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The End of Everything

by Megan Abbott (Goodreads Author)

3.33 of 5 stars 3.33 · rating details · 3,096 ratings · 657 reviews

Thirteen-year-old Lizzie Hood and her next-door neighbor, Evie Verver, are inseparable, best friends who swap clothes, bathing suits, and field-hockey sticks and between whom, presumably, there are no secrets. Then one afternoon, Evie disappears, and as a rabid, giddy panic spreads through the balmy suburban community, everyone turns to Lizzie for answers. Was Evie unhappy...more

Hardcover, 256 pages

Published July 7th 2011 by Reagan Arthur Books

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Jul 13, 2012 karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

a moment alone, i would steal a peek in dusty's room, clogged with the cotton smell of baby powder and lip gloss and hands wet with hair spray. her bed was a big pink cake with faintly soiled flounces and her floor dappled with the tops of nail polish bottles, with plastic-backed brushes heavy with hair, with daisy-dappled underwear curled up like pipe cleaner, jeans inside out, the powdery socks still in them, folded-up notes from all her rabid boyfriends, shiny tampon wrappers caught in the ed...more
a moment alone, i would steal a peek in dusty's room, clogged with the cotton smell of baby powder and lip gloss and hands wet with hair spray. her bed was a big pink cake with faintly soiled flounces and her floor dappled with the tops of nail polish bottles, with plastic-backed brushes heavy with hair, with daisy-dappled underwear curled up like pipe cleaner, jeans inside out, the powdery socks still in them, folded-up notes from all her rabid boyfriends, shiny tampon wrappers caught in the edge of the bedspread, where it hit the mint green carpet. it seemed like dusty was forever cleaning the room, but even she herself could not stop the constant, effervescing explosions of girl.

megan abbott, will you marry me??

i am pretty sure this is her first non-neo-noir book, and it is just as good as queenpin, in a totally different way, and it is making me want to go and get all her other noir-type books and just read them in my jammies while eating honey-toast.

this book has the secrets of girlhood spilled all over it. the longing, the cusping, the shimmering liquid period between scab-picking and training bras.the hopeless infatuations and the puppy-dog electra posturings.

i'm not going to lie - she likes to pack her sentences, but to my tastes, that is perfect, as anyone who has ever read one of my book-reports must know.i love a good packed sentence, as long as it works, you know? it is not meandering the way that proust is, but she builds her sentences by slipping in nouns and adjectives in such frequently surprising ways, you will want to sit up and pay attention.

at its most reductive, it is a story about a girl who goes missing.

but it is so filled with nuance about the rite of passage of girls, it makes me nearly cringe with remembrances. the idolization of the older sister, the sex-as-gratitude, the just-coming-into focus view of the adult world with its rules and its secrets, the whispery nights of two girls mashed in the same sleeping bag, legs tangled together,wistfully whispering secrets, the yearning for everything to happen RIGHT NOW, the half-remembered incidents suddenly showing their true significance.and the easily shoved-aside lurking horrors.

it missed five stars only slightly. there was a dip, for me, at the 3/4 mark, where i just thought it got a little muddled and weighted down, but that is just a personal glitch in me, because then it rose like an amazing phoenix to deliver one last kick in the balls, and there was this amazingly perfect revelation with that click in the throat of the realization that sent my mind on waves of "oh my god - and that means - ohhhhhh, but....ahhhh"

i have not read lovely bones, but i assume that is a less-well-written read-alike. but i have read a million other books that are similar, people love to write books about girls going missing and all.

but this one is just gorgeous. so if you are going to read one book about girls gone missing and horrible stuff probably happening to them, it should be this one. (less)

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Sep 05, 2012 Tfitoby rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: black-as-night, lit, favourites

Megan Abbott really hit this one out of the park.

Everyone's favourite noir pixie takes a step out of her comfort zone with this fantastic contemporary novel. As an award winning aficionado of classic noir tropes, utilised to great effect in period pieces Die a Little, Queenpin and others, Megan Abbott demonstrated her writing style to great effect but with The End of Everything she has taken further leaps towards greatness.

No longer confined by her research in to 50s Americana The End of Everyth...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Trudi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013-reads, audiobook, crime-mystery, heart-of-darkness, modern-lit, coming-of-age, family-ties, in-her-own-words, prose-that-sings, secrets

Can you remember the first time you ever had the wind knocked out of you? I was about ten. I was playing with my cousins out in their front yard. There was this fence that ran about 2 feet off the ground that we liked to walk along, imagining tight ropes and balance beams. It was during one of these wobbly walks when my ten year old body lost its balance and I came crashing down hard upon that low fence. It caught me right across my stomach where my diaphragm lives.

In a swift "whoosh" all the a...more
Can you remember the first time you ever had the wind knocked out of you? I was about ten. I was playing with my cousins out in their front yard. There was this fence that ran about 2 feet off the ground that we liked to walk along, imagining tight ropes and balance beams. It was during one of these wobbly walks when my ten year old body lost its balance and I came crashing down hard upon that low fence. It caught me right across my stomach where my diaphragm lives.

