After the End Book Review

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After the End is a story of Pip and Max, parents to almost three year old Dylan. He is their complete world, but at just 2 and a half years old, the unthinkable happens – Dylan is diagnosed with a brain tumour. He goes into hospital and 6 months later, is still there. Pip is by his side every day in the PICU (paediatric intensive care unit) while Max splits his time between the USA and England for work, wishing every day he could be by his son’s side too. Then, just when it looks like Dylan’s is getting better, the situation is made even worse and the hospital ask Pip and Max to make a choice and change the course of their lives forever. But with an impossible decision to make, how can you ever know if you’ve made the right one?

The only other book I’ve read from Clare Mackintosh is I See You which is an incredible thriller and probably in my top 5 favourite thrillers of all time. After the End though, is a very different kind of story. You can tell this is written from the author’s heart and as harrowing and upsetting it was, it was made all the more heartbreaking knowing that it was written from experience. I can’t imagine how awful anything even remotely similar is to this in real life, but Mackintosh tells this story with raw delicacy that made it impossible not to feel compelled towards.

I’ll be honest, the format did confuse me a little a first, but once I realised that she’d chosen to split the second half of the book into two realities it made it a lot easier to follow. Reiterating throughout the message that parents never know if they’re making the right choices, but can only do what they feel is right and hope for the best, again made this all the more compelling. The fragility of Pip and Max’s universe was apparent and as a reader it was hard to witness such an impossibly difficult situation.

Giving this book a dual narrative with two protagonists was also clever because it meant the reader could never really take a side. Both parents were flawed and both made mistakes, bit it was evident from the outset that despite their difference of opinion, both of them just wanted what they thought was best for their son.

A touching and complex narrative, this is a powerful and moving story centring on a decision no parent should ever be forced to make. Mackintosh is a stunning writer and this book will resonate with most who read it. Despite being very different from I See You, the author has proved her writing prowess my mastering a genre worlds apart so I will happily read any and all of her other books too!