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The End We Start From

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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.

©2017 Megan Hunter (P)2017 Macmillan Digital Audio 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)
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)
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)
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)
Megan Hunter's slender, startling debut shimmers with light, even as the novel heads into dark territory . . . tender and profound (Psychologies Book of the Month)
Beautiful . . . Water isn't the thing here, love is. And how we survive as the level of love rises (Cynan Jones, author of The Dig and Cove)
Exceptional, stunning. I devoured it (Megan Bradbury, author of Everyone is Watching)
All stars
Most relevant  
I really enjoyed the writing and narration of this audiobook. Louise Brealey is always a joy. Highly recommended.

excellent

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I loved this story, post apoc but the most riveting aspect is the description of engaging with your new baby - and the all consuming nature of this.

Immersion in bringing up baby amidst turmoil

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This is a story that actually could happen…let’s hope it doesn’t and we get the climate crisis sorted

It’s chilling and powerful

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To be a mother in the worst moment, you must believe you must have a desperate hope. To start a book at the end of a world with a birth is just as hopeful, but to carry it out is a similar achievement, with prose that is beautiful and poetic, delicate and sad like loving a human that is your creation.
A beautiful little gem that stays with you and impacts more than the word count could tell.

The endless hope of mothers, endless love.

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She is perfect- the right tone, dreamy and yet serious. An excellent books I really enjoyed it

The actor reading this is brilliant

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The first time I listened to this audiobook, I was completely struck by the style of writing which says so much but leaves big gaps for the reader/listener to fill themseleves. The narrator’s style is at times expressive and other times quite understated - perfect for this audiobook.

This is the only audiobook I have finished and immediately listened to again. Very highly recommended.

Stunningly book and great narrator

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Beautifully narrated, short novel, set in a future when climate change has caused an environmental disaster.

Can be listened to in one sitting.

London is drowned and I live by the river

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There was no depth to the backstory .
I’m sure it will make a wonderful movie.

The poetic style

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Underdeveloped plot as story was very short which stopped any meat to the story developing

How brief it was

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