Stunning. Absolutely stunning.

I almost have no words for how gorgeous The End of Loneliness is.

The novel, by Benedict Wells, is a nostalgic love story which spans the decades. It has so many elements: loss, love, death, family drama. It just covered all bases but not in an obnoxious “need to tick all boxes” kind of way but in a purely sentimental without being soppy way.

It was genuinely a pleasure to read. The protagonist, Jules, was easy to champion and fall in love with. You feel like you travel along with him on his journey through life. You feel immersed in the novel and not an outsider turning pages.

Benedict Wells has created a novel that you can sink into and one that you do not want to leave.

The End of Loneliness by Benedict Wells is available now.

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The reviews of this book are right. It is filled with insights and the writing is dazzling. So there is a LOT to admire here. Personally, however, I found it all too relentlessly melancholic. I kept waiting for the catharsis that comes with tragedy raised up as art but didn't feel it in the end. This could well be a failing on my part.

At 11 years of age, the story's narrator, Jules, and his older brother and sister, Marty and Liz, lose their parents in a car accident. They are re-homed in a boarding school with each going their separate way and trying to adapt to this new alien world. For Jules, he despondently watches his older siblings “desert” him and he gradually starts to retreat into himself and his imagination. He makes friends with a girl, Alva, a little older than he, and she is also finding it difficult to socialise and engage with others. Over the years, their mutual loneliness and sadness are only abated as they spend more time together and strike up a close bond. During adolescence Jules starts to realise that his feelings are more intimate than just friendship, but will he risk losing what he has, to gain everything. He reflects that he “Never had the courage to win her, only ever the fear of losing her”.

The “End of Loneliness” takes us on a lifelong journey of love and loss, and love and loss again for each of the characters. The issue of unrequited love is a hugely emotive aspect of the narrative and the writing style delivers this extremely delicately yet dramatically. How would life pan out if we had taken a different course? “If you spend all your life running in the wrong direction, could it be the right one after all?”

If you spend most of your life chasing a dream, is it still a dream when you catch it, and what happens if you let the dream go? The last part of the book is genuinely emotional, especially if you have connected with the characters, which I’m absolutely sure you will. It’s not a soppy romance story, but the emotional pull is much more powerful for it. Is life a zero-sum game or do some people just have more than their fair share of bad luck? The book is not depressing but is sad in moments and uplifting in others.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton, for an ARC version of the book in return for an honest review.

What a book; The End of Loneliness: The Dazzling International Bestseller by Benedict Wells was. You will need some tissues handy for this one. Marty, Liz and Jules' loving parents were killed in a car crash in Munich and their lives suddenly changed. They had to go to a bleak state boarding school. They had to deal with the sudden death of their parents who they loved dearly.
As time went on they become estranged from one another. Jules is becoming a withdrawn teenager, Marty has focussed on his career and Liz is turning to different forms of escapision.
This book is a very strong novel and endless loneliness throughout. I really enjoyed this book and so glad It was translated to english. Don't for get your tissues.
If I could give this book more than 5 stars I would. Just Excellent.

Jules is sent to boarding school with his siblings following the death of his parents. As his brother and sister drift away, Jules finds solace in a classmate, Alva. Spanning 40 years of loneliness, disconnection and disjointed memories, this novel touches on many themes, from dementia to grief, via hope, love and friendship. Quietly brilliant, The End of Loneliness was awarded the European Prize for Literature in 2016 and has been recently translated from German to English.

Thanks to Net Galley &Hodder & Stoughton for an ARC of this book in exchange for a review.
Translated from German to English this book starts slowly, but I became emerged in the lives of Jules, his brother Marty and sister Liz.
Their parents are killed in a road accident and they are packed off to boarding school by their aunt. Immediately Jules is separated from his older brother and sister and this remains the case for many years.
Jules has one friend at school, Alva, in later years she reveals to Jules why she chose to sit beside him, and why some time later she removes herself again. Their friendship developers though through their years at school, Jules tries several times to tell Alva how he feels, but it never happens. They spend many years apart, Jules Is lonely, drifting from photography to writing and to different jobs. Liz lives life for excitement, drugs alcohol and many different relationships. Marty educates himself and gets married.
Jules emails Alva, they meet up, they exchange nostalgic gifts. It’s sometime after this Alva asks him to come and stay with her and her husband who is a famous author, Jules drops everything in his life to go and be with her, always hoping.
This is the story of a long friendship and so much more, of 3 sibling who are alone even when together, all three of them sharing one friend, Toni. , but love, friendship, family and death join them together.
I loved this book, well deserving of 4 stars.

