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Where the World Ends
Every time a lad came fowling on the St Kilda stacs, he went home less of a boy and more of a man. If he went home at all, that is...
In the summer of 1727, a group of men and boys are put ashore on a remote sea stac to harvest birds for food. No one returns to collect them. Why? Surely nothing but the end of the world can explain why they have been abandoned to endure storms, starvation and terror. And how can they survive, housed in stone and imprisoned on every side by the ocean?
In the summer of 1727, a group of men and boys are put ashore on a remote sea stac to harvest birds for food. No one returns to collect them. Why? Surely nothing but the end of the world can explain why they have been abandoned to endure storms, starvation and terror. And how can they survive, housed in stone and imprisoned on every side by the ocean?
336 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2017
357 people are currently reading
9763 people want to read
About the author
Geraldine McCaughrean
348 books318 followersGeraldine McCaughrean is a British children's novelist. She has written more than 170 books, including Peter Pan in Scarlet (2004), the official sequel to Peter Pan commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital, the holder of Peter Pan's copyright. Her work has been translated into 44 languages worldwide. She has received the Carnegie Medal twice and the Michael L. Printz Award among others.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 827 reviews
December 27, 2020
2020 Best Books of the Year [#04 of 11]
A hellish and harrowing yet beautifully written survival story based on true events. It's no wonder Where the World Ends was nominated for the Printz Award. An absolute must read.
A hellish and harrowing yet beautifully written survival story based on true events. It's no wonder Where the World Ends was nominated for the Printz Award. An absolute must read.
Somewhere within the rock, the shearwaters began their unearthly chatter. It made for an eerie music. "Like fairies spinning gold underground," Murdina had said when she first heard it. He repeated the words out loud - "Fairies spinning gold underground!" - and found he could breathe again. The cave was so cold that his breath made white mist as it came out of his mouth.
He was thirsty, and sucked at his wet clothes for the sake of the rainwater in them, wondering how he would catch enough to drink without any kind of pot to collect it in. Would he have to leave some piece of clothing out to soak up rainwater, then suck it dry? No, he could not spare a single item of clothing. If he was ever warm again (he told himsef) it would be with lung fever or a direct lighting strike between the shoulder blades.
There were hollows and indentations in the terrace of rock outside, but he dared not drink from them in case the sea and not the rain had filled them. Salt water would only increase his thirst. Salt water would prickle his brains and turn him into a mad thing. In thinking it, a kind of hysteria trickled like salt water over his brain pan and made his vision blur, his head spin. He feared he was mad already.
November 3, 2019
This book is true to the blurb. Set in 1727, a group of boys from Hirta go hunting on a sea stac in St. Kilda. No one comes to pick them up as they normally do and they become stranded for many months.
Most of the time, the story dragged. It's mostly about their day-to-day mundane happenings and a lot of birds. Here and there something of interest happens though. For the most part though, I felt bored and disengaged. Though the dark atmosphere and setting were painted remarkably, the story itself was tedious. There were 2-3 points where I was wanting to know what was going to happen, but they were short-lived moments.
I think middle grade students would find this uninteresting and I think they would also get confused. This is quite possible true for upper grade levels as well. It says this is for ages 10 & up. I do not agree that this is on a 10 year old reading level. This should say 13-14 year old & up because of the vernacular and literary skills necessary.
The novel is very loosely based on a true story. Revealed in the end by the author, the only true part of the story is that in the 1700's a group of young men did get stranded for 9 months and survive. That is literally all that is known. No other details survive about the true account as to how they survived, etc. The premise for this book, because of the true story, is interesting. But this novel, which details their time being stranded on the sea stac, left me feeling bored except for a a few parts.
I didn't like the story, but I didn't hate it. It was okay. I received an advanced copy from Netgalley. Opinions are my own.
Most of the time, the story dragged. It's mostly about their day-to-day mundane happenings and a lot of birds. Here and there something of interest happens though. For the most part though, I felt bored and disengaged. Though the dark atmosphere and setting were painted remarkably, the story itself was tedious. There were 2-3 points where I was wanting to know what was going to happen, but they were short-lived moments.
I think middle grade students would find this uninteresting and I think they would also get confused. This is quite possible true for upper grade levels as well. It says this is for ages 10 & up. I do not agree that this is on a 10 year old reading level. This should say 13-14 year old & up because of the vernacular and literary skills necessary.
The novel is very loosely based on a true story. Revealed in the end by the author, the only true part of the story is that in the 1700's a group of young men did get stranded for 9 months and survive. That is literally all that is known. No other details survive about the true account as to how they survived, etc. The premise for this book, because of the true story, is interesting. But this novel, which details their time being stranded on the sea stac, left me feeling bored except for a a few parts.
I didn't like the story, but I didn't hate it. It was okay. I received an advanced copy from Netgalley. Opinions are my own.
October 15, 2019
This book is unique. The writing is not what I'm used to but it grows on me and I like the humor underneath it. The broken English in their conversation is hard to read but I'm guessing that it's how the people of Hirta talks. I like Murdo and his talks of sweethearts. I like John's surprise. I also like Quill for always having something to say and stories to tell, especially how he protects little Davie.
This book is told in the third person point of view following Quilliam (Quill) as he says goodbye to his parents before he heads out to harvest bird meat and eggs with other men and boys in town. The journey there is by boat and will take one to three weeks to obtain enough food for the people of Hirta. The destination is a big piece of rock that grow out of the ocean. Surrounded by seawater, so many birds like to reside there. After three weeks, no one comes to pick them up and they believe that it must be the end of the world where they got left behind because they were hidden inside the cave of the rock. Survival is now challenged.
Where the World Ends is very well written with a unique idea. It's cute how the boys outgrown their shoes where the older ones passed their shoes down to the younger ones and how their voices also changed from a boy to a man during the time they were stranded. I wish to know their age. How little is Davie anyway, to be gullible enough to worry about Kenneth eating him instead of dying from starvation. The white rock strategy to catch birds is cool. Above all, how cute is that to have thoughts of a girl to give strength to survive the hardest life. The ending is excellent and so unexpected. I highly recommend everyone to read this book!
Pro: cover, illustration on chapter headings and page numbers, humor, friendship, teamwork, survival, family Con: none I rate it 5 stars!
***Disclaimer: Many thanks to Flatiron Books for the opportunity to read and review. Please be assured that my opinions are honest. xoxo, Jasmine at www.howusefulitis.wordpress.com for more details
This book is told in the third person point of view following Quilliam (Quill) as he says goodbye to his parents before he heads out to harvest bird meat and eggs with other men and boys in town. The journey there is by boat and will take one to three weeks to obtain enough food for the people of Hirta. The destination is a big piece of rock that grow out of the ocean. Surrounded by seawater, so many birds like to reside there. After three weeks, no one comes to pick them up and they believe that it must be the end of the world where they got left behind because they were hidden inside the cave of the rock. Survival is now challenged.
Where the World Ends is very well written with a unique idea. It's cute how the boys outgrown their shoes where the older ones passed their shoes down to the younger ones and how their voices also changed from a boy to a man during the time they were stranded. I wish to know their age. How little is Davie anyway, to be gullible enough to worry about Kenneth eating him instead of dying from starvation. The white rock strategy to catch birds is cool. Above all, how cute is that to have thoughts of a girl to give strength to survive the hardest life. The ending is excellent and so unexpected. I highly recommend everyone to read this book!
Pro: cover, illustration on chapter headings and page numbers, humor, friendship, teamwork, survival, family Con: none I rate it 5 stars!
***Disclaimer: Many thanks to Flatiron Books for the opportunity to read and review. Please be assured that my opinions are honest. xoxo, Jasmine at www.howusefulitis.wordpress.com for more details
October 5, 2020
Really enjoyed learning about a place in my country that i didn't know existed until this book.
Very interesting.
I thought it was very adult for a YA book.
Dragged a little.
Very interesting.
I thought it was very adult for a YA book.
Dragged a little.
February 7, 2020
"Every time a lad came fowling on the St Kilda stacs, he went home less of a boy and more of a man. If he went home at all, that is…”
In the summer of 1727, a group of men and boys were sent to a sea stac (only a few miles away from the shore - unbeknownst to any of them) to harvest birds for food – they are expected to stay there for about 1 week upwards to three weeks, but no one ever returns to collect them. Why? The men and the boys start speculating on the reasons why they were left there for months. Abandoned, they had to endure storms, starvation and terror.
Geraldine McCaughrean writes a triumphant story on the strength of human resolve, faith and strength in a time of survival and endurance of not just the body, but also the mind. For such a simple story, McCaughrean was able to write on the vulnerability of humans in the face of isolation and suffering.
