Even If We Break by Marieke Nijkamp

Even If We Break by Marieke Nijkamp is a YA thriller about a group of friends, a role-playing game, and a cabin in the woods (up a mountain). It has strong geeky sensibilities (they are, after all, playing an RPG), but is technically non-SFF, though I expect there's be a lot of SFF fans who would enjoy it regardless.

FIVE friends go to a cabin.
FOUR of them are hiding secrets.
THREE years of history bind them.
TWO are doomed from the start.
ONE person wants to end this.
NO ONE IS SAFE.


Are you ready to play?

In this novel, a group of friends go on a last getaway to mend bridges and play one last RPG campaign before some of them go off to college. The story is told through alternating points of view, cycling through all five characters. Aside from being geeky, Even if We Break also has very strong disability and trans representation, dealing with characters in a variety of circumstances.

Nijkamp excels at cramming a lot of action into a short space of time, as evidenced by This Is Where It Ends, which is called "54 Minutes" in some translations. Even if We Break is no different. Although the story starts relatively up-beat (aside from the lingering issues the characters are hoping to overcome over the weekend) but quickly become tense as things turn ugly. The five characters all have distinctive voices and I found it easy to keep the different characters straight in my mind.

I recommend Even If We Break to fans of YA thrillers and to people who wished Pretty Little Liars had disability representation and good trans representation. I expect fans of RPGs and LARPs, including readers who don't usually read non-SFF, will still find much to enjoy in reading about the friends' game and the way in which this is linked to the action. I will certainly continue to pick up Nijkamp's books as they come out.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: September 2020, Sourcebooks Fire
Series: No
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Before I Let Go by Marieke Nijkamp

Before I Let Go by Marieke Nijkamp is a non-genre YA book about a girl dealing with her best friend's death. I picked it up after hearing good things about it and thanks to having enjoyed the author's first, unrelated, book, This Is Where It Ends.

Best friends Corey and Kyra were inseparable in their snow-covered town of Lost Creek, Alaska. When Corey moves away, she makes Kyra promise to stay strong during the long, dark winter, and wait for her return.

Just days before Corey is to return home to visit, Kyra dies. Corey is devastated―and confused. The entire Lost community speaks in hushed tones about the town's lost daughter, saying her death was meant to be. And they push Corey away like she's a stranger.

Corey knows something is wrong. With every hour, her suspicion grows. Lost is keeping secrets―chilling secrets. But piecing together the truth about what happened to her best friend may prove as difficult as lighting the sky in an Alaskan winter...

This is a story about Corey dealing with her grief in the immediate aftermath of her best friend's death. Having moved away and gone to boarding school seven months earlier, this is her first trip back to the small town she still thinks of as "home". She wants to understand why Kyra killed herself, especially so close to Corey's originally planned trip back. When Corey arrives in Lost, the town is acting a bit strangely towards her and the more she learns the less happy she is with the answers she finds.

I don't want to spoil anything, but I think I saw this marketed as a thriller — and This Is Where It Ends certainly was one — but it isn't. I mean, there are weird and creepy aspects and there's a little bit of action, but I would class it as straight contemporary fiction more than anything else. I enjoyed it despite my usual preference for speculative fiction. It dealt pretty well with Kyra being bipolar, although the story was told from Corey's point of view and involved her and others coming to terms with (or not) Kyra's diagnosis. There were also queer characters and Corey herself is asexual, which is unusual and nice to see in a YA book.

The other big character in this book was the setting. This is a story that would not have worked — that could not have been told the same way — if it had not been set in a very small town. The inhospitable arctic setting of the town, which the in habitants have made their own, also contributed a lot to the overall vibe of the book. In fact, I actually really liked what the author did with a few scenes: writing them out as stage directions and dialogue to shift the impact and play with the reader's (and Corey's) perception of reality. It was an interesting device I haven't seen before. I thought it was strange at first, but it grew on me and made sense overall.

Before I Let Go isn't a happy novel, but it also wasn't as depressing as I expected it to be (but your perceptions may vary). It's main focus is on a particular set of ableist reactions to mental illness and it explores these well. It's a story of friendship and grief and a very isolated town. If that sounds like your kind of thing, or if you enjoy contemporary YA generally, then I highly recommend this book. I read it very quickly and will certainly be keeping an eye out for the author's future books.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: January 2018, Sourcebooks Fire
Series: No
Format read: Hardcover *gasp*
Source: Purchased from Dymocks

This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp is a YA novel about a high school shooting. The whole book, except for a brief epilogue, takes place over the span of less than an hour. That should give you an idea of what sort of book this is.

10:00 a.m.
The principal of Opportunity, Alabama's high school finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and encouraging them to excel and achieve.

10:02 a.m.
The students get up to leave the auditorium for their next class.

10:03
The auditorium doors won't open.

10:05
Someone starts shooting.

Told over the span of 54 harrowing minutes from four different perspectives, terror reigns as one student's calculated revenge turns into the ultimate game of survival.

This was exactly the kind of book I expected it to be. I was concerned I would be forced to read it in a single sitting, sacrificing sleep, but I managed to spread it out over two. (And only because I had to get up early, really.) The tension and horror of the situation is deftly maintained throughout the book.

There are four point of view characters in This Is Where It Ends, all students who were in different places when the shooting started and who have interesting back-stories that tie in with the events. There's the two girls — girlfriends — who are in the auditorium with most of the students and teachers, there's the track team who were exempt from assembly to train, and the two students who had been sent to the principal's office. Each point of view character has some sort of additional connection to the shooter, beyond just being schoolmates. There's the sister, the ex-girfriend, the nemesis, the (other sort of) victim. And they all have other people in the auditorium to fear for. As well as documenting the fifty-four minutes of the main story, we also have a sizeable amount of back-story delivered in flashbacks and memories to flesh-out the characters, making the reader care about them and fear for their lives.

Between chapters there were a few tweets and blog posts from people at and connected to the school, desperate to find out what's happening. Those were probably my least favourite element of the book. They added a small amount of extra sympathy for minor characters, but I didn't feel they brought that much to the story. I didn't hate them either, just meh.

Obviously, this book is a bit on the violent side. People die. People are injured. People watch other people get shot. If you don't want to read about gun violence, for whatever reason, then this probably isn't the book for you. If you are after a tense thriller then I highly recommend This Is Where It Ends.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: January 2016, Sourcebooks
Series: No
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley