Blog Tour: Things To Do Before The End Of The World by Emily Barr

Synopsis

A timely and powerful coming-of-age thriller from the bestselling author of The One Memory of Flora Banks.

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What would you do when you hear the news that humans have done such damage to the earth that there might only be a limited amount of safe air left – a year’s worth at most?
You’d work through your bucket list, heal rifts, do everything you’ve never been brave enough to do before?

Olivia is struggling to do any of this. What it is she truly wants to do? Who do she wants to be?

Then out of the blue comes contact from a long-lost cousin Olivia didn’t even know existed. Natasha is everything Olivia wants to be and more. And as the girls meet up for a long, hot last summer, Olivia finds Natasha’s ease and self-confidence having an effect on her.

But Natasha definitely isn’t everything she first appears to be . . .

About The Author – Emily Barr

I started out working as a journalist in London, but always hankered after a quiet room and a book to write. I managed, somehow, to get commissioned to go travelling for a year, and came home with the beginnings of a novel set in the world of backpackers in Asia. This became Backpack, a thriller which won the WH Smith New Talent Award, and I have since written eleven more novels for adults, one novella, and three book for Young Adults, published in the UK and around the world. I live in Cornwall with my husband Craig and our children.

Website: https://www.emilybarr.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/emily_barr

My Thoughts

Thank you so much to #TheWriteReads, Penguin and the author for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I LOVE thrillers. I enjoy dystopia. So a thriller set before the imminent end of the world seemed right up my street. Indeed, I loved the atmosphere of the impending doom as the day when the awful gases trapped beneath the rapidly melting permafrost will kill the whole human race gets closer and closer. Given the issues with such rapid climate change, this felt like an incredibly plausible end to the world and it made me feel quite uncomfortable and rather freaked out. I think this is testament to Barr’s writing style as the end of the world was very much the backdrop and a catalyst to the action that unfurled during the book. It was never the main focus, but an ever present threat.

I really enjoyed the character of Olivia. I could see a lot of my teenage self in her – very little self esteem and having to create herself a persona to enable her to have the confidence she needs in front of others. Throughout the book, her personality shone through as she became increasingly independent. I also like the sub-plot of the Sapphic romance as I think it’s important that other young women reading this can see themselves reflected in the main character.

The main tension of the book comes from the relationship between Olivia and Natasha which had me puzzled until the final 100 pages when all the pieces started slotting into place. Natasha is Olivia’s long lost cousin who has come over from the US to spend the summer with her estranged family before the end of the world. She is a complete enigma. Confident, outgoing, performing street magic and palmistry for money. She is the antithesis of Olivia. But she is concealing a nefarious secret. I liked how all this action culminated at the end of the book and I found the ending wrapped the whole story up well.

I must say that while I was reading the book, I wasn’t totally convinced that it was for me. YA isn’t my go to genre as teenage angst can rub me up the wrong way. I was quite torn with this book as it was quite a mishmash of genres, but I can’t really pinpoint exactly what it was that didn’t gel with me. Nonetheless, I was on board with it by the end, especially after the big reveal. I think that if I read this book as a teenager, I would have absolutely loved it and there were certainly aspects that my adult self thought made the book really good. I would not hesitate to recommend it to my students or to other fans of YA.

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