ALL THE WAYS THE WORLD CAN END is at times heart wrenching while at others hilarious. Lenny (short for Eleanor) feels like the world is about to end. Her best friend is graduating from high school a year early to move across the country. Her sister’s abandoned her for college and her mom’s too busy to answer her cell phone. Worst of all, Lenny’s dad is dying. Dad is the only one who has ever really known what to say when Lenny’s fears get the best of her. As he gets weaker, Lenny’s lists of apocalypse theories get longer; she fills her notebooks with blood-moon prophecies, designer pathogens, and alien invasions. She even builds an end-of-the-world bunker, though she’d never admit that to anybody.

Okay, maybe one person. His name is Dr. Ganesh, and he seems to be the only one who hasn’t given up hope on finding a cure for Lenny’s dad. Dr. Ganesh is so kind, so patient…so cute. So what that he’s almost twenty years older than her? In a time of complete uncertainty, one this is for sure: Lenny’s about to see how everything is ending and beginning. All at the same time.

 

Abby Sher is a writer and performer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times,Self, Jane, Elle, and Redbook. She is also the author of Breaking Free: True Stories of Girls Who Escaped Modern Slavery, Amen, Amen, Amen: Memoir of a Girl Who Couldn't Stop Praying, and Kissing Snowflakes. Abby has written and performed for the Second City in Chicago and the Upright Citizen's Brigade and Magnet Theater in New York. She lives in New Jersey with her family.