The End of FUN

by Sean McGinty

Everyday reality is a drag™.

FUN®—the latest in augmented reality—is fun (yay!) but it’s also frustrating, glitchy and dangerously addictive (boo!). Just when everyone else is getting on, seventeen-year-old Aaron O’Faolain wants off.

But first, he has to complete his Application for Termination, and in order to do that he has to deal with his History—not to mention the present, including his grandfather’s suicide and a series of clues that may (or may not) lead to buried treasure. As he attempts to unravel the mystery, Aaron is sidetracked again…and again. Shadowed by his virtual “best friend” Homie, Aaron struggles with love, loss, dog bites, werewolf pills, community theater, wild horses, wildfires and the fact (deep breath) that actual reality can sometimes surprise you.

Sean McGinty’s strikingly profound and laugh-out-loud funny debut unearths a world that is eerily familiar, yet utterly original. Discover what it means to come to the end of fun.

Genres: Young Adult, Mystery, Science Fiction, Humor, Fiction, Teen, Fantasy

416 pages, Hardcover

First published April 5, 2016

Reviews

[Eli · Rating 2 out of 5]

I confess myself...disappointed. I was so hopeful going into this book. I liked the idea of a virtual reality that is taking over the world, and some adventuring by our intrepid MC Aaron. However, this book was nothing like I expected. The world in which Aaron lived wasn't explained very well. The reader is simply thrown into this world with no warning or a "please fasten your seat belts" message. You just go. I was very confused by the premise of FUN. I was never quite sure what exactly it was, and why people loved it so much. For a book that promised virtual reality that everyone was dying to get on, there was a lack of virtual reality. Most of the book was Aaron having girl problems, and wandering around his grandfather's house. I didn't get the sense of everyone dying to have FUN. The message of "the real world is so much better than the virtual one" was a bit forced. Aaron never had any real relationships with anyone. He seemed to have only one friend who showed up just in time to be a convenient drug dealer/plot device. His romantic interests came out of left field, and made no sense. For someone who wants to be in the real world, Aaron didn't spend a whole lot of time with real people. The arc was acquired at ALA Midwinter.

[E. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine if Ready Player One and Catcher in the Rye had a baby book, and that baby book had more sex and drugs than either but also had less of a whiny protagonist and was less enamored of its virtual world than either of its parent books.

It's pretty fab.

[Jory · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was so bummed out by this book. I read the first 100 pages faithfully and kept waiting to get pulled in and get past the cliched use of language/writing, but I never actually understood FUN, or the YAY! he uses -- in general, the technology in his world didn't quite connect for me. In the first few pages I was setting myself up for a Ready Player One world, but this certainly wasn't my experience with this book. It was jumpy, and felt like important events were handled with a casualness that made me uncomfortable. Had to skim through to the end because I couldn't finish it otherwise. :(

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be honest, this book kind of wore me out. I'm not sure if it was just the challenge of dealing with a narrator who had the judgement of a three year old or if it was the format, which required a lot of product placement. Both of those elements are essential to the humor and the strong narrative voice in the story, though, and are actually what I think many YA readers will find appealing. Aaron is an impulsive idiot, but he is trying to move in the right direction, and his attempts at taking charge of his own fate are often disastrous and hilarious. I liked him, but I felt like he needed a babysitter. As far as the cast of supporting characters went, they were just as likeable, if often as misguided as Aaron. If you are looking for a book to make you laugh, this is probably a good choice. But I, of course, want something more than just laughs, so I was disappointed that the satire of the story was so subtle. My initial impression was that this book was going to push at issues of technology and the environment, but, by the end, I was confused about what the message really was. Okay, I'm pretty sure the message was that humans suck and only really care about their own happiness and entertainment, even when they know it comes at a great cost. That might be more disturbing than the thought that the author just lost the thread. Either way, I wasn't quite satisfied that Aaron didn't take some action, and I'm not talking about some huge action, which would have been out of character. A verbal warning about the apparent negatives of Fun! to his nearest and dearest would have satisfied me. While I'm not sure my high school students will be able to articulate the issue, I do think the book will provoke some discussion, and that is always a good thing. Overall, this wasn't my cup of tea but I can see many of my readers, guys especially, enjoying it. Language and situations are most appropriate for grades 9+. I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Lucie]

I made it about 45% of the way through and I realized the last 15-20% was a struggle so I've decided to DNF.
I was mostly just bored. I found the main character uninteresting and his attitude annoying. He acted as if the world owed him and he could do no wrong even though the whole premise of this book is that he messed up and he has to fix it. I expected this book to be a fun adventure, but nothing was really happening for me and I was getting bored waiting for something exciting to happen. I also found the "world-building" confusing and lacking. I had a hard time being able to tell what the setting of this was. At first I thought it was some type of post-apocalyptic setting because there was mention of many people dying, but it was never mentioned again and originally mentioned so casually that I wasn't sure if I imagined it? Otherwise it seemed like a normal contemporary setting. Unfortunately, overall I was bored and annoyed with this book. I think someone with more patience than me would enjoy this book because I think it was about to get interesting where I left off but I just didn't feel like reading anymore.

