"The End of Everything," by Megan Abbott

I can’t remember where I read the positive review of “The End of Everything” (Little Brown, 2011), by Megan Abbott, that led me to borrow it from the library and read it, but now I wish I hadn’t. The book is full of suspense, and kept me reading it all in one fell swoop, taking up my Sunday morning, despite my increasing distaste for the book. It reminds me of many bestselling suspense novels, but perhaps one or two levels up literarily. It is also a sort of domestic drama; otherwise I wouldn’t usually have picked up a suspense novel. The story is told through the eyes of a 13-year-old girl, Lizzie, and focuses on the disappearance of her best friend, Evie, who lives next door; the two girls have been inseparable since early childhood. Evie’s disappearance leads Lizzie into speculations, investigations, and newfound knowledge, forever taking away her innocence. Much is revealed about illicit desire, both adult and adolescent, some overt and some hidden, but with some doubt about exactly where the boundaries lie. Despite reading the novel without stopping, I was put off by two things. One was a kind of tic in the writing: the too-frequent use of such pumping-up-the-suspense, talky phrases as “And then I knew…”, “I knew there was something, if I could only figure it out…”, “And then everything changed,” “I knew things would never be the same again…”, etc. (In some cases, I am paraphrasing, but you get the idea….) The other, more important point was that the difficult topic of an adult male character’s obsession with a young adolescent girl (which is also echoed in another adult male character’s less overtly but still disturbingly inappropriate interactions with young girls in his sphere) is treated in a too-breathless, too-fascinated, somewhat exploitative way; reading this novel made me feel, finally, a bit soiled.