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" ("About Underage Drinking." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). The CDC also reported that among other social issues, underage drinking can lead to "[s]exually transmitted infections (STIs), HIV, and unplanned pregnancy [as a] result from sex without protection" ("About Underage Drinking"). In addition, a study published in 2015 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine shows that excessive underage drinking “is responsible for more than 3,900 deaths and 225,000 years of potential life lost among people under age 21 each year.”

After the car crash in which both drivers had been drinking, Ezra ends up disabled and the other driver, Owen, ends up dead. Later in the book, the entire football team drives to vandalize a playground: “Connor was plastered, the stench of liquor radiating off him in waves” (208). Ezra makes the casual comment that “I hoped someone else was the designated driver” but doesn’t check or act on his suspicion, highlighting the accepted drinking culture (208). Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration states that “in 2016, 10,497 people died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for 28% of all traffic-related deaths in the United States.” The tragedies that befall Ezra, Owen, Cassidy, and their families would never have happened without drunk driving.