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The End or Something Like That
can a friendship last forever?
Emmy would like to think so. But even though she and her late best friend, Kim, planned every detail in advance, from when and where to meet to what snacks to bring, Kim has yet to make an appearance from the afterlife. Which is making Emmy wonder if what happened right before Kim died changed everything.
Alternating between the past and the present and between the heartbreaking and the truly hilarious, Ann Dee Ellis's latest novel is an achingly authentic take on friendship, family, and what it means to let go and truly live.
Emmy would like to think so. But even though she and her late best friend, Kim, planned every detail in advance, from when and where to meet to what snacks to bring, Kim has yet to make an appearance from the afterlife. Which is making Emmy wonder if what happened right before Kim died changed everything.
Alternating between the past and the present and between the heartbreaking and the truly hilarious, Ann Dee Ellis's latest novel is an achingly authentic take on friendship, family, and what it means to let go and truly live.
346 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2014
35 people are currently reading
2398 people want to read
About the author
Ann Dee Ellis
9 books98 followersAnn Dee (pronounced "Andy") Ellis received an MA from Brigham Young University, where she now works as an instructor for creative writing for children and young adults. She lives in Utah with her husband and two young sons.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 227 reviews
October 25, 2016
3.75 Stars
This book was definitely different! It's written in a very short, witty, and snappy style, and it reads extremely quickly since the page format is so shortened that it's almost like reading a book in verse. Emmy is a hilarious yet awkward main character who is very eccentric, but at her roots was strangely relatable and enjoyable to read about. Some aspects of this book were really intriguing and I could tell it was well thought-out, others just seemed cheesy and as if they were added in just to fit the certain demands of a YA book. Otherwise, I thought this was a really nice tale about a young girl coping with the death of her best friend and learning to grow into her own skin. I really liked it!
This book was definitely different! It's written in a very short, witty, and snappy style, and it reads extremely quickly since the page format is so shortened that it's almost like reading a book in verse. Emmy is a hilarious yet awkward main character who is very eccentric, but at her roots was strangely relatable and enjoyable to read about. Some aspects of this book were really intriguing and I could tell it was well thought-out, others just seemed cheesy and as if they were added in just to fit the certain demands of a YA book. Otherwise, I thought this was a really nice tale about a young girl coping with the death of her best friend and learning to grow into her own skin. I really liked it!
September 17, 2015
The End or Something Like That has been on my wishlist since I first saw it on Goodreads. It sounded like it would be very awesome. Sadly, it did not live up to any sort of awesomeness. It felt very flat and I feel like the whole talking to the dead thing was done in very poor taste. The book consists of death, "ghosts", talking back and being totally terrible to parents and friends, and the biggest part of all is the main characters EPIC ability to throw the worlds worst pity part for herself. The one GOOD thing I can say is that the book is a quick read. Some pages only having like four sentences on them and others being a page or two long.
Emmy is very whiny. She go through so many stages of different things that she whines about. Bully at school, she whines. Being overweight, she whines. Best friend is dead, she whines, not the crying kind either. Why did she die? Why did she leave me? Why won't the bully leave me alone? Maybe if you stopped having a pity party for yourself EVERY DAY you might have a decent life instead of hiding in your closet eating chocolate and other sweets. Wah, I don't want to do this, Wah, I don't want to do that. This little girl needed a huge slap in the face and some better parenting.
Gabby is a complete bitch. She might only be 14 or 15 but dear lord she needs to be slapped as well. She is horrible to Emmy after Kim dies, granted, Emmy doesn't exactly make it easy to be nice to her. But it also leads me to wonder what kind of 14-15 year old girl has so much nastiness and hate inside her that she would be the way Gabby was. Privilege and money do not breed better people. Just people who THINK they are better. I also got the feeling that, had Kim lived, her and Emmy wouldn't have been best friends for much longer because Gabby was changing Kim. But then again maybe if Kim hadn't of been dying she wouldn't have wanted to try things out and go to parties as badly. I think Kim was trying to stuff an entire life into a few months.
I liked Skeeter. I don't like his name, makes me wanna swat him, but he is a genuinely nice guy and he cares about Emmy so much and she doesn't even really see it. I am glad the book ended the way it did but I kind of feel like Emmy didn't deserve it. She was whiny and so horrible throughout the entire book yet she got a happy ending.
I do admit that people were overly mean in this book. Like Emmy was teased by a lot of people for no apparent reason other than that fact that she was chubby and her best friend was dead. I don't think the cruelty shown in this book was very factual. I know kids can be mean but there is just a very aplified meanness in this book and it felt very comedic and sad.
One part of the book that I want to rant about is when the girls meet Dr. Ted Farnsworth for the first time... Uh sounds like someone from Futurama. But that isn't the rant part. In one of the chapters Emmy says the doctor is an orange Yoda. Uhh, NO. He said "This is in your favor." but if it was truly meant to sound anything like Yoda it would have said "In your favor, this is." . I feel the need to stand up for Yoda because he is wise and not at all like the orange money grubbing Dr. Ted. So, if you are going to compare something to an iconic character such as Yoda please do it right, you must.
There was nothing magical or spectacular about this book. It didn't even have any good parts until the very VERY end and I don't even know if I would classify that as a good part. The book just wasn't that great and a lot of it was hidden under very crappy "humor". The only good thing I think this book might teach is that you should never stay mad at someone you love and can't live without because what happens if they die? Life is too short to be mad.
Overall, I gave the book 3/5 stars.
Emmy is very whiny. She go through so many stages of different things that she whines about. Bully at school, she whines. Being overweight, she whines. Best friend is dead, she whines, not the crying kind either. Why did she die? Why did she leave me? Why won't the bully leave me alone? Maybe if you stopped having a pity party for yourself EVERY DAY you might have a decent life instead of hiding in your closet eating chocolate and other sweets. Wah, I don't want to do this, Wah, I don't want to do that. This little girl needed a huge slap in the face and some better parenting.
Gabby is a complete bitch. She might only be 14 or 15 but dear lord she needs to be slapped as well. She is horrible to Emmy after Kim dies, granted, Emmy doesn't exactly make it easy to be nice to her. But it also leads me to wonder what kind of 14-15 year old girl has so much nastiness and hate inside her that she would be the way Gabby was. Privilege and money do not breed better people. Just people who THINK they are better. I also got the feeling that, had Kim lived, her and Emmy wouldn't have been best friends for much longer because Gabby was changing Kim. But then again maybe if Kim hadn't of been dying she wouldn't have wanted to try things out and go to parties as badly. I think Kim was trying to stuff an entire life into a few months.
I liked Skeeter. I don't like his name, makes me wanna swat him, but he is a genuinely nice guy and he cares about Emmy so much and she doesn't even really see it. I am glad the book ended the way it did but I kind of feel like Emmy didn't deserve it. She was whiny and so horrible throughout the entire book yet she got a happy ending.
I do admit that people were overly mean in this book. Like Emmy was teased by a lot of people for no apparent reason other than that fact that she was chubby and her best friend was dead. I don't think the cruelty shown in this book was very factual. I know kids can be mean but there is just a very aplified meanness in this book and it felt very comedic and sad.
One part of the book that I want to rant about is when the girls meet Dr. Ted Farnsworth for the first time... Uh sounds like someone from Futurama. But that isn't the rant part. In one of the chapters Emmy says the doctor is an orange Yoda. Uhh, NO. He said "This is in your favor." but if it was truly meant to sound anything like Yoda it would have said "In your favor, this is." . I feel the need to stand up for Yoda because he is wise and not at all like the orange money grubbing Dr. Ted. So, if you are going to compare something to an iconic character such as Yoda please do it right, you must.
There was nothing magical or spectacular about this book. It didn't even have any good parts until the very VERY end and I don't even know if I would classify that as a good part. The book just wasn't that great and a lot of it was hidden under very crappy "humor". The only good thing I think this book might teach is that you should never stay mad at someone you love and can't live without because what happens if they die? Life is too short to be mad.
Overall, I gave the book 3/5 stars.
May 23, 2014
The blurb for this book is:
"For fans of Sara Zarr and Stephen Chbosky, an achingly raw and surprisingly funny novel about coping with loss."
I can tell you now that that is a big, huge load of bull.
Just like I have a weakness for pretty covers, I'm a sucker for good titles. And since The End or Something Like That had both of those things, I couldn't resist picking this up.
I enjoyed maybe, oh, the first few chapters. Mostly because they were all only one line each. Then it went downhill from there.
What I found irritating was that the protagonist spoke like an confused, naive, immature 11 year-old. Let me give you a few examples.
Um, what?
Again, what???
I was under the impression that this girl was in middle school, to say the least.
Nope.
This girl was fifteen. Fifteen.
Another thing I had the problem with was the writing style. It was repetitive and choppy.
It went like this:
"And he said, "_______'.
And then I said, "_________".
And then he said, "__________".
And then I stood.
I waited.
I sat down.
I looked around.
I felt sad."
The only reason why I finished this book was because it was a pretty quick read, considering how short 99% of the sentences were.
Ann Dee Ellis, you let me down.
"For fans of Sara Zarr and Stephen Chbosky, an achingly raw and surprisingly funny novel about coping with loss."
I can tell you now that that is a big, huge load of bull.
Just like I have a weakness for pretty covers, I'm a sucker for good titles. And since The End or Something Like That had both of those things, I couldn't resist picking this up.
I enjoyed maybe, oh, the first few chapters. Mostly because they were all only one line each. Then it went downhill from there.
What I found irritating was that the protagonist spoke like an confused, naive, immature 11 year-old. Let me give you a few examples.
"Welcome to Forever 21," said a girl with sexy straight hair.
Um, what?
I wondered how you got to be a sexy pirate at Pirate Island. I wondered if there were dead sexy pirates.
Again, what???
I was under the impression that this girl was in middle school, to say the least.
Nope.
This girl was fifteen. Fifteen.
Another thing I had the problem with was the writing style. It was repetitive and choppy.
It went like this:
"And he said, "_______'.
And then I said, "_________".
And then he said, "__________".
And then I stood.
I waited.
I sat down.
I looked around.
I felt sad."
The only reason why I finished this book was because it was a pretty quick read, considering how short 99% of the sentences were.
Ann Dee Ellis, you let me down.
August 31, 2016
I’d say this was more 3.5 stars, but I rounded up because it was a decent, easy read. There wasn’t much to the story, and really no conflict or climax, but I felt that the book was still well-written. I could feel Emmy’s grief, her desperation, and her loss throughout the book, and I thought she was a very relatable character, even if she seemed a little immature.