McCaughrean was able to create an atmosphere that is dark and chilly. The book’s story was loosely based on true events that showed how people can survive and be changed through the harshness and bitterness of having to survive on a mass of rock in the middle of the sea.
What a beautiful and poignant story that I highly recommend.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Excellent Book!
In the summer of 1727, a group of men and boys were sent to a sea stac (only a few miles away from the shore - unbeknownst to any of them) to harvest birds for food – they are expected to stay there for about 1 week upwards to three weeks, but no one ever returns to collect them. Why? The men and the boys start speculating on the reasons why they were left there for months. Abandoned, they had to endure storms, starvation and terror.
Geraldine McCaughrean writes a triumphant story on the strength of human resolve, faith and strength in a time of survival and endurance of not just the body, but also the mind. For such a simple story, McCaughrean was able to write on the vulnerability of humans in the face of isolation and suffering.
McCaughrean was able to create an atmosphere that is dark and chilly. The book’s story was loosely based on true events that showed how people can survive and be changed through the harshness and bitterness of having to survive on a mass of rock in the middle of the sea.
What a beautiful and poignant story that I highly recommend.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Excellent Book!
July 22, 2017
This book is set on a sea stac in the St. Kilda archipelago. It follows a group of men and boys who become stranded there when the boat from Hirta does not return to collect them. It's set in 1727 and based on a true story, a nightmare of a true story!
I wasn't sure if this book would be a bit too young for me, but I absolutely loved it. McCaughrean's writing is absolutely wonderful and I am so glad I picked this book up. Despite the book being set on one solitary sea stac the world-building was brilliant. I loved the harsh, unforgiving and miserable setting and, from the research I've done on St. Kilda, I think the author really did those now abandoned islands justice.
I thought the character development was great and I really liked the POV we read from, a boy called Quilliam. We really got to know everyone as this book progressed and I loved that. The plot was really gripping, despite it's one location, and I enjoyed learning more about their island of Hirta through memories, dreams and stories. I could never tell where the plot was going and it made me cry quite a few times. It's best to go into this book not knowing much about the plot, but I definitely recommend it.
I loved finding great books set in Scotland and I love when beautiful books live up to their cover (I guess it's the other way around... but readers see covers first).
I wasn't sure if this book would be a bit too young for me, but I absolutely loved it. McCaughrean's writing is absolutely wonderful and I am so glad I picked this book up. Despite the book being set on one solitary sea stac the world-building was brilliant. I loved the harsh, unforgiving and miserable setting and, from the research I've done on St. Kilda, I think the author really did those now abandoned islands justice.
I thought the character development was great and I really liked the POV we read from, a boy called Quilliam. We really got to know everyone as this book progressed and I loved that. The plot was really gripping, despite it's one location, and I enjoyed learning more about their island of Hirta through memories, dreams and stories. I could never tell where the plot was going and it made me cry quite a few times. It's best to go into this book not knowing much about the plot, but I definitely recommend it.
I loved finding great books set in Scotland and I love when beautiful books live up to their cover (I guess it's the other way around... but readers see covers first).
April 17, 2019
A fascinating story of survival, humanity and the awesome power of nature. Where the World Ends is both bleak and hopeful, moving and mythical. I especially enjoyed learning about all the different sea birds (there’s a beautiful illustrated guide at the back of the book of all the species mentioned in the story), but where McCaughrean excels, is in her creation of the landscape, bringing the uncompromising, brutal nature of the Warrior Stac to life so vividly. This is such a beautifully written story and a deserved winner of the Carnegie Medal.
November 7, 2019
I love reading WHERE THE WORLD ENDS. In some ways this book reminded me of THE LORD OF THE FLIES. The story concerns a group of boys along with two men who are dropped off on a remote sea stac to hunt birds, and no one comes to pick them up. One of the younger boys thinks it may be the end of the world. This book is so beautifully written and also very unsettling. I loved the artwork at the beginning of every chapter and the artwork is included at the end of the book. This is a story of survival that I highly recommend!
March 17, 2020
I feel privileged to have read this novel. It's dark and mystical and IMO a remarkable accomplishment. Based loosely on a true story of fowlers in the year 1727, who eek out a living in a remote area of the British Isles. They are dropped off on an uninhabitable stac of rock in the ocean to forage for birds and then are seemingly forgotten for many months. How McCaughrean pulled this off with no knowledge whatsoever of what happened while they were there is a testament to human imagination, what it can create, what it can reveal in its world-building. So many pages I marked, marveling at not just her prose but her wisdom. Some examples:
"He looked inside his skull, like a cleit, and found it full to the brim with imaginations that might just sustain him through the bad times ahead." [Cleits are stone storage mounds for drying the birds they catch; much of the book details how Quilliam, the main character, retreats to his head and finds ways to survive mentally]
"It went through Quilliam's head that if there was one thing he wanted to see before he died, it was Murdina Galloway's sleeping face in the dip of a pillow filled with feathers he had gathered himself." [I loved the use of a love interest as a way to survive]
"Crow Cold had come to roost in Midway Bothy. It pecked holes in the skin of their faces, it stole the feeling from noses and fingertips and ears. It hopped about among their sleeping places, spread its claws on their throats, feeling for heat." [Loved the bird metaphor through the book.]
"Every Kilda man is part bird, because he knows how it feels to plummet out of the sky toward the brightness of sea."
I did wonder at this being Middle Grade. It seemed to me that the language was pretty advanced, and even some of the topics. For sure adults who love lit fiction will appreciate this. The pacing at some points dragged a tad but then quickly picked up again. Did I think we needed the one death? No. I'm guessing an editor asked for that to increase drama. But it was still riveting.
It was a bit odd to read this right after The Mercies. Total coincidence that I read them back to back, but they have very similar setting, themes, and tone. In fact, I was a tad bothered by seeing an exact line in this book that appears in Mercies. Then I noted that the author of Mercies blurbed this one. Hmmm.
Of the two books, I recommend this one as more original and accomplished. And while we all dip into our own new world of virus isolation and uncertainty, these are the kinds of stories that can keep us going. Highly recommend (if you can handle dark stories), as do the Carnegie and Printz committees.
"He looked inside his skull, like a cleit, and found it full to the brim with imaginations that might just sustain him through the bad times ahead." [Cleits are stone storage mounds for drying the birds they catch; much of the book details how Quilliam, the main character, retreats to his head and finds ways to survive mentally]
"It went through Quilliam's head that if there was one thing he wanted to see before he died, it was Murdina Galloway's sleeping face in the dip of a pillow filled with feathers he had gathered himself." [I loved the use of a love interest as a way to survive]
"Crow Cold had come to roost in Midway Bothy. It pecked holes in the skin of their faces, it stole the feeling from noses and fingertips and ears. It hopped about among their sleeping places, spread its claws on their throats, feeling for heat." [Loved the bird metaphor through the book.]
"Every Kilda man is part bird, because he knows how it feels to plummet out of the sky toward the brightness of sea."
I did wonder at this being Middle Grade. It seemed to me that the language was pretty advanced, and even some of the topics. For sure adults who love lit fiction will appreciate this. The pacing at some points dragged a tad but then quickly picked up again. Did I think we needed the one death? No. I'm guessing an editor asked for that to increase drama. But it was still riveting.
It was a bit odd to read this right after The Mercies. Total coincidence that I read them back to back, but they have very similar setting, themes, and tone. In fact, I was a tad bothered by seeing an exact line in this book that appears in Mercies. Then I noted that the author of Mercies blurbed this one. Hmmm.
Of the two books, I recommend this one as more original and accomplished. And while we all dip into our own new world of virus isolation and uncertainty, these are the kinds of stories that can keep us going. Highly recommend (if you can handle dark stories), as do the Carnegie and Printz committees.
March 18, 2018
2018 CARNEGIE LONGLIST BOOK 13/20
Geraldine McCaughrean has always been a hit and miss author for me. I adored her A Little Lower Than The Angels, and I liked Peter Pan in Scarlet, but I couldn't finish The Middle of Nowhere. This one kind of fell more into the later category, unfortunately, though I was able to finish this. And it did get better as it went on. It just felt a bit dry .
I didn't dislike the writing style. It does have a nice style to it, and I think it can work, but here it kind of made the first half of the story very boring. It meandered down places and took too long over things and I napped. It was the kind of writing that looks nice and sounds nice on the surface but doesn't really do anything to draw you into the story. I liked it. I did. But it didn't do anything for me. And the pacing was really off. The beginning introduces this mystery that I was desperate to know the awswer to - why the boys were left on the island - but then I don't think that there was really enough going on in the rest of the book to interest me, and this just frustrated me. (I spoiled myself okay? It annoyed me that much.) And the story does pick up, but not until like 2/3 of the way through the book, which is a bit too late. The rest of it is just what is going on on this sea stac and quite frankly it was boring. Though I will say I think that the author did an amazing job creating that chilling sense of isolation. It is something that I find very haunting and scary, and the book had a very haunting atmosphere. That was definitely my favourite thing about this book. It was the main thing that stayed with me. And this book was a lot moer adult than I was expecting it to be - not that I disliked that. It just looks like a children's book, and it is DEFINITELY not. Please expect that before going into it.
