How to Pack for the End of the World

The Breakfast Club meets We Are the Ants in this timely story for a generation of young activists.

If you knew the world was going to end tomorrow, what would you do?

This is the question that haunts Amina as she watches new and horrible stories of discord and crisis flash across the news every day.

But when she starts at prestigious Gardner Academy, Amina finds a group of like-minded peers to join forces with—fast friends who dedicate their year to learning survival skills from each other, before it’s too late.

Still, as their prepper knowledge multiplies, so do their regular high school problems, from relationship drama to family issues to friend blow-ups. Juggling the two parts of their lives forces Amina to ask another vital question: Is it worth living in the hypothetical future if it’s at the expense of your actual present?

• A Secret Prepper Club: In the basement of Gardner Academy, five students teach each other everything from finding north to what to do when the power grid fails.
• Unlikely Friends: A snarky activist, a charming Texan, a fashion influencer, a brilliant loner, and a homeschooled idealist. They have nothing in common except the certainty that the world is ending.
• Slow Burn Romance: Amina is navigating her first year, her first real friends, and the quiet boy who seems to understand her fears better than anyone.
• Climate and Political Anxiety: A powerful story that tackles the real-world fears of a generation head-on, asking what it means to find joy in the present when the future feels so uncertain.