End of story - Louise Swanson

I'm always a bit wary of dystopian fiction, the ideas behind the story always sound good but the execution can be poor leaving me disappointed.

End of Story intrigued me as it imagines a world where all fiction books are banned. Children are not allowed bedtime stories, authors are no longer allowed to write fiction and libraries and bookshops can only sell non fiction books.

The world builds on Covid 19 restrictions and effects and shows us what might have happened, and once you get into it and see how things ended up like this I don't think it's that much of a stretch to believe this could happen.

The book is written in diary format with the narrator often ending her entries mid sentence to encourage her to come back to it. Despite this being a bit disjointed, I still loved the diary format and was constantly itching for more information!

I loved the whole book from start to finish. I would say this is definitely one worth sticking with if you're finding it slow or confusing, all will be revealed and it has a brilliant ending! I can't say any more than that because I would hate to spoil the surprise but this is definitely one I recommend and will easily be in my top 5 at the end of the year!

I was sent a copy of End of Story by Louise Swanson to read and review by NetGalley. What an absolutely amazing book! It is so intense and beautifully written, emotional and thought provoking, and terrifying in it’s own way. The author has made everything so real, even with the story being set in the future – a future that I can’t even bear to think about! I honestly couldn’t put this book down.... I’m so glad it was a novel!

My thanks to the Publishers via NetGalley for a copy of this story in exchange for an honest review.

Disclaimer ~ I need to say before I review the story that the Dystopian genre is a particular favourite of mine. There I have said it. This story is so much more than what you at first expect, you need to read it for yourself to see what I mean.

It's been several weeks since I finished this story, it had such an impact on me that it's taken until now to write my review of it. I don't think my review will do it the justice that it deserves as I could so easily say so much, but by doing so would spoil it for others. I would hate to spoil the story for others as it's been a solid 5 star read of mine and will definitely be in my Top 10 of the year.

Imagine a time in the future where reading fiction is banned, writing fiction is banned and reading stories to your children is banned. These are punishable offences by the Government if caught! Well that's the world that Fern Dostoy lives in, she's a criminal she can't help herself doing the things that she enjoys doing. Hunter is a young child who Fern communicates on her phone with, who is he? She needs to know more about him as he has stolen a place in her heart. Fern finds herself on the wrong side of the law and gets sporadic visits from the same government officials. How can she learn to deal with what has happened to her and keep on the right side of the officials?

I loved loved loved this story. I was taken into Fern's world, a world that I would hate to live in as I love reading and I read to my children when they were younger. I would definitely find myself on the wrong side of the law if I lived there.

Louise Swanson is the pen name of Louise Beech. I look forward to seeing where Miss Swanson takes us next, as if this book is anything to go by it can only be onto bigger and better places. Just try not to make me cry next time as I had tears running down my face as I read the last chapter of the story, a little like now as I right this review as the story has stayed with me.

This story would make a great reading group read in my opinion.

End of Story by Louise Swanson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thoroughly enjoyed this dystopian novel. Set in 2035 ... books are banned ... really makes you think. Deals with some dark, difficult topics. Thank you to #netgalley for this advance copy

The End of Story is literally the end of the story as we know it.

Set in the future Fiction is banned by the Government, and its banning is ruthlessly enforced. Authors/Publishers and bookstore owners are rehoused and watched. As is the public for any rule breaking.
It is in this society that former author, Fern Dostoy, makes contact with a secret group that reads bedtime stories to children. Things don’t add up though – caller Hunter comes through on a closed phone line and Fern doesn’t read him a story, rather she makes one up specifically for him.
Eventually in a background of paranoia and secrecy Fern’s begins writing, but the Government uncover her secret.

This is an unusual novel that takes you one place, and spins your right into another. I found it a slow build up and was wondering where it was going to go and then I had to keep reading to get to the end.

This is a five star read that I really didn’t expect and its going to be one of the big hits for the summer.