The ending was kind of unfortunate, . I knew it was bound to happen, but it felt out of place, it didn’t seem to fit with the theme of the story. I also would have liked some explanation about Mrs Homeyer and Baylor,
Oh,and I really liked this quote:
The ending was kind of unfortunate, . I knew it was bound to happen, but it felt out of place, it didn’t seem to fit with the theme of the story. I also would have liked some explanation about Mrs Homeyer and Baylor,
Oh,and I really liked this quote:
"Are you okay?"
I swallowed. "Uh. I don't think so."
He nodded. "You don't have to be okay."
I looked at him. "What?"
"You don't have to be okay," he said again. "Most people aren't."
And I said, "Thank you."
July 28, 2017
This was both real and surreal. Sweet and disturbing. Nothing really changed or got better, though in some large and small invisible ways it did. I was left both hopeful and fearful for our main character's future at the end. And I appreciate this story very much for that. No tidy endings. No ending, really, at all. Or... Something like that.
January 4, 2018
I don't know why people say that this book is disappointing. I guess it depends on what you're looking for.
What it's not: A Young Adult book with lots of drama (Well, there is drama but it's not a typical book like that)
What it is: A book about friendship and the heartbreak of losing a loved one
Ann Dee Ellis does a fantastic job of capturing the hilarity and sorrow of memories. Yes, the romance in the book is completely bypassed and randomly thrown in at the end, but that's not the main point of the book.
Emmy and her best friend Kim have always known that she was going to die. However, they have prepared for the moment.
While Emmy struggles to figure out what to do without Kim, she relives her past memories and goes through her everyday life, finding out that perhaps the past isn't always the best place to live in.
This book is written in a more middle-grade style, but that did not bother me in the slightest as that is the reading level that I enjoy anyways.
A book both funny and sad, it is definitely one that you will appreciate if you think back on it a bit and what it means to be friends with someone.
What it's not: A Young Adult book with lots of drama (Well, there is drama but it's not a typical book like that)
What it is: A book about friendship and the heartbreak of losing a loved one
Ann Dee Ellis does a fantastic job of capturing the hilarity and sorrow of memories. Yes, the romance in the book is completely bypassed and randomly thrown in at the end, but that's not the main point of the book.
Emmy and her best friend Kim have always known that she was going to die. However, they have prepared for the moment.
While Emmy struggles to figure out what to do without Kim, she relives her past memories and goes through her everyday life, finding out that perhaps the past isn't always the best place to live in.
This book is written in a more middle-grade style, but that did not bother me in the slightest as that is the reading level that I enjoy anyways.
A book both funny and sad, it is definitely one that you will appreciate if you think back on it a bit and what it means to be friends with someone.
June 1, 2017
A good story that somehow became choppy long about mid-way. There was a great deal of frustration with disjointed sentences leading to no where.
Two girls who have been together since babyhood, one healthy, one born with a congenital heart condition. Now, in teen aged years, the reality that Kim's days are numbered is hitting Emma strongly. So close are they that there were not a lot of others in their lives. Emma is a nerdy, sensitive child. After Kim died, she slips into depression and is obsessed with trying to hear from her beloved friend.
Good things about this book: The story line is good
Things that kept me from giving a high mark: Disjointed, rambling text that didn't allow the reader to feel the emotions of the girls.
Two girls who have been together since babyhood, one healthy, one born with a congenital heart condition. Now, in teen aged years, the reality that Kim's days are numbered is hitting Emma strongly. So close are they that there were not a lot of others in their lives. Emma is a nerdy, sensitive child. After Kim died, she slips into depression and is obsessed with trying to hear from her beloved friend.
Good things about this book: The story line is good
Things that kept me from giving a high mark: Disjointed, rambling text that didn't allow the reader to feel the emotions of the girls.
July 29, 2018
The writing style left me confused. It was SO simplistic as far as word choice, rhythm, everything... that I kept flipping back to see if I had missed some description somewhere that explained that main character Emmy had some sort of learning disability or was otherwise challenged. Nope, I think it was just crap writing.
September 10, 2015
hated the writing style
felt nothing for the characters - they were super thinly drawn. all of them.
felt it was a poor rip-off of AS King AND John Green
the ending was TERRIBLE.
really fast read FWIW.
felt nothing for the characters - they were super thinly drawn. all of them.
felt it was a poor rip-off of AS King AND John Green
the ending was TERRIBLE.
really fast read FWIW.
September 12, 2025
Emmy and Kim have been best friends for forever, and Kim insists it will stay that way -- even after she dies. Kim knows her time on earth will be cut short because of a congenital heart defect, and so she makes plans with Emmy to visit from the afterlife. But it's been almost a whole year since Kim has passed away, and Emmy hasn't seen Kim once. Emmy is hoping that she hasn't lost her chance to say good-bye.
This novel had some pretty weird humor in it, and it took me some time to warm up to it, but I liked it. I could certainly relate to mourning not just the death of a loved one but also mourning the loss of expectations surrounding the whole experience. I appreciated the complexity of Emmy's grief; even if there were some weird plot points, it felt so relatable.
The writing is sparse and moves quickly. I did this one in print and I think that's the way to go; there are different fonts to distinguish between the two different timelines, which was critical to keep the story straight.
The ending was really beautiful, as Emmy doesn't find what she expected, but it's exactly what she needed. Bumped it up to a four-star read for me.
This novel had some pretty weird humor in it, and it took me some time to warm up to it, but I liked it. I could certainly relate to mourning not just the death of a loved one but also mourning the loss of expectations surrounding the whole experience. I appreciated the complexity of Emmy's grief; even if there were some weird plot points, it felt so relatable.
