The End of Our Story by Meg Haston (Website, Twitter, Goodreads)Published by HarperCollins on April 4th 2017
Genres: Dating & Sex, Emotions & Feelings, Physical & Emotional Abuse, Social Themes, Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 288
Meg Haston's romantic and thrilling new YA novel explores a star-crossed high school relationship in a tale rife with deeply buried secrets and shocking revelations.
Bridge and Wil have been entangled in each other’s lives for years. Under the white-hot Florida sun, they went from kids daring each other to swim past the breakers to teenagers stealing kisses between classes. But when Bridge betrayed Wil during their junior year, she shattered his heart and their relationship along with it.
Then Wil’s family suffers a violent loss, and Bridge rushes back to Wil’s side. As they struggle to heal old wounds and start falling for each other all over again, Bridge and Wil discover just how much has changed in the past year. As the fierce current of tragedy threatens to pull them under, they must learn how to swim on their own—or risk drowning together.
The End of Our Story isn’t exactly what I expected… not in a bad way… I just guess I’m not sure what I think about it now that I finished it.
When the summary says romantic and thrilling, I expect romance and thrills, and I’m just not sure I got that with this story. That’s not to say that the story itself wasn’t interesting and I obviously liked it enough to finish it, but there is a lot more to this story than the summary actually implies.
Bridge and Wil have been friends since the day she moved to town. They grew up together and they grew to love each other and what starts as a friendship eventually evolves into a relationship, but where Wil is happy building boats and spending his free time with Bridge, Bridge has the urge to go out and experience life and that leads to a betrayal that Wil doesn’t think he can ever get past.
Then something unexpected happens and the man who was a father figure to Bridge violently dies, and no longer being a part of Wil’s life she struggles with trying to figure out how to deal with her grief for this man she grew to love and comfort the boy she loves, who no longer wants her to be a part of his life.
As the story slowly unravels we find that Wil’s father is not the great man that he appears to be, and the only people who know that are Wil and his mom. As you read more, you realize that yes, Wil is angry about what Bridge chose to do to their relationship, but even more than that, he’s mad that he didn’t have his best friend to confide in about what was happening in his life. So I totally got his anger.
I still don’t know how I feel about Bridge after finishing this story. She’s a character that you can understand her motivations, yet still kind of dislike.
Ultimately, don’t go into this book expecting hearts and rainbows and flowers. There’s a lot of heavy things going on and be warned for triggers relating to domestic violence.
Overall the writing was well done, and the story interesting if a bit heavier than I thought, and if open ended endings aren’t your thing… well consider this your warning.
Thank you to the publisher for an early copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.
About Meg Haston
Meg Haston is the author of the middle-grade books How to Rock Braces and Glasses and How to Rock Best Friends and Frenemies. Her young adult debut, Paperweight, will be published by HarperCollins Children's Books in Summer 2015. While passing the time between now and Summer 2015, she enjoys staying hypercaffeinated, reading (preferably in bed; preferably during a Florida thunderstorm), playing with her rescue pup Dinah, and dreaming up new stories. You can find her tweeting here. If you want to be pen pals, you can write her at meghastonbooks@gmail.com.
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