How It Ends by Laura Weiss

Laura Wiess, the acclaimed author who once brought us "a girl to walk alongside Harper Lee's Scout and J. D. Salinger's Phoebe" (Luanne Rice), brings us another memorable young woman, this one at the center of an extraordinary novel of how love ends, how it begins, and what it's worth to protect it...

All Hanna's wanted since sophomore year is Seth. She's gone out with other guys, even gained a rep for being a flirt, all the while hoping cool, guitar-playing Seth will choose her. Then she gets him -- but their relationship is hurtful, stormy and critical, not at all what Hanna thinks a perfect love should be. Bewildered by Seth's treatment of her and in need of understanding, Hanna decides to fulfill her school's community service requirement by spending time with Helen, her terminally ill neighbor, who she's turned to for comfort and wisdom throughout her life. But illness has changed Helen into someone Hanna hardly knows, and her home is not the refuge it once was. Feeling more alone than ever, Hanna gets drawn into an audiobook the older woman is listening to, a fierce, unsettling love story of passion, sacrifice, and devotion. Hanna's fascinated by the idea that such all-encompassing love can truly exist, and without her even realizing it, the story begins to change her.

Until the day when the story becomes all too real...and Hanna's world is spun off its axis by its shattering, irrevocable conclusion.

How It Ends is unlike any book that I have ever written. Hanna is a normal teenage girl that is slowly drawing away from her family, including her nieghbour Helen. Hanna is a very likable character. I didn't understand her fasination with Seth, and I wish Jesse was in the book more. He was so great to Hanna. Helen's story is heartbreaking and unlike anything that I know. I loved how it was presented on an audiobook. The plot of How It Ends is slow, but you will tear through the last hundred pages. The characters will break into your heart and steal it. This is unlike any other book that I read, it is niether cliche or expected. Laura Wiess creates a book that is unforgetable and sweet.