The writing is sparse and moves quickly. I did this one in print and I think that's the way to go; there are different fonts to distinguish between the two different timelines, which was critical to keep the story straight.
The ending was really beautiful, as Emmy doesn't find what she expected, but it's exactly what she needed. Bumped it up to a four-star read for me.
March 14, 2017
Very heteronormative romantic plot with a guy she didn't seem attracted to or even like as a friend.
No conclusion on the Gabby thing.
Pretty sick of every book with a character over size four constantly talking about how much she hates her body. It doesn't help anyone. Some of us who weigh more than this character actually aren't disgusted by ourselves.
No conclusion on the Gabby thing.
Pretty sick of every book with a character over size four constantly talking about how much she hates her body. It doesn't help anyone. Some of us who weigh more than this character actually aren't disgusted by ourselves.
April 21, 2017
What I really like about this book is that Emmy still tried to contact her dead best friend through spiritual visitations. I didn't really like how had so many questions unanswered. It's a really fun book to read and in my opinion I like how the book goes from Emmy's past to Emmy's present when she's telling a story or when she's remembering about the times her and Kim her best friend had.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 21, 2023
Personally I did not really like the book. I feel like it was a good read for people that are into the death and the afterlife. I like things like that but I just did not fall deep into this book. I felt like it was more writen for a younger audience. I think that it was very childish but it kind of relates to some of the people that are in this world today. Like Emmy fits several people that I know. She was able to make people feel bad for her but really I think she just made a fool out of herself. I do not think that I would recommend this book to anyone unless they want something easy and fast to read. I do not think that they made this really for something it really just reminds me of a show off of Netflix. This book was not something that I would read again if I had to. Other that that the book was okay.
January 3, 2018
This was an easy read so it was a fun book to read. The character was a bit naive but it showed the importance of being a friend and how life and death are really not that different. I liked how the author wrote in this book because it was very easy to understand.
February 11, 2024
The End or Something Like That is about Emmy, who’s trying to reconnect with her best friend’s spirit on the anniversary of her death. This book is quirky! The characters are quirky, the plot is quirky and the writing style is quirky. It’s full of heart—it had me laughing and in tears. I really enjoyed it!
February 25, 2018
Even though this was a bit younger feeling than I’m used to reading, it was a cute story and a fast read.
October 8, 2018
Dang I love her books! LET ME LEARN HOW TO WRITE LIKE THIS PLEASE! This one is about a girl dealing with the death of her best friend by hoping that her friend will visit her from beyond the grave. Sad and cute all at the same time. I loved it.
April 16, 2014
I went into The End or Something Like That expecting to read a YA contemporary novel. Having this mindset left me very annoyed at the repetitive writing and juvenile attitudes presented. Once I started easing into the story I switched my perception of the novel and starting looking at is as a middle grade one which helped with my enjoyment of it greatly. Don’t get me wrong, lots still annoyed me about it but I was much more forgiving of its quirkiness than I was initially.
In this story we are Emmy, a grade 9 student who lost her very best friend the year before. She grew up with her best friend Kim from as early as one can because their mothers were also best friends. From birth Kim had lots of problems with her heart that she had powered through but eventually she succumbed to her heart disease and Emmy is having a really tough time coming to grips with that. What doesn’t help her get through her loss is the fact that prior to Kim’s death the two girls had explored, in depth, how to contact loved ones once they had passed on. They read books, listened to audiobooks and even went so far as to going to seminars held by the great Dr. Farnsworth. This doctor promises to help people who attend his seminar become much more in tune with themselves and help them to learn how to “thin the veil” between this life and the afterlife.
It was pretty sad to see Emmy latching onto this very far fetched possibility of having contact with Kim after she had passed on. She packs up all the necessary objects such as Kim’s favourite snack foods and her favourite movie to name a few and goes to the locations they had agreed on at the time they had also agreed on and she waits. I mean sometimes this girl waits for an entire day only to be let down when she doesn’t get contacted by Kim. I felt really bad for Emmy because this possibility that the girls had opened themselves up to really prevented her from coming to terms with Kim’s death and being able to move on. I think that her grief was captured really well and that Ellis did a great job of portraying a character at that age dealing with such a tragedy. I mean Emmy came across as weird & super awkward and you could really feel how closed off she was from what was going on around her. She was sort of living in her own world of grief and trying to find her way back to who she had once been.
Helping her find her way there is some of the most unexpected of people as Emmy starts seeing every ghost she could imagine except for Kim’s. I liked how these entities helped her along her way and how you had to read into their actions to really know what their motives were. There is a theme touched upon about how these ghosts are constantly roaming the Earth to try to find closure or accomplish something to finally fully move on and it felt like the full impact of that wasn’t dealt with as I would have liked. It’s brought up but I just felt like it never really led anywhere except for the one ghost, it didn’t really impact Emmy and Kim’s story at all. I would have liked to have seen that theme explored a little bit more and seen what some of the other ghosts were hanging around to finish up.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this review the writing was really hard for me to get into and it even still bothered me on many occasions at the end of the novel. It’s very repetitive, probably one of the most repetitive books I have ever read but I did ease into it as I read along. Another thing I struggled with was the constant time jumping. In the ARC there are two different fonts to the writing and as the chapters change so does the time frame. My issue with this was that the flashback chapters seemed to have no rhyme or reason at parts, it would take me a bit to figure out what point in time I was reading about because sometimes it would randomly go back a farther or shorter distance than the previous flashback chapter. See how long that last sentence was? That’s another point I want to mention about this book; at some points the sentences were an entire paragraph and I had to re-read it to try take it all in.
