portrayed here. This book pushed all my buttons. It screamed of self indulgence and lack of responsibility. Most people do not have the luxury of grieving to the all-encompassing extremes Nilsen depicts here so instead of empathizing I was alienated from the protagonist. I can't stress enough that this is my emotional reaction to this book as opposed to a rational review of its value as literature and art.
shadowolfie's review against another edition
5.0
I teared up when I saw the last page filled with a broken, but healing emptiness that the last four panels held. The breathing human and the mind ghost are gone. The story isn’t done. Nilsen said it himself, he isn’t finished writing about his lost partner. I’m not done writing about the passed either: not about my grandmother who taught me to sew, or my cat who changed my career path, or my aunt who filled the role of the mother position better than my mother ever will. I am not done writing about the dead, about the generations of family who are still with me. Are we ever done with writing about the dead?
For me, this novel was emotionally difficult but rewarding to get through. My grandmother passed away in 2020. Throughout my childhood, I lived in her basement. I spent every night having the meals that she cooked. I spent most of my weeks waiting for her to cut up her strawberries and sprinkle her magic sugar on them to make them taste better. When I came home from school, she greeted me by putting a bookmark into her novel, taking off her reading glasses, and hugging me. I wasn’t much of a hugger when I was younger. I’m glad that she made me hug her and my grandpa each time I left. Before I knew it, I was going into middle school and moving into an apartment with my divorced parents. I only saw my grandparents once or twice a month if I was lucky.
My grandmother taught me how to sew before I left. When I lived with her, I would shakenly walk to her computer room, my eyes filled with tears, and would present her with a plushie with a hole in it. She’d caress it and bend down, asking if she could take it from me. I’d nod. Out of everyone I could trust with my plushies, I would trust her. My grandmother would hold the plushie just like they were a real animal, and to me, they are. She knew how meaningful each of them were to me, how they were my only friends, how they were the only ones I could bring myself to cry into when my parents fought or when I managed to make a simple mistake that was a crime in my mind. She knew, deep down, that my home life was built with straw in sinking sand. My grandmother would sew my plushies, would say that they were going into surgery. My grandmother used to be a nurse. She knew what to do all too well. Sometimes, she’d let me watch. She would take the needle, put the matching colored string through the hole, and would weave in and out until the wound in my friend was mended. Before I left…she taught me how to sew.
When she passed in 2020, I wrote her eulogy. My family members questioned and yelled why I never shed tear throughout the whole funeral. This book says everything I wanted to say to them and more. It says how I sobbed in my basement after processing her death a month later. It says how it’s both dreadful and empowering to go on because of them. It shows how I want to ask her so many questions, but the answers are already inside me. It shows how I wish I could go back to talk to her one last time.
My aunt passed from an overdose when I was six. She introduced me to many things, most notably my first musical, Mamma Mia! When she passed, I told my mom that it was just the circle of life, that I wasn’t sad because I understood death. I was a very perceptive kid, I was told I understood more than adults did, that I was an old soul. This book is everything I understood and everything I felt behind the scenes. I don’t think the grieving process ever goes away. It gets better, but it’s still there. The conversations I’ve recently had with myself in the dark of my basement are the ones that remind me of the conversations between Nilsen and his partner. They are empty and nostalgic and bittersweet…and they have all the memories you wish you could relive with your loved ones.
The End by Anders Nilsen is a devastating scrapbook dedicated to his passed partner of the pieces of grieving and the spirals that follow. The book illustrates the tragedy of losing someone too soon and losing loved ones in general. It doesn’t cut out the raw, pouring quiet and flood of sorrow, but in fact, embraces it. It’s beautiful (but feels wrong to say it as such) and melancholic and complicated. It meditates on the abstract ideas that the brain makes when trying to make sense of death. It talks about what isn’t talk about, and therefore becomes one of the most important novels about death and grief that there is. It is geuiene and weighty -- it bleeds the heart of the loss for the reader and makes the reader feel both hurt and healed simultaneously.
Thank you, Nilsen. You’ve put into a book everything I could never say.
