The End We Start From

Now a Major Film Starring Jodie Comer

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The End We Start From

By: Megan Hunter

Narrated by: Louise Brealey

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About this listen

**Now a major motion picture starring Jodie Comer**

A startlingly beautiful story of a family's survival, The End We Start From is a haunting but hopeful dystopian vision of a familiar world made dangerous and unstable.

'Engrossing, compelling' - Naomi Alderman, author of The Power
'I was moved, terrified, uplifted – sometimes all three at once' - Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl With a Pearl Earring

Megan Hunter's honed and spare prose paints an imagined future as realistic as it is frightening. Though the country is falling apart around them and its people are forced to become refugees, this family’s world – of new life and new hope – sings with love.

In the midst of a mysterious environmental crisis, as London is submerged below flood waters, a woman gives birth to her first child. Days later, the family are forced to leave their home in search of safety. As they move from place to place, shelter to shelter, their journey traces both fear and wonder as the baby's small fists grasp at the things he sees, as he grows and stretches, thriving and content against all the odds.

Dystopian

Family Life

Fiction

Genre Fiction

Literary Fiction

Post-Apocalyptic

Science Fiction

Women's Fiction

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Critic reviews

The End We Start From is a beautifully spare, haunting meditation on the persistence of life after catastrophe. I loved it. (Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven)

A shot of distilled story . . . engrossing, compelling and finally hopeful (Naomi Alderman, author of The Power, winner of the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction)

Extraordinary . . . The End We Start From is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road . . . Megan Hunter’s remarkable debut novel feels like the other half of the story

Powerful . . . an uplifting celebration of the reality of motherhood in the face of terrifying global disaster

I'll be recommending this book for years to come. Utterly brilliant, hugely important. Here's the thing: it's perfect. (Nathan Filer, author of Costa Prize-winning The Shock of the Fall)

A stunning tale of motherhood. Megan has crafted a striking and frighteningly real story of a family fighting for survival that will make everyone stop and think about what kind of planet we are leaving behind for our children

A short, haunting story about the end of days, sparse, beautiful and heroic (Evie Wyld)

Extraordinary . . . a spare, futuristic fable about a brand-new mother navigating a flooded world

Virginia Woolf does cli-fi . . . tender and tremendous

Extraordinary . . . it is her portrayal of motherhood - that tender-terrifying experience of bringing a child into a world - that has remained with me. I read it in one sitting, and was deeply moved. (Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites and The Good People)

The End We Start From is strange and powerful, and very apt for these uncertain times. I was moved, terrified, uplifted – sometimes all three at once. It takes skill to manage that, and Hunter has a poet’s understanding of how to make each word count. (Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl With a Pearl Earring)

I can’t remember ever having read a novel quite as sparing or as daring as Megan Hunter’s The End We Start From, or one that delivers so mighty an impact from such delicate materials. It is a moving, wistful and compelling debut. (Jim Crace, author of Harvest)

An exceptional, alarming and beautiful book, which still echoes months after I finished reading it. Megan Hunter is a writer of unnerving power. (Evie Wyld, author of All the Birds, Singing)

A dystopia that feels utterly convincing as our narrator gives birth to her son in a London under threat of advancing flood waters. She lives in the gulp zone so must head off into a familiar territory that has become terrifying in search of shelter and safety. This slender take on new motherhood has stayed with me – not least in making me think about the UK as a place to flee from rather than to, and to imagine Londoners turned refugees. (Cathy Rentzenbrink)

Startling . . . beautiful and insightful. Everyone who reads this will come away feeling renewed

Most relevant

I really enjoyed the writing and narration of this audiobook. Louise Brealey is always a joy. Highly recommended.