Loved the concept of all fiction and story-telling being banned (well obviously as a reader i hated it but as a story concept, I was gripped). Told in the form of a diary from a previously best-selling and world-changing author, we are in a future world where only non-fiction is allowed under pain of imprisonment. You can see how easily it happens, as the public blindly follow politicians' orders- and one by one, books are buried or burnt or not written in the first place.
I read the story with a feeling of dread, as you hear about books being banned even now- and this is just one or two steps further from that. Great story-telling, scary in its plausibility

I enjoyed this book a lot. It was very different and slightly unusual but I loved it. It was really well written and I would never have seen the plot twist coming. The style it was written was also brilliant and the diary entries made it really quick to read. It felt really real and the whole book was so powerful. A very original and impactful bookish story, would definitely recommend.

This book is brilliant. I don’t want to say too much as I would really spoilt this book and I also don’t think I could do it justice. What I will say is that this is a really cleverly written and plotted book and one of the best I’ve read this year.

I didn't get on with this book. I've liked the authors previous books but this one I just couldn't get into. A bit repetitive in places and unrealistic character behaviour disconnected me as a reader.

This is an interesting, bleak, dystopian read.

Fern was a writer, before writing was banned. The story is set in 2035 where, not only is writing banned, but, it's illegal to tell stories.
It covers loss, friendship and heartbreak and although I struggled a bit partway through, it's worth sticking with it.

Thanks to Hodder and Stoughton for the opportunity to preview.

This is a really difficult book to review because there is a lot to say but it would be spoiler, spoiler, spoiler.

Fern Dostoy, a famous fiction author, lives in a world where fiction books have now been banned. She works as a hospital cleaner and her movements and home are regularly monitored by officials. Separated from her friends, she lives a lonely life until she joins an underground group that delivers phone line bedtime stories to children.

For me, there were sections of the book that I found intriguing and others that I found moving but there was a big chunk in the middle that just didn’t hold my interest.

I had an idea where the book was heading and I appreciate why it was structured as it was, it’s just that there needed to be something in the central section that distracted the reader from guessing at the ending. It’s a clever idea for a novel I just felt that it needed more subplot.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, for an arc of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

End of Story is a phenomenal thriller from start to finish. Filled to the brim with twists and a captivating plot, this one is sure to keep readers hooked. The characters are well-developed. The story is incredibly fast-paced. This is one not to be missed! Highly recommended! Be sure to check out End of Story asap.

This is a surprisingly clever story, dark, at times disturbing, engaging and raw. Fern is living a complicated, difficult and dangerous life in a dystopian future, full of fear and uncertainty.

How skilled is the author to create this ‘world’ to these extreme lengths? A finely crafted work!

It is hard to review this in any detail without giving any spoilers so I will keep it simple, this book is unlike any I have read before. The story is unique in how it is delivered, abrupt, desperate diary style which reflect the feelings of the writer clearly and there were certainly times I wondered where it was going.

That said, it totally captured my imagination and interest and clearly portrays challenging times. It would be an ideal Bookclub choice as it will no doubt, raise a lot of discussion.

We are told it is 2035, a post-Covid world where fiction is banned, authors forbidden from writing and subjected to regular, terrifying visits by nameless men dressed in black. No more reading bedtime stories to children in this new world, where individuals can be fined or even imprisoned from simply owning such books.

As a lover of dystopian fiction I thought this sounded an excellent, albeit hugely depressing, premise for a book. From the beginning, however, there was just something about the way that the story was narrated that didn't work for me. There were bits that seemed wrong and annoying - the narrator dreams of a boy named Hunter and then miraculously gets a phone call from a boy named Hunter who looks just like she has dreamed of him (which wasn't the way that world seemed to be) - and bits which I thought were really quite disturbing - although he's only 8 years old she encourages him to give her his phone number and then to meet her. Admittedly there is no seriously bad intent on her part in meeting him but the idea that she should be suggesting this did not sit well with me.

