64 pages • 2 hours read
This Is Where It Ends
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
Fifteen minutes after the shooting began, as the clock winds from 10:20 a.m. to 10:22 a.m., Chapter 10 closes as Autumn explores her responsibility in the day’s trauma and stands up before her brother to say: “Tyler, I’m here” (125).
Tomas breaks paperclips in the lock. Tomas’s one successful attempt gets interrupted by knocks from inside the auditorium. Tomas is unsure if the gunman will break through the doors any moment. When Sylv speaks, it’s revealed she does the knocking. She knocks a favorite song, and Tomas replies with the beat.
Meanwhile, Claire’s tangled between thinking about her brother, Matt, who is trapped inside the school, and the future romantic opportunity she imagines she will have with Chris, during the upcoming annual summer track team gathering: “We’ll toast our four years together, Chris and I” (119).
Chapter 11 Summary
Claire and Chris head back towards Opportunity High in the squad car. Tomas and Sylv continue their back-and-forth tapping. Just as Tomas raises his hammer to try and break the lock, Fareed arrives and stops him.
Autumn walks through the carnage of injured and dead. When she reaches the stage and continues to walk towards Tyler he points the gun in her face. Tyler wants to shoot Matt, but Autumn’s blocking the way. Autumn recalls conversations with Tyler and their father in which she thought Tyler’s comments were about improving his life. As she walks towards Tyler, she sees “he may look like Tyler and sound like Tyler, but this is not the same person” (136). Chapter 11 closes as Autumn tells Tyler she loves him and “his eyes twinkle” 137, reminding Autumn of the Tyler she used to know.
Chapter 12 Summary
Autumn confronts Tyler on stage, tells him he is her best friend, and Tyler shoots a spot right next to Autumn, then says, “I lost everything” (146). “You never lost me,” (146) Autumn replies. As this happens, Sylv recalls attending a ballet with Mrs. Browne on Autumn’s fifteenth birthday, which causes her to remember Mrs. Browne’s fatal car accident. This prompts Sylv to stand up.
As the police car arrives at Opportunity High, an officer instructs Claire and Chris to remain outside, and Claire realizes that most of the student body is trapped in the auditorium and that if it were not for Matt, she could go home. Meanwhile, Tomas fails to break the chain on the first attempt but succeeds on a second. Then he and Fareed move to open a second door.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
These chapters serve as the final rising action that leads to the confrontation between Autumn and Tyler in Chapter 12, which creates a momentous plot point concerning the book’s central nerve of tension between Autumn and Tyler. Nijkamp pauses the action during Autumn and Tyler's confrontation, creating suspense as Sylv stands up. The four different perspectives each reveal various elements of conflict, showing how Tomas, Sylv, and Claire’s relationships with Autumn and Tyler have changed since Mrs. Browne’s death.
Important are the changes that occur in Autumn and Sylv, which characterize the girls as heroic in the face of this tragedy. Autumn confronts Tyler on stage, revealing her strength and sense of responsibility. Sylv decides to stand up, and though the chapter concludes before Sylv approaches the stage, the narrative hints that’s what she plans to do.
Claire’s deep attachment to Matt and her longing for Chris serves to relieve the trauma so present in This Is Where It Ends, carving out space for a romance, in contrast to the violence.
Nijkamp also paints Fareed in a heroic light. This Is Where It Ends features gay relationships, violence, and family trauma, as well as cross-cultural relationships. These elements of the novel expand the reach of this story, which is set in an out-of-the-way Alabama town, in such a way that the book becomes about more than a tragic school shooting at Opportunity High School. This narrative strategy provides opportunities to explore themes that are important beyond the confines of the high school auditorium and explore the diversity and complexity of human relationships.
Unlock all 64 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: