Joined in 2023 
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The talent of Lynes is her ability to observe the minutiae of of social and marital sutuations, of friendships, of the way people try and hide what they don't want us to see.
She wrote the book during the final lockdown of 2020, following a family tragedy, finding refuge in the fiction she created. The diary-style narration is perfect for this novel, but it soon gets terribly boring and repetitive.
I hadn’t known my emotions were so engaged with Fern’s story until my husband came home and I couldn’t even speak to explain why I was crying. She is mourning her lost life and is going through the five stages of grief-Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. I’d like to say I was surprised by the book’s emotional impact, but I’ve read enough of the author’s writing that it was just everything I wanted it to be – as Fern struggled through the darkness of her life, I wept with her. People are overtly watched and monitored and each week they hold a book amnesty for any found fiction to be handed in, only non-fiction is allowed. She had created a dystopian future where two major policies were being adopted as standard practice.
Pick it up when you can focus on it, because it is not to be speed-read – every chapter contains many clues that you will require as you move ahead. So when I heard Swanson was about to publish her near-future dystopian debut, I was excited to read it. It's also one of the stronger aspects of this story, and one of the reasons End Of Story will stay with me for a long time. I was thoroughly lost in this 1948 world of a post-war, divided Berlin, and the characters picking up the pieces after so much horror, particularly Anna who has suffered immense trauma and is looking for her lost child in the ruins. With many unexpected moments, great characters, and a satisfying conclusion, I was lost in the story.Now her weekly spiky doorstop meetings with the Tea Man are some of her only interactions with other people. Her words kept resonating with me; “If you tell a story well enough, it’s true,” and it’s through these words I began to understand the mystery of her confinement. Louise Swanson is the new penname for Louise Beech as she does what we’ve always hoped she would do and dives into the darker side genres. However, the random visits from government officials unnerve her, and now Fern wonders if her secret is out. What’s so clever about this novel is that there are a number of things that seem weirdly “off” with the world building and terminologies and ideas.
The ideas mooted in her fictional book are interesting and give plenty of food for thought, though also a little terrifying! End of Story is a well thought out, gripping read with a thought provoking précis - can a well told story become truth? If you are looking for something different and a book that is not what it appears to be, then I cannot recommend this one enough. In a Nutshell: Cant reveal much without spoiling the story, so you’ll get just a cryptic clue: it’s dystopian, but it’s not dystopian.
And never, ever, ever, has an Author adopted the persona of their alter ego quite as well as Louise has done with her foray into writing as Swanson. In this strange world Swanson has created, anything was possible and the story could have gone in any direction. Despite the consequences of writing, that does not stop Fern especially when she becomes a bedtime story reader and grows an attachment to one particular boy, Hunter. I hope to introduce new features during 2022 and join the Bookstagram community on Instagram properly, so come and follow me there too!
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