2025 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider.

Pages: 335 pages

Length: 1 Month (November)

Participants: Eirelyn, Eileen.

Everyone reads at their own pace during a Buddy Read. Because participants can be at different parts of the book at different times, it is extremely important to mark spoilers so that the book is not ruined for someone who is not as far along as others!!!

Mark spoilers by placing {spoiler} before the text and {/spoiler} after the text but use the < and > instead of the { and }.


Happy Buddy Reading!

Starting the book tonight! :)

I somehow missed when you posted this!

I just started a couple nights ago. :) I'm through ch. 11, and I am liking it so far. I'm enjoying the characters -- I feel like Ezra is pretty well developed, but I don't feel like we know much about Cassidy at this point. But what we do know, I like.

I'm intrigued by Cassidy's (view spoiler)[debate team past and why she quit. I'm curious to find out what happened with that. (hide spoiler)]

Also, I am glad that Ezra & Toby are (view spoiler)[kind of becoming friends again. Poor Toby! That whole severed head incident when they were kids...omg...what a traumatic experience! I really kind of want more backstory on Toby & how he dealt with all of that. They just kind of glossed over that & now, in present day, whenever it's mentioned, they just kind of make morbid jokes about it. His way of dealing with it now, sure, but it was such a horrible but interesting occurrence that has no doubt shaped that character, so I kind of want to know more about Toby. (hide spoiler)]

Also, the Floating (view spoiler)[Movie Theater is such a cute idea. XD Especially when they revealed that they do something nice wherever they end up having it. Adorable. (hide spoiler)]

How are you doing with it? Did you finish? How'd you like it? :D

I finished the book yesterday :)

I liked the book but I found that the story was predictable and the characters were too cliché for me that's why I ended up giving it 3 stars.

But other than that I liked that the narrator was a guy :)

I just finished last night. :)

I liked Ezra's arc and felt like (view spoiler)[he had a much better handle on who he was by the end of the novel, since he was no longer in the tennis world or hanging out with his old jock "friends." (hide spoiler)]

I did enjoy the story & characters well enough, but I felt like the other characters -- especially Cassidy & Toby -- could have been fleshed out sooo much better.

I was (view spoiler)[so upset that poor old Cooper was killed by the coyote! Although, I just had a feeling that was coming for a while because they kept talking about the coyotes throughout the entire novel. Still...it was super sad, and I felt like killing the dog could've been left out entirely! :'( (hide spoiler)]

I'm not yet sure how I feel about the ending. I'm glad that (view spoiler)[Ezra has figured out a little more about who he is, but the rest of it seemed to happen so abruptly. You're right about some of it being predictable -- especially with the whole car accident thing & Cassidy's brother being the one who hit Ezra. But she found out so suddenly and then she was just done with Ezra, which, I actually understand (that would be difficult to be reminded of all that pain every time she looked at Ezra), but then at the end, she just left & went back to the other school & they never saw each other again. It was so abrupt & felt like it just left things hanging between them. (hide spoiler)]

Overall, I enjoyed the novel. I did feel drawn back to reading it. It flowed nicely & I liked Ezra's character & reading from his POV. But I felt like some of the other characters could have been developed better & that the story as a whole could've had a little more cohesive ending.

Yes, that's something that I don't understand in most of the movies and book about US High Schools.. It seems like you are "defined" by the group that you belong to either the popular athletics guys or pompom girls or the "artsy" or the "nerds" etc. And it seems impossible that you can belong to two worlds at the same time.
And this oppression of the table at the cafeteria I don't get it either xD
It's sooooo far from the reality that I came from (Belgium) where I ate with someone different everyday, I was a nerd (book worm obvi) and an "athlete" (volley-ball) at the same time. That's why I'm always amazed/confused/perplex about these situations and also maybe why I felt that the characters where clichés.

I was also sad about (view spoiler)[ Cooper's death event thought she talked and talked and talked about coyotes for no reason besides this one so again kinda predictable (hide spoiler)]

Also I guess that the book relates to everyone journey's : find out who you are by yourself as an individual :)

For where I went to high school, the cliques in this book pretty much rang true. They weren't so quick to bully each other, but the different groups were definitely prevalent. Although, my group was kind of a mixture of 3 (goth kids, drama kids, & the sort of "unlabeled" as it were), so I had a lot of different people to eat lunch with each day, but I didn't really venture out of my own (pretty large) group. I never sought out the jocks or "hicks" (I went to school in kind of a country-adjacent town XD) or whatever other group. Not because I didn't like them but because I didn't know them and there had never been an opportunity to find any kind of common interests or anything. I can definitely understand how this concept in the book would seem strange, though, if you never actually experienced it!

(view spoiler)[Cooper... :( So sad. And it was kind of a needless thing to happen too. It was like she introduced the whole coyote element just so she could kill off Cooper. And even at that, yeah he was basically supposed to be saving Ezra from being attacked, but that point was kind of lost in the whole ending...especially since Cooper wasn't just defending Ezra but saw the coyote and pulled free from Ezra's grip so he could run at the coyote. The author should've made it so that the coyote was coming at them & about to attack & Cooper had to save the day... I don't know. That scene seemed a little weak in my opinion...like the author just really wanted to kill the dog and had to stretch to find a way to do it. :( (hide spoiler)]

Maybe it's a way to (view spoiler)[ also "kill" Ezra's old world. Because maybe Cooper is what bonded Ezra to his old self like going running with him, etc things that he cannot do anymore because he's not the same self. Maybe killing Cooper is a way to get rid of the past and the only way for Ezra to grow into his new self. I've read somewhere that's what JK Rowling did in Harry Potter 7 (view spoiler)[ she felt that she "had" to kill Hedwig because she represented Harry's innocence and youth and therefore could not have it with him during the rest of his journey (view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] maybe the author wanted to do the same thing here with Cooper :) (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

I hadn't thought about that, but that's a good point! Although, I still think it was totally unnecessary, lol! With both (view spoiler)[Cooper and Hedwig. :'( There are other ways to grow up & lose childhood innocence without killing off the beloved pets! :'''( lol But I do agree that that is very likely the reason. (hide spoiler)]