So yeah, I did like this, but I was a little bored. I think the idea and the fact that it is based on truth is really interesting. The story itself is definitely very different from anything that I have read before. Geraldine McCaughrean's books do tend to be very original. I think that for the atmosphere alone that this book created it, I would put it on the shortlist. But I think the slow moving plot and the frustration about learning the truth is just not for me, due to the fact that I am very impatient. But if you like slower books that haunt you, you will definitely enjoy this.
Geraldine McCaughrean has always been a hit and miss author for me. I adored her A Little Lower Than The Angels, and I liked Peter Pan in Scarlet, but I couldn't finish The Middle of Nowhere. This one kind of fell more into the later category, unfortunately, though I was able to finish this. And it did get better as it went on. It just felt a bit dry .
I didn't dislike the writing style. It does have a nice style to it, and I think it can work, but here it kind of made the first half of the story very boring. It meandered down places and took too long over things and I napped. It was the kind of writing that looks nice and sounds nice on the surface but doesn't really do anything to draw you into the story. I liked it. I did. But it didn't do anything for me. And the pacing was really off. The beginning introduces this mystery that I was desperate to know the awswer to - why the boys were left on the island - but then I don't think that there was really enough going on in the rest of the book to interest me, and this just frustrated me. (I spoiled myself okay? It annoyed me that much.) And the story does pick up, but not until like 2/3 of the way through the book, which is a bit too late. The rest of it is just what is going on on this sea stac and quite frankly it was boring. Though I will say I think that the author did an amazing job creating that chilling sense of isolation. It is something that I find very haunting and scary, and the book had a very haunting atmosphere. That was definitely my favourite thing about this book. It was the main thing that stayed with me. And this book was a lot moer adult than I was expecting it to be - not that I disliked that. It just looks like a children's book, and it is DEFINITELY not. Please expect that before going into it.
So yeah, I did like this, but I was a little bored. I think the idea and the fact that it is based on truth is really interesting. The story itself is definitely very different from anything that I have read before. Geraldine McCaughrean's books do tend to be very original. I think that for the atmosphere alone that this book created it, I would put it on the shortlist. But I think the slow moving plot and the frustration about learning the truth is just not for me, due to the fact that I am very impatient. But if you like slower books that haunt you, you will definitely enjoy this.
February 18, 2020
A Fraught Story “Based on True Events” Where the World Ends
Sometimes I read a premise and am captured by the uniqueness of the circumstances. Where the World Ends is just such a book. The cover didn’t really wow me, the title is attractive but could mean almost anything. But tell me that a group of men and boys are put ashore a sea stac to harvest birds for food… and no one returns, and I’m there! I needed to know why.
Did Where the World Ends ratchet up this Fangirl’s tension?
What you have been reading is a true story … and there again, it’s not. Fiction is elastic: it stretches to encircle true facts and then crimps them into shape to create Story. The truth is that a party of eight (not nine) boys and three men went over to Stac an Armin, also known as Warrior Stac, from Hirta and were marooned there for nine months.
Where the World Ends, Geraldine McCaughrean
I’m actually not a fan of based on true events books. But my book club is so I’ve read a number of them. They can be quite boring as the author went to a lot of trouble researching and wants to include everything they learned. Even the boring bits. While Where the World Ends includes some religious talk that fits the historical time I was never bored. In fact, I became quite caught up in their circumstances and the mystery of why their family didn’t return to pick them up.
The fowling on the stac made for some intensive Scottish culture.
The boys went with these 3 men to do a man’s work that only a boy their size could do. Harvesting these birds would maintain their families food source and buy them much needed supplies from the mainland. I found learning about fowling was neat but harsh too. We meet all sorts of birds that would have been there and the picture glossary in the back was great. I really enjoyed this glimpse into Scottish culture. Island life in the 1700s wasn’t easy and we get a taste of what it took to survive.
Quill made for an oddly brilliant view into this experience.
Quill has a sweetheart back home, or at least a girl he’d like to be his sweetheart. She keeps him company in his head, and it’s sweet and odd and necessary. With the superstitious nature of people during this time a mob can quickly be stirred up. This happens with the boys and Quill has a super power to get them to calm down. I won’t tell you what it is but it really made him stand out to me. He befriends a bird at one point and the tragic end of that friendship is heartbreaking. To say Quill made the book for me is putting it lightly. I’m glad he has a happy end of sorts.
Where the World Ends is crazy, extreme survival of the fittest.
Of course, Quill isn’t enough to sustain such a story alone. This is about the group and while his place within the group is neat the other characters are major factors. Three adults go to supervise the fowling while the nine boys are the workforce.
The adults each influenced the group in fascinating ways.
Each man who went along was different. We have the older, very capable man who is always a calming influence. We have the religious nutter who was a nobody back on land but sees an opportunity to seize power. Then we have the mentally weak man who is a lovely teacher and mentor to the boys but can’t take the pressure. Each influenced the boys and Quill in different ways adding tension and depth to what could have been a story about mob mentality. And instead was nuanced survival.
The boys made survival essential.
This group of nine boys represented an entire generation of men for the island. If they perished the town perishes with them. I really appreciated the stakes especially as I got to know each boy. I liked Quill’s best friend and his advice about woman. John’s secret makes for a big power play later. Kenneth adds that bully element. And we have the younger boys who were there to be trained up. Davie, being one who looked up to Quill, about broke my heart. When the story ends I was horrified and shocked like the boys… though it made total sense what happened.
Where the World Ends tells a true story as it may have happened during a time in history when survival was a day to day affair. In order to have enough food and goods to trade a group of boys and men go out to sea to harvest a sea stac. It’s fraught with tragedy, endurance and savage beauty.
Sometimes I read a premise and am captured by the uniqueness of the circumstances. Where the World Ends is just such a book. The cover didn’t really wow me, the title is attractive but could mean almost anything. But tell me that a group of men and boys are put ashore a sea stac to harvest birds for food… and no one returns, and I’m there! I needed to know why.
Did Where the World Ends ratchet up this Fangirl’s tension?
What you have been reading is a true story … and there again, it’s not. Fiction is elastic: it stretches to encircle true facts and then crimps them into shape to create Story. The truth is that a party of eight (not nine) boys and three men went over to Stac an Armin, also known as Warrior Stac, from Hirta and were marooned there for nine months.
Where the World Ends, Geraldine McCaughrean
I’m actually not a fan of based on true events books. But my book club is so I’ve read a number of them. They can be quite boring as the author went to a lot of trouble researching and wants to include everything they learned. Even the boring bits. While Where the World Ends includes some religious talk that fits the historical time I was never bored. In fact, I became quite caught up in their circumstances and the mystery of why their family didn’t return to pick them up.
The fowling on the stac made for some intensive Scottish culture.
The boys went with these 3 men to do a man’s work that only a boy their size could do. Harvesting these birds would maintain their families food source and buy them much needed supplies from the mainland. I found learning about fowling was neat but harsh too. We meet all sorts of birds that would have been there and the picture glossary in the back was great. I really enjoyed this glimpse into Scottish culture. Island life in the 1700s wasn’t easy and we get a taste of what it took to survive.
Quill made for an oddly brilliant view into this experience.
Quill has a sweetheart back home, or at least a girl he’d like to be his sweetheart. She keeps him company in his head, and it’s sweet and odd and necessary. With the superstitious nature of people during this time a mob can quickly be stirred up. This happens with the boys and Quill has a super power to get them to calm down. I won’t tell you what it is but it really made him stand out to me. He befriends a bird at one point and the tragic end of that friendship is heartbreaking. To say Quill made the book for me is putting it lightly. I’m glad he has a happy end of sorts.
Where the World Ends is crazy, extreme survival of the fittest.
Of course, Quill isn’t enough to sustain such a story alone. This is about the group and while his place within the group is neat the other characters are major factors. Three adults go to supervise the fowling while the nine boys are the workforce.
The adults each influenced the group in fascinating ways.
Each man who went along was different. We have the older, very capable man who is always a calming influence. We have the religious nutter who was a nobody back on land but sees an opportunity to seize power. Then we have the mentally weak man who is a lovely teacher and mentor to the boys but can’t take the pressure. Each influenced the boys and Quill in different ways adding tension and depth to what could have been a story about mob mentality. And instead was nuanced survival.
