Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - We Begin at the End

Spoilers, but the ending broke my heart. I was sobbing in the car. It wasn’t pretty. I had a little hunch but it still caught me off guard. I was expecting murder, mystery, mayhem, and instead I got tragedy and trauma and star crossed lovers.

Content Warnings

mamaofperfectpayton's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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jess_d84's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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kelly_e's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Title: We Begin at the End
Author: Chris Whitaker
Genre: Mystery
Rating: 3.25
Pub Date: January 1 2021

T H R E E • W O R D S

Devastating • Gritty • Compulsive

📖 S Y N O P S I S

After being convicted in a fatal hit-and-run, which killed the sister of his then girlfriend Starr Radley, Vincent King has spent the past 30 years in prison. He is now being released and returning home to his small California town. Walk, now the town's sheriff, was responsible for Vincent's conviction, yet promised him he'd look out for Star while he was in prison. However, Star's life is a mess. Her two children, Duchess and Robin, are forced to grow up all too quickly. An act of revenge will change all of their lives forever. We Begin at the End explores themes of love, loss, sacrifice and of course, family.

💭 T H O U G H T S

When I saw the absolutely stunning cover of this book, I instantly added it to my TBR. It started out quite slow, and I considered DNFing around the 30% mark. However, I persisted, deciding to seek out the audio in order to tandem read, which ended up helping some. I cannot say I loved or hated this book.

Let me start out by saying the writing is absolutely beautiful! The descriptive scenery felt in line with the cover, and the author uses his way with words in a way that works. The plot didn't instantly suck me in, and I didn't feel a strong connection to the characters and their stories. Oddly enough, Duchess is such a fierce, brave, and vulnerable character I couldn't help to root for, and yet I am not sure I will remember her. Her relationship with, her love for, and her protective nature of her younger brother is my favourite thing about this book. In fact, it is what kept me reading. While Duchess and Walk are great characters, there was definitely something missing for me with the rest of the cast. The themes of family - both born and chosen family - and the resilient nature of the human spirit ended up making this book worth reading, despite it not completely working for me.

We Begin at the End is a unique and powerful story, however, taken as a whole I was left underwhelmed. It felt like a modern Western, which would be one of the reason it didn't feel like the right fit for me.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• Western fans
• lovers of small town crime fiction

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"None of us are any one thing. We’re just a collection of the best and worst things we’ve done."

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quirkygirlreads's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Do you ever get the sense that an author is trying to write this hard-hitting contemporary novel - but they don't seem to have experienced any of the things they are writing about?

Like the story is beautiful and the type of story you want to read, but yet there is something missing?

The Good: The plot of We Begin at the End, was interesting, the mystery was engaging. It was like a deviation from the normal tropes you see in mystery/thrillers, but it wasn't so different that you felt lost.

Someone mentioned a comparison between this novel and Where The Crawdads Sing - I think that is a perfect comparison. Sure, this is a mystery... but there is also a huge emphasis on coming of age and heartbreak and friendship. At times I forgot I was even reading a mystery story, and felt more like I was reading a historical fiction.

The Bad: oh boy... please don't hate me. The characters ages were SO UNBELIEVABLE! Not only did Duchess seem FAR too young for the deep philosophical quotes she was speaking, but you're telling me that Vincent, Walk and Star are in their FORTIES! No way. Also, the names in this book were strange, that is all.

I found Duchess rather annoying, to be perfectly honest. Frankly, her repeating "I'm an outlaw" constantly was the only part of her story that felt like it was told from a 13 year old perspective.

Lastly, normally I love when the title of a book is hidden within its text. Almost like the author is leaving a breadcrumb that pulls it all together. But not only did this novel never really explain what "we begin at the end" meant, it was repeated over and over as an attempt to sound.... deep?

The Consensis: We Begin at the End feels like the last draft of a novel before it gets sent to print. There were just a few tweaks that could have been made to round this read up to 5 stars, but instead it just fell short...

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danidamico's review against another edition

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dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.0

Me resulta difícil puntuar esta novela. En primer lugar, no soy una lectora asidua de policiales o thrillers, suelo leer uno o dos por año. Los libros de suspenso que leo en general se inclinan más hacia el terror. Seguramente si me gustaran más los policiales, sería fácil ponerle 4 estrellas o más a We Begin at the End, pero la realidad es que, si bien reconozco su valor objetivo, personalmente no conecté tanto con la historia como otros lectores.

El relato está bien construido, el misterio bien desarrollado, la prosa me pareció buena, aunque un poco melodramática (algo normal en este género). No tengo nada negativo para decir sobre este libro en cuanto a los aspectos técnicos, a veces simplemente sucede que una obra nos conmueve más o nos conmueve menos, te impacta o no te impacta. A la hora de leer textos para la facultad intento ser racional, analizar los detalles, pero como lectora en mi tiempo libre me dejo llevar muchísimo por lo emocional y lo instintivo. Me gustó esta novela. Listo. Eso es todo lo que puedo decir. Está bien hecha y es recomendable para gente que disfrute del género.

A medida que iba leyendo, me imaginaba una adaptación cinematográfica dirigida por Sean Penn o Clint Eastwood porque la novela me dio muchas vibes de historia clásica norteamericana de drama Hollywoodense. De hecho, me sorprendió mucho descubrir que el autor es británico.

Content Warnings

wistfulspirit's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

sara_phoenix's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Cape Haven is a sleepy costal California town where everyone knows everyone. Tragedy struck 30 years ago with the death of 7 year-old Sissy, and when the felon, Vincent King, is released from prison, old wounds open. Chief of Police Walk knows the pain firsthand as he was the one who sent his best friend to prison all those years ago. But when Sissy’s troubled sister, Star, is murdered and leaves behind her two children, thirteen year-old daughter, Duchess, and her six year-old son, Robin, Walk must face the past head on to catch a killer and protect Star’s children. Part drama and part crime/thriller, Whitaker’s third novel reads as if he’s done this many, many times before. The characters are flawed but so well-developed, especially self-proclaimed outlaw Duchess, and I couldn’t help but root for each of them throughout the book. This hauntingly beautiful story reads like a modern day Shawshank Redemption - where do you go when things keep falling apart? How do you face yet another loss? In this book the characters work through the process of growth and of letting go; of grief and of healing; of beginning at the end. This is a book that will stick with you long after you finish reading. I can’t wait to see what Whitaker comes up with next. Brilliant.

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