End of the World House: A Novel

Written by Adrienne Celt

Narrated by Nancy Wu

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Apr 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781797136769

Adrienne Celt

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.

Reviews for End of the World House

[1428elm · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Genre-defying twisty ride that’s fun from start to finish. I went into this blind and I’m so glad I did, I had no idea what was going to happen and couldn’t ever hazard a guess as a result. I don’t know why the reviews on this are so middling, it deserves more love than it gets.

[Melissa Chavarro · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I couldn’t get into this book. I found it from good housekeeping’s recommendations. I decided after 3 different try’s of listening to this, I gave up.

[madison · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

i really loved the concept and initial ~quarter of the book - the dynamic between the female characters really captures a lot of friendships left in your twenties, and the not-too-dystopian setting actually intrigued me instead of feeling like exhausting stress that i wanted to escape. however the male characters are all dreadfully boring and the audio voices for them exacerbated that. i skipped around hoping he would go away. it’s turned into a DNF because the most interesting part of the book is now gone

[Linda Halverson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

very unusual. choices, consequences and review. until the final choice. hard concept to frame. very well done!