Despite my few issues with the writing style I did end up really enjoying The End or Something Like That. I recommend to anyone going into this novel to not expect a YA story as I originally had and I think you will save yourself the adjustment period that I had to struggle through. This is a touching story that will make you feel sad but ultimately give you hope for anyone who has passed away in your life.
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For more of my reviews, visit my blog at Xpresso Reads
In this story we are Emmy, a grade 9 student who lost her very best friend the year before. She grew up with her best friend Kim from as early as one can because their mothers were also best friends. From birth Kim had lots of problems with her heart that she had powered through but eventually she succumbed to her heart disease and Emmy is having a really tough time coming to grips with that. What doesn’t help her get through her loss is the fact that prior to Kim’s death the two girls had explored, in depth, how to contact loved ones once they had passed on. They read books, listened to audiobooks and even went so far as to going to seminars held by the great Dr. Farnsworth. This doctor promises to help people who attend his seminar become much more in tune with themselves and help them to learn how to “thin the veil” between this life and the afterlife.
It was pretty sad to see Emmy latching onto this very far fetched possibility of having contact with Kim after she had passed on. She packs up all the necessary objects such as Kim’s favourite snack foods and her favourite movie to name a few and goes to the locations they had agreed on at the time they had also agreed on and she waits. I mean sometimes this girl waits for an entire day only to be let down when she doesn’t get contacted by Kim. I felt really bad for Emmy because this possibility that the girls had opened themselves up to really prevented her from coming to terms with Kim’s death and being able to move on. I think that her grief was captured really well and that Ellis did a great job of portraying a character at that age dealing with such a tragedy. I mean Emmy came across as weird & super awkward and you could really feel how closed off she was from what was going on around her. She was sort of living in her own world of grief and trying to find her way back to who she had once been.
Helping her find her way there is some of the most unexpected of people as Emmy starts seeing every ghost she could imagine except for Kim’s. I liked how these entities helped her along her way and how you had to read into their actions to really know what their motives were. There is a theme touched upon about how these ghosts are constantly roaming the Earth to try to find closure or accomplish something to finally fully move on and it felt like the full impact of that wasn’t dealt with as I would have liked. It’s brought up but I just felt like it never really led anywhere except for the one ghost, it didn’t really impact Emmy and Kim’s story at all. I would have liked to have seen that theme explored a little bit more and seen what some of the other ghosts were hanging around to finish up.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this review the writing was really hard for me to get into and it even still bothered me on many occasions at the end of the novel. It’s very repetitive, probably one of the most repetitive books I have ever read but I did ease into it as I read along. Another thing I struggled with was the constant time jumping. In the ARC there are two different fonts to the writing and as the chapters change so does the time frame. My issue with this was that the flashback chapters seemed to have no rhyme or reason at parts, it would take me a bit to figure out what point in time I was reading about because sometimes it would randomly go back a farther or shorter distance than the previous flashback chapter. See how long that last sentence was? That’s another point I want to mention about this book; at some points the sentences were an entire paragraph and I had to re-read it to try take it all in.
Despite my few issues with the writing style I did end up really enjoying The End or Something Like That. I recommend to anyone going into this novel to not expect a YA story as I originally had and I think you will save yourself the adjustment period that I had to struggle through. This is a touching story that will make you feel sad but ultimately give you hope for anyone who has passed away in your life.
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For more of my reviews, visit my blog at Xpresso Reads
May 19, 2014
You can find this review on http://justahunchbookblog.com/
I was a little hesitant about this book. I don’t read a lot of fantasy, (yes, I’m the oddball out in our little review group,) but I thought I’d take a risk. Luckily, I enjoyed this one.
The book was such a quick and easy read. The writing style is pretty simplistic, and the first six chapters are all one line to one page, which makes reading it even quicker. That strategy worked well sometimes, but it did feel a little gimmicky at times, and maybe just like a way to make the book seem longer. However I will say that this book might be better for a middle school audience anyways, or early high school. By no means is the storyline uninteresting for a high schooler or older, but I just think the writing is geared more to a middle-grade audience.
I really enjoyed the first person perspective, and just Emmy as a character overall. She’s weird, which makes sense because her best friend, Kim, basically guilted Emmy into trying to contact her after death. She’s loyal to Kim’s wishes, and does everything she’s supposed to do to talk to her friend, even though she doesn’t think it’ll work. And yes, she’s one weird girl, but her weirdness makes her all the more lovable and hilarious. On page 52, Emmy is asked by a boy she doesn’t know if her male friend, Skeeter, is her boyfriend, and her thought process to introduce Skeeter is so funny.
Skeeter, who one time when we were kids had to go to the ER because he ate carpet, lived in the next neighborhood down and at the moment he was my only friend. But he was not my boyfriend.
The book is a bit of a hybrid between realistic fiction and fantasy. Unless of course you believe people can talk to the dead, then for you it might be totally realistic fiction. However the way it’s portrayed leaves the reader to wonder if Emmy really is seeing these ghosts, or just going through some kind of mourning process.
Speaking of mourning, I feel like I should mention that this book could pretty much be looked at as a character study on the mourning process, aside from the whole ghost thing. Emmy is detached. The writing helps to portray that feeling with short, choppy sentences. However I think Emmy had issues before Kim died, but that could also be because Emmy was always waiting for her to pass away. Listen people, it’s complicated!
