The End We Start From by Megan Hunter
Published 2017 · 144 pages · 25,000 words · about 2 hours at an average pace · Dystopian Fiction, Literary Fiction, Science Fiction
How hard is The End We Start From to read?
The End We Start From scores 29 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 25 out of 100
- Simple, precise vocabulary. Poetic register. No technical language.
- Sentence structure: 35 out of 100
- Abstraction: 32 out of 100
- The flood as unspecified catastrophe invites allegorical reading. The body as site of meaning.
- Information density: 40 out of 100
- Extremely compressed. Every sentence carries weight in a ninety-page novel.
- Narrative indirection: 30 out of 100
- Unnamed characters and unexplained catastrophe force the reader to infer context.
- Symbolic density: 42 out of 100
- Water as destruction and birth. The baby as future. Breastfeeding as survival. Every image resonates.
- Ironic distance: 15 out of 100
- Intimate and urgent. No ironic distance from the narrator's experience.
- Resolution withholding: 22 out of 100
- The cause of the flood never explained. The ending offers tentative hope without certainty.
- Structural complexity: 28 out of 100
- Fragmentary prose. Novella length. Poetic structure rather than conventional narrative.
How The End We Start From is regarded
The End We Start From holds a literary regard score of 36 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.