The end 20% of the book undoubtedly explains, and addresses, some of the bits that I thought weren't well explained in the main part of the book. I actually found that last 20% was the bit I liked best (not sure I would say 'enjoyed' though as it is a bit of the book that I did find very sad). As I read that last 20% the book did start to redeem itself in my eyes - I could see that it was in reality crafted very intelligently, using the idea of dystopian fiction to address a range of topics including how we deal with grief, how parents may not always spend as much time with their children as they'd like due to work and other pressures, and some of the issues that the author clearly had with the Government's tackling of the Covid-19 pandemic (some of that did feel a bit clunky though). So some interesting and thought-provoking ideas raised in this book. I am grateful to NetGalley for giving me a chance to read this ARC.

Really enjoyed this. An intriguing idea for a story which followed an unusual route, and it maintained it through to its unexpected ending. Very ell written and excellently plotted. Highly recommended.

‘If you tell a story well enough, it’s true.’

Louise Swanson has created a scary world – a world without fiction, a world without bedtime stories, a world down on imagination and creativity. It’s a scary and believable world. This reader doesn’t like that world!!! But I read on, in an uncomfortable silence.

I really liked Fern, she’s a rebel. On the surface, she’s abiding by the rules, not contacting other former authors, going to her cleaning job every day and not writing. Or that’s what she’s telling the tall and short ones who visit, turning up randomly and unexpectedly like bad pennies. But Fern is a rebel. She is writing, scribbling away on a notepad, the thing they can’t monitor. She’s reading kids bedtime stories. She’s meeting with a former author.

As Fern had her sporadic visits from “the tall one and the short one”, an image made its way into my mind. Swanson references them being like something from Men In Black but for me, I conjured up a pairing more sinister – the Agent Smiths from The Matrix. Just at different heights.

I was very intrigued by Fern’s fascination and relationship with Hunter. I couldn’t see where this part of the story was going to go. In this strange world Swanson has created, anything was possible and the story could have gone in any direction.

End Of Story is a unique read, as with the author’s other works – her writing just gets better and better with each book. This book has such an unnerving sinister theme set in the not too distant future. A future I’d hate. Swanson took me on Fern’s journey without a roadmap and where I ended up was totally unexpected and in many ways, emotional and heartbreaking. Absolutely brilliant!

A year and a half ago, I read a Jodi Piccoult novel called Wish you Were Here. In that review, I talked about how a twist that you can't guess at is not a twist. And certainly for the first third, maybe even half, of this, there is no sign of the twist. It seems like a thought provoking, well thought out dystopian.

It's a fascinating thought - what would the world be like if there was no fiction? No fairy tales, no novels, no one allowed to write unless it's factual? While the novel was about that, I really enjoyed it. However, once the lead in to the twist started, I found I was losing interest; everything felt too random, too manic for manic's sake.

Some people are going to love this; they're going to think it's an amazing example of the genre it actually is, and they won't mind that it's not a dystopian as it appears to be. It's certainly very skillfully written. But I can't get over that weird feeling of being lied to.

Not for me, but it deserves to find an audience and I genuinely hope it does.

End Of Story is the third book I’ve read by Louise Swanson. Although it’s not my favourite I did still enjoy it.
The government has banned fiction, there is none to be written or read, all books must be handed in where they are destroyed to make sure no one reads fiction books. It’s five years later and in 2035. Fern was a writer but she’s not allowed to write anymore so her career has gone, she has had to restrain as a cleaner in a hospital. She needs the job as she’s a widow. Fern has started to write in secret though in a notebook about her everyday life, she must be careful as the government send people to her house to search the house for any evidence she is writing. She’s started reading bedtime stories to children through a phone line but with it comes a lot of stress from being found out but it’s with it as a little boy called Hunter has captured her heart and she lives to read fro him.
This was a book from a genre I haven’t read before. The characters were well defined and the storyline was decent, I do think around 20% of the way in it did get a little stagnant but it did pick up again and turned everything I’d read on its head.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Hodder and Stoughton for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

I usually struggle with tales told in the future but this one drew me in straight away. I can’t imagine a world without fiction books to read - it must be a nightmare. Not only are there no more such books published but all existing ones are destroyed - even children’s’ books.
When Fern was being questioned by a doctor I could even feel to be closing in on myself not wanting to answer, much as Fern was feeling herself.