What about the other characters? Honestly, it’s hard to get a really good read on them (lolz) because they just don’t have that much page time. Skeeter is a good friend, but we don’t really get a good dose of his personality. Kim certainly seemed like a good friend to Emmy, and Gabby kind of just seemed snobby. Truly, none of the characters were as well rounded as Emmy, and I know she’s the most important character, but I would have liked to see some more development with at least a few more characters.
Overall, this book was fun and entertaining, but it wasn’t revolutionary. The premise is the most interesting thing about the book in my opinion, and maybe I was just expecting something different. Three stars, because it certainly was fun to read, but probably not a book I’d spend time reading again.
I was a little hesitant about this book. I don’t read a lot of fantasy, (yes, I’m the oddball out in our little review group,) but I thought I’d take a risk. Luckily, I enjoyed this one.
The book was such a quick and easy read. The writing style is pretty simplistic, and the first six chapters are all one line to one page, which makes reading it even quicker. That strategy worked well sometimes, but it did feel a little gimmicky at times, and maybe just like a way to make the book seem longer. However I will say that this book might be better for a middle school audience anyways, or early high school. By no means is the storyline uninteresting for a high schooler or older, but I just think the writing is geared more to a middle-grade audience.
I really enjoyed the first person perspective, and just Emmy as a character overall. She’s weird, which makes sense because her best friend, Kim, basically guilted Emmy into trying to contact her after death. She’s loyal to Kim’s wishes, and does everything she’s supposed to do to talk to her friend, even though she doesn’t think it’ll work. And yes, she’s one weird girl, but her weirdness makes her all the more lovable and hilarious. On page 52, Emmy is asked by a boy she doesn’t know if her male friend, Skeeter, is her boyfriend, and her thought process to introduce Skeeter is so funny.
Skeeter, who one time when we were kids had to go to the ER because he ate carpet, lived in the next neighborhood down and at the moment he was my only friend. But he was not my boyfriend.
The book is a bit of a hybrid between realistic fiction and fantasy. Unless of course you believe people can talk to the dead, then for you it might be totally realistic fiction. However the way it’s portrayed leaves the reader to wonder if Emmy really is seeing these ghosts, or just going through some kind of mourning process.
Speaking of mourning, I feel like I should mention that this book could pretty much be looked at as a character study on the mourning process, aside from the whole ghost thing. Emmy is detached. The writing helps to portray that feeling with short, choppy sentences. However I think Emmy had issues before Kim died, but that could also be because Emmy was always waiting for her to pass away. Listen people, it’s complicated!
What about the other characters? Honestly, it’s hard to get a really good read on them (lolz) because they just don’t have that much page time. Skeeter is a good friend, but we don’t really get a good dose of his personality. Kim certainly seemed like a good friend to Emmy, and Gabby kind of just seemed snobby. Truly, none of the characters were as well rounded as Emmy, and I know she’s the most important character, but I would have liked to see some more development with at least a few more characters.
Overall, this book was fun and entertaining, but it wasn’t revolutionary. The premise is the most interesting thing about the book in my opinion, and maybe I was just expecting something different. Three stars, because it certainly was fun to read, but probably not a book I’d spend time reading again.
August 21, 2015
Just yesterday, while browsing books in my local bookstore, I noticed this book. Although I don't like to admit it, sometimes I fall victim to the whole judge a book by its cover thing. And honestly, I thought this book's cover was just plain cute. This book was also under the section of recommended teen reads, so I foolishly bought it and couldn't wait to go on a book marathon and finish it.
Ok, so I open the book and notice the first few chapters are just one sentence, ok......
But what bothered me most was the fact that this book is written like an elementary schooler was narrating, not a 9th grader! I did appreciated the theme though, highlighting on the pain of loss and also cleverly including the thought that ghosts still wander in this world to find a purpose that they didn't fulfill before death.
Somehow, I didn't quite catch how Emmy and Skeeter's romance started, or developed even. I mean, Skeeter wasn't often mentioned, which he should've been if he were to play a role in helping Emmy reach acceptance with Kim's death. Also, the transition between the past and the present were often abrupt, and in the beginning I had trouble fully comprehending that Emmy is thinking about the past, not dealing with the problem she was just facing. In addition, many sentences were choppy and childish. What bothered me were sentences like this:
I said "....."
He said "......"
I said "......."
Overall, I feel like this book had so much potential, but it just failed to reach my expectations, or get close to it even. It was a nice, quick read, but not a book I would be looking forward to read again.
Ok, so I open the book and notice the first few chapters are just one sentence, ok......
But what bothered me most was the fact that this book is written like an elementary schooler was narrating, not a 9th grader! I did appreciated the theme though, highlighting on the pain of loss and also cleverly including the thought that ghosts still wander in this world to find a purpose that they didn't fulfill before death.
Somehow, I didn't quite catch how Emmy and Skeeter's romance started, or developed even. I mean, Skeeter wasn't often mentioned, which he should've been if he were to play a role in helping Emmy reach acceptance with Kim's death. Also, the transition between the past and the present were often abrupt, and in the beginning I had trouble fully comprehending that Emmy is thinking about the past, not dealing with the problem she was just facing. In addition, many sentences were choppy and childish. What bothered me were sentences like this:
I said "....."
He said "......"
I said "......."
Overall, I feel like this book had so much potential, but it just failed to reach my expectations, or get close to it even. It was a nice, quick read, but not a book I would be looking forward to read again.
