Review: How the World Ends

How the World Ends by Rudolf Kerkhoven
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The world's population is dying by their own hand. Can one family halt their demise?

The plot unfolds from this central premise and turns into a sort-of road trip - a linear exploration of a family struggling to keep it together as everything falls apart. The strengths are with the writing, which flows very well and does a good job exploring the inner self of Alex, our matriarch protagonist; and the characterisation of the husband and wife. Even if we are often asking ourselves how these two remained together. But that in itself shows strong characterisation.

Sometimes the children felt a little forgotten - when they were there they were realistically portrayed, but they didn't come into their own or feel 'rounded' until later. But this wasn't so bad. For me, after everything, the book kinda fell into Book One syndrome - it never reached fifth gear; the family are constantly running AWAY from danger it feels, and even when danger catches up it's more of an uphill labour to generate any tension or unpredictable action. The problem is we are in the head of someone who has no idea what's going on, and the development arc all leads towards book two.

I can see why someone would rate this higher, so my 3 stars is (obviously) just a personal taste thing. It's a character-driven end-of-world tale; I'd have just enjoyed a bit more bite in the middle.

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