Sunny at the End of the World

By Steph Bowe

Reviewed by Mia Macrossan

Steph Bowe wrote three great YA novels Girl Saves Boy, 2010, All This Could End, longlisted for the 2014 Gold Inky Award, and Night Swimming, a Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Notable Book in 2018, and longlisted for a Sisters in Crime Davitt Award, before dying of a rare cancer at the age of 25. Her work is notable for delicious humour, piercing insight into teenage emotions and a generous humanity. Her mother and sister discovered this hilarious zombie story on her computer and it is now published for everyone to enjoy.

Sunny a teenager, is infected during the zombie apocalypse that has changed the world irrevocably. Unlike other zombies she is able to talk and has kept her sense of self, a keen mind, and above all a biting (ha ha) sense of humour. In this new reality there are underground facilities where uninfected people live and study. They go up above occasionally to clean up the Undead. It soon transpires that the Facility is not all it seems and has a hidden agenda. Sunny teams up with Vee, other assorted malcontents, cyborgs, ordinary and augmented people to buck the system in an attempt to create a new world. It’s all madness and mayhem spiced up with some delicious horror.

While all these shenanigans make for an engaging read serious themes of family, love, friendship and caring for our world underpin the story. The writing is deft and assured, always with an undercurrent of mordant humour. These teenagers leap off the page and take up space in your head they’re so real. The book is such a fun read but I felt sad when I finished it, realising that this is the last book written by Steph Bowe. She left us with four novels that so perfectly and engagingly capture adolescence, and Sunny at the End of the World, such a clever combination of funny and serious, is one of her best.

For Younger Readers,  LGBTQIA,  Australian, Kids & Teens Fiction.

Text Publishing 2025