Well, I finished it. Can't say that I enjoyed it much, and am still scratching my head at some of the author's decisions with regards to how he chose to present the different narrative voices (primarily that of the son). More annoying than enlightening. Best missed.

This book was annoying and confusing at the same time. The chapters narated by Finn is difficult (and annoying) to read. There are so many cliffhangers that makes the ending very unsatisfying.

What would it be like to play God in your own manmade post-apocalyptic world? In a reworking of Genesis with echoes of Shakespeare's The Tempest, the author shows how paranoia and guilt soon warp the innocence of Eden. If you like an allegorical sort of novel that makes you think, as well as entertain, this should suit very well.ExtractYou were only clearing your throat that day, weren't you Lord? Only warning me of what was to come. But it was enough. Blind as I had been, I saw the light that d...

Initially interesting, but ultimately uneven, unsatisfying and, at times, infuriating.At first glance it seems that there has been a great flood, leaving only a small family - Pa, elder daughter Alice, son Finn, and younger daughter Daisy - living on an island after sailing there in the Ark built by Pa. It soon becomes apparent, however, that Pa is mentally ill and that the children's beliefs of how they came to be where they are are all lies engineered by Pa to support the life he's chosen to l...

I bought this book solely because I liked the cover and it was on sale. Briefly put, I’ve never read a book that shook me as much as Island at the End of the World. I was completely unprepared for the writing (which I actually liked, though it seems many hated it), organization, storyline, and ending. I’d read it again.

An interesting forceful book blending two biblical myths. There are lots of ideas about 'God' (as tyrannical psychopath) and 'Man' (as tyrannical psychopath), a bit of Plato's cave too (as exposed watery island). The narrative voice of the child was distracting and distancing at times but I know this book will stay with me.

What a strong little book. A family lives in an ark on a remote hilltop after a great flood has destroyed the rest of the world. Chapters alternate between different family members. Pa's voice mixes religious platitudes and profanity. He's obviously disturbed, more than a little wine-sodden. Is it the stress of keeping his children alive, or something else?Nine-year-old Finn lives up to his name, narrating in an uneducated, spelling-challenged way. I actually found this aspect of the book a litt...

A little Romeo and Juliet, a little Adam and Eve, entirely creepy. The child narrator's voice was extremely annoying: "He askt us if we wer hurt an that wer all he never askt wat we wer do-ing..." Then there was that horrible scene in the very beginning where the father kills the boy's cat, then sticks the cat in a game trap to make it look like an accident... Not to mention the incest.Just no.

I came very close to putting this book down after the second chapter, and me putting down a book unfinished happens exceedingly rarely. The chapters were written by the different viewpoints of the father, the son Finn, and the oldest child Alice. The father is a religious fanatic who has serious rage issues and apparently enjoys the word 'fuck', Finn's chapters are very difficult to read unless you are fluent in chatspeak, as they are written with phonetic spelling that is a combination of how a...

Student Name: Caleb Thayer Date Submitted: 3/29/2019Book Title: The Island at the End of the World Lexile: 590Personal Response: In my opinion, The Island at the End of the World is a very confusing book. The ending is very confusing and creepy. It seems that at the end, Pa killed Will and Alice then it takes Finn's perspective where he says well all live happily ever after. Plot: At the beginning of the book, Pa finds a boat coming towards his island. Although he doesn't tell his kids about th...

Serviceable, speculative post-apocalyptic fiction.

While the twist at the end was satisfying, the chapters written from Finn's perspective are hard to trudge through mostly because of the formatting, spelling of words, lack of quotation marks around dialogue, et cetera. The sentence fragments throughout the work seem to make an attempt at capturing a stream of the narrator's thoughts, but they, too, are jarring and interrupt the natural flow of reading.

Although I never reached the level of enjoyment I was hoping for, The Island at the End of the World is worth the read, if you've already started. While it wasn't fully satisfying, the book has many LIKES that I found beautiful. The thoughts some of the characters have are so provocative and insightful. It's delightful to really get INTO some of the character's minds, especially the mind of Alice, who at one point believes that a bird could never be sad and perhaps wouldn't mind becoming one in

Maybe it's LOST fever, but I felt compelled to indulge in some post-apocalyptic island lit, and the cover sucked me the rest of the way in. But even with relatively low expectations, the novel fell flat for me. The plot hinges on the arrival of a stranger to an island (that one, in the title... you know... at the "end of the world"?) inhabited only by a man and his three children, though the "stranger" figures very little into the actual story. The first half of the book, narrated in alternating...

I’m somewhat surprised by the reasons people have for giving this low stars. Maybe I’m approaching this book differently from other readers, but I just don’t think this book is well-crafted enough. This is the last of Sam Taylor’s books to be published that isn’t a translation, and I wonder if that is just because the problems I have with this book I have with his previous book, The Amnesiac. I think in general Taylor has brilliant premises and interesting approaches to themes those premises exp...

What did I just read? It started off poorly with the terrible kids' spelling every other chapter (not believable bad spelling though) but I thought the story had enough substance to power through the writing, but the last third just spiralled into nonsense. I get that the characters are supposed to be feeling more manic but I had no idea what was going on and I'm not sure I cared what happened to any of them. Apart from the dog, of course.

Of all the books I have read, this is possibly one of the ones I disliked the most. Although I can understand the reason for the language the phonetically spelt stream of consciousness made it difficult and tedious to read. Having preserved through the book I was hoping to have a resolution or and ending, but the multiple stories that are developed through the book go precisely no-where.

what a waste of time 👎

This is a chilling tale of one man's psychological unraveling. Delusional Pa builds an ark and sails his three young kids: Alice, Finn and Daisy, to a seemingly deserted island, where they lead a simple life, under the impression that they are the only survivors of a modern-day Biblical flood. When a stranger arrives, the kids begin to question their father's wisdom, and start to ask uncomfortable questions about their missing mother and the so-called "Babylon" of the past. Edge-of-your-seat stu...

I'm a fast reader and this miserable book was still a waste of time.