Review of the Day: How It All Ends by Emma Hunsinger

How It All Ends
By Emma Hunsinger
Greenwillow Books (an imprint of Harper Collins)
$15.99
ISBN: 9780063158146
Ages 10 and up
On shelves now

I was tooling about the internet the other day when I happened upon one of those this-is-why-my-generation-rocks posts about Generation X that you occasionally see. This one bragged that the reason Generation X doesn’t ban books (which… what?) is that we grew up reading Flowers in the Attic one moment then Choose Your Own Adventure Books then Stephen King then Sweet Valley High then Carl Barks’ Donald Duck comics (I’m paraphrasing, but you get the gist). The implication there is that kids don’t do that anymore. That we’ve become rigid and regimented in what we encourage kids to read. Perhaps even that we’re paying WAY too much attention to their reading choice (see: previous mention of book bans). I’m of the opinion that there are probably still a fair number of kids out there who are sneaking looks at Bridgerton then Percy Jackson then Stephen King (now and forever, baby) then Dog Man in their spare time. Then again, maybe with the rise of the internet and helicopter parenting it has become more rare. What future does that spell for the books that encompass HUGE swaths of potential readers? Take How It All Ends by Emma Hunsinger. This is the rare title that could be just as appealing to a 10-year-old as it is to an 18-year-old, and how many books can you name where THAT is the case?!? Just one really. This one.

One minute Tara’s just a normal 7th grader like everyone else and the next she’s pulled into the principal’s office with two other kids and informed that next year she’ll be skipping 8th grade and going into high school. High school? 13-year-olds aren’t supposed to be in high school, but now Tara’s dealing with the rowdy boys in English class (who have a tendency to remove their shirts), her older sister and best friend is definitely hanging out with some mature kids, she’s supposed to hate her favorite singer and like mature TV shows, and then there’s the new girl she met and really likes. High school’s a challenge already. Fitting in there? A possible impossibility.

I was under the distinct impression that Emma Hunsinger and her work were new to me when I first encountered this book, but then I discovered that not only was this untrue, Emma is a co-creator of one of the greatest and most under-appreciated picture books of all time. If you haven’t seen My Parents Won’t Stop Talking, which she co-created with Tillie Walden, you are in for a treat. That book had a sense of humor that perfectly balanced a child’s point of view with that of their parents. Little wonder that she would pivot so perfectly to graphic novels, wielding her already proficient hilarity with pinpoint precision. Humor is Hunsinger’s weapon of choice. The jokes in this book land one after another after another in a rapid succession that is as intimidating as it is laudable. It’s impossible to say which joke is my absolute favorite, but a strong contender might be anything that involves the boys in Tara’s English class. As my own 13-year-old was quick to point out, if all jerkwad rowdy boys were this funny in real life, school might be a lot more tolerable. But I just couldn’t stop laughing at their antics, even as they pretended to give birth to one another or randomly threw one another in the halls. Also, Hunsinger gets extra points for including the game chopsticks in the book. I’ve literally never seen that before on a page (and my kids play it CONSTANTLY).

Of course as funny as the book is, its true power lies in those moments of awkwardness where you’re trying desperately to fit in or say the right thing in the right situation. There’s a moment where Tara has a pre-made joke at her disposal involving Orpheus and when she sees an opening for it she has to wrestle with whether or not to take that risk and tell it. It’s brilliantly done. I think many of us have been in the position of having the perfect thing to say but the problem of not knowing if the time was right to say it (or missing the moment and having to drop it all together). So for all that I’d call this straight up the funniest graphic novel of the year for kids, there’s a lot of serious anxiety on display as well. It’s just kind of nice to also read a book where a character isn’t wrestling with grief for once. Nothing against you grief-tastic titles out there, but if I have to read one more comic about deathy death death I’m gonna revolt.

Interestingly, the book is being released almost in tandem with the middle grade novel Just Shy of Ordinary by A.J. Sass. In both cases you have a kid being moved up a grade so that they’re thrown into a freshman year of high school to be more “challenged”. So what keeps these books from being considered young adult and marketed to the teens? To my mind, it all comes down to the main characters themselves. If they have a distinct connection to a younger mindset then I’d say that was a pretty good reason right there. Tara is so beautifully drawn because she’s just as comfortable playing horrible magic baby with her little brother as she is crushing on the girl in her English class. But even more impressively, Hunsinger manages to zero in on those moments when you’re right between childhood and teenagerhood and you’re uncertain what you get to keep and what you have to throw away as you mature.

The fact of the matter is that kids always want to read up. Ten-year-olds want to read about 13-year-olds. 13-year-olds want to read about 18-year-olds. 18-year-olds want to read George R.R. Martin (sometimes). So really, when it comes down to it, it doesn’t really matter if a kid goes to high school in a book if the tone and text and storyline are all kid-centric. How It All Ends is a perfect middle school book, and that’s the truth of the matter. Just as Tara straddles that line between youth and age, maturity and immaturity, so does her book. The funniest thing you’ll read all year, for kids, teens, or adults. And that’s just impressive.

On shelves now.

Source: Final copy sent from publisher for review.

Guest Posts: I had the pleasure of hosting a comic from Emma about the creation of this book. Good for what ails you. Read Finding Out How It All Ends: An Original Comic from Emma Hunsinger

Filed under: Best Books, Best Books of 2024, Review 2024, Reviews