[Yamurai Govere · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty okay book. Interesting premise, but i don't think the concept of FUN was explained well enough for me to visualise what exactly the world was like; i was a bit confused sometimes. I also kinda feel like the idea that reality is actually better than virtual reality came out of nowhere, because I saw little evidence of this, and maybe it is just me, but I still don't get why he wanted to stop having FUN

[Leann Lombardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

i enjoyed this book a lot.

[Tonstant Weader · Rating 4 out of 5]

When The End of FUN begins, Aaron O’Faolin is applying to terminate his contract. It is not an easy process and to do so, he has to provide his user history. That history, to our delight, is this book, the first from Sean McGinty, the first of what I hope will be a long bibliography full of more satiric novels that anticipate our near future with scarily reasonable and likely scenarios.

Aaron just wanted to have FUN®. That’s Fully Ubiquitous Neuralnet to be precise. He was in a bad place, recently expelled from school and sent to attend YouThrive® Academy while living with his mother who, it turns out, refused to let him stay with her. He settled into a HumanHive® sub-SRO in San Francisco and tried his luck at pan-handling, but with all digital amores replacing paper dollars, pan-handling was a bygone occupation. Instead, he signed up as a beta user of FUN, and soon was making a “living” with his frequent YAY!s for this, that, and the other registered brand name.

He goes to Parties™ to meet with other users and add to his YAY!s because he fell behind, playing too many games, neglecting his YAY!s and generally ringing up a big debt to FUN. And then he is called home to bury his grandfather. He’s worried that his dad and his sister Evelyn will discover that he was not in school, has been living off his tuition money, and generally not moving on with his life.

He goes home, discovers his granddad left him his house, his land, and everything on it, including a treasure and a lot of clues for him to unravel in order to find it. Along the way, he reconnects with old friends, meets new ones, falls in love, and has a lot of adventures. All the time he is living life, he is still having FUN, but sometimes the FUN interferes.

I love The End of FUN. It is in a near future so easily traceable to the trends that are driving our present, our ever-increasing connectedness, the commodification of our time and attention. There are shifts in the world, too, the digitized economy, and even the Avis Mortem. After all, we are witnessing the honeybee collapse and shrugging. It’s likely in the future that mass extinction of the birds will be glossed over and accepted as the cost of doing business, as we have for the bees.

Sean McGinty is a naturalistic writer. This first person narrative feels completely authentic in it’s 17 year old voice. This is a Young Adult novel and I am no longer a young adult, but no matter, young adult novels are where some of the most interesting experimentation is happening. Each chapter asks you to BOO! or YAY! at the end. I am sure most of you will YAY!


★★★★
http://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpres...

[Katy Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good attempt to hold a mirror up to our technology-filled lives and mock the world (real or otherwise) we are living in today.

I was impressed by the simple observation of FUN®—the latest in augmented reality—a fun yet frustrating, totally time-consuming and all-encompassing social networking world that you have to be operated on to become a part of. It features throughout the story, butting in to speak to the protagonist and remind him of how he's a 'loser' and failing to earn enough points to access the 'fun' parts of the system.

Aaron is 17 and starting to become disillusioned, seeing past the blue pill and waking up to smell the coffee of the real world. If he wants out though, he has to apply to have himself removed (filling in an Application for Termination!) and by talking about himself... in the book we are reading.

The story veers off on tangents, and I found that by only reading small chunks at a time, I forgot who characters were quite easily, though the story is meant to feel fragmented, just as reality for Aaron can be when he's half aware of it and half plugged into FUN.

It's a story involving buried treasure, girls, fire and the voice connecting Aaron to FUN reminding him regularly to take part in surveys, review products, complete tasks - to earn points and connectivity.

I didn't think it was as subtle as it might have been, and there were whole sections where FUN disappeared and you forgot the world Aaron is living in. I felt it needed to be more omnipresent and constant.

Aaron himself, I took to more towards the end, I wasn't sure I liked him at the start, but his story did help me empathise a little more with his situation. I wanted more of his world though, it was of course quite insular but I wanted to know more about what technology had done to the world around him.