For me, this novel was emotionally difficult but rewarding to get through. My grandmother passed away in 2020. Throughout my childhood, I lived in her basement. I spent every night having the meals that she cooked. I spent most of my weeks waiting for her to cut up her strawberries and sprinkle her magic sugar on them to make them taste better. When I came home from school, she greeted me by putting a bookmark into her novel, taking off her reading glasses, and hugging me. I wasn’t much of a hugger when I was younger. I’m glad that she made me hug her and my grandpa each time I left. Before I knew it, I was going into middle school and moving into an apartment with my divorced parents. I only saw my grandparents once or twice a month if I was lucky.
My grandmother taught me how to sew before I left. When I lived with her, I would shakenly walk to her computer room, my eyes filled with tears, and would present her with a plushie with a hole in it. She’d caress it and bend down, asking if she could take it from me. I’d nod. Out of everyone I could trust with my plushies, I would trust her. My grandmother would hold the plushie just like they were a real animal, and to me, they are. She knew how meaningful each of them were to me, how they were my only friends, how they were the only ones I could bring myself to cry into when my parents fought or when I managed to make a simple mistake that was a crime in my mind. She knew, deep down, that my home life was built with straw in sinking sand. My grandmother would sew my plushies, would say that they were going into surgery. My grandmother used to be a nurse. She knew what to do all too well. Sometimes, she’d let me watch. She would take the needle, put the matching colored string through the hole, and would weave in and out until the wound in my friend was mended. Before I left…she taught me how to sew.
When she passed in 2020, I wrote her eulogy. My family members questioned and yelled why I never shed tear throughout the whole funeral. This book says everything I wanted to say to them and more. It says how I sobbed in my basement after processing her death a month later. It says how it’s both dreadful and empowering to go on because of them. It shows how I want to ask her so many questions, but the answers are already inside me. It shows how I wish I could go back to talk to her one last time.
My aunt passed from an overdose when I was six. She introduced me to many things, most notably my first musical, Mamma Mia! When she passed, I told my mom that it was just the circle of life, that I wasn’t sad because I understood death. I was a very perceptive kid, I was told I understood more than adults did, that I was an old soul. This book is everything I understood and everything I felt behind the scenes. I don’t think the grieving process ever goes away. It gets better, but it’s still there. The conversations I’ve recently had with myself in the dark of my basement are the ones that remind me of the conversations between Nilsen and his partner. They are empty and nostalgic and bittersweet…and they have all the memories you wish you could relive with your loved ones.
The End by Anders Nilsen is a devastating scrapbook dedicated to his passed partner of the pieces of grieving and the spirals that follow. The book illustrates the tragedy of losing someone too soon and losing loved ones in general. It doesn’t cut out the raw, pouring quiet and flood of sorrow, but in fact, embraces it. It’s beautiful (but feels wrong to say it as such) and melancholic and complicated. It meditates on the abstract ideas that the brain makes when trying to make sense of death. It talks about what isn’t talk about, and therefore becomes one of the most important novels about death and grief that there is. It is geuiene and weighty -- it bleeds the heart of the loss for the reader and makes the reader feel both hurt and healed simultaneously.
Thank you, Nilsen. You’ve put into a book everything I could never say.
ikovski's review against another edition
5.0
I read Big Questions this year and it was amazing. I just had fell in love with Nilsen's style.
This one is devastating too.
This is about grief, sorrow, despair.
A graphic memoir and it's personal.
I saw ink smears, misdrawn lines, fingerprints.
I saw emotions in the way words are written.
It's sad; diving into blue (that he'd used as mono-color).
And then into the black (that he'd used as other mono-color).
It was beautiful.
I saw that there will be a Revised and Expanded Edition for this one. I wish I can have it one day.
Spoiler
When I read about him I didn't add Don't Go Where I Can't Follow cuz' it looks devastating. So I knew his partner has passed away.This one is devastating too.
This is about grief, sorrow, despair.
A graphic memoir and it's personal.
I saw ink smears, misdrawn lines, fingerprints.
I saw emotions in the way words are written.
It's sad; diving into blue (that he'd used as mono-color).
And then into the black (that he'd used as other mono-color).
It was beautiful.
I saw that there will be a Revised and Expanded Edition for this one. I wish I can have it one day.
devastatingly beautiful plus beautifully devastation minus zero
xoxo
ikoan @office reading.
katemilty's review against another edition
4.0
As always, Nilsen's work is heart-breaking, melancholic, and brilliant.
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