Book Review: This is How We Change the Ending by Vikki Wakefield
This is How We Change the Ending by Vikki Wakefield
Pages: 297
Publish date: September 3rd 2019
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 9781922268136
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU – QBD
I have questions I’ve never asked. Worries I’ve never shared. Thoughts that circle and collide and die screaming because they never make it outside my head. Stuff like that, if you let it go—it’s a survival risk.
Sixteen-year-old Nate McKee is doing his best to be invisible. He’s worried about a lot of things—how his dad treats Nance and his twin half-brothers; the hydro crop in his bedroom; his reckless friend, Merrick.
Nate hangs out at the local youth centre and fills his notebooks with things he can’t say. But when some of his pages are stolen, and his words are graffitied at the centre, Nate realises he has allies. He might be able to make a difference, change his life, and claim his future. Or can he?
This is How We Change the Ending:
I don’t even know where to begin when talking about This is How We Change the Ending by Vikki Wakefield. I spoke about it briefly when I talked about my favourite #LoveOzYA of 2019 for the CBCA Clayton’s Night. But I wanted to give this beautiful, powerful and heartbreaking book a full review. This is How We Change the Ending was longlisted for the Stella Prize this year, as well as being shortlisted in the Older Readers category for the CBCA.
This is How We Change the Ending follows sixteen-year-old Nate McKee as he tries to hide from most of the world. He has a lot of fo things going on in his life, and he is trying to juggle everything that id thrown at him. One of his main concerns is how his father treats Nance and his two half brothers. o get away from it all, Nate escapes the local youth centre. There he fills his notebook with this he can’t say aloud. When his worlds start appearing graffitied around the centre he realises that he may not be alone.
Nate was surprisingly an easy protagonist to get along with. From the get-go, the reader can see that Nate has been through a lot already, and it isn’t going to get easier for me. At times all I wanted to do was just hug him. Vikki Wakefield does a brilliant job at writing a character that is honest and real. Nate felt that a human is exactly what I want from my characters, especially in a contemporary novel. At times Nates’ thoughts and are very erratic, and that added more to his character. The reader can connect with a lot of his thoughts and feelings, which added another layer to his character. I also loved Nate’s growth throughout This is How We Change the Ending. It was seriously amazing and turned Nate from a character in a book to this person that lived and breathed.
Friendship is a major theme throughout This is How We Change the Ending and it explores the good, the bad and the ugly of it. For most of the book focuses on his friendship with Merrick. It was a very strange friendship with many ups and downs, and that played a lot of Nate’s mind. Nate doesn’t have anything permeate, but he though this friendship with Merrick was. However, as the novel goes, things start to change, and that plays a lot of Nate’s mental state. While this meant that I was frustrated a lot of the time with the way that Merrick was acting, I understood it all. At the start, I thought that their friendship was amazing, and I enjoyed seeing a male friendship like this. But people grow, and things change, and so do friendships.
There isn’t a massive amount of things happening in This How We Change the Ending. However, it delves into a lot of issues that occur not only in Australia but around the world as well. The plot was just there is drive the story along, not to be the catalyst or a major point of the novel. Vikki Wakefield was able to manger this especially well. She was able to create enough tension and buildup that the reader is more focused on Nate and what is going on in his life. There is a lot of issues that Wakefield also explores throughout the novel.
One of those is looking into the low socioeconomic communities of Australia. It’s not often we see these types of characters represented, and that is sad. I’ve always been an advocate for diversity in all shapes, and forms and I think that Wakefield has explored it especially well here. The reader can see the struggles that not only some parents go through, but the children as well. Nate struggles with a lot of things through This is How We Change the Ending, but his living situation is something that isn’t a good thing in his life. His father – I can’t even begin to explain or think about. He is a horrible man, and Nate struggles with what is right and what he should do by this family.
In saying this I loved his relationship with his siblings. He might have thought that they were little shits at times, but the reader can see that he loves them.
Mental health is another major them of This is How We Change the Ending. Nate struggles with a lot of things throughout the novel, and while he doesn’t understand what is going on, it is clear to the reader. We can see his anxieties through the course of the novel. I think that Vikki Wakefield was able to capture these feelings so well and while it wasn’t explicitly put on the page what was happening, the reader knows and understands.
I found the writing style of Vikki Wakefield in This is How We Change the Ending very erratic at times. But that fits the novel. It tied everything together. It gave this other dimension to Nate and lent itself to the story. There were times where there were so many things going on in Nate’s head, and the reader is easily able to see that solely through the writing style. At times that did make things tense, but Vikkie Wakefield did it in a way that was no confusion when reading.
Overall, This is How We Change the Ending by Vikki Wakefield is a powerful read that explores the low socioeconomic communities in Australia. And how it impacts daily lives, especially teens trying to make their way through school. This book made me feel so many things from anger to hope. From sadness to being proud. This poignant coming of age story that captures the lives of those that struggle day by day. This is the perfect example of how amazing #LoveOzYA is and why more people should be reading it. And why more should be published. If there is one book that you pick up because of me, please let it be this one.
Have you read This is How We Change the Ending by Vikki Wakefield? What did you think of it? Are you planning on reading it? Let’s Chat!