Has something to say about where we are and where we are heading, and does it with humour.

Review of a Netgalley advance copy.

[Lisa Brennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rebooted for Generation Z, The End of Fun is a classic coming-of-age story deftly pixelated with a hilarious first-person narrative. Aaron is seventeen and navigating a rocky road to adulthood. Eternal optimism propels his journey, and a close-knit cast of quirky characters serves as his compass. He may stray off course at times, but that just fuels the zaniness of his quests: get the girl, level up in the game, pay his debts, and get his GED.

What’s obstructing his path? Mental health medication (and its discontinuation), lies, school expulsion, lies, tech-glitches, embezzling tuition money, the girl, the other girl, drugs and a broken shovel. The implant of a virtual-reality game/internet feed offers escape but simultaneously embeds extraneous challenges.

Thinking this is a perfect match for YA gamers? Not really. Recommend it to teens who are serial TV sit-com fans. Sure, this book addresses dark themes explored in Feed (M.T. Anderson) and Erebos (Ursula Poznanski); but teens seeking a literal thrill ride will revel in the authenticity and amusement delivered by McGinty’s unparalleled voice. Recommend The End of Fun to fans of John Green, David Lubar, Simon Rich, Carl Hiaasen and Jeff Strand’s YA novels. Ages 14 and up.

[TheSaint · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't quite put my finger on what I liked about this one, except maybe that it was so obviously written from a masculine perspective.
Sure, it had some interesting near future elements -- The augmented reality, of course, plus the avian die-off. But the author just expected the reader to take the ride; there wasn't a lot of world-building, nor was there really a need.
No need, because this was really a coming of agey love story. A love story with a lot more interesting plot elements than the "romance."

[Bethany · Rating 1 out of 5]

wtf was this

[Nick]

The End of Fun is a fiction book that is centered around the idea of the world coming to a time when people were more centered around virtual reality rather than human interaction. This book centers around our world being distracted to what's actually going on around us in the real world instead we’re focusing on the virtual one. In the book The End of Fun you’ll find Sean McGinty’s view to what our society is coming to is full of distractions, but if we look past our distractions we’ll find something even more meaningful.

The End of Fun takes part in a futuristic society that has almost been entirely engulfed in the world of virtually reality. The story centers around a 17 year old boy named Aaron O’ Faolain. When everyone is starting to use the new augmented reality platform “FUN” Aaron wants no part of it. But before he leave “FUN” he must complete a Application for Termination in which he has to explain his entire history so he can get to his reason including his grandfather’s suicide. As the story continues Aaron must unravel the mystery of his grandfathers death through the few clues he left behind. Through the entirety of the book Aaron will go through love, losses, dog-bites, wildfires, wild horses and even a Mcdonalds hive house.

The most interesting character throughout the book is Aaron O’ Faolain. Aaron is different from almost everyone in his society. When everyone is jumping on the new augmented reality program Aaron wants off. In this society there is an avian flu which is killing all the birds but most people don’t notice because “FUN” has the program “Birdsong” installed so everything seems normal to society but not Aaron. In the beginning of this story Aaron might seem like a immature teenager who leaves his home to go play video games instead of going to school. But as you read on you’ll find out that their is more to Aaron that may appear.

But sadly overall the book seems to be very disorganized and has many parts that seem unnecessary. You’re first drawn in by the concept of virtual reality and how many adventures could happen with this unique idea. But as you read Aaron starts to drift away from his Termination and starts to seek girls that from the readers view are unattainable and time-wasting.

If you read this book, you need to be ready for a complex augmented reality and a stop and go sort of plot. If you are looking for a book like Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One don’t expect it to be another take on the concept of augmented reality. But if you like books in about where our society is heading towards with some comedy then this book is for you.

[Henry Davenport · Rating 2 out of 5]

So I just finished “The End of Fun” and it was mediocre. The best thing I could compare it to is Ready Player One but with worse characters. In the beginning I thought I was going to completely hate this book, as the main character Aaron was the cookie-cutter sarcastic teenage boy that we see often way too much in modern youth books. But as his character progresses throughout the story he becomes ever so slightly more likable, and the supporting cast was okay no one in the story stays too long except for homie his assistant. Now the story, it’s meh. Fun! Is an online game or drug it’s debatble what exactly it is but you can play games and meet people while on it and everyone does it. The author does a lot with exploring this concept, as showing what your average person is doing on it and it’s effect on the lives of those around them. It’s actually an amazing allegory for drug addiction. As you see how Aaron being addicted to Fun! affects his family and it really is quite amazing and not something you would expect from a story that presents itself this way. But the end isn’t necessarily satisfying to say the least. Overall it was okay but the potential there was with these characters and plot, was mostly exasperated, but this story was doomed from the beginning. Do I recommend it? No, but I wouldn’t completely avoid it either.

