Author: Iain Reid
Title: I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Publisher: Text Publishing Company
Published: 2016
Pages: 208
Genre: Horror / Thriller
Jake and his girlfriend are on a drive to visit his parents at their remote farm. After dinner at the family home, things begin to get worryingly strange. And when he leaves her stranded in a snowstorm at an abandoned high school later that night, what follows is a chilling exploration of psychological frailty and the limitations of reality.
I was searching for the next thing to read having come off the back of a story that I greatly enjoyed. Which as I'm sure you will all know is a tricky thing to do. How do you pick the next story when you are still riding the high of something you have raved to everyone you know about. So whilst scrolling through many books I have saved to read and giving up, I took a look at the recommendations for you line. And once again not much was grabbing my attention, so when I saw the Netflix sticker I thought I would take a look. I tend to devour stuff on there but if possible I will always try reading the book first. so I had a quick look over the blurb and honestly, there was much to it. This piqued my interest as normally you get a massive run down. So here I wounded why it was so short. Also, the fact the book itself was only just over two hundred pages meant that if I was so keen on it I wasn't about to waste a whole lot of time.
In the beginning, I think there is something very relatable to Jake and his girlfriend. We have all for the most part either been that couple or had friends who were. when you've been together for a little while and are starting to get settled and the questions creep in. Are they the one, does this mean this is it now for the rest of our lives and am I ok with this. Reid plays this dynamic out with a strake reality on the long journey out to Jake's parent's farm. It can become a pressure cooker that takes even the smallest of cracks and rip them wide open. It also allows us as the readers to get to grips with just who these two are. But as we spend more time with them, you start to realize that maybe not everything is as it should be when your on your way to meet the parents. Nerves can only account for so much before you start to feel those cold fingers tickling the back of your neck. And no matter how many times you sawt at them they just won't go away.
It's kind of a weird thing to say for such a short book but this is a slow burner. Reid is amazing at gently turning the screw on not only the situation but also on us. You can sense something is not right but it's one of those situations where you can quite put a finger on what it is. And for me, it's part of what makes reading this book such a great experience. But it is also what makes writing a review for it a little on the tricky side. It's one of those books where you would not want to give away too much because it would take away so much of the experience that Reid has set out to give us. What I can say is that I was mightily impressed by what he has achieved here at I don't think I have really read something quite in its vein. So congratulations are owed to this author on giving me a narrative that took me by surprise and delighted me equally
I think that if you are into old-school horror this is definitely going to tick a few boxes for you. You are not going to get blood splatter and jump scares here but you might just be checking behind yourself when you go to bed when whilst you reading this. For me, I was genuinely impressed and will be checking out more of Reid's work in the future.
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