Blog Tour: Things To Do Before The End of The World by Emily Barr

Hi everyone! Today I am bringing you another blog tour post where I review Things To Do Before The End of The World by Emily Barr, a coming of age thriller

This tour is hosted by The Write Reads with Penguin and I’d like to thank both for my review copy in exchange for an honest review!

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Things To Do Before The End of The World

Author: Emily Barr

Genre: Young Adult | Thriller

Length: 368 Pages

Age Rating: 13+

Rating: 4 Stars

Release Date: 13th May 2021

Purchase:

Amazon | Waterstones 

Book Depository

1. Live your best life.
2. Uncover family secrets.
3. Trust no one

What would you do when you hear the news that humans have done such damage to the earth that there might only be a limited amount of safe air left – a year’s worth at most?
You’d work through your bucket list, heal rifts, do everything you’ve never been brave enough to do before?

Olivia is struggling to do any of this. What it is she truly wants to do? Who do she wants to be?

Then out of the blue comes contact from a long-lost cousin Olivia didn’t even know existed. Natasha is everything Olivia wants to be and more.
And as the girls meet up for a long, hot last summer, Olivia finds Natasha’s ease and self-confidence having an effect on her.

But Natasha definitely isn’t everything she first appears to be . . .

About the Author

THE ONE MEMORY OF FLORA BANKS published in 2017 was Emily Barr’s first novel for young adults and was a global hit, publishing in 27 languages. Before that, she worked as a journalist in London but always hankered after a quiet room and a book to write. She went travelling for a year, which gave her an idea for a novel set in the world of backpackers in Asia. This became BACKPACK, an adult thriller which won the WH Smith New Talent Award, and she has since written eleven more adult novels published in the UK and around the world. She lives in Cornwall with her husband and their children.

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Things To Do Before the End of The World was my first Emily Barr novel, but I have been eying The Girl Who Came Out of The Woods for a while and after finishing this book I am excited to try out the author’s other novels!

Before The End of The World is a strange novel, where you go in expecting one thing and come out with a different novel. Ultimately, this is a coming of age novel, where the end of the world is the main point, it’s what you decide to do with your limited time you have on the world, and honestly it’s kind of heart-breaking but so intriguing to see what the protagonist of this novels does with her remaining year left on Earth.

Olivia is a painfully relatable character, as we start off the book with her sharing her dislike of for parties and interacting with people and just feeling awkward in most situations. Right from the bat, I really liked her as a character because she was very real, with the terror of being at the end of the world, but she ends up carrying on with college and trying to work up the college to talk to her long time crush. But over the course of the story, Olivia tries more when she is introduced to her a long-lost cousin Natasha, who is overly confident and instantly befriends Olivia. Soon, she is trying more and being more confident, and she fully becomes her own by the end. It is not perfect but she is a very normal character and realises the times she messes up and the need to be brave especially when we learn more about who Natasha really is.

The book really makes you think, especially as we are in a unique situation now with being in a Pandemic, that we as a reader will look into our own lives, taking pleasures and the joy of life where we can whilst also planning for all the fun and adventurous stuff we want to do when it is safe to do so. I loved the combination of having such a thought-provoking novel combined with something that grips you fervently because you have no idea what actually is going on.

Who is Natasha?

What are these deep, dark secrets? And why will no one tell Olivia about them?

And what is going to happen to Olivia in the end?