The boys made survival essential.
This group of nine boys represented an entire generation of men for the island. If they perished the town perishes with them. I really appreciated the stakes especially as I got to know each boy. I liked Quill’s best friend and his advice about woman. John’s secret makes for a big power play later. Kenneth adds that bully element. And we have the younger boys who were there to be trained up. Davie, being one who looked up to Quill, about broke my heart. When the story ends I was horrified and shocked like the boys… though it made total sense what happened.
Where the World Ends tells a true story as it may have happened during a time in history when survival was a day to day affair. In order to have enough food and goods to trade a group of boys and men go out to sea to harvest a sea stac. It’s fraught with tragedy, endurance and savage beauty.
November 13, 2019
Simply terrible. I'm still trying to comprehend what I just read but I don't want to put too much thought into it because I don't think it's worth it.
Received through Goodreads first reads/giveaways.
Received through Goodreads first reads/giveaways.
September 2, 2018
“On a diet of oily soup and ice-fringed, sleepless nights, their goodwill was failing and falling back inside their bodies, unable to reach their eyes to look out, or their mouths to smile, or their throats to speak.”St Kilda is an isolated Scottish archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean, situated 41 miles west of Benbecula. It is bleak, sometimes beautiful, its sea cliffs the highest in the country, its narrow ledges and mighty stacs (large outcrops rising sheer-sided out of the sea) the most important breeding ground for seabirds in north-west Europe. It is also the remotest part of the British Isles.
For thousands of years, until 1930, a community never exceeding 180 indomitable souls inhabited the largest island: Hirta, where they built sturdy stone houses to be shared with their meagre livestock during the long winter months. They led desperately gruelling lives in a place so wild and inhospitable that trees refused to grow; surviving only on limited food crops such as barley and potatoes and on cheese made from sheep’s milk. They were generally unable to fish due to the mountainous seas but sustained themselves by hunting the island’s profusion of birds – gannets, fulmars and puffins forming the major part of their diets – and these were caught by ‘fowlers’ who lowered themselves on ropes from the sheer clifftops or by scaling the towering stacs from their boats.
“Warrior Stac grows bigger the closer you get. You would swear it was pushing its way upwards – a rock whale pitching its whole bulk into the sky, covered in barnacles, aiming to swallow the moon.”It is in this storm-battered, inaccessible part of the world Geraldine McCaughrean has set her latest novel, aimed at younger readers but equally likely to appeal to adults. Based on a true story, it begins on Hirta in August 1727 with a fowling party setting sail for Warrior Stac (properly known as Stac an Armin) to harvest “the summer plenty: bird meat, eggs, feathers, oil…”
A group consisting of nine boys and three men is put ashore on this, the tallest sea stac in Scotland. The party is to remain there for a few weeks, as generations before them have done, but this year, no one returns to take them home.
St Kildans were a race of God-fearing people who set great store by a concoction of omens, superstition and religious doctrine, and as the weeks turned into months they convinced themselves that nothing short of the end of the world had caused their abandonment. They were starving and frozen with only each other for comfort. Why hadn’t they been rescued? How could they hope to survive a winter on this exposed lump of rock amid a raging ocean?
As both thalassophile and someone fascinated with remote islands, I was inevitably tempted by the promotional blurb on the back cover of Where the World Ends. I seldom read narratives aimed at young adults, mainly because I know so little about the them (perhaps because I went straight from reading children’s stories to adult fiction almost overnight) but I’m immensely gratified McCaughrean’s 2018 Carnegie Medal winning historical novel appeared on my bookdar. Why? Because it is simply one of the best books I have read this year.
It is at once disquieting and compelling, funny and unbearable; a tale of survival in punishing conditions, recounted by Quilliam, an adolescent boy with a gift for telling stories. This beautifully written book will, I know, be one to which I continue to refer (and no doubt reread) in the future. I wholeheartedly recommend it to readers of any age.
“…it was spring, and spring engenders hope in every creature, from the tideline to the mountain peak.”Many thanks to Usborne Publishing for gifting a copy of this title.
April 1, 2020
The boy who lives all by himself in the world is King of all he surveys.
In 1727, a group of boys left the isolated island community of Hirta in the Outer Hebrides to go bird hunting on the even more isolated island of Stac an Armin. The annual expedition was undertaken by boys because they were small enough to fit into the nests hanging off the sheer cliffs. They would bring enough rations to last a few months and then return to their home island via the pickup boat. Unbeknownst to them, tragedy hit St. Kilda and the bird-hunting expedition was forgotten. This middle grade/young adult book is a fictionalized account of that historical event.
The St. Kilda archipelago is as remote as they can be. The last residents were evacuated from Hirta in 1930 and now the birds and sheep rule the former stone cottages. But for hundreds of years, people managed to subsist on what the land and the sea gave them, relying especially on the bird hunting of the sea stacks, such as Stac an Armin (Warrior Stac).
Warrior Stac grows bigger the closer you get. You would swear it was pushing its way upward - a rock whale pitching its whole bulk into the sky, covered in barnacles, aiming to swallow the moon.
To take such history and to turn it into a novel for younger readers is quite an undertaking, especially since it's also appealing for adult readers. There is a main character who acts as the point-of-view for the story but we quickly learn about all the marooned characters. There is always a Lord Of The Flies possibility, but the story moves along quickly enough and the very idea of being able to survive in such a remote landscape keeps the reader occupied. There is a reminder of the extinction of the Great Auk (the trusting Garefowl) and how keeping a flame alive is related to a boy growing into manhood.
I definitely enjoyed this read, so much so that I added The Life and Death of St Kilda to my reading wishlist. Each chapter has a related drawing and there is an appendix to help understand the birds. When I finished, I felt as though I had also braved the waves and the ferocious winds of those remote Atlantic isles.
What became of sailors washed off the decks of ships, fisherman snatched from shoreline rocks, the bodies of children given into the waves' keeping?
Book Season = Autumn (emptiness of fear)
In 1727, a group of boys left the isolated island community of Hirta in the Outer Hebrides to go bird hunting on the even more isolated island of Stac an Armin. The annual expedition was undertaken by boys because they were small enough to fit into the nests hanging off the sheer cliffs. They would bring enough rations to last a few months and then return to their home island via the pickup boat. Unbeknownst to them, tragedy hit St. Kilda and the bird-hunting expedition was forgotten. This middle grade/young adult book is a fictionalized account of that historical event.
The St. Kilda archipelago is as remote as they can be. The last residents were evacuated from Hirta in 1930 and now the birds and sheep rule the former stone cottages. But for hundreds of years, people managed to subsist on what the land and the sea gave them, relying especially on the bird hunting of the sea stacks, such as Stac an Armin (Warrior Stac).
Warrior Stac grows bigger the closer you get. You would swear it was pushing its way upward - a rock whale pitching its whole bulk into the sky, covered in barnacles, aiming to swallow the moon.
To take such history and to turn it into a novel for younger readers is quite an undertaking, especially since it's also appealing for adult readers. There is a main character who acts as the point-of-view for the story but we quickly learn about all the marooned characters. There is always a Lord Of The Flies possibility, but the story moves along quickly enough and the very idea of being able to survive in such a remote landscape keeps the reader occupied. There is a reminder of the extinction of the Great Auk (the trusting Garefowl) and how keeping a flame alive is related to a boy growing into manhood.
I definitely enjoyed this read, so much so that I added The Life and Death of St Kilda to my reading wishlist. Each chapter has a related drawing and there is an appendix to help understand the birds. When I finished, I felt as though I had also braved the waves and the ferocious winds of those remote Atlantic isles.
What became of sailors washed off the decks of ships, fisherman snatched from shoreline rocks, the bodies of children given into the waves' keeping?
Book Season = Autumn (emptiness of fear)
January 8, 2020
I was really pleasantly surprised by this book, I was expecting a Lord of the Flies copy, but it was so much more than that.
Instead of seeing the boys descend into some sort of murderess madness and turn on one another, we seem them fall into more of an intense depression, the madness is definitely still there, but in general we see the boys stick together and get each other through this ordeal, which I think was a really interesting twist on what could have been a very cliche story. The boy's decent into madness is also so slow and gradual that you almost don't realise it's happening until the very end of the story, when you finally realise how much being stranded has effected them.
I also truly loved the setting of this story. The descriptions of the stac they are stranded on are so clear and beautifully explained that it really feels like you're there with them. This historical setting is also excellent, The author does a good job at building characters who are clearly from the 1700s and creating scenarios that would have made sense to people from that period, such as the religious fanaticism and attitudes towards women.
