I mean, straight off the bat the title, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, stood out to me, so it’s no surprise that I got my hands on Iain Reid’s debut novel. Again, title alone told me that this was going to be a thriller, and it definitely was!
The book is told from the point of view of the girlfriend to Jake, as they are driving into the deep country to visit his parents for dinner. They’ve been dating for a few months, but on the drive up she considers to herself that she’ll probably be ending things with him very soon.
Throughout the book, it’s clear she really likes a lot of things about him, but for reasons that aren’t surely pinned down, she wants to end things with him. She reflects on how intelligent Jake is, and how even though he is usually socially awkward, she finds those traits about him attractive and endearing. As she’s reflecting on these moments in their relationship, he inevitably says something on the trip that has her circling back to the thought of ending things. It’s a revolving door.
Another strange facet of her life is that she’s been getting unsettling and cryptic messages left on her phone by her own number! While the messages are non-threatening, it is the same message every time, sometimes multiple times a day. Rather than say anything, she resolutely continues to ignore them. This also causes some awkward tension throughout the book.
Although nothing beats the strangeness of Jake’s childhood home. An almost abandoned looking farm, with some dead animals in the dead of winter is definitely enough to weird her out, but Jake is just so happy to be showing her around. Jake’s parents are equally as strange, and seem to maybe be hiding some problems. After exploring the house on her own, she’s glad that Jake wants to leave rather than stay the night.
A detour is made, to a large high school in the middle of nowhere on the way back, where the two are seemingly being followed throughout the halls. Interspersed in between the girlfriend’s story are conversations about a murder that seems to have happened at a high school. The ending culminates into a wonderful display of mental illness that has you questioning everything you’ve read up to that point.
While the book itself is incredibly eerie, when I found out that this is going to be a movie coming out sometime this year on Netflix, I literally squealed with joy! I just think that, if executed correctly, this story could be even creepier on screen. The fact that Jesse Plemons and Jessie Buckley are starring, respectively, gives me very high hopes for an edge-of-your-seat thriller! So in the meantime, if you’re looking for a quick read, I would very much recommend giving this a go.