I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

I thought I'd take a break from my usual romance line-up to read and review I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS by Iain Reid. The summary for this book sounded intriguing - love goes wrong is pretty much the total opposite of romance novel HEAs. I was hoping for a tale of obsession and murder. Instead, I got...

Something.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what I just read. The first portion of the book is this girl named Steph riding in a car with her boyfriend Jake through miles of farmland in what is probably the most boring car ride ever. The whole time they're having this awkward conversation & Steph keeps having flashbacks to their relationship, and this creepy man who stalks her called The Caller, and all the while wondering whether she should end things. I could relate. I was thinking about ending things, too. My reading of this book.

To be fair, though, the Caller aspect of this book is super creepy & well done, and I actually had to stop reading last night and switch over to K.J. Charles's new book instead, because I was getting Babadook vibes. Like, I could almost feel a shadowy presence in my room, and the suffocating weight you get when you're being watched. It was terrifying - but in a good way (once you wake up the next morning, that is). I love those vague, atmospheric-driven horror stories, where part of the horror comes from wondering whether what's happening is real or all in the characters' mind.

But that's not really what this book is about. I think if the author had played up The Caller angle, and the creepy deja-vu sensations the heroine experienced, this would have been a much better book. But as it stands, I'm actually really confused by what I read. The ending didn't make sense, and it felt abrupt - especially since the author spent so much time building up the car ride in that first part of the book. By the time I realized there were only 30 pages in the book, I found myself wondering how the author planned to end this, since still nothing had really happened. I have a theory of what was really going on, and if I'm right - nothing actually did. It feels like a cop-out. Kind of like a less successful version of what Andrew Kaufman did in his super creepy, super amazing book, TWISTED.

1.5 out of 5 stars.