The Breakfast Club meets We Are the Ants in this timely story for a generation of young activists. If you knew the world was going to end tomorrow, what would you do? This is the question that haunts Amina as she watches new and horrible stories of discord and crisis flash across the news every day.But when she starts at prestigious Gardner Academy, Amina finds a group of like-minded peers to … Gardner Academy, Amina finds a group of like-minded peers to join forces with—fast friends who dedicate their year to learning survival skills from each other, before it’s too late.
Still, as their prepper knowledge multiplies, so do their regular high school problems, from relationship drama to family issues to friend blow-ups. Juggling the two parts of their lives forces Amina to ask another vital question: Is it worth living in the hypothetical future if it’s at the expense of your actual present?
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Thank you Iread Book Tours for a complimentary copy. I voluntarily reviewed this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
How To Pack For The End Of The World
By: Michelle Falkoff
REVIEW
There is no literal end of the world or apocalypse happening in How To Pack For The End Of The World. The story throws Amina, a new scholarship student suffering from paranoia about the world ending, and a few other boarding school teens with a shared interest in prepping together, and as friends, they face the challenges of teenage life.
Dramatic in true teen fashion with no major surprises, Amina and friends create and enact situations that mimic possible apocalyptic scenarios to determine what the reality of such a situation might be like. Personally, I like this idea for real because it could be tailored to teach survival skills for apocalyptic possibilities. Let’s be honest, we live under the constant threat of world ending and/or altering scenarios every single day. But, I digress.
The story strikes me as a sort of metaphorical ending of one stage of life for these teens, and as the hopeful seeds of adulthood are planted, each character must carry on into the unknown grownup world. It’s not so different from starting over after the end of the world because it all involves taking chances, having faith in yourself and believing tomorrow will be a better day.
No zombies are present, and no life and death chases or contests are held. Amina grows into a young woman who recognizes the skillset necessary to survive and thrive on any given day is just as vital as prepper knowledge. For the most part, the story is one of character growth, self realization and acceptance of inevitable change. But, Amina knows she need not face the future alone.
How To Pack For The End Of The World is an insightful and clever, contemporary, young adult novel from Michelle Falkoff that works on many levels. It is appropriate for young adults and adults with an interest in dystopian and apocalyptic fiction. I highly recommend this thought provoking story!
How to Pack for the End of the World is my first introduction to the work of Michelle Falkoff. The genre of it is teen and young adult fiction. It is a little different than what I am used to. Right from the beginning, I was not sure what to expect. The writing style was unique and it did take me a little while to get into it. It was about a third of the way through the book, I was hooked. I am glad that I continued to hang in there and kept reading or I would have missed a good read. I believe that many readers would be able to relate and feel connected to the main character, Amina. Her worried parents send her away because of her anxiety. This leads her to new friendships. It was fun getting to know them all. The four new friends were interesting addition to the story and helped make it flowed quite a bit faster and harder to put down.
I am giving How to Pack for the End of the World three and a half stars. I would be interested in reading more by Michelle Falkoff in the future. I would recommend this one for readers who are in their teens and for those who enjoy young adult reads. I believe that it is worth a read.
I received How to Pack for the End of the World from the publisher. This review is one honest opinion.
This is a very different book than what I usually read, and though I have a much different viewpoint on what will happen at the end of the world, I did the different aspects of the story the students have kind of interesting.
Amina’s parents sends her to a prestigious boarding school because she is obsessed with the end of the world and they are hoping this will help with the anxiety she has been having. After there a few days at the school she is invited to a mysterious meeting along with four other with somewhat the same anxiety problems and the same reasons for their anxiety. As they discuss their anxieties, they each contribute with their survival skills and help with ways to survive when the day happens.
I liked the students in this group. They were a little weird at times, but they are not the usually boarding school students. It was sometimes difficult for me to keep listening because the story doesn’t have a lot going on except for the survival skills of the group. I would have liked more depth to the story. There wasn’t a lot of wow there.
I have the audio version of this book. I really enjoyed listening to the Narrator, Stacey Glemboski. She has an excellent smooth voice for audiobooks. Her dynamics and expressions are just perfect. I hope to find more books that she is narrating. She is one voice I could listen to all day!
This book is a four star for me. And if I could rate the narration, I would rate it a 5 plus Stars!
A special thanks to the author/publisher for a copy of this book. I am not required to write a positive review, the opinions here are mine alone. I am disclosing this with my review in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.