Sunny at the End of the World is the fourth novel by Melbourne author Steph Bowe, published posthumously by her family. It follows two timelines, one in 2018 when a mysterious disease outbreak is turning everyone in Australia into zombies, and one in 2034, where we meet the same characters who have survived – to varying degrees – the 16 years since the collapse of everything they knew.
In the past, two teenagers and a rescued baby are making a journey to reunite a family, witnessing the swift changes that their world has undergone as the disease spread. In 2034 – the present – people have been held in underground facilities, not knowing for sure how or why things happened the way they did. In 2034, our characters also go on a journey, this time to find what and who is still out there, and what happened to their world 16 years ago.
This book is an interesting time capsule, as it was written prior to the global COVID-19 pandemic in the tradition of YA end-of-world stories, which were a strong trend of the 2010s. Now, with the story published post-2020, many of the book’s themes and discussions about government conspiracies and bio-terrorism feel strange, as if the real world has come and gone through this story and it did not look at all like we thought it would.Â
However, the tables turn more than once in this story, and by the end it’s clear that this is not your usual teens-surviving-an-apocalypse tale. Bowe plays very cleverly with perspective, both from certain characters’ points of view and with the framing of it all, which will leave readers rethinking everything they thought they knew about this world.Â
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This is a clever and enjoyable story of teenagers living through a zombie apocalypse, coping with sarcasm, morbid humour and building strong relationships with each other. The themes are often heavy, but are well-handled, the characters easy to like and empathise with, and the unmistakably Australian flavour of it all is very endearing.
Recommended for lovers of YA, zombie stories and road trips with found family.
Sunny at the End of the World, Steph Bowe
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 9781922790767
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272pp
Release date: 4 March 2025
RRP: $22.99