I really enjoyed this book that traces the life of Jules, the youngest of three children whose lives are thrown off course when their parents die in a car accident. It is a book about pain, loss, and that sense that we might be missing out on the life we are supposed to lead. Beautifully drawn characters and very moving.

Jules wakes in a hospital bed - he’s been in an accident and he’s pretty beaten up. He tries to piece it together: a motorcycle accident, but there’s something before that, something his mind doesn’t want to recall. We’ll find out what that is… but not yet, not for quite some time.

We flashback to his childhood and learn that he lost his parents early in life, the result of a car crash. He, his brother Marty and sister Liz were dispatched to a grim boarding school. The idyllic life they’d led to this point is gone, replaced by something else. At the school, Jules meets the red haired Alva, a similarly introverted being; they strike up a friendship. Marty also finds a friend in Toni, who will eventually become a friend to all three siblings. Liz, on the other hand is a bit of a loner, but wild too: she wants to live life to the full and to experiment. As the book unfolds we see will how the lives of all five of them play out.

The focus, though, is on Jules and it’s through him that we see what happens to each of them. It’s a truly multi-layered tale this: it’s predominantly melancholy in tone, as the siblings follow a hard road to their futures, and we really do witness the peaks and troughs a life can deliver. Not only is there the loss of their parents to deal with but also separation as the three of them are split up for the first time in their lives at the boarding school and again later after they’ve gotten together collectively or sometimes in pairings. There is the agonising over unrequited love and the mistakes they make (that we all make) as they grow up, sometimes leading to longer term problems or regrets that will continue to haunt them. There’s also a pervading sense of time running out, things left undone. And there’s a suspicion that lives can be poisoned from the start (the siblings lost their parents and Alva lost a sister) stunting the ability to find happiness thereafter. But there are good times too, successes and moments of pure unadulterated happiness.

Apart from enjoying the unfolding of the tale itself, one of the great pleasures of this book for me was the way in which the group wrestle with some of the big philosophical questions in life, such as: do people really have free will and if a different path had been taken would some elements still be the same – would something still survive, the immutable part?

For Liz, life is about excitement and stimulation but for Marty and Jules I sense it’s more about finding security and contentment. Different strokes for different folks. Do each of them (or any of them) find what they’re looking for? Well, I’m not going to answer that, you’re going to have to read the book and find out for yourselves!

A five star read, without doubt. This book has been a huge success since it’s release, winning the 2016 European Union Prize for Literature, and I can see why. Now translated into English it’s one that you’ll miss at your peril.

I really loved this book. It is Jules' story which he tells in a mixture of current events and flashbacks; with a present event sparking a memory, which makes the telling so real and natural. The relationships between the siblings are well drawn and realistic, and other interesting characters weave in and out of Jules' life, At its heart it is a poignant love story. A book which makes you slow down to savour it instead of rushing to "see what happens" is rare, and this is one of them.

‘The End of Loneliness’ by Benedict Wells tells the story of Jules, his brother Marty and his sister Liz who were orphaned as children when their parents were killed in a car accident in France. After attending the same boarding school, the siblings go their separate ways in life but are reunited when Jules is seriously injured in a motorcycle accident decades later. During his recuperation, Jules reflects on key events in his life from coming to terms with the death of his parents to his relationship with his mysterious childhood friend Alva years after they leave school.

