Review by New York Times Review
ALMOST IMMEDIATELY I found myself wanting to associate Iain Reid's suspenseful debut novel, "I'm Thinking of Ending Things," with Russell H. Greenan's hypnotic cult-classic thriller "It Happened in Boston?" (1968). Both present unnamed, unreliable narrators on the brink of dangerous personal decisions, and both narrators are disarmingly matter-of-fact. "I'm thinking of ending things," Reid's heroine announces in her opening lines. "Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It dominates. There's not much I can do about it. Trust me. It doesn't go away. It's there whether I like it or not. It's there when I eat. When I go to bed. It's there when I sleep. It's there when I wake up. It's always there. Always. ... When did it start? What if this thought wasn't conceived by me?" And here is how we meet Greenan's brilliant but mad artist: "Lately I have come to feel that the pigeons are spying on me. What other explanation can there be? ... Yesterday, as I sat in the Garden, I examined this apartment house. There are 46 windows facing Beacon Street but only one - mine - was graced with those evil-looking birds.... What draws them there? Why my window?" Yet while both narrators have a penchant for questions that a different storyteller might incorporate as exposition, and though both books evoke elusively eerie moods, the comparisons come to an abrupt halt fairly early. This is because Greenan never abandons his deranged artist's descent into homicidal madness, which forces the reader into an intense and dizzying commiseration with a lunatic. Reid, on the other hand, supplements his first-person road-trip narrative with short, italicized, unattributed bits of dialogue in which a mysterious crime is being discussed: - We're all in shock. - Nothing so horrible has ever happened around here. - No, not like this. - In all the years I've worked here. - I would think not. - I didn't sleep last night. Not a wink. - Me neither. Couldn't get comfortable. I can barely eat. You should have seen my wife when I told her. I thought she was going to be sick. The suspense of Reid's novel depends heavily on this interspersed dialogue: Who are these people? we wonder. When did this unspecified but promisingly horrific event occur? What does it have to do with the boyfriend and girlfriend driving along these icy back roads on the way to an isolated family farm? To get to the answers, one must keep reading. While this bait-and-switch tactic is by no means a flaw - the early instances are especially effective in encouraging the reader to continue - by the novel's end they come to feel more gimmicky than earned. "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" relies on a surprise finish that's crucial to any evaluation of the story. Without giving anything away, then, I'd like to talk about my disappointment in the "big reveal." In class, I sometimes talk about non-diegetic mysteries versus diegetic ones. It's an imperfect use of the term, but it suits my purposes. The distinction, basically, is this: Diegetic mysteries exist for both the reader and the characters. (When Gregor Samsa finds himself "transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect," he's as confused as we are.) Non-diegetic mysteries, I propose, are those in which the reader knows less than the text, in which we are at the mercy of a less-than-forthcoming narrator or author. In its cheapest form, think "I see dead people"; at its best, consider the narrator of Tim O'Brien's "In the Lake of the Woods," who intentionally - and to devastating effect - withholds information to win us over in the face of impossible crimes against humanity. REID'S MYSTERY FEELS more non-diegetic than it needs to be. Midway through the novel, causality seems to fall away entirely, as the characters - both the principal players and the bit ones - begin making head-scratching decisions: deciding to tour the farm before dinner though it's arguably too cold for comfort and too dark to see anything; deciding to explore the basement alone though there are scratches on a trap door that look "frantic"; deciding to stop for "something sweet" on the drive home after dinner though there's now a full-on snowstorm and nobody is remotely hungry; deciding to drive down a remote, unplowed road in order to throw away the sweating cups of icy lemonade because they might melt and turn the cup holders sticky. In almost every instance, the decisions being made in the novel's homestretch feel applied rather than organic, and this reader at any rate found herself longing for reason and connection. Does the ending provide a solution for these brow-furrowing choices? Yes, it does. But to my mind it is not a convincing one, neither does it live up to the novel's stunning and startling opening. As in "The Sixth Sense," there are clues here to be found. The ending doesn't come out of thin air. But even after finding and identifying these truffles, most readers will be disappointed. The ending hastily disposes of unexplained and unnecessary red herrings, and the revelation is at once too tidy and too convenient to be satisfying. Hints of a crime as a couple drive along icy back roads to an isolated family farm. HANNAH PITTARD is the author, most recently, of the novel "Listen to Me."