This is Where it Ends by Martha Ninjkamp

        This past week, I started another book. It is called This is Where it Ends by Marlene Nijkamp. I've read this book for about a total of 110 minutes and have read 109 pages. This book is different from all the other books that I read because I have only read non-fiction books up until this point. This is a fiction book about a harrowing fifty-four minutes told from four different student perspectives who are held captive in their high school by a boy with a gun.
        None of the students ever expected to be threatened with a gun when they arrived at school that day. Tyler, the shooter, had personal vendettas against the many people who did him wrong. At 10:05, Tyler decided to fire his first shot. He then holds the students in the auditorium captive. Sylv, his sister, recalls that supposed reasoning behind Tyler’s actions saying that Tyler “told [her] he would make sure the world remembered him”(Nijkamp 84) and that after his mom died he was “always angry”(84) which caused him to seclude himself from his friends. Usually, school shooters have history that motivate them to pull out a gun.
        Adam Lanza, the shooter behind the Sandy Hook tragedy, was similar to Tyler in some ways. They both broke off relations with almost everyone and secluded themselves. Although, Lanza’s mental illness was severe and caused him to “think about mass murders”. Lanza’s connection to Sandy Hook was his mother who taught there and was later murdered by Adam. Just like Adam put one of his family members in danger, Tyler has put his sister, Sylv, in danger. Both Adam and Tyler went on a shooting spree, with no second thought about what they were doing or who they shot the bullet at. I am interested to see how this book ends and what happens to Tyler in the end.

Citations:

Nijkamp, Martha. This is Where it Ends. Sourcebooks Fire, 2016.

Lysiak, Matthew. Why Adam Lanza Did it. News Week, 7 Jan. 2014, http://www.newsweek.com/why-adam-lanza-did-it-226565. Accessed 14 Oct. 2016.