[Bradley Zouck · Rating 4 out of 5]

The End of Fun by Sean McGinty is about a 17 year old boy, Aaron O’ Faolain and how he gets himself into trouble. First he gets suspended at school and has to move in with his mom to go to a new one. He ends up living on his own and gets into more trouble. While on his own, he starts to have F.U.N. . F.U.N. is an augmented reality chip that is inserted in his head. But F.U.N. gets in Aarons way and he regrets ever starting it. His father later calls him and tells him about his grandfather's recent death and how he left everything to Aaron. In his grandfather’s will it says that there is burried treasure somewhere on the property and Aaron has to solve clues on how and where to find it. Later in the book he has problems with his good friend Oso and his new crush Katie.

This book was filled with a lot of mystery and action. A mysterious moment in this book was when Aaron was trying to figure out the clues in his grandpa's will and trying to find out what they meant. I really enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to anyone.

[bella (alexander's version) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read 2 September 2025 - This was. Uhm. Something.

Not very good.

First of all, it was CONFUSING. The author didn't really explain the concept of the book, and I didn't understand until about halfway through. For those going into it: basically, FUN is almost like a drug. It is a chip that gets inserted into your mind. You have to YAY! stuff..? Honestly, I still don't understand. Just prepare yourself if you're reading this.

But, I didn't hate it. I liked the short chapters. And some parts were interesting and fun to read. Only some though.

So. I wouldn't recommend this to someone. And I won't be rereading it. The first read was hard enough, it took me more than a week to finish it, but I pushed through because I spent so much time on it and I NEED to get my goal up (I'm so behind).

[Brady Wynia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book was alright but not the best. It had some parts that were hard to follow because it kept jumping back and forth between scenes. However it was a good book with many problems and solutions. This book offered some challenging parts to follow but in the long run it was a good book. It often times jumped from one of the main characters problems to the next without smooth transitions. The book offered many sections that allowed for variety in the story. Without these the story would be boring. The beginning of the book could've been better. It jumped right into the "FUN" without really any introduction. When you get further through the book the main character uses FUN but this is what causes him the biggest issues.

[Teri · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really didn’t want to finish the book but did as the book was included on my Grandson’s school reading list and he read the book. I didn’t enjoy the weird new reality and found the story line inappropriate for a 12 year old. The beginning was boring and all the wrong decisions made by Aaron just kept mounting. I get the fact that his early life was traumatic and he was trying to understand his circumstances and move to a better place, but some of the experiences were just out there. And some compounded when he chose to accept drugs from his friend Oso. I also had a difficult time with a 17 year old falling for a student teacher, why promote this behavior? Bottom line I wouldn’t recommend the book, there are a few redeeming thoughts as Aaron matures via real life experiences.

[Lisa Nocita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me. The writing style is too stream of consciousness and there was too much I couldn't understand and, honestly, didn't care if I did. The world building is minimal and the lack of explanations were frustrating. The currency has changed, maybe the government, and all the birds are dying or dead. But that doesn't seem to serve a tangible purpose. Plus FUN is never really explained although you get the gist. Not fun for me. Boo.

[becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

It had an interesting concept, but I felt the story kind of fell flat for me. I feel like the idea of FUN could have been dived into more. Honestly, it wasn't bad, just wasn't a story that made me want to recommend to anyone.

[Lily Haynes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lottt of unnecessary details in this book, and it dragged on foreverrr, i just never could get into it until like the last 15 chapters maybe. It’s an ok book but not one that had me not wanting to put it down, or excited to pick it up.

[grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

> YAY! for The End of FUN® by Sean McGinty published by Hyperion Books.

[Flossmoor Public Library (IL) · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars

- Miss Anna

[Tristan Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad that the book wasn't just about fun, but rather the life of somebody who just happened to be having fun. It wasn't the main focus of the book.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

The End of Fun© is a very a FUN™ read.

[Sandi Hartka Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow,this book was so much fun from start to finish!! Great story telling by Sean McGinty, I hope he writes another book!

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

it's ok

[Kaitlyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually really enjoyed this book. It was very weird, but enjoyable and interesting. A good YA palette cleanser if you want something dystopian and absurd or just simply don’t know what to read.

[Megan Thoma]

When I made my list of books I've read this year, I totally forgot about this one. And I read it last month. It's a totally fine book--I just wasn't connecting with the main character.

[Nishana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and different