Review: How it Ends by Catherine Lo

How it Ends by Catherine Lo

How it begins…
"You're in my English class, right?"
I almost checked behind me to make sure she wasn't talking to someone else.
How it unravels…
“You can be my best friend without being my only friend."
Her words were knives raked along my skin. I could hear the goodbye in every syllable.
How it Ends.
Why should I keep her secrets when she didn't keep mine? All it would take was one little click and a carefully worded message.
How it Ends is an honest, heart-wrenching tale of a friendship from first meeting to breakup. Told through alternating points of view, it is about two best friends’ tumultuous sophomore year of bullying, boys and backstabbing and what can happen when friends choose assumptions and fear over each other.

Publishes in US: June 7th 2016 by HMH Books for Young Readers
Genre: ya contemp
Source: earc from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt via edelweiss
Disclaimer: I received this book as an ARC (advanced review copy). I am not paid for this review, and my opinions in this review are mine, and are not effected by the book being free.
Series? no

Buy it:  Indigo.ca Amazon.com Amazon.ca Indiebound Book Depository Barnes and Noble

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    I wanted to read this one because it focuses on friendship and how things can go wrong. It sounds emotional and can hopefully give the message that you should forgive, talk things out instead of making assumptions and how you should chose friendship over hurt feelings and revenge. 

   I really liked the sound of Jessie. She reminds me a lot of myself, book smart but shy and not the best at friendships and relationships. She felt like she was on the outside and she was picked on by some of the popular kids in middle school and that has shaped her and she's stayed on the outskirts of social things. I enjoyed the family dynamics for Jessie- she was close with them, they had a weekly standing taco and game night. 

   Annie is beautiful and bigger than life. She is artistic and she is real. She saw that Jessie was smart and not fake, so she automatically befriended her. Jessie loved having a friend again, and they spent so much time together. Annie has a stepmother that she doesn't like and a stepsister that she feels like gets preferential treatment. Her mom passed away, and she feels like she can't talk about her anymore, and she feels such a distance between her and her dad. 

    The anxiety in this one was betrayed pretty well I liked how it was very realistic and that Jesse really struggled with it. I deal with anxiety especially socially myself so a lot of the things that she said really resonated with me.

   One of the quotes really resonated with me and pretty much sums up how I feel about things at times and interactions with other people and how I view myself and them. "Jessie's social anxiety makes her see judgments from other people even when there are none... She gets fixated on all the negative things people might think about her and then she has trouble sorting out whether her fears are realistic or not."

   So many things went wrong in the friendship both of them made some bad decisions and went behind the others back and weren't there for him when they needed to be but I do like how everything finally came together and they were able to sort things out even if it's not exactly the same as before.
 
    Romance didn't really take center stage in this one and I liked it it was present of course but it more focused on the friendship and her anxiety and family and yes drama.

Bottom Line: Look at friendship and anxiety.

My question to you, my lovely readers:
Ever have a friendship go wrong?