I was incredibly impressed with the story the author managed to weave despite having next to no information on the true events that this story is based off of. No records we kept by the men and boys that this happened to, so I find it really amazing that she was able to build a story from true events on such little information.
Instead of seeing the boys descend into some sort of murderess madness and turn on one another, we seem them fall into more of an intense depression, the madness is definitely still there, but in general we see the boys stick together and get each other through this ordeal, which I think was a really interesting twist on what could have been a very cliche story. The boy's decent into madness is also so slow and gradual that you almost don't realise it's happening until the very end of the story, when you finally realise how much being stranded has effected them.
I also truly loved the setting of this story. The descriptions of the stac they are stranded on are so clear and beautifully explained that it really feels like you're there with them. This historical setting is also excellent, The author does a good job at building characters who are clearly from the 1700s and creating scenarios that would have made sense to people from that period, such as the religious fanaticism and attitudes towards women.
I was incredibly impressed with the story the author managed to weave despite having next to no information on the true events that this story is based off of. No records we kept by the men and boys that this happened to, so I find it really amazing that she was able to build a story from true events on such little information.
January 8, 2023
Where the World Ends (which in 2018 won Geraldine McCaughrean her I believe second Carnegie Medal) and is loosely based on actual events, it takes place in the year 1727 with McCaughrean's story focussing on a group of teenaged boys (and a few adults) who are sent from their home community (the small island of Hirta) to the remote Stac an Amin which are both part of the now no longer inhabited archipelago of St. Kilda (situated off of Northwestern Scotland) in order to capture and kill thousands of sea birds for their meat, their oil and their feathers (and yes, the gruesome and very detailed, meticulous descriptions in Where the World Ends of thousands of waterfowl being trapped and killed, while much likely brutally realistic, historically accurate and authentic has definitely not at all been pleasure or comfort reading for me, albeit that I do rather grudgingly applaud and appreciate Geraldine McCaughrean's writing style and intensely negative, horrifying but always evocative and even to a certain extent perversely beautiful descriptiveness).
And while the birding expedition to the sea stac is a common and yearly Hirta tradition and usually nothing unusual or problematic occurs, in 1727, in Where the World Ends, there is no boat that arrives after a couple weeks of fowling to take the boys and their adult chaperones back home, due to it turns out a smallpox epidemic (and who are thus left alone to completely fend for themselves, to survive with no knowledge of why they have been abandoned and marooned on Stac an Amin). With tensions, with fear and panic rising and varying levels of despair setting in and this all wonderfully, evocatively, and also totally believably depicted by Geraldine McCaughrean's text (and for each of the boys at different times and also to different extents), yes indeed, this all really gives Where the World Ends a delightfully true and often textually brilliant feeling of intense naturalism, of both historical and also psychological, emotional reality, and with religion and dogma also playing an important and major role role, since everyone who is stranded begins to wonder if the world might have in fact have ended, that they were simply forgotten and abandoned by both humanity and by God Himself (and hence of course the book title of Where the World Ends).
Now with Where the World Ends Geraldine McCaughrean gives us her story from the point of view of Quilliam McKinnon, who is one of the older boys in the birding expedition (but precise ages are actually never given in Where the World Ends, although the boys seem to range in age from around ten sixteen or seventeen). And for the boys, the trip to Stac an Amin does at first feel and is designed by McCaughrean as some kind of grand adventure, but this of course totally changing when the boat from Hirta does not come to collect the fowlers (and as the weeks of waiting begin to stretch to months and the birds begin to leave the sea stac, the party grows increasingly despondent and a sense of hopelessness begins to envelop everyone).
And yes, much of Where the World Ends I have found to be an interesting, descriptively brilliant (although for my own reading tastes not really all that pleasant and joyful reading experience), with the author, with Geraldine McCaughrean taking the bare bones of a real event from 18th century Scottish history, wrapping said event in imaginative detail and thoroughly real emotion, and creating a for the most part unforgettable and amazing tale of human survival against the odds. But although most of the themes and the presented contents of Where the World Ends shows a brilliant textuality, sorry, but the character of Col Cane as the main villain of Where the World Ends (and the chief cause of most of the conflicts encountered throughout the story), he (to and for me) sure feels quite annoying and also rather artificially inserted by Geraldine McCaughrean and that Cane's presence kind of majorly dilutes the survival story of Where the World Ends and also rather renders McCaughrean's text considerably lesser than if the author had not bothered with needing a villain and had simply made Where the World Ends into only a survival tale.
And while the birding expedition to the sea stac is a common and yearly Hirta tradition and usually nothing unusual or problematic occurs, in 1727, in Where the World Ends, there is no boat that arrives after a couple weeks of fowling to take the boys and their adult chaperones back home, due to it turns out a smallpox epidemic (and who are thus left alone to completely fend for themselves, to survive with no knowledge of why they have been abandoned and marooned on Stac an Amin). With tensions, with fear and panic rising and varying levels of despair setting in and this all wonderfully, evocatively, and also totally believably depicted by Geraldine McCaughrean's text (and for each of the boys at different times and also to different extents), yes indeed, this all really gives Where the World Ends a delightfully true and often textually brilliant feeling of intense naturalism, of both historical and also psychological, emotional reality, and with religion and dogma also playing an important and major role role, since everyone who is stranded begins to wonder if the world might have in fact have ended, that they were simply forgotten and abandoned by both humanity and by God Himself (and hence of course the book title of Where the World Ends).
Now with Where the World Ends Geraldine McCaughrean gives us her story from the point of view of Quilliam McKinnon, who is one of the older boys in the birding expedition (but precise ages are actually never given in Where the World Ends, although the boys seem to range in age from around ten sixteen or seventeen). And for the boys, the trip to Stac an Amin does at first feel and is designed by McCaughrean as some kind of grand adventure, but this of course totally changing when the boat from Hirta does not come to collect the fowlers (and as the weeks of waiting begin to stretch to months and the birds begin to leave the sea stac, the party grows increasingly despondent and a sense of hopelessness begins to envelop everyone).
And yes, much of Where the World Ends I have found to be an interesting, descriptively brilliant (although for my own reading tastes not really all that pleasant and joyful reading experience), with the author, with Geraldine McCaughrean taking the bare bones of a real event from 18th century Scottish history, wrapping said event in imaginative detail and thoroughly real emotion, and creating a for the most part unforgettable and amazing tale of human survival against the odds. But although most of the themes and the presented contents of Where the World Ends shows a brilliant textuality, sorry, but the character of Col Cane as the main villain of Where the World Ends (and the chief cause of most of the conflicts encountered throughout the story), he (to and for me) sure feels quite annoying and also rather artificially inserted by Geraldine McCaughrean and that Cane's presence kind of majorly dilutes the survival story of Where the World Ends and also rather renders McCaughrean's text considerably lesser than if the author had not bothered with needing a villain and had simply made Where the World Ends into only a survival tale.
October 7, 2018
*Some spoilers*
While I clearly didn't enjoy this book, it's one I went into with mixed expectations and one I've come away from with very mixed thoughts and feelings for and can't stop thinking about. I've read several of McCaughrean's other books, with Peter Pan in Scarlet being among my favourites, but few of her other books have really engaged me in the same way. After hearing a lot of buzz about this one and looking into the true story that inspired this book, I was really intrigued to read it.
This book is based on a true story of a group of men and boys sent out, as is normal every summer, to harvest birds, oil, eggs, and other materials from seabirds living out on a remote sea stac a few miles away from the islands of St Kilda in the 18th Century. Among them is Quilliam, who has gone fowling many times before, and misses a girl/woman who'd been visiting the islands before he left and who he quite fancies. When the boat doesn't return to pick them up, they have to fight to survive the changing seasons, the elements, starvation, and each other. But why didn't the boat come? What could have happened back home? The questions plague the group, and led by superstition and some muddled religious thinking, the little community struggles to hold itself together.
It's immediately obvious how much research went into writing this novel: the descriptions of the gruelling work the boys have to do, climbing cliffs, harvesting birds and eggs, all the ways in which the birds can be used, the tools they use, their attitudes to their work, were all excellently rendered on the page. I loved reading about the birds and their different behaviours and the attention to detail in the natural history description. Similarly, the setting was very well realised, with all the moods of the sea and the character's interaction with their environment being especially visual and emotive. I was quite surprised that when I looked up Hirta, it looked almost exactly as I imagined. These things were what kept me reading, what made this novel feel so realistic and gritty, and were probably the best things about this book for me. If McCaughrean ever writes a nature non-fiction book, I'll be there.
