How It Ends

great for everyone

Laura Wiess is an exceptional author who continues to amaze with her books. This book titled How it Ends is her third book.

Hanna is the main character. She lives in a rural area. Her next door neighbors have known her since she was little. Hanna refers to them as Grandma Helen and Grandpa Lon, even though they have no relation to her. As a little girl Hanna would constantly be over their house, and since they never had any children, they fell in love with her. "Grandma" always took Hanna under her wing and told her about her own life when she was little. She showed Hanna around the forest and even educated her about the forest animals. Hanna always loved the animals and was very worried about animals dying.

Soon enough, she is a teenager going through her high school years. She hardly vists Grandma Helen and Grandpa anymore. She is infatuated with a boy named Seth, who is very popular and into girls that do not fit her description. Evenso, Hanna is determined to make Seth her boyfriend. She goes the long way to classes just to sneak a glimpse of him, and even tries to become friends with some of his friends just to get closer to him.

As her life is continually getting bombarded with feelings of lust and love, she is becoming the biggest flirt in school. Grandma Helen is so upset that Hanna will not even come over for a small bit of time and she is afraid that she is not seeing her grow up, or she is growing up too quickly. Helen is constantly wanting to tell her something important, but she seems afraid to tell Hanna. As the old woman continues to get older and more sick from old age, she thinks she will never get a chance to tell Hanna the story she desperately wants her to know.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Must Read

Must read book . Powerful and Deep. You fall in love with the characters and you feel so connected and really come too love them . Amazing book . I cried during this read . If you are reading this review and thinking about purchasing it . Please do ! I loved most how it soo real life .

Amazing

Loved this story! Fell more and more in love with the characters as the story went on. This will remain on my favorites list to be read again and again...

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!

This book was so good!!! I finished it in one day because I could not put it down! It made me tear up a couple of times too. It's a beautifully written book. I think my mom would even love this book. It's for everybody.

Awesome!

Its an awesome book great read i could read it again!!!

Captivating...a book every Mother, Daughter and Grandmother should read!

This was the first book I have read by author Laura Wiess... I can't wait to read her other books! This is probably one of the best books I have read for a very long time, I can only compare the emotional response I had to it to be greater than when I read "The Notebook" by Nicholas Sparks. I literally had to put the book down because I couldn't see through the tears. A gripping story women of every age can relate to.

A great love story that brought me to tears on more than one occasion.

I had started reading this one quite a while ago and had put it down because I just wasn't that into it. However I am so glad that I picked it back up. Once I got into it the story just starts going and you are taken away with it.

The main character are Hanna and Helen. Hanna is a teenager who is dealing with things most teenage girls deal with. Helen is dealing with aging and the ravages that can have on the body. The story follows the two through their own issues and shows us how their relationship has shaped them.

This is as much a love story as it is a coming of age story. While I liked Hanna I didn't really connect with her. Even though her life seems pretty typical for a teenage girl I was not and never have been typical. So I could understand what she was going through, but I couldn't relate because I've never really been in her shoes.

I loved the audio book that Hanna and Helen listened to together. To me that was where the real story took place. The audio book has all the makings of a great story. Love, sacrifice, pain, suffering, and friendship. It was truly a story that examined the human condition in its many many forms.

It was a bit odd to read a story that was being read in a different story, it was an interesting idea and I think Weiss pulled it off without making it weird or distracting.

Hanna and Helen were very well developed. Helen's story really pulled at my heart strings and I cried on multiple occasions. There were a few points that I was close to sobbing. I really got lost in this book and just let myself become absorbed completely by the story.

This was a great book. I haven't cried this hard reading a book in quite a while. I will absolutely be picking up more of Weiss' work.

A CRYING HEART

This book was one of the best fictional stories that I'VE ever read.The story had my attention from begining to end. And i must say the book it's just good for teen reading but adult reading as well. It was so easy to relate to Hanna wanting the guy to like you so much that you make certain sacrifice's that you thought you would never do! And I must have cried so hard as if I was listening the audiobook instead of reading the story. I never thought for one moment that it was going to end the way it did! I can't wait to read "Such a pretty girl". I reflect o the story and my Heart is still CRYING.

Review by Just Blinded Book Reviews

Laura Wiess' books have always had the ability to leave me shocked, speechless, and in love, but How it Ends went above and beyond anything I could've ever expected from her. When I first read the summary of her newest book I thought, "This doesn't sound like Laura Wiess at all to me," but this maybe the best book she's ever written.

I've never read a book before that moved me so emotionally and has made me cry that hard. Seriously, I had to put the book down because I couldn't see and just cry into my pillow. And it wasn't the pretty kind of crying, it was the nasty blubbering kind. I've said it before: I don't cry. At least, not while reading books. But, damn, Laura Wiess got me with this one. I don't know what it is, but she really knows how to move me with her novels.

