An asteroid, Perses, is on a collision course with earth. It’s the size of Texas, and you’ve been hearing about it and seeing it coming for many months. Survival is doubtful at best, and humanity is coping by collapsing – as you would expect.
Then, at what is the last possible moment, like something out of the movie Armageddon, the last ditch effort works and Earth is saved.
What happens next? Almost the End of the World by Mike Schlossberg is what happens next.
The months of time spent waiting for disaster have truly cooked society’s goose. Normal isn’t around, so to speak, when everyone wakes up and finds out there is, in fact, a tomorrow. Normal left town some time ago.
It is in this setup that we meet Corey, our reluctant hero, who is going back to boarding school. Much like the rest of the outside world, it is not business as usual.
Some people attempt to find a new normal, or as close to the old normal as they can. Others attempt to turn over a new leaf. There are still those who, living with twelve kinds of pain they aren’t aware of, are lured too easily into the arms of a cult promising everything they want: health, healing, connection, and a better tomorrow.
This cult, The Refuge, is one of many, but it is the one Corey stands up to on campus. During his encounter with The Refuge, Corey meets Paige, a girl who makes him feel alive, and the two of them start pushing back, shouting into the void, as best they can to save as many people from a cult as possible.
As I tend to do, I took a few notes on my feelings about this book while reading it. But this time, they lined up with what author Schlossberg writes in his acknowledgements.
“The dangers of the world coupled with the isolationism and faux connection of the internet could give easy manipulative targets to a new kind of evil… One that wants to help for all the wrong reasons.” That’s how I describe The Refuge in my notes.
“I think the hardest part of reading this book is knowing that while The Refuge is an unhealthy organization at best, the concept of losing anyone to a group with ulterior motives could be triggering for some. Left or Right, our political scales are more “with me” and “against us” than idealistic or even logical, at best. And just like The Refuge, some but not all political or religious groups, tend to prey on the weak or sad or suffering. There’s plenty of that to go around these days.”
Schlossberg’s Authors Note states, “In moments of chaos and turmoil, all of us have different ways of coping. Some find help and healing in productive ways, using tragedy and stress to better themselves and those around you. Others struggle and suffer, turning to alcohol, drugs, or withdrawing from the world.
“Almost the End of the World is obviously meant, in part, to warn you against the dangers of cults. But it’s more meant to serve as a warning flare against cultic thinking. All I can ask as you read this book is that you keep that in mind.”
Coming to the same conclusion that the author intended, more or less, especially before the end of the book, is something of a unique thing for me. Especially because most authors don’t write about their intent at all in the acknowledgments. It’s usually thanking friends, family, editors, and inspirations.
But this story is one worth sharing. It’s down-to-earth young-adult fiction. It’s dealing with trauma and sharing examples of how different people react differently. It’s all the signs for how easily people can be manipulated and what to look out for. And it’s just the beginning. I was lucky to get to read an Advanced Reader Copy, and on the tip sheet for the book it states, “The Perses Series, Book One.”
So there’s more to come. While I ultimately think most of us want good to triumph over evil, I’ll await whatever Schlossberg has in store for readers next, happy to be along for the read.
In the meantime, with everything that is going on, I’ll leave you with this quote from Paige, the female lead: “The evil in this world isn’t the fault of the good who try to fight it.”