Janie and Micah, Micah and Janie. That’s how it’s been ever since elementary school, when Janie Vivien moved next door. Janie says Micah is everything she is not. Where Micah is shy, Janie is outgoing. Where Micah loves music, Janie loves art. It’s the perfect friendship—as long as no one finds out about it. But then Janie goes missing and everything Micah thought he knew about his best friend is colored with doubt.
My Review
I read this book while I was on vacation in Vegas and it falls into the “I devoured it” category. Once I picked it up (on the plane), I could not put it down. One of the best realistic YA novels I’ve read in a while.
Why did I love this book so much? Well, as you may know if you read any of my reviews, the characters where painfully real and that hooked me. Micah is a nerdy boy who has a secret relationship with Janie (his next door neighbour). They have been best friends since they were young and share everything … according to Janie they share a soul.
But Janie doesn’t want anyone to know how close her and Micah are. Micah goes along because he’s clearly in love with her and they have been friends forever.
Janie is the type of character who compartmentalizes her entire life. She has her Janie and Micah compartment, she has her dream compartment (which holds her hopes for taking a gap year in Nepal and working in an orphanage) and then she has her school/friend/popular kid/boyfriend compartment. Micah is only allowed to be part of the first and second compartments but at school and in social settings, Janie pretends she doesn’t know him.
This is such a real high school relationship, at times it was hard to read. My daughter had a friend who did this to her. He was besties outside of social settings but he didn’t include her at school or parties or things like that. My heart broke a bit for Micah, who doesn’t understand why Janie does this but goes along with it because that’s just Janie.
Amy Zhang writes this from both characters’ points of view, so the reader does get to see what’s going on in Janie’s head. We can see that Janie believes that Micah and her will end up together in the end. But that’s in the far distant future and for now she wants to have fun. Micah will always be there for her. After all they are destined to be together. And as a reader, you want to believe her.
Right from the opening pages of the book, though, you know something is off. Micah wakes in hospital with no memory of what happened to him. He’s had a head injury and keeps losing memories. And Janie isn’t there. And she’s not answering his texts. His buddy tells him that she went to Nepal (where she always wanted to go) and Micah believes him. But things don’t add up.
As the story unravels, moving back and forward in time, the sequence of events slowly unfold until the reader understands what happens.
Without giving it all away, this book deals with heavy topics including mental wellness and brain injury.
I strongly recommend This is Where the World Ends. Great book!
Buylink: https://www.amazon.ca/This-Where-World-Ends-Zhang/dp/0062383043/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1463666370&sr=8-1
