Just End It
Donna Blaber
Light House
Pub. 2020

November 23, 2021

Just End It is a mysterious adventurous book based on a 12-year-old girl called Jessie who lives in the North Island of New Zealand. Jessie loves hanging out at the beach and is very interested in rocks. One normal day, while she is strolling across the beach, she comes across a very cool obsidian whale rock.

She picks it up and takes it home to her mum who is also very interested in rocks. Her Mum says to her that this is definitely obsidian, and it might have a very interesting story to tell. Jessie decides to do some research on it.

She finds out that this particular rock has been used as a knife in one of the world wars. She places it next to the picture of her best friend Haley.

Hayley has been Jessie’s best friend for as long as they can both remember they had been through a lot together. After a bit more research on this rock she found out that it could be cursed…

The next day at school, nothing is different – Jessie rides on the bus with her sister Emma as normal, but when she gets into the form room, Haley is acting differently. She seems a bit distant and like she doesn’t really want to hang out with Jessie. Weird.

Then this new girl Alexis shows up. She has been there for about one month, but Jessie has never really noticed her. But now she does. Hayley has never really hung out with her either, but everything is starting to change. Hayley and Alexis are troublemakers, they bully Jessie and lots of the other kids. They pretend they like her, lure her in and then snap – she has been bullied again.

This is only a tiny part of the story, so if you like the sound of that, and want to find out what will happen between Jessie, Hayley and Alexis, read the book for yourself!

Donna Blaber has written this story very well and has paid attention to detail. I found she will go into depth about something and has quite a cool way of writing about it. I would definitely recommend this book.

– Amelia Baylis is 12 years old and lives in Christchurch.