This is Where I Introduce You to Marieke Nijkamp!

You may or may not have heard of This is Where it Ends, a debut novel by Marieke Nijkamp about a school shooting spanning 54 minutes that made it to the New York Times Bestsellers list. If you have, great! If you haven't, even better, because I'll even give you a biography about the amazing author of the amazing book (that you need to read), Marieke Nijkamp.

Marieke grew up in the Netherlands, and she still lives there. She has degrees in Philosophy, History and Medieval Studies. From the FAQ page on her website, it says that she can speak a bazillion languages. Well, it's only Dutch, English, German, French, Latin, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Arabic and Hebrew, but hey, it's not like that seems like whole Eastern Hemisphere or anything.

That's pretty much the basics. I did quite a bit of research and found that Marieke did her research, too. I was interested in her writing process for this book (because it was such a great book), and I was surprised to find about how much research she had to do. Looking back on it now, of course it makes sense to do research for this type of book, one full of topics where it can get quite sticky. Reading about how much research she went through actually helped me better understand bits and pieces of the book. Of course, I'm not going to tell you what parts were clearer to me, because I think you should just go read the book.

Speaking of books, Marieke does have some things in store for excited readers. From the interview she did with School Library Journal, it seems like Marieke is going to be writing more stories with heart-pounding conflicts, including "friendship, grief, and never-ending nights" along with "war, family and the deepest betrayal." Color me intrigued! You'll definitely see me heading to my local Barnes and Noble when those hit the shelves!

Lastly, I want to point out that Marieke is a human just like you and me, even though she's an author and people like me want to raise all authors on a pedestal. Below are some quick facts about Marieke that remind people like me that she's just like us. Hope you liked this short biography of Marieke Nijkamp and inspired you to go to your local bookstore and read This is Where it Ends!

"coffee or chocolate: Coffee all the way. I can't eat chocolate!
pie or cake: Both?
cats or dogs: I am 100% a cat person.
summer or winter: Snow! Ice! Winter!"

*All the links lead to interviews about Marieke that I did prior to writing this post. Feel free to go to them and read them. They're all extremely interesting! I would also like to note that any mistakes in this text are all mine.