The End of the World Is Bigger than Love
Davina Bell
The End of the World Is Bigger than Love
Davina Bell
Shortlisted for the Readings Young Adult Book Prize 2021
Winner Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year - Older Readers 2021
She said we didn’t know what the world out there had become. We had been alone there so long on that tiny island, in that tiny church. But in the night, I couldn’t bear it. My chest beat like wings.
Identical twin sisters Summer and Winter live alone on a remote island, sheltered from a destroyed world. They survive on rations stockpiled by their father and spend their days deep in their mother’s collection of classic literature-until a mysterious stranger upends their carefully constructed reality.
At first, Edward is a welcome distraction. But who is he really, and why has he come? As love blooms and the world stops spinning, the secrets of the girls’ past begin to unravel and escape is the only option.
A sumptuously written novel of love and grief; of sisterly affection and the ultimate sacrifice; of technological progress and climate catastrophe; of an enigmatic bear and a talking whale-The End of the World Is Bigger than Love is unlike anything you’ve read before.
Review
Athina Clarke
The End of the World Is Bigger than Love is set in a time when Earth has suffered an environmental catastrophe of unimaginable and epic proportions: Antarctica has lost the last of its ice, the blue whale is extinct and it’s the beginning of the end for life on Earth.
Struggling to survive are twin sisters Summer and Winter, who, though outwardly ‘identical’ are very different characters; Summer is loquacious, funny and imaginative while Winter is laconic and reserved. But it’s soon obvious they’re both unreliable narrators, their truth is a slippery concept: one is more inventive with the truth, the other unable to really examine it; each must find her own way to overcome catastrophe and to survive.
Dragged around the world by their fugitive father, the twins find themselves on a remote island, suffering the monumental consequences of his actions. When the mysterious Edward appears on the scene the sisters suddenly find themselves at potentially dangerous odds.
I was immediately immersed in this sumptuous creation of unfathomable love, unimaginable grief, betrayal and an ultimate sacrifice that left me breathless. Award-winner Davina Bell’s debut novel for young adults is an extraordinary, marvellous work; the writing is staggeringly beautiful, the scope is majestic and breadth astonishing. A gigantic rollercoaster ride of emotion, The End of the World Is Bigger than Love is highly recommended for ages 13 up to (and including) adult, especially for bookish readers who love language and would savour the many references to books from classic literature.
Athina Clarke is the children’s book buyer at Readings Malvern.
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