The first day back to school is like anything you’d imagine at Opportunity High. The principal gives her “Welcome Back” speech, encouraging students to thrive and succeed in the new and fresh semester. Everything is on schedule. Until it’s not. Doors are locked, confusion spreads, and shots are fired. This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp is a touchingly devastating story about a tragic event that students are faced with at Opportunity High: a school shooting. Although the shooting in the novel is fictional, it is an unfortunate reality that some students face. Nijkamp does an excellent job of capturing the reactions that students may have while experiencing a school shooting. The novel follows four different perspectives while the school shooting is happening. Each perspective uniquely showcases how each person handles stressful situations.

One thing I think Nijkamp did amazingly was the inclusion of social media threads. Various amounts of information are shared through social media posts about the school shooting. People utilize social media in different ways, but in this case the characters use social media to connect to people outside the school. The characters' reactions are what really make this novel beam with realism, and each student’s perspective helps the reader better understand how and why the school shooting is happening. Each character holds some form of connection with the shooter, whether it is the shooter’s sibling, ex-lover, or old friend. The connections that the four main characters have to the shooter expand the emotions that make this novel so real.

Review by: Khrizlina R.

Khrizlina is a virtual volunteer at Sylmar Branch Library. She is an 11th grader at Lancaster High School.

—Dana Eklund, Sylmar Branch Library