The End of Our Story is a YA romance featuring serious themes. Bridge is a high school senior who takes her life seriously. She narrates most of the story. She lives with her mother and little sister — her father has never been in the picture, and she has a good relationship with her mother most of the time, although they don’t always see each other much. She has known Will since she was little, and they were best friends until they became romantically involved. She spends a lot of time with him and his family — his father is almost like a father to her. Then in junior year she gets drunk at a party and makes out with another boy, only to be discovered by Will. He gets mad and ends their relationship, refusing to even speak to her. Soon he is dating another girl and Bridge is full of regret. Will tells his side of the story and he says that he becomes full of anger when he sees them together: his immediate response is to want to beat up the guy. So far, so dull. It’s an inconsequential story of conventional teen dating. But then Will’s father is killed, and the story goes to another stage of complication. At first, it becomes about grief and communication: Bridge is the only one who can really understand Will but she feels that she can’t talk to him. Then dark secrets about Will’s family start to emerge, with themes of alcoholism and domestic violence. They are covered with some sensitivity.

It’s a story with a lot of emotional pain, but it is hard to be sympathetic to the characters. Probably the central failing of the book is that the plot twist that comes near the end is telegraphed so early on and becomes so obvious that one soon becomes impatient with Bridge for not realizing it. Bridge and Will keep on having interactions where he is in agony because he has a dark secret and she says “just tell me, it doesn’t matter what it is.” Eventually he does tell her, and of course, she can’t handle the truth. So both Bridge and Will are overwhelmed by their situation. Unfortunately, while pleasant enough, these kids just are not that interesting. Their ideas of romance are so idealistic that they are bound to be disappointed, and they are so focused on each other that they get things out of perspective. Someone should tell them to hire a lawyer.

© 2017 Christian Perring

Christian Perring teaches in NYC.