In a swift "whoosh" all the air was pushed out of my lungs. Every bit of it, or it seemed so at the time. I fell over onto the ground curled protectively around myself. In a blinding moment of sheer panic that exploded into terror, I found I couldn't actually catch my breath. As hard as I tried, I could not breathe in and in those few seconds of sickening realization, I was sure I was going to die. It's one of the clearest childhood memories I have.

Reading Megan Abbott's version of a coming-of-age tale shot through with dark secrets and unbidden impulses is like getting the wind knocked out of you for the first time. It's sudden, inexplicable, frightening and leaves you breathless. When it's all over and done with, you feel a little nauseous, a lot bruised and newly wary of the world surrounding you. It's as if your senses have been heightened, and a forbidden knowledge passed onto you that you don't ever remember asking for, or wanting.

The End of Everything is a story about that tender, delicate, powerful place girls find themselves in before they become women, when they cling to each other like life support systems, sharing breaths, secrets, curiosity and hormones. Hug your daughters close, because I did not need Megan Abbott to grip me by the throat and show me that when our girls are laughing the hardest, and tumbling cartwheels in the sunshine, that is when they are at their most vulnerable. How they yearn for what they cannot name and do not understand, moving towards it like moths to flames, ignorant to the perils, to how much something can burn and leave scars.

Thirteen-year-old Lizzie is our narrator, which makes for a brilliant choice. We see events from her innocent eyes and as she is thinking one thing, we are thinking something else. (view spoiler)

This is a sad story, and it is a difficult read. There are many times where you will feel deeply uncomfortable. There are truths here that we do not want to know, do not want to ponder, and for some readers, truths they will not want to remember. But it is also a beautifully constructed piece of prose and if I wasn't a fan of Megan Abbott before now, this novel has clinched it.

P.S. A quick note on the audiobook: I did not enjoy the reader at all. I found the voice too childish, hyper and nails-on-a-chalkboard squeaky. The way she spoke for Mr. Verver really rubbed me the wrong way too. If I could have, I would have finished this in print. Don't listen to this one. Read it.(less)

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Sep 12, 2011 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: very-well-written

Woahhhh.

I just finished this and honestly don't know how to process it. It was one of the most powerful, quietly disturbing books I've ever read. There is so much there and it leaves you wondering, with so many questions.

I didn't know if I wanted to read this or "Across the universe", so I thought I'd read a chapter of each and then read the more interesting book. I started reading this and forgot "Across the universe" was even an option.

Some people may not like this. Some people may think it mo...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Josh rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own, crime, read_2011

Exceptional. Megan Abbott's portrayal of two young girls on the knife edge of puberty is simply breathtaking and awe inspiring. Lizzie and Evie, inseparable in all ways since birth have their bond tested when Evie falls victim to a predator - ruthlessly snatched from her urban surroundings. However, the waters, though disturbed grow even murkier as the story unfolds with hidden truths and whispered secrets casting a subtle light on a shadow of doubt. 'The End of Everything' is all encompassing;...more

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Jun 26, 2012 Anke rated it 2 of 5 stars

I can't decide how to rate this book - very good? Very bad? It certainly is well-written and has some beautiful prose, some very good descriptions of the confusing times when you are 13 and everything in the world seems to be shifting and changing. I stayed up way too late to finish it in one go because the book gave me a sense of mounting dread that made me want to read on.

At the same time, it is extremely disturbing. I can't make up my mind whether what bothers me is the limited, self-centered...more

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Julie Anke: I think the brilliance in this novel it that the author is able to convey a 13 year old's inability to recognize a families dysfunction without...more
Jul 22, 2012 09:07am

Lins Anke, I don't think the author is trying to say that it IS the fault of the girls- the point is that THEY blame themselves and one another. Which is h...more
Sep 05, 2012 06:46pm

Jul 12, 2011 Rod Norman rated it 4 of 5 stars

What a sublime & mystical trip this was.It was as if you are searching for a truth in a fog shrouded field. It's told through the voice of a 13 yr. old girl whose best friend has disapeared. This is an event set in the 1980's,and a change of pace for Megan who owns the 1920-1940's. The story is told in a calm matter of fact and reflective manner, and the pacing in the begining is a little slow. However, the reader is rewarded for their patience over the last half of the book. You will not wa...more

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Dec 18, 2011 Emily Martin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A beautifully written book by Megan Abbott. The End of Everything is told through the eyes of little Lizzie, whose best friend Evie disappears one day. Lizzie has a brilliant imagination and helps drop bread-crumbs, speculative and true, for the police and Evie's father to follow in the pursuit of her missing friend. At first it appears that their neighbour, Mr Shaw, has taken Evie to have his wicked way with her, but the plot thickens on Evie's return and through her observant older sister, Dus...more

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Nov 07, 2011 Amy rated it 1 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 23, 2013 Holly Robinson rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have seen many reviewers fault this fine novel for being "too literary" because of Abbott's deliberate use of word and phrase repetition to build tension, and because there truly is a dark heart to this coming of age story. However, for me these two features of the book make it much more than just another off-the-shelf, tense psychological thriller. (Which, by the way, is reason enough to read it.)

