I picked up this book on a rainy Tuesday, expecting another teen romance with a tragic twist. I was wrong. Not completely wrong, but wrong enough that the book stayed with me for days.
The Beginning of Everything opens with a severed head on a roller coaster. That’s not a metaphor. Ezra Faulkner’s childhood friend Toby catches a kid’s head after a freak accident on a ride. That moment, gruesome and absurd, becomes the novel’s emotional anchor. What happens when a single event destroys everything you thought you were?
Ezra Faulkner was Eastwood High’s golden boy. Tennis star, homecoming king, girlfriend who looked like she stepped out of a preppy catalog. Then a car accident shatters his leg. Suddenly he can’t play tennis. His girlfriend cheats on him with his best friend. His social circle evaporates. He returns to school with a cane and a new sense of invisibility.
What I loved about Ezra is that he doesn’t become instantly noble. He’s bitter. He’s petty. He watches his old friends at lunch and feels a mix of longing and disgust. He reconnects with Toby and joins the debate team not out of genuine interest, but because he has nowhere else to go. That honesty made me trust the narration.
The strongest cage was never iron bars. It was warm, golden affection that asked nothing of you except to stay exactly as you were.
This is what Schneider understands about high school popularity. It’s not cruelty that keeps you in line. It’s the comfort of belonging. Ezra never questioned his life because it felt good. The accident didn’t just break his leg. It broke his ability to remain unconscious.
The Roller Coaster That Never Stops
The core image of the book for me is the roller coaster. Not the accident itself, but the moments after. The ride keeps going. People are still screaming with excitement. The tragedy happens in the middle of joy. Ezra’s car accident happens as he’s leaving a party where he just caught his girlfriend cheating. Everything is happening at once. That’s the truth of life that Schneider captures. Tragedy doesn’t wait for a clean moment.
Cassidy Thorpe arrives as the mysterious new girl who forces Ezra to think. She’s smart, sarcastic, and carries her own secrets. Their romance feels real precisely because it’s not perfect. They have arguments that feel petty and real—the kind where you’re both right and wrong. The kind where you say something you don’t mean and can’t take back.
The problem with the book is also its strength. The dialogue is too clever. These teenagers are too witty. They quote Oscar Wilde and make literary references that no actual high schooler would make. But here’s the thing. It worked for me. I wanted to believe in these impossibly articulate teenagers. I wanted to live in their world where a debate team can be cool and a flash mob can change your life.
Toby is the character who stole my heart. He’s gay, he’s awkward, and he’s the most honest person in the book. When Ezra tries to apologize for abandoning him in middle school, Toby just says, “You were a crappy friend. You’re being less crappy now. That’s enough.” No drama. No speech. Just acceptance.
The Ending That Made Me Stare at the Wall
The ending is where the book earns its place. I won’t spoil it, but I’ll say this: Cassidy’s secret is not what you expect. And the final scene between Ezra and his father made me put the book down and stare at the wall for five minutes. It’s not a happy ending. It’s not a sad ending. It’s a true ending.
I’ll be honest. The book has flaws. Some plot points feel too convenient. The jocks are cartoonishly mean. The mean girl has no depth. But the emotional core is solid. Ezra’s journey from existing to living is messy and incomplete, which feels more real than a clean transformation.
Anyone who has ever lost something that defined them will find something here. Anyone who has looked at their life and wondered if they chose it or just fell into it. Anyone who needs permission to start over, even when starting over means admitting you were wrong about everything. If you need plot-driven stories with high stakes, skip it. If you get annoyed by YA characters who sound like adults, skip it. If you hate books about rich kids and their first-world problems, skip it.
The Beginning of Everything taught me something I didn’t expect. It taught me that the tragedy isn’t the problem. The problem is what you do after. How you rebuild. Who you become when the thing that made you special is gone.
I finished the book at 12 AM. My coffee was cold. My cat was asleep on my lap. And I felt something I haven’t felt in a long time. I felt like it was okay to not know who I am yet. Maybe that’s what the beginning of everything really means. Not a clean start. Just a chance to keep trying.
