⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read Beginning of the End yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
🎧 Reviewed by LD | Rating: 3.6/5 | Steam: 🔥
The Opening
About an hour long and worth every minute of it — not because it reinvents anything, but because it fills in the gaps that End of Story left open. If you’ve finished book one and found yourself wanting more context on how Suzie and Aaron actually fell apart, this is exactly that.
The Full Story — Spoilers Included
The Beginning of the End
The novella opens on Suzie and Aaron on what was supposed to be a takeout night — their usual. Last minute, Aaron changed it to a restaurant. Suzie noticed. She thought maybe he was going to ask her to move in with him. She was wrong.
He tells her he’s moving to London for a year for a work promotion. She asks if he wants to try long distance. He says yes. She has an off feeling she can’t quite shake — something isn’t adding up — and when she voices it, he tells her she’s imagining things and that she’s always so emotional. Which is a crappy thing to say to someone who is reading the situation correctly.
Suzie has been feeling for a while that she isn’t a priority to him. The sex has dropped off. She’s been telling herself time apart might help him miss her. She is, at this point, doing a lot of emotional work to hold something together that Aaron is barely holding at all.
We also learn here how they met — her car wouldn’t start one night, Aaron was there, they flirted. Lars was also there, and he was the one who actually figured out it needed a new battery and called a service to come fix it immediately. Of course he was. Perhaps this is showing her and Lars should have ended up together right from the get go.
The Party
Suzie offers to throw Aaron a going away party. He agrees — but it has to be on Friday, at a restaurant, because he doesn’t get along with her roommate Cleo so it would be awkward at her home. His mom is doing something for him Saturday. Family only. Suzie is not invited.
Cleo, her best friend and roommate, is understandably outraged on her behalf.
The night of the party, Aaron is drunk within an hour and a half and has barely noticed Suzie exists. Lars is there with Jane — who, as we later learn in End of Story, is openly flirting with the wait staff and accepting phone numbers in front of him. When Aaron makes his speech, he announces he can’t wait to get to London and enjoy everything — with a wink that makes his meaning perfectly clear. He is planning to sleep around the entire time he’s there.
Suzie asks for clarification. He lies and says he still plans to do long distance. She calls him out — “stop being a hypocrite and answer the fucking question” — and he snaps. He tells her this is part of why he’s going. To get space from her. Then he ends it entirely, right there at his own going away party.
Aunt Suzanne
Suzie goes straight to Aunt Suzanne’s — the one place she feels completely at home, her favorite person and her safe place. She vents. Her aunt listens. They make plans for breakfast the next morning.
Suzie wakes up to a voicemail from Aaron offering her the chance to get back into his good graces — if she begs his forgiveness and agrees to an open relationship while he’s away. She simply ignores him.
She goes to her aunt’s for breakfast and finds that Aunt Suzanne passed away in her sleep overnight. After the worst breakup of her life, she loses the one person who made her feel safe. It’s a devastating one-two punch and the novella doesn’t shy away from that.
The Funeral
Suzie organizes the entire funeral and is a pallbearer. At the service, her brother approaches her about the inheritance. She tells him she already saw the lawyer. He asks why he wasn’t included — and she tells him Aunt Suzanne didn’t leave him anything, so it didn’t concern him. He wasn’t even mentioned in the will. He demands Suzie sell the house and give him half despite having had almost nothing to do with their aunt. This is something we see more of in the first book as well — a strong sense of entitlement. So she tells him to leave.
Aunt Suzanne’s best friend Ms. Lillian suggests they sage the place after that. Suzie suggests shots instead. Her friends share stories about Suzanne’s life over drinks, and as she’s leaving the bar, Lars calls her over to say hello.
And that’s where it ends — with Suzie moving into Aunt Suzanne’s house, and Lars already quietly orbiting her life before either of them knows what that’s going to mean.
Best Part of This Book
It fills in the gaps. The full story of the Aaron breakup, how Suzie and Lars were already connected before End of Story begins, why Aunt Suzanne’s house means so much to her — all of it lands with more weight once you have this context.
The Steam Rating Breakdown
🔥 — None. This is backstory and emotional groundwork, not romance.
The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?
Satisfied. It ends exactly where it should — right at the moment Suzie’s life in Wildwood is about to begin, and just before everything that happens in book one.
Would I Reread It?
No — but read it once before or after End of Story. It earns its place.
Who Is This For
Anyone who finished End of Story and wanted more context on how things got to where they were. It’s an hour. It’s worth it. Read it.
Where to Get This Book
📱 Ebook
Amazon Kindle .ca | Amazon Kindle .com
🎧 Audiobook
This novella is included at the end of the End of Story audiobook — not sold separately.
Audible Canada | Audible US | Libro.fm
🎁 New to Audible? Get 3 months free (US)
🎁 New to Libro.fm? Get 2 free audiobooks
📚 More from the End of Story Series
Book 1 — End of Story | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 4.6/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — Read the Review
Book 1.5 — Beginning of the End | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 3.6/5 | Steam: 🔥 — you are here
Ready for more from LD? Find them here
Plot Twisted. 🔥
🎧 | Series: End of Story Book 1.5 | Genre: Romance, Contemporary | Steam: 🔥 | Narrator: Andi Arndt