However, everything else in this novel was either very weak or frustrating. The whole book is written in distant third-person and generally focuses on the experiences of one of the boys, Quilliam, though it also goes omniscient every so often. There's a late framing device right at the end that gave the ending quite a rushed and scatty feel to it, and left me wondering why on earth this book wasn't just directly told from Quilliam's own voice in first or closer third person, rather than through the added frame of [mysterious somebody] who served basically no purpose but to make a miserable ending a little less miserable. I felt this might have been a reason the main narrative was so lacking in personal introspection and emotion, as the voice was so far removed from the person who experienced it all. I'd rather have read the account of Quilliam actually telling the mysterious other person what happened to him, in his own words, than that person's summary of it all. It just made me not care at all really for Quilliam.
The dialogue was stylised with Scotts slang and syntax, which was a touch I did enjoy. But much of the writing feels dated, and not in a way that you can blame on it just being historical fiction. The attitudes towards women (and sexual harassment) aren't meaningfully challenged by the text but are instead rewarded at the end with the character who experiences the harassment later marrying one of the boys who harassed her. Similarly, that boy's assertion that having someone in your heart makes them yours, regardless of the other's feelings was also, I felt, a pretty dangerous message of possessive ownership/objectification, that also went unchallenged. However historically-accurate those attitudes and situations are, there are still plenty of ways to ensure the reader knows these things are wrong and challenge those attitudes, and McCaugrean made no real effort to do that. The weird and barely-developed romances were pretty painfully bad anyway, especially considering the lack of chemistry and cardboard personalities or basically every character. I'm not sure I'd recommend this to children, and teens these days expect much more from characters, and especially romance. This combined with the distance in the writing style feels very 90s . . . it just rings of an author who hasn't read many children's books by young writers published in the last decade, let alone the last three years.
There's also a lot of odd religious inconsistencies which jarred with the accuracy of the rest of the book's research. Why would a Presbyterian group accept someone demanding Catholic confession so easily, with basically no resistance from the other adults? Similarly, there seemed to be a lot of holes and inconsistencies in the survival side of things, despite how great the setting and natural history detail was. How is it that one boy loses all ten toes to frostbite but none of the others were affected or seemed to suffer much in the cold at all? If it's cold enough for someone to get frostbite to that extreme in the first place, how does a man hold a knife easily? There's not even a scene of them huddling for warmth. No hypothermia, no colds and sicknesses. Scurvy is mentioned, but we see none of its effects (also despite an abundance of seaweed on the stac), and none of the debilitating effects of hunger on mental health and energy levels, either.
The plot is barely present, and very little really happens, which would have been fine if there was more focus on characterisation, character development, personal introspection, and the conflicts or dynamics of the group, but there wasn't much of that either. When you compare this book to others with a similar abandonment/desert island survival situation (Lord of the Flies, The Last of Us, and The Explorer), the dynamics of the group in this book is especially incoherent and vague, with little real character development or meaningful relationships, and a lot of focus on the laughable religious control, which felt too contrived to be convincing. Time skips pretty fast, we hardly get to see most of the boys and none of them really have much of a personality anyway. I was never really sure of any of the ages of the children on the stac, except John whose rough age is mentioned once. I has a vague sense of personality for about three other boys. The other two adults were a little more interesting than most of the boys, but were also pretty flat and passive. If McCaughrean had fleshed out the impact of the forced religious 'order' in more depth and realism, and the other men had had enough character to try and do something about it, then that could have had some fascinating conflicts that didn't centre around the inclusion of unnecessary sexual harassment. But alas.
It felt like McCaughrean didn't really have any ideas about what a group of men and boys would actually do for so long on their own, and had to throw in things that weren't actually part of the real story, including, frustratingly, the graphic death of a child and the difficult disposal of the body (in the true story, everyone survived) and a boy-who's-secretly-a-girl suffering sexual harassment for 60% of the book after she's discovered. Neither of those things actually happened, so neither were necessary, and seriously -- could you really not think of anything else they could have been doing for nine months? I especially hate it when sexual harassment is used as a plot device, which in this book was the only purpose it was even there in the first place. I could go on and on about how much I hated both of these 'plot points' but I already feel that I've said enough. It's a shame that I feel that the true story that inspired this novel was more interesting than the novel itself, and just left me feeling disappointed, but that's the honest truth.
While I clearly didn't enjoy this book, it's one I went into with mixed expectations and one I've come away from with very mixed thoughts and feelings for and can't stop thinking about. I've read several of McCaughrean's other books, with Peter Pan in Scarlet being among my favourites, but few of her other books have really engaged me in the same way. After hearing a lot of buzz about this one and looking into the true story that inspired this book, I was really intrigued to read it.
This book is based on a true story of a group of men and boys sent out, as is normal every summer, to harvest birds, oil, eggs, and other materials from seabirds living out on a remote sea stac a few miles away from the islands of St Kilda in the 18th Century. Among them is Quilliam, who has gone fowling many times before, and misses a girl/woman who'd been visiting the islands before he left and who he quite fancies. When the boat doesn't return to pick them up, they have to fight to survive the changing seasons, the elements, starvation, and each other. But why didn't the boat come? What could have happened back home? The questions plague the group, and led by superstition and some muddled religious thinking, the little community struggles to hold itself together.
It's immediately obvious how much research went into writing this novel: the descriptions of the gruelling work the boys have to do, climbing cliffs, harvesting birds and eggs, all the ways in which the birds can be used, the tools they use, their attitudes to their work, were all excellently rendered on the page. I loved reading about the birds and their different behaviours and the attention to detail in the natural history description. Similarly, the setting was very well realised, with all the moods of the sea and the character's interaction with their environment being especially visual and emotive. I was quite surprised that when I looked up Hirta, it looked almost exactly as I imagined. These things were what kept me reading, what made this novel feel so realistic and gritty, and were probably the best things about this book for me. If McCaughrean ever writes a nature non-fiction book, I'll be there.
However, everything else in this novel was either very weak or frustrating. The whole book is written in distant third-person and generally focuses on the experiences of one of the boys, Quilliam, though it also goes omniscient every so often. There's a late framing device right at the end that gave the ending quite a rushed and scatty feel to it, and left me wondering why on earth this book wasn't just directly told from Quilliam's own voice in first or closer third person, rather than through the added frame of [mysterious somebody] who served basically no purpose but to make a miserable ending a little less miserable. I felt this might have been a reason the main narrative was so lacking in personal introspection and emotion, as the voice was so far removed from the person who experienced it all. I'd rather have read the account of Quilliam actually telling the mysterious other person what happened to him, in his own words, than that person's summary of it all. It just made me not care at all really for Quilliam.
The dialogue was stylised with Scotts slang and syntax, which was a touch I did enjoy. But much of the writing feels dated, and not in a way that you can blame on it just being historical fiction. The attitudes towards women (and sexual harassment) aren't meaningfully challenged by the text but are instead rewarded at the end with the character who experiences the harassment later marrying one of the boys who harassed her. Similarly, that boy's assertion that having someone in your heart makes them yours, regardless of the other's feelings was also, I felt, a pretty dangerous message of possessive ownership/objectification, that also went unchallenged. However historically-accurate those attitudes and situations are, there are still plenty of ways to ensure the reader knows these things are wrong and challenge those attitudes, and McCaugrean made no real effort to do that. The weird and barely-developed romances were pretty painfully bad anyway, especially considering the lack of chemistry and cardboard personalities or basically every character. I'm not sure I'd recommend this to children, and teens these days expect much more from characters, and especially romance. This combined with the distance in the writing style feels very 90s . . . it just rings of an author who hasn't read many children's books by young writers published in the last decade, let alone the last three years.
There's also a lot of odd religious inconsistencies which jarred with the accuracy of the rest of the book's research. Why would a Presbyterian group accept someone demanding Catholic confession so easily, with basically no resistance from the other adults? Similarly, there seemed to be a lot of holes and inconsistencies in the survival side of things, despite how great the setting and natural history detail was. How is it that one boy loses all ten toes to frostbite but none of the others were affected or seemed to suffer much in the cold at all? If it's cold enough for someone to get frostbite to that extreme in the first place, how does a man hold a knife easily? There's not even a scene of them huddling for warmth. No hypothermia, no colds and sicknesses. Scurvy is mentioned, but we see none of its effects (also despite an abundance of seaweed on the stac), and none of the debilitating effects of hunger on mental health and energy levels, either.
The plot is barely present, and very little really happens, which would have been fine if there was more focus on characterisation, character development, personal introspection, and the conflicts or dynamics of the group, but there wasn't much of that either. When you compare this book to others with a similar abandonment/desert island survival situation (Lord of the Flies, The Last of Us, and The Explorer), the dynamics of the group in this book is especially incoherent and vague, with little real character development or meaningful relationships, and a lot of focus on the laughable religious control, which felt too contrived to be convincing. Time skips pretty fast, we hardly get to see most of the boys and none of them really have much of a personality anyway. I was never really sure of any of the ages of the children on the stac, except John whose rough age is mentioned once. I has a vague sense of personality for about three other boys. The other two adults were a little more interesting than most of the boys, but were also pretty flat and passive. If McCaughrean had fleshed out the impact of the forced religious 'order' in more depth and realism, and the other men had had enough character to try and do something about it, then that could have had some fascinating conflicts that didn't centre around the inclusion of unnecessary sexual harassment. But alas.
