The Beginning of Everything

The Beginning of Everything is set in the 2000s in a suburban high school in California. The author highlights several destructive social issues that are prevalent in many American high schools. Underage drinking is at the forefront of the story. Ezra, the protagonist and narrator, details multiple parties where the students get “wasted” and the party entertainment revolves around drinking games, such as making a “beer funnel out of a foam pool noodle” (7). At the debate tournament, the “nerdy” students bring hard liquor and wine. The narration is not judgmental; it accurately depicts the prevalence and acceptance of this high school culture. Underage drinking is the root cause for the protagonist’s tragedy. Ezra catches his drunk girlfriend cheating on him at an alcohol-fueled party, storms out, and promptly gets into a car accident caused by a drunk driver that permanently disables him. Not wanting to be caught by the police for underage drinking, Ezra’s peers abandon him at the site of the crash.

In the novel, underage drinking leads to drunk driving and drunk teenage sex. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that a Youth Risk Behavior Survey in 2021 reported "[m]ore than 1 in 10 high school students reported riding in the past month with a driver who had been drinking alcohol" and "[a]bout 5% of high school students who had driven in the past month said they drove after drinking alcohol" ("