Special Feature: The Horror Hoser Reviews “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”
The Horror Hoser Reviews: I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Iain Reid
I’m Thinking of Ending Things, by Kingston, Ontario writer Iain Reid, is a psychological horror about a couple going to visit potential in-laws. The narrator, for most of the book, is thinking of ending things with her month-long boyfriend, Jake. She thinks she’s just along for a quaint country road trip, but Jake’s past and secrets have other plans.
This soon-to-be-Netflix-adaptation is a slow-burn horror story. Honestly, I was doubting this book could even be classified under Horror up until the very end. But Reid’s ability to conjure suffocating dread and captivating drama keeps you reading, and when the Horror hits, boy does it hit!
When we are in the head of the main narrator, there is just this sense that things are wrong and that we know something bad is going to happen. She’s ready to end the relationship, as soon as the trip is over, and we as horror fans know that she probably won’t get the chance. Once they get to Jake’s parents’ house the creep factor increases.
One of the last things the narrator tells us before the POV switch at the end of the novel is, “I wish this were more supernatural. A ghost story…would be much less terrifying.” (Ch. 21) The horror in ITOET is impermanence of relationships: relationships with others and with yourself. And the very M. Night Shyamalan twist at the end really solidifies the creep factor as we follow the couple through Jake’s old High School in the middle of the night, where they believe the night janitor is stalking them.
If a less talented writer created this story, wading through 90% of the book to finally get to the creepy shit would feel like a total slog. But Reid’s prose is interesting and well-written. The landscape is vivid and accurate, and I’ll never be able to drive through pastoral Ontario again without being reminded of I’m Thinking of Ending Things. The very human stories suck you in and stop your brain from going, “But where’s the horror?!”
I give I’m Thinking of Ending Things 4 Straightened Coat Hangers out of 5.
For fans of: The Auctioneer, Shirley Jackson
Review by Ian A. Bain
Twitter: @bainwrites
Blog: ianabain.wordpress.com
I purchased this book for review consideration.