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 11, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The narrator of the story is a nameless young woman who is in a newish relationship with Jake, but she has some doubts about where it's going and is thinking about ending things. Their relationship is based on a shared communication style, which moves to the physical, but it is their philosophical conversations that truly move the relationship along. Jake invites the narrator to go home to meet his parents and see the farm where he grew up in a remote village. The family dinner is odd, but the ride back home even more so, with detours to a Dairy Queen staffed by giggling girls and to a dark, deserted high school. This is a powerfully atmospheric book, and the cold, snowy night really ups the creepy factor, as the story grows more diabolical and dangerous with each turn of the page. The narrative is written in the first person, though it's interspersed with an occasional page from a parallel story from a different point of view, and eventually it appears that the two stories will converge. These characters are carefully developed and the plot takes some frightening turns, leading to a shocking ending. The construct of this book is brilliant and unusual and should appeal to fans of psychological thrillers, as well as to some horror fans. A dark and compelling debut novel, it is a most uncomfortable read but utterly unputdownable.--Alesi, Stacy Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Nonfiction author Reid (The Truth About Luck) fuses suspense with philosophy, psychology, and horror in his unsettling first novel set in an unspecified locale. When Jake takes his unnamed new girlfriend to meet his parents, he doesn't realize she's thinking of "ending things" (just what she might end is at first unclear). Dinner at the family farm proves awkward, reinforcing her doubts about their relationship. On their way home, the weather turns nasty and Jake pulls off the road at a darkened high school. He takes the keys and exits the car, but never returns, leaving his girlfriend little choice but to strike out after him. While the events preceding the couple's separation have the air of a disquieting dream, those that follow are the stuff of nightmares. Stream-of-consciousness narration by Jake's girlfriend adds to the story's surreal quality, and occasional blocks of unattributed dialogue about an unspecified tragedy impart dread. Capped with an ending that will shock and chill, this twisty tale invites multiple readings. Agent: Samantha Haywood, Transatlantic. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
It's snowing, and the unnamed narrator is traveling with her new boyfriend Jake to visit his parents at the family farm. The novel's vague title seems to become clearer as the narrator repeatedly ponders calling off their relationship. While this revelation may not have arrived at the best of times, it's quickly apparent that a failed relationship is the least of her problems. When the couple arrives at their destination, Jake's parents are awkward, and the evening goes from strange to unsettling as the narrator explores the setting of Jake's childhood. When the pair drive home, the weather takes a turn for the worse. Jake turns off the highway and parks by an empty high school. He goes inside, leaving the narrator alone and frightened. When she enters the building, her vague sense of foreboding turns into outright terror. Interspersed throughout are snatches of conversation about some unknown act of violence that only heightens the feeling of unease. VERDICT This slim first novel packs a big psychological punch with a twisty story line and an ending that will leave readers breathless. [See Prepub Alert, 11/30/15; previewed in Erica Neubauer's 2016 Mystery Preview "Edge-of-Your-Seat Thrills," LJ 4/15/16.]-Portia Kapraun, Delphi P.L., IN © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A road trip in a snowstorm takes a sinister turn for a man and his girlfriend, the novel's unnamed narrator. Reid's preternaturally creepy debut unfolds like a bad dream, the kind from which you desperately want to wake up yet also want to keep dreaming so you can see how everything fits togetheror, rather, falls apart. The narrator, known only as the girlfriend, is driving with her beau, Jake, a scientist, to meet his parents at the family farm. The relationship is new, but, as the title implies, she's already thinking of calling it quits. Jake is somewhat strange and fond of philosophizing, though the tendency to speak in the abstract is something that unites the pair. The weather outside turns nastier, and Reid intercuts the couple's increasingly tense journey with short interstitial chapters that imply a crime has been committed, though the details are vague. Matters don't improve when Jake and the narrator arrive at the farm, a hulking collection of buildings in the middle of nowhere. The meeting with her potential in-laws is as awkward as it is frightening, with Reid expertly needling the readerand the narratorinto a state of near-blind panic with every footfall on a basement step. On the drive back, Jake makes a detour to an empty high school, which will take the couple to new heights of the terrifying and the bizarre. Reid's tightly crafted tale toys with the nature of identity and comes by its terror honestly, building a wall of intricately layered psychological torment so impenetrable it's impossible to escape. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