Translated from the German by Charlotte Collins (who was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize for her translation of Robert Seethaler’s A Quiet Life in 2016) ‘The End of Loneliness’ won the European Prize for Literature and has been a huge success in Germany, something that could be repeated this year among English-speaking readers. Admittedly, there is no shortage of literary novels about loneliness but I found this book particularly affecting. Wells’ fourth novel and first to be translated into English explores loneliness in several forms including bereavement, unrequited love and memory loss. During a conversation with Jules, one of his friends raises the idea of defining loneliness as the absence of emotional security rather than the absence of company. This is particularly relevant to Jules who has no shortage of people around him but still has numerous encounters with loneliness.

‘The End of Loneliness’ is an understated and emotionally intelligent literary novel. While it is melancholic in tone but thankfully avoids becoming overdramatic. I hope that Wells’ back list becomes available in English very soon. Many thanks to Hodder and Stoughton for sending me a review copy via NetGalley.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this book, but I really enjoyed reading it. Translated from German, it is the story of 3 children who are orphaned when their parents are killed in a car accident, They are sent to a boarding school, and each go their own way. The story is narrated by Jules, the youngest, who is about 10 at the time. He forms a close friendship with Alva, a girl in his class, and the book is mainly the story of their friendship. It's quite philosophical, but I found it to be quite moving and very well written. Don't read it if you want a nice, happy story, though! Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy.
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I would like to thank NetGalley, Hodder & Stoughton, Septre and Benedict Wells for the opportunity to read this novel in return for my honest review.

The story is about three siblings, Marty, Liz and Jules who lose their parents and have to attend a state boarding school. the characters are well developed and intriguing. They all face different challenges and their lives drift apart at times.

It is emotional and melancholy in parts although I do not consider it a sad novel. Enjoyed the different dimensions of family relationships.

Recommended.

A very readable and often sad book that takes the form of a memoir. I really liked the characters in this novel - they felt very real and flawed, and I really liked the banter between the three siblings.

An interesting tale with several twists and turns and a surprising finale. Well worth reading.

This book has moments where it is long winded however the story behind it all is a tale of heartbreak and love while showing the reality of life. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

A easy to read story about family, love and loss. When 3 siblings lose their parents in an accident their lives are changed forever. They grow up in a boarding school and try to help each other through life. A pleasurable read which tells of some of lifes lessons.

The End of Loneliness is the story of Jules, his brother Marty and sister Liz. The youngest of three, Jules seems to be hit the hardest when both their parents are killed in a car crash when Jules is just 7 years old.

The novel follows the story of Jules adolescence and adulthood in the aftermath of this tragedy. He undergoes the normal travails of growing up: unrequited love, loneliness and angst, but all under the shadow of his parents death and it's long reaching affects.

This is a well written story of one man's life, love, and strife to be happy. A little slow in places but very enjoyable.

The End of Loneliness is a melancholy yet hopeful novel about family, loss, and the way life turns out. Jules and his siblings Marty and Liz have their lives shattered by the unexpected death of their parents and suddenly find themselves at a state-run boarding school. Their lives diverge as they deal with the past in different ways. Meanwhile, Jules meets a girl in his class, Alva, who has a mystery surrounding her, but doesn’t quite realise how he feels about her until it is too late. As they all grow up, their ties are tested and they cannot always escape the spectre of loss and loneliness.

The novel, translated into English from German, is set across Germany, France, and Switzerland as the narrative jumps time to show the fragmented lives of Jules and his brother and sister. The stories Wells tells are simple and emotional, showing the relentless ups and downs of live whether they are large or small. Jules is a lost man who came from a promising, vivacious child, and as the narrator he keeps the melancholy tone running throughout. Hindsight is used quite sparingly and thus to good effect, used as a reminder of the ways the future affects the past and how it is remembered.

The End of Loneliness is an understated novel that feels almost like a film at times, caught in snapshots of life. It has a particular sadness about it, though it isn’t necessarily a sad book, and it depicts a complex sibling relationship that gives its main characters a chance to strengthen their bonds as well as drift apart. It is likely to be a hidden gem for readers looking for literary fiction with a heartfelt narrative.

Starting as a relatively straightforward account of a childhood informed by a traumatic event, this develops into a beautiful tale of memory, ageing, regret, art, unrequited love. But mostly it’s about loss and its impact, whether it be loss of family, friendship or capacity, and coming to terms with it.
Thoroughly recommended.