March 29, 2016
**SPOILERS**
I give this book 1 star.. and that is probably pushing it. Emmy has a friend- Kim- who has died. Okay, basic plot line. I can deal with that. Buuut.. Kim said she wanted to come back- that is the main plot line. Sounds great, right? Wrong. Kim doesn't even pop up in the book AT ALL!! And about 20 pages near the end, a budding romance pops up- with Skeeter, the guy she never really had any interest in
..And who she treats like dirt.
I'm getting tired of these "Unexpected romance" books that keep popping up. Seriously? Not everyone's life is a flipping fairy-tale where everyone is perfect. God didn't make us to be perfect- we are flawed. So, people should have flawed relationships, and authors should realise that.
Also, The plot and writing was dry and simple- and honestly? Boring. Sorry if that's harsh, but I kept yawning as I read, since there was basically no plot.. at all. And of course.. The romance. It was quite annoying :P ANNDD in every other chapter she was going to a place without either of her parents knowing. aNND.... She is obviously depressed. I feel as if the author/ or her family treated it like a joke(?) Since the mom just basically pretended that her daughter didn't have problems. AND.. she never sees a therapist with her problems, ANND Every sentence she says is "Okay This "Okay That" This is not flipping TFIOS.. no need to have Okay in every sentence :/
All in All? Don't read this book. At all. Read something else.
I give this book 1 star.. and that is probably pushing it. Emmy has a friend- Kim- who has died. Okay, basic plot line. I can deal with that. Buuut.. Kim said she wanted to come back- that is the main plot line. Sounds great, right? Wrong. Kim doesn't even pop up in the book AT ALL!! And about 20 pages near the end, a budding romance pops up- with Skeeter, the guy she never really had any interest in
..And who she treats like dirt.
I'm getting tired of these "Unexpected romance" books that keep popping up. Seriously? Not everyone's life is a flipping fairy-tale where everyone is perfect. God didn't make us to be perfect- we are flawed. So, people should have flawed relationships, and authors should realise that.
Also, The plot and writing was dry and simple- and honestly? Boring. Sorry if that's harsh, but I kept yawning as I read, since there was basically no plot.. at all. And of course.. The romance. It was quite annoying :P ANNDD in every other chapter she was going to a place without either of her parents knowing. aNND.... She is obviously depressed. I feel as if the author/ or her family treated it like a joke(?) Since the mom just basically pretended that her daughter didn't have problems. AND.. she never sees a therapist with her problems, ANND Every sentence she says is "Okay This "Okay That" This is not flipping TFIOS.. no need to have Okay in every sentence :/
All in All? Don't read this book. At all. Read something else.
September 18, 2018
I absolutely loved this book. It was different than things I normally read but I gravitated towards it because I lost my best friend in December of last year and even though it was under totally different circumstances and I'm older than Emmy I wanted to read her perspective.
Kim knew she was going to die and she had made her peace with it. I think she made her peace because she trusted Dr. Ted and thought she could come back and visit. Emmy on the other hand didn't want to believe that Kim would ever die and she never put much faith into the afterlife visitation.
This book is all about friendship, loss, grieving, being who you are and so much more. Fantastic read for anyone.
Kim knew she was going to die and she had made her peace with it. I think she made her peace because she trusted Dr. Ted and thought she could come back and visit. Emmy on the other hand didn't want to believe that Kim would ever die and she never put much faith into the afterlife visitation.
This book is all about friendship, loss, grieving, being who you are and so much more. Fantastic read for anyone.
June 30, 2014
Ann Dee Ellis has a special style that bears weight and wit. In this novel, her narrator deals with the grief of losing a best friend, and Ellis let's the reader feel all the anguish, the doubt, the loss that comes with the death of a loved one. So this is a novel about death and grief, but it's also a novel of friendship, coming of age, and adolescence. Female readers will surely connect with the memorable narrator, but teen males will also relate to the quirky nature of adolescence and the tensions that fill their lives.
August 29, 2015
What a sad book! Emmy's best friend knew she was dying long before it happened. In the months leading up to her death, Kim researched and studied how she could come back, and she scheduled several days that Emmy should look for her. The book goes back and forth between the past, as Kim tries to convince Emmy this is a good idea, and the present, where Emmy is trying to honor Kim, yet needs to move beyond the grief that has crushed her for the last year.
April 9, 2018
Wow! *crying* I loved this book! Emmy is such a delightfully goofy and real character. You are rooting for her to move through her grief and guilt every step of the way. I didn’t find it hilarious, as the blurb suggested, but I did find it touching and funny and so so sweet! I wanted to be reading it all the time—it was a total page-turner and has the feeling of a novel in verse at times because of its spare prose. Now I’m sad because it’s over!
November 18, 2016
3.5 stars. It, to be honest, was a fairly "eh" book. There was no action really at times, yes there was some, but not a lot. I will though give it credit because the ending was a perfect mix of sadness and happiness and it worked well in my opinion.
October 16, 2018
I received The End or Something Like That in a Quarterly subscription box about two years ago. Emmy and Kim have been best friends for as long as they can remember. Kim was born with congenital heart disease and knows she's going to die young so she makes a plan with Emmy to come back from the dead to visit her. At 14 Kim passes away and Emmy is left attempting every possible avenue to get a visitation from Kim beyond the grave. This plot line didn't really intrigue me much. I only picked it up after flipping through the book and realizing just how short of a read it would be. Figured if it wasn't great then I could just unhaul it and at least get it off my shelves.
