This Has No Ending: An Illustrated Novel

Matilda Thistle never thought she'd make it past eighteen.After growing up a girl quiet, observant, and dog-tired of being shaped by the expectations of others, a twenty-two-year-old Matilda flees her childhood bedroom on a random July night. She knows there are only two outcomes at the end of this life: stay and rot, or disappear without a word.She chooses the latter.Matilda runs to Wynn Row, the Southern Ontario town from her childhood that is steeped in nostalgia and farmland mediocrity. There, she meets a man named Gene. Someone a little older, and thoroughly certain of himself. With that wisdom, he is insistent she has barely begun to live, and for the first time, Matilda feels seen. Though a reunion with her childhood best friend, Veruca, plants a corrupting unease Matilda tries to dismiss about this town and the people in it.Told through an intensely interior, lyrical voice, this has no ending is a raw, "belated coming-of-age" novel relayed through a dreamlike stream-of-consciousness about the lasting impressions of trauma, the search for identity, femininity, and independently grappling with the transition from girlhood to womanhood.This is a story for the girls who still feel like a teen in their twenties; for the girls who feel behind, who didn't grow up on time. This is a story about learning, at last, how to live inside one’s own body.** this has no ending contains subject matter referencing mental illness (disordered eating, depression, addiction), abuse (neglect, coercion), and other difficult themes that some viewers may find distressing. This story is intended to be read with care; please prioritize your well-being, and take care of yourself. **