And I must say that she did a splendid job of telling a story within a story. Which sounds very difficult--and it must have been--and confusing, but it wasn't. Both stories flowed together so effortlessly that it seemed only natural for the book to be told that way. There wasn't a story that I liked better than the other because both had such important things to tell the reader about the characters.

Though Hanna definitely grated on the nerves a little, she was so dumb when it came to boys. And I'm saying that as nicely as possible. She could never see who the better guy was and repeatedly picked the one who was mean and careless about her feelings.

I can't even begin to touch on the subject of Hanna and Helen's relationship though. Helen was such a wonderful woman, even if she did lie to Hanna about her past but she did it with the best intentions. And I was mad with Hanna for ignoring her, and out-growing her, and for cutting their "connection". It wasn't deserved. Though, I was happy that they were able to mend their relationship while it lasted.

Laura Wiess did an amazing job on this book. Such a Pretty Girl will always be close to my heart but How it Ends may have beat it for my favorite book. I have not been able to stop thinking about since I finished and I don't think I ever will.

Laura Weiss's How it Ends is a touching, absorbing tale

Synopsis, courtesy of author's website:

All Hanna's wanted since sophomore year is Seth. She's gone out with other guys, even gained a rep for being a flirt, all the while hoping cool, guitar-playing Seth will choose her. Then she gets him - but their relationship is hurtful, stormy and critical, not at all what Hanna thinks perfect love should be. Bewildered by Seth's treatment of her and in need of understanding, Hanna decides to fulfill her school's community service requirement by spending time with Helen, her terminally ill neighbor, who she's turned to for comfort and wisdom throughout her life. But illness has changed Helen into someone Hanna hardly knows, and her home is not the refuge it once was. Feeling more alone than ever, Hanna gets drawn into an audiobook the older woman is listening to, a fierce unsettling love story of passion, sacrifice, and devotion. Hanna's fascinated by the idea that such all-encompassing love can truly exist, and without even realizing it, the story begins to change her.

Review:

The book holds two strong stories with Hanna at the center. First, the teenage love story of Hanna and Seth. Equally important is the close friendship that Hanna has with her older neighbor, Helen.

The first time we meet Hanna, she's a young child spending time with her neighbor while her parents go through a difficult patch. As far as Hanna and Helen are concerned,their longtime friendship has made them family. Although Hanna spends less time with Granna Helen as she gets older, their friendship means as much to them as it did when they had spent every afternoon together. But Helen is sick and wants to tell Hanna the truth about her life, to clear away all of the fairy tales that she'd woven for the young child Hanna had been.

Helen's point of view struck me as the clearest and most interesting in the novel, whether when grappling with how to disclose the truth to her friend Hanna or facing her own mortality.

The book is wonderfully written, with carefully crafted characters and an unusual plot. I recommend it highly.

Publisher: MTV (August 4, 2009), 368 pages.
Courtesy of the publisher.

Reviewed by Jaglvr for TeensReadToo.com

HOW IT ENDS is the intertwining story of Hanna and Helen. Next-door neighbors and a generation apart, the two women have a tenuous bond. Helen misses the days when Hanna would come over and stay until she had to go home at night. Hanna is growing up and is more concerned about boys and being popular than spending time with elderly Helen.

When Hanna was little, her parents relied on Helen to keep an eye on her. Hanna's parents were having problems, and Helen and Lon became surrogate grandparents to her. She learned many things from Helen, such as canning, sewing, and an appreciation for the wildlife that lived in their backyards. Hanna kept Helen young, or at least young at heart.

But Helen has kept a secret from Hanna. She's told Hanna the romantic story of how she met and fell in love with Lon. But they're only stories. And as Helen ages, she knows that she has to reveal the truth to Hanna. But how?

Helen is slowly dying. Hanna's school has a community service requirement. To meet the commitment, Hanna gets her school to agree to allow Hanna be an after school assistant to Helen. Helen's illness has become too much for Lon to handle alone. His health is not the best either and everything requires care.

So in the afternoons, when Hanna visits, she and Helen sit and listen to audio books. Helen's illness progresses to the point where she can only blink for yes or no. She encourages Hanna to keep listening to the current book, How It Ends.

The audio book frustrates Hanna with the ups and downs that the main character, Louise, struggles through. It isn't until after the story is over and Hanna is called next door that the true meaning of the audio book is revealed.

HOW IT ENDS was a beautiful story. I took it on vacation with me and one evening, after everyone else had turned in, I sat curled up on the couch and read most of the book in one sitting as a thunderstorm raged outside. By the time I got to the last page, my eyes had welled with tears, and I just sat pondering the book for a while before I could even consider trying to sleep. I love when a book can touch your heart so strongly.

For anyone who enjoyed Nicholas Sparks' THE NOTEBOOK, HOW IT ENDS should not be missed.

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