Abbott's use of literary devices like repeating words or phrases is similar to other stylists li...more

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Mar 01, 2013 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

***this review is based on the appropriateness of the novel for adults. I would not want minors reading this w/o adult discussion and supervision due to adult themes.***

Megan Abbott has crafted a beautiful, yet ugly coming of age story. Lizzie and Evie are 13 year old best friends and next door neighbors, in the 1980s. When Evie disappears, Lizzie sets out to help ding her friend.
Lizzie lives with her single mom and older brother. She's jealous of Evie's perfect family, especially her wonder-da...more

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Feb 15, 2013 Ally rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
I almost didn't continue with The End of Everything after reading the first page ... The first page! I'll share with you what nearly made me hurl this book from the window of my third storey apartment into oncoming traffic ...

"She, light streaky out of the corner of my eye." What is that ?!! What kind of an opening sentence is that ?!! That's pretentious, gimmicky and irritating, that's what that is! Honestly, I rolled my eyes so hard at that sentence I almost lost them inside my head. Please,...more
I almost didn't continue with The End of Everything after reading the first page ... The first page! I'll share with you what nearly made me hurl this book from the window of my third storey apartment into oncoming traffic ...

"She, light streaky out of the corner of my eye." What is that ?!! What kind of an opening sentence is that ?!! That's pretentious, gimmicky and irritating, that's what that is! Honestly, I rolled my eyes so hard at that sentence I almost lost them inside my head. Please, if you want to grab readers on the first page don't write a choppy, grating description of kids playing in the street so jarring it makes my eyes water (bearing in mind my eyes are now buried in my head so now I have water on the brain. Thank you for that Megan Abbott ... )

As for the rest of the book ... After that doubtful start, the novel unravelled into the story of two 13 year old best friends, Lizzie and Evie. Evie gets supposedly kidnapped and the whole town goes on the hunt for the pervert who surely stole her. A whole lotta shit goes down as secrets are uncovered and Lizzie discovers that maybe she didn't know her best friend as well as she thought, and maybe she has a lot more to learn about the world than she imagined.

The End of Everything is narrated by Lizzie and Megan Abbott does get her voice bang on. Lizzie is naive, selfish and optimistic enough to be a very believable 13 year old girl. She has yet to have the weight of the world crush her spirit and sets out to find out the truth about what happened to her best friend herself. She is childish enough to enjoy the attention she receives for being at the centre of the tragedy but mature enough to realise that it won't be put right by sitting around wishing and hoping.

The story has a rather disturbing undercurrent throughout coming into the open with the revelation near the end. I did not expect nor enjoy this turn of events. It goes that Evie willingly went with her "kidnapper" enjoying the attention and excitement of what she perceived to be a relationship with an older man. A picture is painted of Evie living in the shadow of her older sister, Dusty and being attention starved by her father. Megan Abbott proposed that this is what drove Evie into the arms of the pervert who she ran away with.

I'm sure Ms Abbot did not intend for her book to suggest that it is the fault of the victim when a young girl is groomed, brainwashed and kidnapped by a pedophile but it certainly came off like that. I did not feel like it was made clear that a young, naive little girl can never be blamed for the twisted actions of a responsible adult and that this is never as cut and dry as oh, she didn't get enough attention from her father so she began an almost sexual relationship with a man of a similar age. Please! There are so many more complex emotions, reasons and situations going on behind an incident like this. The whole debacle was dealt with far too lightly.

I can't say I enjoyed The End of Everything but it was beautiful written for the most part (not counting that dire first page!) and the characters were well developed and believable. A solid three stars. (less)

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Feb 13, 2013 Rhonda Filipan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Disturbing and creepy. Those are the adjectives that describe The End of Everything. In the story, a 13-year-old girl, Evie Verver, tired of living in the shadow of her pretty older sister runs off with a 40-somthing neighbor. Or, maybe he abducted her? Hmmmm.... It's that premise that propels the plot of this novel, keeping readers turning the pages.

However, it's the Verver girls' father and his so-close-that-it-seems-incestuous relationship with them that is creepier still. Reviewers have pra...more

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Feb 08, 2013 James Stone rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who enjoys well-written "rock legend" biographies and/or anyone who love rock/blues history

This is, to me, without doubt, the most well-written, creepiest, darkest, most true to life story of coming of age. It slowly, painfully, layer by layer as if peeling an onion, slits open the soft, illusionary but midnight dark underbelly of American suburbia.
Abbott is no stranger to the written word, having won the Edgar Award for crime fiction. I have read all of her crime fiction and watched her get better and better at it. Then this: a stunning turn toward an even darker world, one of secret...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Caitlin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, literary, unusual-women

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The End of Everything was sold to me by my good friend Scarlett Parrish describing it as ‘Lolita as written by Ruth Rendell.’ I started reading it as a reward for reaching 10k on my novel today, and didn’t stop till I was finished. Yes, it’s one of those.

