Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on October 17, 2023 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
At the End of the World is a short YA novel whose only SF/F aspect is that it takes place in a world where a few months earlier it was revealed that an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth and that everyone there only has months left to live. In this world we follow - through a story that jumps back and forth through time - a Malaysian girl named Aisha, who should be about to head to university and planning a marriage with her fantastic long-term boyfriend, but is instead lamenting all the possibilities that are lost to her. And so when her mom decides that they should spend part of their remaining time searching for Aisha's long lost sister June, who walked out on them three years ago, Aisha has to come to terms with what she lost when June walked out and when the world realized it was all about to end.
The result is an excellent story of love and grief, as it really shows how hard people can get hit by grief and how that will affect everyone around them, and not necessarily for the better. But it's also a story, in the wake of the end, of how people can remember and retell themselves about the good moments, such that they can maybe work to get past that grief with the people who matter most. A really good if short YA read.
Plot Summary:
Three years ago, Aisha's sister June walked out on her mother and Aisha, saying she needed to "find herself". Aisha was devastated by her sister leaving her alone with her mother - who Aisha loves but who has often seemed to consumed with grief over her dead husband and parents to truly care for and with Aisha. Aisha hasn't heard from June since, and in the time that has passed, Aisha has finished high school, gotten into university, and found the love of her life in her classmate Walter, with whom she imagines raising a family of her own.
But four months ago the world became aware of shocking news: an asteroid was heading directly for Earth and would in a few months time hit it dead-on, causing the extinction of all who lived on the planet. And so all the dreams Aisha had of her future, just like everyone else's, have become completely unattainable, to Aisha's inner dismay.
In the wake of all this, Aisha's mother decides there is no time left to try to mend things with June, and so she proposes that Aisha and June leave their house and go search for June. Together with Walter and Walter's parents they go on a journey to find her in the place Aisha's grandparents once lived, but along the way Aisha will have to deal with her inner emotions - towards her past, towards June, and towards her lost future....
At the End of the World is a short novel, which jumps back and forth each time in a very logical and easy to follow way - each chapter details what time period it takes place in (for example, putting in parentheses "four months ago"), and always takes place from the perspective of Aisha. This is not a complex novel in terms of its plot or characters...but that is part of why the novel works pretty well because it really makes Aisha and everyone else really understandable, and that's what allows the novel to deal with the themes it does.
For Aisha is a girl who has had to deal with most of her life a mother who has been emotionally absent in the wake of the death of Aisha's father and Aisha's grandparents. Her mom responded to each death by moving them away to a new place and then often just not being present in the moment, such that Aisha's sometimes only support was her sister June. And though Aisha has grown to think of their last house as her "home", even if it isn't for her mom or sister, it has been kind of empty without June to provide that support...even if the discovery of Walter has allowed Aisha to have happy moments in the last three years.
And now with the end of the world coming, Aisha even thinks THAT is being taken away from her. And so she faces a ton of inner turmoil and anger over her own situation, over her future being taken from her, and over her past being made more difficult and less whole by the actions of June - who may have done what she needed to but in doing so inadvertently hurt her sister in the process. In short, Aisha is grieving for her past and future, and the fact that she keeps it all internal just makes her feel worse and worse until she might explode...which the trip to find June only makes worse. And well, it's only by getting this all out and by realizing others may feel similarly, especially the chill and seemingly always sunny Walter, that Aisha is able to feel some relief.
This is not a book where there's a surprise happy ending, but despite that, the way Aisha and her family are able to come to another conclusion and realize how they can try to emotionally heal (finding a therapist would also help they acknowledge, but that practice has become less frequent given the end of the world is coming) winds up working pretty well. And so we get a solid enjoyable YA novel about grief for both the past and future that is definitely worth reading.
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