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Jane is feeling ambivalent about her 19-year marriage, and life in general, on her anniversary. Dan’s a good guy, and they’ve had a good run, but she suspects he is cheating on her. Her two teens are at the ages where they don’t really need her. And her writing career, which was so exciting when she landed a book deal, has stalled. The book only sold a few hundred copies, and she hasn’t come up with more to pitch.
When Jane and Dan go out for their anniversary to a well-known, very expensive restaurant, she decides she might as well ask for a divorce during dinner.
But not long after their first course and her announcement, climate activists storm into La Fin du Monde restaurant and tie everyone up. It’s definitely a strange thing to experience. But what’s weirder is that a lot of what the activists do is very similar to the plot of her book.
Since Jane has an idea what could come next in the activists’ ploys, she tries to figure out ways to stop them. But then a huge plot twist shakes both Jane and Dan and sends them scrambling to fix what they’re facing.
Jane and Dan at the End of the World is a portrait of a marriage, of a woman at midlife who’s wondering just where she stands and if she could have made different choices. It’s rife with questions and disappointment. Jane looks back on moments before she married and both crucial and everyday times throughout her married life.
Then the hostage/terrorist situation gives her new insights and shakes up her thought processes.
Jane and Dan at the End of the World is equal parts reflection on both the banality and the joy of adult/married life and humor about it. It takes on parental pride and expectations from young adult children, climate change, big business, uber-wealth, and human nature. And there are a couple of clever little twists that don’t make up a vital part of the story but give it a little kick. It’s an entertaining mix that I found particularly enjoyable as I got closer to the end and got an idea of the big picture of the story. (The publisher’s summary and some readers say it’s “hilarious,” but as is often the case with books that claim hilarity, I would not call it that. Lightly humorous in parts, yes.) Technically rated high but really pretty close to moderate in feel.
Rated: High. Profanity includes 11 uses of strong language (six of those are clusters where someone says it three times hyphenated), around 20 instances of moderate profanity, about 15 uses of mild language, and about 55 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content is minimal; kissing and a bit of talk about sex and a scene where a husband and wife make out and some mention is made of his reaction. Violence includes threats of being shot and a man being shot and injured.
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*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