Ultimately, The End of Everything is a story about the period directly following the abduction of a young girl, as told by her best friend. Complete with the sort of details about the hazy, dazy world of childhood and pubescence that only the un...more The End of Everything was sold to me by my good friend Scarlett Parrish describing it as ‘Lolita as written by Ruth Rendell.’ I started reading it as a reward for reaching 10k on my novel today, and didn’t stop till I was finished. Yes, it’s one of those.

Ultimately, The End of Everything is a story about the period directly following the abduction of a young girl, as told by her best friend. Complete with the sort of details about the hazy, dazy world of childhood and pubescence that only the unsentimental remember, it feels utterly honest and true. From the descriptions of the early stages of sexual development, to the simple, romantic imaginings of girls of that age, everything fitted neatly into a slot I know and remember well.

The prose. Oh. The prose. It’s beautiful. It completely captures that childhood feeling – the feeling of endless days and a wider world that barely makes sense, the feeling of grasping your way through fog, occasionally coming across barely realised adult horrors. As the young girls discuss Evies abduction, the prurient, eager dissection of the horrors she’ll undergo feels real, and I remember similar horrified-ecstatic conversations, always going on. Always there.

As it goes on, The End of Everything becomes an excellent examinaton of how a precocious young girl can be persuaded into believing she wants the ‘love’ of an older peadophile.

Evie felt Mr. Shaw’s love, and what girl wouldn’t eventually sink into that love, its dreamy promise? He, a man three times her age who’s seen the world and known things and knows most that she is the most special girl of all? She is everything and he would tear down his life for her. He would tear it down because just one downward glance from her would heal him, save him. She has that power. What girl wouldn’t want that power? [...] “He told me it was like a piercing thing in his chest. One day, it just happened. He saw me and it happened, and after that there was nothing else. A hole in his chest like you could stick your finger in.” I feel a shudder right through me, quaking. I feel my thighs go loose and hot. Oh my, it’s a sickness. A sickness. I swoon into it. She is telling, she is finally telling. It’s like dipping your toe in a magical lake in some fairy tale.

Abbott, Megan (2011-08-19). The End of Everything (p. 186). Macmillan Publishers UK. Kindle Edition.

And it breaks that lie, the lie that Humbert Humbert of Lolita tells, that’s it’s love, that’s it’s OK, that’s it’s magic. It breaks it’s own enchantment open on itself with brutality to tell you there is no dreamy, hazy reality in which a Nymphet is truly a willing and active participant, that there is no world in which the ‘seduction’ of a thirteen year old girl by a forty year-old man is anything other than a gross defilement.

In this it is still Lolita, but where Lolita can fool the less aware reader, the person who cannot read between the lines, this spells it out. The story told in the end is Lolita if Dolores Haze had her say, stripping it all of the illusionary romance of it.

And then the ending comes, and it connects everything, while still leaving you in doubt, never giving way, never giving you an easy answer, and you come back into the world feeling strange, feeling changed. Disconnected. A new knowledge in your breast. This is the way good books work.

Review cross-posted on my blogs I Fucking Love Books (http://ifuckinglovebooks.wordpress.co...) and Books are My Drug (http://bookdrug.wordpress.com/2013/02...)(less)

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Dec 31, 2012 Hannah Wingfield rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wanted to like this book, I really did. Firstly, because it was a gift, and I know the person who gave it to me will read this – I hate to sound ungrateful by admitting that I didn’t enjoy it, or as though I am criticising her taste (she has given me other books that I have loved and we usually enjoy quite similar books, so this review is definitely not intended to do that. This was just a rare time we happened to disagree, or perhaps she hadn’t read it herself before giving me a copy). Second...more

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Nov 26, 2012 Saab Magalona rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you enjoyed The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides and The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold , you should get this book. The two books I just mentioned are often compared to Megan Abbott’s The End of Everything (2011) and are coincidentally 2 of my favorite books back in high school.

Thirteen-year-old Lizzie Hood and her next-door neighbor Evie Verver are inseparable. And to Lizzie, the Verver household, including Evie’s glamorous older sister and her bighearted father, is the world’s most perfec...more

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Nov 18, 2012 christa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Oh, okay. I see. This is Megan Abbott’s jam. She likes to write sexy coming-of-age stories about smooth-legged teenaged girls who toss their tresses and emit from scents from the surface of their lips and their pores. Girls who have a sexual power they are first learning to wield. Girls who catch the eye of inappropriately aged dudes, either purposefully or not.

In “The End of Everything,” Lizzie and Evie are next-door neighbors and besties. They are both dazzled by Evie’s older sister Dusty, th...more Oh, okay. I see. This is Megan Abbott’s jam. She likes to write sexy coming-of-age stories about smooth-legged teenaged girls who toss their tresses and emit from scents from the surface of their lips and their pores. Girls who have a sexual power they are first learning to wield. Girls who catch the eye of inappropriately aged dudes, either purposefully or not.