It felt like McCaughrean didn't really have any ideas about what a group of men and boys would actually do for so long on their own, and had to throw in things that weren't actually part of the real story, including, frustratingly, the graphic death of a child and the difficult disposal of the body (in the true story, everyone survived) and a boy-who's-secretly-a-girl suffering sexual harassment for 60% of the book after she's discovered. Neither of those things actually happened, so neither were necessary, and seriously -- could you really not think of anything else they could have been doing for nine months? I especially hate it when sexual harassment is used as a plot device, which in this book was the only purpose it was even there in the first place. I could go on and on about how much I hated both of these 'plot points' but I already feel that I've said enough. It's a shame that I feel that the true story that inspired this novel was more interesting than the novel itself, and just left me feeling disappointed, but that's the honest truth.
July 9, 2020
A Beautifully written emotional rollercoaster!
One of the best adaptations of a true story that I’ve ever read, passed down through many generations of a small Scottish community.
A little like Lord of the Flies... but better!
4.5 stars 🌟
One of the best adaptations of a true story that I’ve ever read, passed down through many generations of a small Scottish community.
A little like Lord of the Flies... but better!
4.5 stars 🌟
July 1, 2019
Istoria insulei Hirta din Arhipelagul St Kilda (Scoția) este tulburător de fascinantă. Nu știam nimic despre particularitățile insulei (nu există lemn) sau despre viața dificilă a locuitorilor; norocul meu că am zărit coperta la Bookfest și am descoperit o poveste emoționantă despre supraviețuire, camaraderie și speranță.
Geraldine McCaughrean te atrage și te abandonează pe Stânca Războinicului. Îți fură barca, singurul „colac de salvare”, și te încurajează să îi cunoști pe păsărari și să le înveți obiceiurile și datinile. Romanul are o acțiune moderată, iar unele capitole s-ar putea să pară plictisitoare și anoste, cel puțin la prima vedere, însă Quill și prietenii lui sunt mereu acolo, alături de tine, chiar dacă reușesc să te calce pe nervi sau să te facă să plângi în egală măsură.
Viața pe insula Hirta și pe Stânca Războinicului nu este dificilă. Este nemiloasă și brutală. Păsărarii sunt obișnuiți cu condiții austere, dar tu ești un simplu novice și refuzi să accepți asemenea condiții de trai. Trebuie să înfrunți și să învingi inaniția, degerăturile, vremea potrivnică, credința, nebunia și egoismul. Trebuie să ignori fantasmele și să supraviețuiești. Speranța poposește în Quill, un protagonist curajos și cinstit, „povestitorul”, cel care refuză să-și abandoneze prietenii și vecinii, indiferent de prețul pe care trebuie să-l plătească.
Dacă v-au plăcut romanele lui Jules Verne sau Răzbunătorul, de Michael Punke, Acolo unde se sfârșește lumea merită un loc în biblioteca voastră. Dacă nu v-au plăcut, poate îi dați o șansă autoarei și aflați povestea insulei Hirta.
Geraldine McCaughrean te atrage și te abandonează pe Stânca Războinicului. Îți fură barca, singurul „colac de salvare”, și te încurajează să îi cunoști pe păsărari și să le înveți obiceiurile și datinile. Romanul are o acțiune moderată, iar unele capitole s-ar putea să pară plictisitoare și anoste, cel puțin la prima vedere, însă Quill și prietenii lui sunt mereu acolo, alături de tine, chiar dacă reușesc să te calce pe nervi sau să te facă să plângi în egală măsură.
Viața pe insula Hirta și pe Stânca Războinicului nu este dificilă. Este nemiloasă și brutală. Păsărarii sunt obișnuiți cu condiții austere, dar tu ești un simplu novice și refuzi să accepți asemenea condiții de trai. Trebuie să înfrunți și să învingi inaniția, degerăturile, vremea potrivnică, credința, nebunia și egoismul. Trebuie să ignori fantasmele și să supraviețuiești. Speranța poposește în Quill, un protagonist curajos și cinstit, „povestitorul”, cel care refuză să-și abandoneze prietenii și vecinii, indiferent de prețul pe care trebuie să-l plătească.
Dacă v-au plăcut romanele lui Jules Verne sau Răzbunătorul, de Michael Punke, Acolo unde se sfârșește lumea merită un loc în biblioteca voastră. Dacă nu v-au plăcut, poate îi dați o șansă autoarei și aflați povestea insulei Hirta.
February 25, 2020
This is sort of a Lord of the Flies for the late 18th century crowd, with a little more God and a lot more dead birds.
It’s an interesting book conceptually, made more interesting by that fact that it is loosely based on a true story. The plot and the writing are both good and the atmosphere is intriguing, if not quite as satisfyingly creepy as I had hoped. The characters are satisfactorily rendered, though they’re mostly archetypes.
I just wish the book had been more engaging. While it isn’t boring or flawed in execution or concept, it failed to grab me the way the best books in its genre tend to do. It conveys intensity and suspense, but not enough of it to evoke much feeling in me. In short, I was vaguely interested in what was happening, but I didn’t really care about any of it emotionally.
I found the religious fixation a bit off-putting, though I imagine it’s an accurate portrayal of how the persons involved would have thought and behaved. And while most of the aforementioned dead birds are just a food source for our marooned characters, the murder of one particular bird who played a greater role really diminished my enjoyment of the story.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
It’s an interesting book conceptually, made more interesting by that fact that it is loosely based on a true story. The plot and the writing are both good and the atmosphere is intriguing, if not quite as satisfyingly creepy as I had hoped. The characters are satisfactorily rendered, though they’re mostly archetypes.
I just wish the book had been more engaging. While it isn’t boring or flawed in execution or concept, it failed to grab me the way the best books in its genre tend to do. It conveys intensity and suspense, but not enough of it to evoke much feeling in me. In short, I was vaguely interested in what was happening, but I didn’t really care about any of it emotionally.
I found the religious fixation a bit off-putting, though I imagine it’s an accurate portrayal of how the persons involved would have thought and behaved. And while most of the aforementioned dead birds are just a food source for our marooned characters, the murder of one particular bird who played a greater role really diminished my enjoyment of the story.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
June 19, 2020
Hard to write a review without spoilers. The story is of a group of boys and men in the eighteenth century marooned on a stac, an outcrop of rock off the main islands of St Kilda, where they have gone to collect seabirds to feed the community over winter. Why they are not picked up and what they do to try and survive makes for an engrossing read.
There is more than just a simple survival narrative here. The reader is asked to confront issues of authority and leadership, organised and folk religion, bullying and sexual politics as well as how to hang from a cliff face or live in a cave in the harshness of winter. And love comes into play: love the protagonist Quilliam has for a girl he met; love that binds him to the younger boy Davie; the fowling party’s longing for home... There are themes to follow that are uncomfortable, enlightening, storylines that are adventurous, thoughtful, sad, uplifting. I shall be re-reading this: a brilliant evocation of how humans work (and fail to work) together.
There is more than just a simple survival narrative here. The reader is asked to confront issues of authority and leadership, organised and folk religion, bullying and sexual politics as well as how to hang from a cliff face or live in a cave in the harshness of winter. And love comes into play: love the protagonist Quilliam has for a girl he met; love that binds him to the younger boy Davie; the fowling party’s longing for home... There are themes to follow that are uncomfortable, enlightening, storylines that are adventurous, thoughtful, sad, uplifting. I shall be re-reading this: a brilliant evocation of how humans work (and fail to work) together.
dnf
January 30, 2020Printz Honor 2020
This was a DNF for me.
This was a DNF for me.
October 26, 2019
“Cold laid clammy hands on their necks and kidneys, their hands and feet. It twanged on their muscles like a harpist.”
-Geraldine McCaughrean, Author, Where the World Ends
First sentence:
His mother gave him a new pair of socks, a puffin to eat on the voyage and a kiss on the cheek.
Where the World Ends is a gorgeously written book by Geraldine McCaughrean set in the 18th century and is a fictional account based on a true story. It centers around a group of three men and nine boys that are put ashore on the Warrior stac in the archipelago of St. Kilda to go fowling; the harvesting of “bird -meat, eggs, feathers, oil …” What is supposed to be a few weeks turns into much longer when the ship that is supposed to pick them up, never arrives.
