Change, Uncertainty, and Growing Up Theme Analysis

As seniors in high school, all four narrators of This Is Where It Ends face significant anxiety about leaving high school and beginning new lives as adults. While all the characters share the understandable fear that physically leaving their town will erode their most important emotional relationships, Tyler takes this philosophy to the extreme, attempting to enforce stability in his own life and exploding in catastrophic rage when those around him refuse to comply. In fact, one of Tyler’s chief motivations is his inability to face the challenges of growing up; this link between Tyler’s insistence on stasis in his own life and his transformation into a murderer argues that embracing change and uncertainty is not only an inevitable aspect of graduating high school, but a key aspect of developing a healthy adult identity.

At the beginning of the novel, each character is defined by his or her anxieties about life after graduation. Doing laps on the track, Claire wonders if she should join the army or (as her ex-boyfriend Tyler once suggested) become a teacher and stay in Alabama. Most importantly, she doesn’t know what she’ll do without her long-time best friend, saying that “life will be grayer without seeing Chris all day, every day.”

Autumn is desperate to leave home and escape her abusive Dad, but she also doesn’t know if she can make it in New York as a dancer. She’s also worried that in the coming upheaval, her girlfriend Sylvia will “realize that [Autumn] doesn’t deserve her” and break up with her.

Meanwhile, Sylvia has been accepted to Brown but fears that leaving for college will rob her of time with her Mamá, who is ill and dying. She also worries that telling Autumn—who is eager to leave town as well—about her own success will jeopardize their relationship.

Tyler shares these understandable fears, but unlike the others, he takes them to a psychopathic extreme. Tyler is especially resistant to change given a recent and drastic upset in his life: the death of his mother. It’s normal that he wants to cultivate stability, but the way he does so is destructive to those around him. While dating Claire, he tries to convince her to become a teacher and stay close to him, dismissing her thoughts about joining the army. Most notably, because he doesn’t want his sister to leave town, he sabotages Autumn’s career as a dancer by revealing her plans to their abusive father, who has forbidden her to dance. In order to keep his sister close, he knowingly exposes her to physical abuse. Several times during the shooting itself, he says that he’s motivated by anger over his sister’s decision to leave him. Claire also remembers him saying that “this school took everything away from me,” framing the natural changes of growing up as a deliberate act of aggression.

In contrast to Tyler, at the end of the novel, the surviving characters find themselves at peace with the uncertainty of the future, showing the best way forward towards a healthy adult identity. Becoming romantically involved with her best friend Chris over the course of the day, Claire realizes that important relationships can endure change and survive despite distance or the upheaval that will accompany graduation.

Worried about their impending separation, Sylvia and Autumn have always tried to remain together, both emotionally and physically. At the end of the novel, Autumn is sent to the hospital for surgery while Sylvia mourns her brother with the other students; Autumn’s serious injuries suggest that she might not be able to leave town with her girlfriend next year. Despite the threat of future separation, Sylvia feels newly connected to her and confident that their relationship can resist these new stressors.

While Tyler lets his uncertainty about growing up drive him towards murderous acts, the protagonists learn to accept the changes that growing up entails. Their new feelings of tranquility on subjects that were once major sources of worry indicates that they are on the way to (relatively) healthy and fulfilling adult lives.