Mini-Review: The Beginning of Everything

The Beginning of Everything
Robyn Schneider
Series: None
Release Date: August 27th, 2013
Publisher: Katherine Tegen
Rating: 4.5 stars
Word Rating: DAAAAAAMN
Reviewed by: Blythe

Golden boy Ezra Faulkner believes everyone has a tragedy waiting for them—a single encounter after which everything that really matters will happen. His particular tragedy waited until he was primed to lose it all: in one spectacular night, a reckless driver shatters Ezra’s knee, his athletic career, and his social life.

No longer a front-runner for Homecoming King, Ezra finds himself at the table of misfits, where he encounters new girl Cassidy Thorpe. Cassidy is unlike anyone Ezra’s ever met, achingly effortless, fiercely intelligent, and determined to bring Ezra along on her endless adventures.

But as Ezra dives into his new studies, new friendships, and new love, he learns that some people, like books, are easy to misread. And now he must consider: if one’s singular tragedy has already hit and everything after it has mattered quite a bit, what happens when more misfortune strikes? 

Robyn Schneider’s The Beginning of Everything is a lyrical, witty, and heart-wrenching novel about how difficult it is to play the part that people expect, and how new beginnings can stem from abrupt and tragic endings.

The Beginning of Everything has practically all the ingredients necessary for at most an instant favorite, or at least an exceptionally memorable read: it has absolutely spectacular writing, an ensemble of witty and dynamic characters, all along with an incredibly well written male point-of-view.

Ezra is a thoroughly relatable, interesting, and likable character from the beginning of The Beginning of Everything right to the end. I've not read too many young adult novels written by a woman, or even a man, for that matter, with an entirely believable male point-of-view, but Robyn Schneider has the authentic teenage boy voice down and mastered, as clearly evidenced by Ezra. Although Ezra may be rather broody and standoffish, and odds are I would probably find him to be a cliché had the novel been narrated by someone other than him and I weren't given much depth into his character, beneath his broodiness Ezra is full of such wit and charm that it's hard to not find him likable, and I found myself loving him.

And the same goes for his love interest, Cassidy, who is just as witty and charming as Ezra himself. There's a certain mystery surrounding Cassidy's character regarding who she is, and although it's a mystery I had solved very soon in the novel, the final revelation of it and how it impacted the events of the novel left me in an irrevocable state of awe.

Like other reviews have mentioned, The Beginning of Everything isn't a book with an absolute plot. It's about recovery, finding yourself, finding others, rediscovering old relationships, as well as forming new ones. And while a novel focused solely on character and relationship development rather than plot may not be for some, The Beginning of Everything was unquestionably for me. There's not much more I could say about The Beginning of Everything, but what I can say is that fans of John Green will likely find something to cherish in this throughly impressive and incredible debut by Robyn Schneider.