Why we’re excited
Morgan and Theo meet at a Manhattan party, fall for each other and break up. Then a virus turns the sick into biters and the city is sealed off. Morgan, trapped downtown, livestreams her trek north with her mother towards the barrier where Theo waits, and every block reminds her of their relationship.
Chloe Gong is best known for These Violent Delights, her Romeo and Juliet retelling set in 1920s Shanghai. This is an adult stand-alone told across two timelines. Readers who want an apocalypse story that is really a breakup story, with New York geography doing much of the work, should watch for it.
On our most-anticipated list since 21 October 2026. See all the most anticipated books →
What to know about How Does It End?
Chloe Gong is a familiar name here: 2 of Chloe Gong’s books have full reviews, averaging 3.8 out of 5. The one we rated highest is Vilest Things (4★).
Readers have saved it often enough to put it at No. 22 on our list of July 2027’s most-anticipated releases.
From the publisher
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights comes a dazzling dual-timeline novel of outbreak and heartbreak, about two lonely people finding their way back to one another during a deadly apocalypse.
This is the beginning of a love story. In the heart of Manhattan, amid bustling streets and towering skyscrapers, two lives intersect at a party. Morgan is a once-popular influencer, now in the grind of corporate work. Theo is a screenwriter, searching for inspiration anywhere he can find it. They fall in love.
This is the end of the world. When they break up, Morgan almost feels too sorry for herself to notice a virus spreading like wildfire—until the sick start biting, and the city is barricaded to contain the spread.
Stuck at the bottom of Manhattan, she must find her mother and journey more than a hundred blocks to the barrier, where Theo's desperately trying to keep the passageway open for them. In the chaos, she begins to livestream her quest for survival, becoming humanity’s sole glimpse into its own unraveling. It isn't easy when each neighborhood, each landmark, each piece of the city is an echo of her relationship with Theo . . . before she tore it all apart.
As Morgan’s forced to confront her deepest wounds, she must set herself free from the cycles she's doomed to repeat—and what better place to start than at the end?
Description supplied by the publisher.
We haven’t read How Does It End? yet. When our review goes up, it will replace this page.