Special Giveaway + First Look at........THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS by Marieke Nijkamp!

I am SO EXCITED to tell you guys all about THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS by Marieke Nijkamp, and so is publisher Sourcebooks Fire!

There is a giveaway running from now until November 1st, 2015. 

YOU CAN WIN AN EARLY COPY of one 2016's most stunning debuts that will have people talking ALL YEAR. You can ALSO win a cool chalkboard and some exclusive TIWIE chalk that you can use on Tumblr, Pinterest, etc. to talk about how the novel makes you feel!!!

You can enter the giveaway here on the brand-new Tumblr page for 

THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS!

You may recall that I posted a You're Gonna LOVE Me First Look at the novel back in June. If not, never fear: I've re-posted why you're going to want this book below!

A sneak peek now, a full review when the book releases!

Title: THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS

Author: Marieke Nijkamp

Release Date: Out January 5, 2016

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Received: ARC for Review

SUMMARY:

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.

Bookworms, you know I'm not super duper huge on contemporary novels. When one stands out, however, IT STANDS OUT.

I read THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS right before BEA to see if I wanted to try to get a copy of Marieke Nijkamp's debut novel to share with co-workers so that more people could be talking about this book come January 2016. I DID WANT TO. I WANTED TO SO MUCH!!!

I recommended this book to SO MANY people at BEA this past week and told them all to go to the author's signing on Friday at the Sourcebooks booth! I was also lucky enough to listen to Nijkamp on a panel at the Teen Author Carnival AND a panel at Book Con. I was also glad to see her coming out of a signing line for something and stop her briefly to tell her how much how I enjoyed the book and how frequently I was already talking it up!!!

So how I could I NOT do a spotlight on the book now!?

THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS is chilling and harrowing. It is NOT a light read. But it is an important one! It's about a school shooting as seen from multiple different people's POVs. We see the shooter's sister. We see the sister's girlfriend. We see the ex-girlfriend who can't believe that the boy she once dated could do something like this. We see a twin brother desperate to save his sister.

A few years ago, I read WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN by Lionel Shriver. The part of the book where Kevin goes off his rocker is so viciously detailed and blunt (without being explicit), in a lot of ways due to his choice of weaponry, that I couldn't read another book about a school shooting for a long time. I still hadn't read NINETEEN MINUTES by Jodi Picoult, who was one of my favorite authors, and I wouldn't be able to for another year or two. I've still been shying away from books such as ONE BREATH AWAY by Heather Gudenkauf and SAVE ME by Lisa Scottoline.

THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS reminds me of WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN because the experience is so personal and the shooting is so shocking and horrifying. With Kevin, for me, it was his choice of weapon, and in particular, what happens at his own home. With THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS, it is the fact that almost the entire school is locked in the auditorium. If this shooting happened in real life, it would be THE worst school shooting in US History. There would have been more casualties than there were during the horrors at Virginia Tech (32) and Sandy Hook (27).

One of the things that struck me at the Teen Author Carnival was when Nijkamp talked about how she'd been next door to a building that exploded, and how that impacted her. THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS is unflinching and raw. It isn't light, it isn't happy...and it isn't supposed to be.

You won't be okay after you read this book...but you're still going to want to read it!

I'll have a real review up closer to the book's release, but add this one on your TBR now; I predict it will be one of the most important YA novels of 2016!

Will you be reading this when it comes out!?