In “The End of Everything,” Lizzie and Evie are next-door neighbors and besties. They are both dazzled by Evie’s older sister Dusty, the oft-stalked older sister who is so lovely and a fierce field hockey player. Life is good at the Verver’s house, where the girls sift through Dusty’s belongings and banter with Mr. Verver, the sort of flirty dad who graces ladies of all ages with his gaze. Things are a little unsettled at Lizzie’s house, where her dad has left and her mother is in the middle of a super-secret relationship with a doctor who still wears a wedding ring.

After school one day, Lizzie catches a ride with her mother to go dress shopping and Evie dismisses their offer of a ride. And then she doesn’t come home.

Mr. Verver tries to coax info from Lizzie and it works. She remembers cigarette butts crushed beneath a tree outside the Verver’s home and how Evie told her that someone was watching her. She also remembers an always-present maroon car. And when it’s revealed that the car belongs to the neighbor Mr. Shaw, Evie remembers things her friend has said about the man’s very obvious loneliness. He’s MIA, too. Evie spends Lizzie’s absence hanging out with Mr. Verver in a place that is closer to a crush than her search for a father figure. She also creeps around at night, trying to find clues to her friend’s whereabouts.

A whole load of complicated relationships and emotions bubble just below the surface as everyone tries to figure out what happened to Evie and whether she is still alive.

Earlier this year I read Abbott’s “Dare Me,” and I dug the way she wrote girls at this weird age demographic. All the politics and plotting and manipulation. All wrapped in Bath & Body Works. It was terrifying. Now I see that this is Abbott’s signature style, which kind of takes the sheen off of “Dare Me.” This story is more tricky with its relationship structures: A teenaged girl who allows an adult male quick glimpses, knowing that it makes him happy and sort of needing that adoration. Another teenaged girl craves her father’s attention in a way that has been called into question, and she’s in the mid of a jealous snit when another teenaged girl captures his attention. Whatta mess. Plot-wise and impact-wise, I preferred “Dare Me.”

Abbott’s great. She writes really loaded descriptions and she’s got serious plots running around in her head. But I think I’m over this scene. It just feels too close, thematically and word-wise, to “Dare Me” and I have a feeling there’s more where these came from. (less)

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Nov 03, 2012 MaryJude Schmitz rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am not sure if this book would have the same effect on you if you have never been a 13 year old girl, but this book brought so much back for me. We are taught at a very young age that the way to get attention and "love" from boys is with our bodies. At 13, we do not have the control over boys our own age with our bodies as we do with the older boys or men so we turn our sights to them when we want love. I remember shamelessly flirting with the young men that worked with our youth group, sittin...more I am not sure if this book would have the same effect on you if you have never been a 13 year old girl, but this book brought so much back for me. We are taught at a very young age that the way to get attention and "love" from boys is with our bodies. At 13, we do not have the control over boys our own age with our bodies as we do with the older boys or men so we turn our sights to them when we want love. I remember shamelessly flirting with the young men that worked with our youth group, sitting on their laps, touching their legs, never quite crossing an invisible, scary line, but wanting them to pay attention, wanting them to want me. If we had known what these things that we did really made them think or feel, we would have run screaming from these alien creatures. What we thought was pure and innocent was causing a whole different kind of turmoil in them. It is why, working at an all girls high school, I worry about the male teachers because they do not and can never know the minds of young, inexperienced girls who want so much to be loved by the opposite sex.

I remember days spent with my best friend, reading books about young people having sex for the first time. She had two older sisters who seemed so glamorous and knowledgable to us then. They would go out with their boyfriends and we would wonder about the secret things they did and wonder if we would ever do them too. We looked at the young men that we knew like they knew so much and we wanted them to teach us, not really knowing what it was, naively believing in that pure love that we felt from our fathers.

This book brought all this back for me and I feel like Megan Abbott was right with me growing up. I think we even grew up during the same time period, with our tapes instead of CDs, our time spent outside instead of with videos.

I am so thankful that what happened in this book never happened to me, that I never crossed that line. But looking back, I see how easily it could have happened and I worry for my daughters. (less)

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Sep 02, 2012 Georgia rated it 2 of 5 stars

And That Was When I Knew, It Was Already Too Late (The End of Everything)

"The End of Everything", by Megan Abbott (not to be confused with Meg Cabot- who wrote the "Princess Diaries" series). "The End of Everything" was published this year, 2011.

