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End of the World House

A Novel

Read by Nancy Wu

About The Book

Groundhog Day meets Ling Ma’s Severance in this “brilliant” (PopSugar) and “exhilarating” (The Millions) comedic novel about two young women trying to save their friendship as the world collapses around them.

Bertie and Kate have been best friends since high school. Bertie is a semi-failed cartoonist, working for a prominent Silicon Valley tech firm. Her job depresses her, but not as much as the fact that Kate has recently decided to move from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

When Bertie’s attempts to make Kate stay fail, she suggests the next best thing: a trip to Paris that will hopefully distract the duo from their upcoming separation. The vacation is also a sort of last hurrah, coming during the ceasefire in a series of escalating world conflicts.

One night in Paris, they meet a strange man in a bar who offers them a private tour of the Louvre. The women find themselves alone in the museum, where nothing is quite as it seems. Caught up in a day that keeps repeating itself, Bertie and Kate are eventually separated, and Bertie is faced with a mystery that threatens to derail everything. In order to make her way back to Kate, Bertie has to figure out how much control she has over her future—and her past—and how to survive in an apocalypse when the world keeps refusing to end.

About The Author

Adrianne Mathiowetz Photography

Adrienne Celt is originally from Seattle, but now lives in Tucson, Arizona. She is the author of two previous novels: Invitation to a Bonfire, currently being adapted for TV by AMC, and The Daughters, which won the 2015 PEN Southwest Book Award for Fiction and was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR. Adrienne is also a cartoonist, and she publishes a weekly webcomic at LoveAmongtheLampreys.com.

About The Reader

Why We Love It

End of the World House showcases the wonderful weirdness of Adrienne Celt’s brain. Her new novel is a trippy, time-and-space altering book that’s a bit Leave the World Behind, a bit Severance, a bit Groundhog Day. Reading it feels, in my opinion at least, a little like what being on mushrooms in a museum might feel like—fun, illuminating, mind-opening, shocking, and just a little bit scary. Needless to say, Adrienne’s way of thinking and of seeing the world is completely singular, and I loved having this portal into her brain.”

—Carina G., Senior Editor, on End of the World House

Product Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio (April 19, 2022)
  • Runtime: 9 hours and 33 minutes
  • ISBN13: 9781797136769

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