The End We Start From by Megan Hunter is a one-sitting type of book. This book is gorgeous through and through, from the color of the cover to the characters. I picked this up on a whim at my favorite local bookstore and read it that night in one sitting, and it was a five star read for me.

The End We Start From starts in a future where our unnamed narrator is pregnant with her first child, a boy, Z. (Names aren’t included in this book - the characters go by their first initial.) In this future, the world is flooding. London becomes uninhabitable and the narrator, Z, and her husband, R, have to flee their home and learn to survive. 

The prose is sparse but poetic. This book had my heart racing and butterflies in my stomach for the whole couple of hours that I read it. We follow our narrator as she lives in her car with her husband and newborn child, through time in refugee camps where R leaves to get some space and doesn’t return, and further on her journey into a new future where the world is different AND she is a first time parent. 

I was surprised how much this book made me feel despite being so minimalistic. It made me feel hopeful but deeply sad at the same time. I fell fast and hard for the writing. I recommend this debut dystopia to anyone who likes spare but lyrical words and wants to read something fast and beautiful.