The story explores the hardship that is faced on this remote rocky stac as those that are abandoned face starvation, the harsh winter elements, and some of their own base natures along with the fear that the only way their loved ones would abandon them is if the world had ended. Despite this, there is the ever-present hope that they’ll see a ship on the horizon and remarkably, a continuing sense of unity among most present.
Told from the astute perspective of Quill, I felt very aware of each hardship, of each character’s personality - faults and kindnesses - and the absolute misery wondering why they’ve been abandoned. With little more than a cave for shelter and hunger nipping at their bellies, true natures are soon exposed; Some good, some not so much. One thing is undeniable, each boy and each man will be forever changed by their experience.
It’s a tale of survival and tragedy but also one of hope, community and friendship and ultimately, resilience and bravery. This is a story that will stay with me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for the opportunity to read and review this title!
-Geraldine McCaughrean, Author, Where the World Ends
First sentence:
His mother gave him a new pair of socks, a puffin to eat on the voyage and a kiss on the cheek.
Where the World Ends is a gorgeously written book by Geraldine McCaughrean set in the 18th century and is a fictional account based on a true story. It centers around a group of three men and nine boys that are put ashore on the Warrior stac in the archipelago of St. Kilda to go fowling; the harvesting of “bird -meat, eggs, feathers, oil …” What is supposed to be a few weeks turns into much longer when the ship that is supposed to pick them up, never arrives.
The story explores the hardship that is faced on this remote rocky stac as those that are abandoned face starvation, the harsh winter elements, and some of their own base natures along with the fear that the only way their loved ones would abandon them is if the world had ended. Despite this, there is the ever-present hope that they’ll see a ship on the horizon and remarkably, a continuing sense of unity among most present.
Told from the astute perspective of Quill, I felt very aware of each hardship, of each character’s personality - faults and kindnesses - and the absolute misery wondering why they’ve been abandoned. With little more than a cave for shelter and hunger nipping at their bellies, true natures are soon exposed; Some good, some not so much. One thing is undeniable, each boy and each man will be forever changed by their experience.
It’s a tale of survival and tragedy but also one of hope, community and friendship and ultimately, resilience and bravery. This is a story that will stay with me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for the opportunity to read and review this title!
December 28, 2019
"Every time a lad came fowling on the St Kilda stacs, he went home less of a boy and more of a man. If he went home at all, that is…”
In the summer of 1727, a group of men and boys were sent to a sea stac (only a few miles away from the shore - unbeknownst to any of them) to harvest birds for food – they are expected to stay there for about 1 week upwards to three weeks, but no one ever returns to collect them. Why? The men and the boys start speculating on the reasons why they were left there for months. Abandoned, they had to endure storms, starvation and terror.
Geraldine McCaughrean writes a triumphant story on the strength of human resolve, faith and strength in a time of survival and endurance of not just the body, but also the mind. For such a simple story, McCaughrean was able to write on the vulnerability of humans in the face of isolation and suffering.
McCaughrean was able to create an atmosphere that is dark and chilly. The book’s story was loosely based on true events that showed how people can survive and be changed through the harshness and bitterness of having to survive on a mass of rock in the middle of the sea.
What a beautiful and poignant story that I highly recommend.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Excellent Book!
In the summer of 1727, a group of men and boys were sent to a sea stac (only a few miles away from the shore - unbeknownst to any of them) to harvest birds for food – they are expected to stay there for about 1 week upwards to three weeks, but no one ever returns to collect them. Why? The men and the boys start speculating on the reasons why they were left there for months. Abandoned, they had to endure storms, starvation and terror.
Geraldine McCaughrean writes a triumphant story on the strength of human resolve, faith and strength in a time of survival and endurance of not just the body, but also the mind. For such a simple story, McCaughrean was able to write on the vulnerability of humans in the face of isolation and suffering.
McCaughrean was able to create an atmosphere that is dark and chilly. The book’s story was loosely based on true events that showed how people can survive and be changed through the harshness and bitterness of having to survive on a mass of rock in the middle of the sea.
What a beautiful and poignant story that I highly recommend.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Excellent Book!
May 8, 2018
Absolutely phenomenal! No words can portray how incredible this book is, I had heard glowing reviews but this was just on another level.
The reader follows the journey a group of men on the edge of peril. Originally sent to the Warrior Stac, a remote outcrop of rock in the middle of the sea, to hunt for birds to feed their families. After weeks of work, the boat that was meant to return the men to their homes does not appear. Abandoned and isolated, the reader sees humanity on the brink of survival, the vicious and the nurturing, as these men persist against, what appears to be, a merciless world.
I would hate to ruin such a masterful story, but I think that something must be said for the intensity and power of McCaughrean's writing. I was left reeling and fearful, it was certainly an uncomfortable read that is not for the faint of heart, and all the more compelling for being so.
The reader follows the journey a group of men on the edge of peril. Originally sent to the Warrior Stac, a remote outcrop of rock in the middle of the sea, to hunt for birds to feed their families. After weeks of work, the boat that was meant to return the men to their homes does not appear. Abandoned and isolated, the reader sees humanity on the brink of survival, the vicious and the nurturing, as these men persist against, what appears to be, a merciless world.
I would hate to ruin such a masterful story, but I think that something must be said for the intensity and power of McCaughrean's writing. I was left reeling and fearful, it was certainly an uncomfortable read that is not for the faint of heart, and all the more compelling for being so.
August 22, 2020
3.5 stars
Decided to read this because it won the Carnegie medal this year (and I thought the story sounded interesting).
Where the World Ends is set in 1727 and is about a group of boys (and a few men) who are left stranded on a sea stac located in St Kilda (off the coast of Scotland). For the most part I found this quite an interesting book, especially considering that it’s supposedly based on true events. The pacing was a little slow, but not to the point where it was starting to get boring. I felt like the ending was a little rushed, but apart from that, I didn’t really have any other issues.
The characters were all fine and I liked the interactions and relationships they all formed with one another over the course of the story. I’m not entirely sure what age-range this book is supposed to be aimed at, but I feel like if it had been a bit ‘darker’ (i.e. in relation to the characters’ mental deterioration) then it would’ve made for a more impactful story.
Overall this was good read, however I don’t think it’s one I’ll remember particularly. Would recommend this novel if you’re a fan of Lord of the Flies or like books with survivalist themes.
Decided to read this because it won the Carnegie medal this year (and I thought the story sounded interesting).
Where the World Ends is set in 1727 and is about a group of boys (and a few men) who are left stranded on a sea stac located in St Kilda (off the coast of Scotland). For the most part I found this quite an interesting book, especially considering that it’s supposedly based on true events. The pacing was a little slow, but not to the point where it was starting to get boring. I felt like the ending was a little rushed, but apart from that, I didn’t really have any other issues.
The characters were all fine and I liked the interactions and relationships they all formed with one another over the course of the story. I’m not entirely sure what age-range this book is supposed to be aimed at, but I feel like if it had been a bit ‘darker’ (i.e. in relation to the characters’ mental deterioration) then it would’ve made for a more impactful story.
Overall this was good read, however I don’t think it’s one I’ll remember particularly. Would recommend this novel if you’re a fan of Lord of the Flies or like books with survivalist themes.
January 15, 2019
I am finding it difficult to write this review because this novel is like no other that I have read. It is honest, thrilling and vicious in places. McCaughrean has written something which is able to transport the reader and makes you feel and fear everything with the characters. This story is about a group of boys and men who are abandoned and face not only perilous physical dangers but also the fear and risks of loneliness. For me, there were so many questions raised and themes such as friendship, hierarchy and hope are brutally explored. I felt that the novel was exceptionally set up and the detail and scene setting was phenomenal, however, for me the ending was slightly rushed and I would have loved to have read a little more. I suppose that this accompanies the harshness of the story and lacking this detail in the end added more to the overall force of the novel. It’s an exceptional read and one which really challenged my thoughts and feelings.
July 25, 2018
What an epic. I LOVE this book. The story (based on a true story) is excellent. A survival story so well told. The level of description-of the Stac(😳), the birds and the uses for them, the sheer will to try to get through an horrific situation -just brilliant. I felt as if I could feel the awful sea, hear the sounds of thousands of birds. Tense, gripping, haunting.
August 17, 2020
I remember reading this book and thinking the more I read the more it was going to make sense but I found that the opposite was true. I still could not tell you what this book was about.... definitely weird ..not for my taste.
January 15, 2020
This wasn't for me despite being a fan of the author descriptive writing style. I was left bored and disinterested in the story, and more often than not, found myself zoning out and not really paying attention to what was happening. Unfortunately this was a miss for me but I will definitely consider giving this another try in the future.
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