Particularly Denise's struggle to understand and sympathize with her drug addict mother, whom she finds frustrating. I also really like the complex relationships. In On the Edge of Gone, we have our mixed race, autistic narrator, a bisexual trans black girl, as well as other gay, Muslim and Jewish characters.ĭuyvis draws from her own experiences for this tale, choosing to set it in her home country - The Netherlands - and portraying autism with the honesty and sensitivity of someone autistic herself. I long for the day when people will look back at reviews like this one and think how strange it is that I had to point out diversity, but it is sadly still uncommon. Set before, during and after the apocalypse (a comet colliding with Earth), the stakes are huge from the very beginning as Denise attempts to find a safe place for herself, her mother and sister on a generation ship, scheduled to leave Earth. Her narrator - an autistic, mixed race, Dutch girl - has an immediately sympathetic and likable narrative voice. Duyvis opens with a writing style that draws you in. Perhaps I expected all the wrong things from it, and maybe this review will prevent others from doing the same.

On the Edge of Gone does a lot of really great things and, for the first 25%, I thought it was going to be a new favourite. “The first time my future vanished was July 19, 2034.'

On the edge of gone