This Is Where It Ends

Intersections between personal relationships–brother and sister, child and parent, and between two young lovers–pervade This Is Where It Ends. Nijkamp propels the narrative arcs forward by exploring each narrator’s relationship to Tyler.

Tyler and Autumn’s mother’s death tears Tyler apart, and his father descends into heavy-drinking. Autumn’s mother’s absence, and Sylv’s mother’s sickness, brings the two girls closer. Claire breaks up with Tyler about a year before the shooting, the night of the junior prom. That same night, Tyler attacks Sylv. The next day at school, Tomas pins Tyler to a locker for what he did to Sylv and this becomes the day Tyler drops out of Opportunity High School.

As significant as the series of events leading up to Tyler dropping out are, the threads of narrative explorations that grow out of these events are even more significant for the novel. In this way, Nijkamp weaves various relationships throughout the novel and raises personal relationships effected by family trauma to a major theme. Tyler says to the students in the gym: “Do you know what it feels like to lose everything you hold dear? Your family? Your girlfriend? For your entire town to turn against you too? Arrogant Tyler.