A review by ireadbooksnotminds
This Is Where the World Ends by Amy Zhang

3.0

You know what? This was a good story. I liked it, I liked the story.

However, I did think Zhang overdid the whole "unique, quirky girl" trope. Janie Vivian was Alaska Young on steroids. It didn't help that her "quirkiness" seeped through Zhang's writing style. Reading this book was like being pelted in the face with unnecessary metaphors, to the point that it really got on my nerves. I don't mind reading about weird manic pixie dream girls from time to time, but I wouldn't have gotten annoyed if the story was just told to me normally. If it was told from third-person past tense or whatever, Janie's quirkiness and love of metaphors wouldn't have bothered me, not as much anyway.

Also, I really hope no one who reads this romanticizes Janie and Micah's relationship, because it was toxic as hell. I also hope that Zhang wrote it like that on purpose and didn't expect readers to consider them as an actual romantic couple or whatever.

I would've given this a 4, this was a story worth rating 4 stars. But I had to take off 1 star for the aforementioned reasons.