In its most basic form, it is a coming of age story, mixed with a young girl's disappearance and the aftershock that follows, all told from the point of view of 13 year-old, Lizzie. Now, the book is all in 1st person, so normally, as readers, we would c...more

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Aug 19, 2012 Cindy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: roman, thriller

Das Ende der Unschuld ist in jeglicher Hinsicht das Ende der Unschuld. Der Wechsel auf die Highschool spielt eine Rolle, was ein offizieller Wechsel in einen neuen Lebensabschnitt darstellt. Die Grenze vom unschuldigen Kind zum Erwachsenen wird dargestellt/übertreten.
Das Buch wird aus der Sicht der Lizzie erzählt, es wird immer wieder über ihre Gedankenwelt berichtet, sogar sehr intensiv. Man kann wunderbar die kindliche Naivität, aber dann auch wieder die schon sehr erwachsenen Gedanken erkenne...more Das Ende der Unschuld ist in jeglicher Hinsicht das Ende der Unschuld. Der Wechsel auf die Highschool spielt eine Rolle, was ein offizieller Wechsel in einen neuen Lebensabschnitt darstellt. Die Grenze vom unschuldigen Kind zum Erwachsenen wird dargestellt/übertreten.
Das Buch wird aus der Sicht der Lizzie erzählt, es wird immer wieder über ihre Gedankenwelt berichtet, sogar sehr intensiv. Man kann wunderbar die kindliche Naivität, aber dann auch wieder die schon sehr erwachsenen Gedanken erkennen.
Es werden viele Notlügen von Lizzie erfunden, nur um Aufmerksamkeit zu bekommen. Sie versucht alles damit man ihr glaubt, und das sie im Mittelpunkt steht. Ich habe das Gefühl das es in diesem Buch sowieso sehr darum geht, welche der Mädchen nun grad die Tollste ist. Dusty, sowie Evie buhlen um die Aufmerksamkeit ihres Vaters.
Die Familie von Lizzie, und die der Ververs haben den Hauptpart im Buch. Ausserdem geht es aber auch noch um die Familie Shaw.
Es geht um Liebe, aber nicht nur um Verliebtsein, die ersten Schwärmereien und Erfahrungen mit gleich altrigen Jungs, sondern auch um ältere Männer, die so alt sind wie ihre eigenen Väter. Es wirkt als wären die Beschwärmten beinahe etwas "Heiliges".
Dusty und Evie sind scheinbar ihr ganzes Leben lang Rivalinnen, was in einem Drama endet. Dusty ist die Starke schillernde die auf keinen Fall die Aufmerksamkeit ihres Vaters teilen will mit ihrer kleinen Schwester. Immerhin ist sie es die später mal den Männern die Herzen brechen wird.
Was sehr schmerzhaft mitzuerleben ist, ist, dass keiner so richtig die Wahrheit spricht, das keiner offen mit dem Anderen umgeht, und das selbst die besten Freundinnen Evie und Lizzie sich nicht komplett vertrauen können, da es Sachen gibt, die sie sich gegenseitig verheimlichen, und das scheint auch schon länger der Fall zu sein.
In Lizzies, sowie in Evies Familie wird nicht mit offenen Karten gespielt, weder unter den Erwachsenen noch unter den Kindern. Das lässt erahnen wie es in einer "scheinbar" glücklichen Familie zu geht, die gar keine ist.
Durch das ganze Buch wird ein roter Faden gesponnen, zu dem mehrere Handlungsstränge gewoben werden. Das Verschwinden von Evie, und es begleitet einen durch das ganze Buch. Es wird gezeigt das erwachsen werden nicht nur schön ist, und das im Leben viele Gefahren auf einen lauern, bei denen man besser gleich genau hinschauen sollte.
Ich fand es sehr sehr interessant das Buch zu lesen, ich war die ganze Zeit "hautnah" dabei, ich sah die einzelnen Szenen vor meinem inneren Auge, und ich konnte mich super einfühlen. Einziges Manko finde ich das halb offene Ende, das gefällt mir gar nicht, ich hab das Gefühl als hänge ich jetzt in der Luft, und warte darauf wie es weiter gehen könnte, aber auf der anderen Seite ist auch alles gesagt, so spielt das Leben einfach.
Empfehlen möchte ich das Buch nur Menschen die nicht ganz so zartbesaitet sind, es ist sehr aufwühlend, aber sehr spannend. Wer das mag, der ist bei diesem Buch genau richtig. Von mir bekommt das Buch 4 Sterne.(less)

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Aug 19, 2012 Leadis Jarvis rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read "The End of Everything" after finishing Megan Abbott's page-turner, "Dare Me." Much like "Dare Me," this novel focuses on the intimate relationship between two young girls and how secrets and lies are uncovered when one of the girls suddenly goes missing.

Although there were some of the same dark overtones, in this novel, the creep factor was much higher - not in an eerie way, but in an uncomfortable way. This is a coming-of-age story with a seedy underbelly.