I look forward to reading more books by this author

This was a book I was keen to read, having loved Swanson's previous novels, written as Louise Beech, and also her very moving memoir, Daffodils.

End of Story follows author Fern Dostoy's life in a near future, nightmarish world so close to our own. Or perhaps I should say ex-author Fern Dostoy, because in this future, fiction has been banned. Writers, agents, publishers and booksellers are proscribed, sometimes sent to for 're-education' and are generally shunned. Fern has been dispossessed of her career, her home, her books, even her name and allotted a job as a hospital clearer. Sinister Government functionaries - 'the tall one and the short one' she always calls them - visit her unannounced, question and threaten her, and search for books or signs of writing.

To a book obsessive like me this is of course a truly dreadful future. No new novels to consume (or old ones for that matter). No bedtime stories for sleepless kids. No book groups. No book blogs, for that matter, I guess. As Fern tells her story we learn how the very centre of her existence, the things she created and whose creation gave her life meaning, have been taken from her by a government that blames fiction in general, and one of her books in particular, for all manner of ills - and which has worked up an angry mob to enforce its prohibition.

I said "as Fern tells her story" but in this world, storytelling has been banned. Keeping an illicit journal in a notebook, as she does, marks her therefore as still defiant - even if, as she assures us, non fiction is surely still permissible? But Fern goes further in challenging the new rules, discovering a clandestine story-reading helpline for those restless kids who have been denied the joy of fiction. She eagerly participating - it seems she suffers a particular pain at seeing them denied stories - but an atmosphere of threat hangs over the whole enterprise.

I was reminded to some extent of Nineteen Eighty Four, especially the secret, handwritten diary. However, End of Story goes to much, much weirder places. Fern becomes concerned that events in this grim future are echo her most recent book, Technological Amazingness. Something - or someone - also seems to be trying to pass messages to her, but are they friendly or not? Stranded amidst a December heatwave, Fern's life seems to be careering out of control and 'the tall one and the short one' begin to call more often...

It's actually hard to find words for how brilliant End of Story is - especially when there are aspects it's best not to discuss because that would spoil the book. At its centre it is I think an exploration of grief: Fern has lost so much, and is in a sense mourning. She also clearly feels guilt for what has happened - however much it is clearly not her fault, she only wrote a book - and perhaps feels a need to atone for that. Beyond the menace, there is something desperately sad in her relationship with the Men in Black, who come calling. I reflected that there is a sense in which they are the only people with whom she is permitted to discuss what she has lost - anyone else would be horrified, would push her away.

Perhaps almost the only people? We also meet 'Fine-Fayre', a door to door salesman for a company selling tea and biscuits (what a brilliant idea). We never learn his name, but he is in many respects the most human character in this story, apart from Fern herself. Many of the others have a slightly chilling quality, her colleagues in the hospital for example concocting bizarre schemes which they seem keen for her to overhear as she cleans the meeting room, her friends at Story Tellers on edge necessarily.

Indeed, throughout the book, Swanson creates a more and more uncomfortable - can I be pretentious and say unheimlich? - atmosphere, initially founded on the outrageous banning of fiction but increasingly taking in the, well - words rather fail me again here - the texture of Fern's relationship with the world she's in? The sense that she is struggling to hold on to reality - or perhaps that it is trying to reject her? It's a book that could almost be a ghost story (it isn't!) a book featuring a sort of haunting. The kind of book that hooks you, keeps you reading just another bit, and another bit, puzzling over what's happening. The kind of book that wraps you in itself, that you need to read with tissues to hand as the depths of Fern's suffering are - oh-so-slowly - explored.

Simply a thrilling, heartbreaking but also triumphant story. You really need it in your life!