The story is written in such short choppy sentences that left me unable to fully connect to the characters. Every time a sentence started really picking up, it just fell off. An ACTUAL snippet from the book goes,
'I said "....."
He said "......"
I said "......."'
.... ARE YOU KIDDING? I suppose it's a realistic look at loss and grief, but I still couldn't connect with Emmy in a sympathetic way. She actually bothered me a bit. The way she says, "Okay." in places that make no sense and her lack of any aspect of depth or personality made me cringe. I felt although she acted more similar to a five year old when she was really 15. I didn't get it.
Some random things I don't quite understand if you've read the book are:
The story ended without concluding almost anything. I was left without any closure and felt like the characters didn't have any either. It really just didn't make much sense. I feel like this could have been a good middle grade book and probably should have been. The characters all acted younger so they should have just been written to be 12 or so and then it could have passed for a MG book. It didn't carry enough depth for me to consider it a good young adult book. Overall I'm glad it was a super quick read because I probably would have DNF'd it if not. Just didn't leave me with anything.
The story is written in such short choppy sentences that left me unable to fully connect to the characters. Every time a sentence started really picking up, it just fell off. An ACTUAL snippet from the book goes,
'I said "....."
He said "......"
I said "......."'
.... ARE YOU KIDDING? I suppose it's a realistic look at loss and grief, but I still couldn't connect with Emmy in a sympathetic way. She actually bothered me a bit. The way she says, "Okay." in places that make no sense and her lack of any aspect of depth or personality made me cringe. I felt although she acted more similar to a five year old when she was really 15. I didn't get it.
Some random things I don't quite understand if you've read the book are:
The story ended without concluding almost anything. I was left without any closure and felt like the characters didn't have any either. It really just didn't make much sense. I feel like this could have been a good middle grade book and probably should have been. The characters all acted younger so they should have just been written to be 12 or so and then it could have passed for a MG book. It didn't carry enough depth for me to consider it a good young adult book. Overall I'm glad it was a super quick read because I probably would have DNF'd it if not. Just didn't leave me with anything.
October 21, 2019
Have you ever lost someone really close to you? The End or Something like that
written by Ann Dee Ellis is a nonfiction book about a girl named Emmy who lost her best friend. Overall the book is a lot to take in but its pretty good.
The main topic is afterlife. This book is kind of hard to read and some parts are sad. A 14 year old girl sees dead people when she loses her best friend. Emmy is a very sweet girl and wants the best for her friend, even though she is dead. Kim who is Emmyś best friend that died promised to keep in contact with Emmy in the afterlife. Kim unfortunately never showed up or saw Emmy again. This makes me think about what I would do and how I would feel if I lost a best friend. This author leaves a message that many things can go on in life but in the end you will get over it. I agree with this because normally when something bad happens it takes you awhile to get over it but you have to let it go eventually.
Through flashbacks you get to hear about memories from their past, highschool, and all the fun times spent together till Kim passed. Kim gave Emmy instructions on what to do when she died like where to go and when. Everytime Emmy goes she never sees Kim but she sees their science teacher that died as long with many other ghosts. Emmy can't help but think she was a bad friend to Kim because she never shows up. She was never close with her teacher that died on Kims one year anniversary of being gone but she felt led to go to the funeral. ̈ ̈The worst people walked into Ms. Dead Homeyerś funeral” (91) Emmy then realizes that it's finally time to move on with her life because Kim wouldn't have wanted her to be all upset. Ann Dee Ellis writes in a way I have never read before. She tells stories through flashbacks and conveys the story in many ways. She uses lines that are easy to relate to. ¨I had never seen Joe cry. Not when grandma died. Not when he got dumped by Amy Dubworthy. Not even the time when he got cut from the basketball team in sixth grade.”(185) You can easily tell that something is wrong with this character and I relate to this when I saw my dad cry for the first time.
To conclude, I think one of the strengths is the way she uses flashbacks to tell you background information about the story. One of the weaknesses is it hard to imagine seeing dead people because you don't see people once they die. Overall, it was a good book and I recommend that you read it sometime on and I give it a ⅘ ranking.
Read
October 22, 2017This book shows us a different perspective on friendship. Emmy and her friend Kim plan planned out everything. This plan was for when Kim worried she would die soon. They planned out when they would meet up and what they would do at the designated spot. I could "see" that Emmy really did feel grief and wanted to help, but Gabby (her bully), didn't make it easy on her. I felt like she must have been frozen between the past and the present. Emmy begins to see other dead people and in the end it really sends her in a state of depression. Skeeter however cares so much for Emmy, but she blindly dismisses it. Even though Emmy whines all the time, towards the end she admits how horrible she had been to everyone. Over the whole book we can see Emmy struggling to get over her best friend, but near the very end it is shown that Emmy still blames herself.
June 26, 2019
The End of Something like that was kind of a different read for me. It took me a while to get into and honestly for the first good while I was super checked out and just reading it because I didn't want it to be another book I started, but never finished. However, towards the end of the book I became pretty invested and the book was emotional and it broke my heart just a little. I wish there had been more character development with all of the characters, I feel like Kim was the only character, including Emmy, that I really knew and understood. For example, Skeeter was important, but he was hardly ever in the story. I don't even know anything about him except his name and he hangs around Emmy. I would have liked to see more between Emmy and Joe as well. It was a pretty quick and easy read, and like I said by the end of the book I was pretty emotionally invested.
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