The story was interesting, but...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Laura added it

"And that makes me think of all the parents at block parties when we were kids, the way they would huddle with one another's spouses, sneaking off for smokes like teenagers, dancing too close, dropping beer bottles and tripping across lawns. Like married people love to do. And they love to make their husbands, their wives, act the knuckle-rapping parents all day so they can play the wayward kid. Is being young so magical that they must conjure it up again, can't help themselves? I don't see any...more "And that makes me think of all the parents at block parties when we were kids, the way they would huddle with one another's spouses, sneaking off for smokes like teenagers, dancing too close, dropping beer bottles and tripping across lawns. Like married people love to do. And they love to make their husbands, their wives, act the knuckle-rapping parents all day so they can play the wayward kid. Is being young so magical that they must conjure it up again, can't help themselves? I don't see any magic in it at all."

This quote from Megan Abbott's extremely dark, but strangely beautiful book about a child abduction, shows the central irony, and truth, about desire. While watching all the adults in the neighborhood play at recaptured youth, Lizzie Hood, the narrator, and her best friend Evie are dangerously playing at adulthood. They envy Evie's older sister, her confidence, and her relationship with her father, which seems so, well, adult. The summer before entering high school, Lizzie and Evie are at the perfect transitional moment for Abbott to tell her story, which isn't just a crime story, but a story about wanting. Gillian Flynn calls the book a "story of yearning" in her blurb, and that was the essence of the novel for me as well. Some of the desires in the story are taboo, others are criminal, and others (Lizzie's in particular) are without object or misdirected. And yet, those desires are the ties that bind all of Abbott's characters.

But, I am ahead of myself. The End of Everything is the story of Evie's abduction just before her middle school graduation, and Lizzie's desperate attempt to solve the crime herself using things that Evie has told her. As she searches for more of these clues in the depths of her memory, she finds herself at the center of the investigation, the rock that Evie's crumbling father starts to rely on. Sleuthing becomes a catalyst for many rites of passage for Lizzie as well, and she finds darkness in her own desires, alongside holes from things that she didn't know were missing.

The book is but hard to put down despite its often disturbing subject matter, and not only because there is a crime to be solved at the heart of the plot. Abbott's descriptive capabilities, and her understanding of the psychology of young girls, are impressive. Something about the way she writes embroils the reader in a realistic sort of moral murkiness, which her characters are experiencing themselves. Under every interaction, no matter how innocent the pretense, there is something sinister lurking. I recommend this book certainly to fans of dark fiction and noir who can handle a little murk.(less)

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Aug 01, 2012 Holly rated it 4 of 5 stars

I absolutely loved this book! I chance upon it at the end of last year at my library on the "recent additions" shelf and just took a chance, and WOW was I completely bowled over. It is hard for me to describe just WHY I loved it so much, but I just totally and completely identified with Lizzie and could just feel everything she felt. I think that Megan Abbott has some deep, intense insight into what it's REALLY like to be a young girl, just on the cusp of where you start going from being "awww,...more I absolutely loved this book! I chance upon it at the end of last year at my library on the "recent additions" shelf and just took a chance, and WOW was I completely bowled over. It is hard for me to describe just WHY I loved it so much, but I just totally and completely identified with Lizzie and could just feel everything she felt. I think that Megan Abbott has some deep, intense insight into what it's REALLY like to be a young girl, just on the cusp of where you start going from being "awww, cute!" to "yeeaaahhhh, cuuuuute" (you know, said by some disgusting junior who's checking out the 6th-graders who've matured early). She writes perfectly about innocence lost, about slowly realizing that those we hold out as ideals are actually disappointments (in that they're real people, not ideals of perfection).

I know some people have commented about the subject matter (the whole young girl with (much) older guy thing), but it didn't bother me. I certainly didn't feel that Ms. Abbott was *condoning* such a "relationship," which is a criticism I've heard of this book. Personally I think that just because an author writes about a subject that makes you/us/society uncomfortable, it does NOT mean that they CONDONE, or believe in, or make light of, or (insert criticism here) such topic. To me, it means that they are not afraid to reach to and write about those topics, that they don't let uncomfortable-ness control their creative processes. I think it signals that an author is brave! (i.e., when it's NOT written about to clearly titillate, let's get that out of the way) Also I think it's really the case that such criticisms are inevitably about sex in some form - you don't see any of the multitude of authors who've written about gun violence in schools being accused of *supporting* or *condoning* such behavior.

Anyway, jumping off my soap box now, point is I thought that Ms. Abbott's use of language was stunning, her characters were perfectly drawn, and everything about the book was just beautiful. I would highly recommend this to folks who like literary fiction, it's simply gorgeous.(less)

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Jun 19, 2012 Barbara rated it 3 of 5 stars

The End of Everything
Megan Abbott
Megan Abbott is known for her mid-century noir books, but this is a departure from that style. She still choses a previous time period, 1980’s, and she still leans toward a dark subject, but her style is more Joyce Carol Oates than Dashiell Hammett.
Two thirteen old girls, Evie and Lizzie, are next door neighbors, and best friends since before they can remember. They do everything together, think the same things and know all about each other – don’t they? Lizzie,...more

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Apr 30, 2012 Lauren Munoz rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I started this book, I was put off by Abbott's writing style. Choppy first-person, with a stream-of-consciousness feel, bogged down by literary description. But once I got used to it, I started to enjoy it. I didn't think it was anything like reading the thoughts of a thirteen year old (I agree with someone else who said it's like reading an adult thoughtfully describe being thirteen), but that didn't bother me, because quite frankly I have no interest in reading something limited by a thir...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Pam Terry rated it 4 of 5 stars

The End of Everything, by Megan Abbott.
A little girl is taken, suspect is a neigbor. Her best friend playes detective.

