Diversify Yourself: Nijkamp writes important, captivating story

Diversify Yourself: Nijkamp writes important, captivating story

This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp is a heart-stopping, blood-pumping, page-turning story about a school shooting, told from four riveting points of view. Taking place in just 54 minutes, Nijkamp connects the reader with four students who all have some personal connection or grievance with Tyler, the shooter  – his sister, the girl he sexually assaulted, that girl’s brother, and his ex-girlfriend. With some main characters trapped inside an auditorium where the shooting is happening, and others stuck on the outside looking for a way to help, the reader gets a full look into how the shooting went down.

My favorite part about the book was the way the characters had flashbacks, not in a way where suddenly the book just goes back in time to explain some detail, but as though the characters were actually thinking about that one time to help them make sense of what was going on in the present. I also liked how the flashbacks weren’t providing justification for what Tyler was doing, in some cases it was more along the lines of them thinking “how could he be doing this when he acted this way towards me?” This book was, however, lacking in some ways. Because it only spans over less than an hour, it feels as though there isn’t much developing going on. Obviously, the plot develops in a way that there’s a shooter, and he keeps killing people, and then eventually students make their way to safety, but there’s little suspense, and character development (one of my favorite things about books) isn’t possible in such a short amount of time. I think that this book would be better thought of as a really long short story, because in the end it doesn’t truly feel like I read a novel.

The best quality this book possess is that it is about a school shooting. That sounds like a bad thing, but it is unbelievably important to write and read about topics that people typically avoid. The thought that ran through my mind the most while I was reading this was “What if a school shooting happened at my school?” It’s something that, in my opinion, goes through everyone’s mind at least once when they learn about some school shooting (especially in Colorado, with Columbine), and it’s a good question to ask. Not only will it make you prepared physically and strategically if a school shooting did happen, but reading the thoughts going on inside students’ minds as they went through it made me think deeper into the reasons as to why someone would do such a thing. You have to look back and think: Could I have stopped this? Would anyone have seen it coming? I think  it also helps you understand that not everything is black and white – the shooter in This Is Where It Ends had good qualities and bad, things that went wrong in his life and things that could’ve been okay.

These questions and thoughts are not things that need exact answers, but they are extremely important things to think about as we grow up and go through tragedies. That is why I believe that even though the book is not the greatest, it’s something everyone should consider reading. Nijkamp’s writing style is captivating, and that combined with the intense honesty given from the characters makes This Is Where It Ends an incredibly worthwhile read.

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