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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Aug 2019, 400 pages
Paperback:
Aug 2020, 416 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Catherine M Andronik
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An engrossing and thoughtful contemporary tale that tackles faith, friendship, family, anxiety, and the potential apocalypse from Katie Henry, the acclaimed author of Heretics Anonymous.
There are many ways the world could end. A fire. A catastrophic flood. A super eruption that spews lakes of lava. Ellis Kimball has made note of all possible scenarios, and she is prepared for each one.
What she doesn't expect is meeting Hannah Marks in her therapist's waiting room. Hannah calls their meeting fate. After all, Ellis is scared about the end of the world; Hannah knows when it's going to happen.
Despite Ellis's anxiety—about what others think of her, about what she's doing wrong, about the safety of her loved ones—the two girls become friends. But time is ticking down, and as Ellis tries to help Hannah decipher the details of her doomsday premonition, their search for answers only raises more questions.
When does it happen? Who will believe them? And how do you prepare for the end of the world when it feels like your life is just getting started?
One
HERE IS ONE way the world could end:
In a peaceful corner of northwest Wyoming, under the feet of park rangers, herds of deer, and thousands of tourists to Yellowstone National Park, lies a giant reservoir of burning, deadly magma called the Yellowstone Caldera. First, there would be earthquakes, the kind you can't sleep through. Then would come the supereruption, a rare seismic event. Rare, but possible. Rare, but overdue. The park would be a lake of lava, but the real problem would be the ash, which would blanket the entire United States, coast to coast. In the Rockies, the ash would crush buildings, devastate crops, suffocate animals and people. Even a few inches would make national highways impassable, ruin farms, shut down air travel. Life as we know it would be over. The entire planet would grow colder.
Here is another way the world could end: I could fail my driving test for a third time.
"Twice isn't even that many times to fail. Two times, that's all, and my parents look...
Three elements help the novel stand out among other recent young adult releases about mental illness: Ellis's survivalist knowledge, her Mormon religion and the author's detailed depiction of the Oakland/Bay Area setting. The book's conclusion is both satisfying and open-ended, if a bit too neat...continued
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(Reviewed by Catherine M Andronik).
Ellis Kimball in Let's Call It a Doomsday is ready for the apocalypse, whatever form it takes. Would you be prepared? Most of the population of the United States lives in a place where some kind of natural disaster is possible, be it tornado, hurricane, flood, drought, blizzard or earthquake. As soon as the radio or television stations announce an impending event, people race to the nearest market and clear the shelves of water, batteries and nonperishable food items like canned goods. But a small percentage of people do not need to participate in this rush; they already have a stash of what they will need to survive for days, even weeks, without electricity or running water. Ellis takes her preparation seriously, accumulating things like ...
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