This book defenitly strikes right through to the chest. I was not able to stop reading this, and finished in one day. The descriptions of the charters were so vivid, I could see every detail of the main characters, up close and very personal. This powerful description of friendship, and the need for a loving authority figure as a little girl needs from a dad and or father figur...more

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Feb 19, 2012 Nigel Bird rated it 5 of 5 stars

“Everything looks funny now. But I don’t think it’s really changed. I just never saw it before. The pieces just got switched around.”

Transformations in life happen gradually most of the time. We don’t always see them until the process is over.

Such changes are accelerated by sudden events. Traumas and delights both. In ‘The End OfEverything’ we are taken through a series of events where everyone is affected by the gravity of what happens.

When teenager Evie disappears, we get to experience the unf...more

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Jan 08, 2012 Colleen rated it 3 of 5 stars

The End of Everything by Megan Abbott is a cross between a coming of age story and a crime thriller - the result is a quietly disturbing but powerful book. Thirteen year-olds Evie and Lizzie live across the street from each other in an average suburban neighborhood and are best friends. When Evie suddenly goes missing, Lizzie begins to realize her friend didn't share absolutely everything with her. Despite not knowing everything about her best friend, she also may be key in trying to locate her...more The End of Everything by Megan Abbott is a cross between a coming of age story and a crime thriller - the result is a quietly disturbing but powerful book. Thirteen year-olds Evie and Lizzie live across the street from each other in an average suburban neighborhood and are best friends. When Evie suddenly goes missing, Lizzie begins to realize her friend didn't share absolutely everything with her. Despite not knowing everything about her best friend, she also may be key in trying to locate her and is strangely thrilled by that power. Lizzie grows up quickly during this search as she realizes life isn't always as it seems.

Evie and Lizzie are practically inseparable and share the things many eighth grade girls do - they go to and from school together, play field hockey and share bathing suits. As is also common between young friends, Lizzie secretly covets the life Evie has with her family. Her older, attractive sister, perfectly turned out mother and fun-loving father make a perfect unit that Lizzie longs to be a part of. She lives with her divorced mother and an older brother who is indifferent to Lizzie - her family life certainly has none of the sparkle of Evie's family. All the more reason to spend as much time as possible with Lizzie and her family. When Evie disappears, Lizzie is certainly anxious about where her friend is and who might have taken her but she also takes the opportunity to slip into Evie's family by offering any knowledge she has about Evie's disappearance. Things get bizarre once Evie is abducted and secrets get exposed one by one.

My Thoughts

Initially, this book fell flat for me. I felt it moved slowly and I had difficulty connecting with the characters. However, after finishing the book and allowing time to pass, I realize the brilliance of the book is its ability to make a reader uncomfortable and I have a new respect for it. There is a "creepiness" that pervades the story and intensifies as the search for Evie continues. There are hints of inappropriateness but nothing you can really put your finger on. For example, Evie's father talks about how beautiful her older sister is and how many boys must be after her and he encourages her to tell him all about her dates. Is he a fun, open-minded Dad or does he cross some line with his daughter? Lizzie is infatuated by Evie's Dad and as she teeters between girlhood and womanhood her feelings for him swing between innocent admiration and flirtation. My discomfort grew as the book continued and I have since been haunted by the characters and the story (I was similarly haunted by The Lovely Bones). Couple the haunting with excellent writing and you have the explanation for why a book I initially disliked is now a book I would recommend.(less)

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Dec 19, 2011 Barbara rated it 4 of 5 stars

I picked up this book for 2 reasons, it took place in the 80's Midwest, and it reminded me a bit of something that happened to my best friend. We grew up in a quiet Mid-western neighborhood in the 70's. Her neighbor was a seemingly nice older guy, who in fact molested many girls. Her parents never believed her and she was lucky to get away before something really awful happened.

This book was so well written from the 13yr old's point of view. It brought back so many memories of how uncomfortable...more

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About Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott is the Edgar® award-winning author of the novels The End of Everything Queenpin, The Song Is You, Die a Little, Bury Me Deep and her latest, Dare Me (July 2012).

Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Believer, Los Angeles Review of Books, Detroit Noir, Best Crime and Mystery Stories of the Year, Storyglossia, Queens Noir and The Spee...more

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“Running so hard, her breath stippled with pain to go faster, hit the grass harder, move forward faster, like she could break through something in front of her, something no one else saw.” — 4 people liked it

“Then she said sometimes the ways boys need things so badly, like they could never stop needing, it almost scared her.” — 2 people liked it

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