Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

29 reviews

annoyedhumanoid's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

wow. okay, so, over two years ago, a friend recounted this book to me, including its ending. later i started to read it but never finished; today i read it start to finish. even knowing the ending it was still so unsettling and creepy, which is commendable because i don't see myself as easily scared by books. and even as a horror/thriller, it had substance to it and leaves me with much to think about. recommend, though it's best to go in knowing as little as possible.

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bookburdy's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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durrareadsstuff's review

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adventurous informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The way the book was a combination of spookiness and thought-provoking insights is really fresh (for me) and I quite liked it. I liked the deep conversations and the subtle eerieness that gradually builds.

‼️ POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD‼️

The ending was good and I definitely didn't see it coming, but it was honestly quite a shame. I appreciate the genius of it, the repetition and how the pronouns kept changing in the end—that was really good. I was just sort of disappointed? It's like all that earlier part was for nothing, you know? I think I'm just sick of reading horror books that keep turning out like this.

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chloevienna's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

really solid horror book - read it in a few hours. i’d seen the movie first, but definitely enjoyed the book more and felt it gave interesting insights. really spooky and oddly deep??

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kevin_brane's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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kstericker's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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lunar_lapis's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I was recommended and lent this book from my best friend. This took me just under 2 days to read. At first it was difficult for me to understand the characters and get engaged with the story. I kept daydreaming in and out of the story, yet I couldn't put the book down. It was a confusing story and I kept guessing and second-guessing how the story would end, and I'm very happy that my guesses were correct.

-Spoiler Territory-

The story starts with a couple, driving to the boyfriend's parents farm. Both characters seem very observant and intelligent, possibly with some form of autism or neurodivergency based on their behaviours. Along the chapters, there are various discussions involving their sex lives, driving lessons, and we are introduced to this "caller" character who has been calling the main character in the middle of the night and leaving voice messages, but the phone number is their own. If you've read Fight Club (Chuck Palahniuk) then maybe you caught onto that detail as I did, and I had an idea this could be a similar situation as the characters in Fight Club.

After reading a little more, I like how the main character witnesses things around them. I still don't know the main characters name or gender. Jake, the boyfriend, has a white film layer above his lip every morning, he eats cereal and reads any time he can. They arrive at Jake's family's farm. There are dead lambs, pigs with maggots eating them alive, and hens eating their own eggs. Are they neglecting the animals? There's a hole in the ground where the basement is, I first wondered will this turn out to be some sort of animal graveyard or torture area?
We meet jakes parents, they're both seemingly strange. They eat dinner and play an impersonation game where Jake mimics the main characters voice and sounds exactly like it. At this point I thought could Jake be the caller? he's good at mimicking voices. The main character looks around the house and sees photos which look just like her as a kid, even though Jake says it's him. They see jakes bedroom with lots of bookshelves and a worn out blue chair. In the basement there are shelves with papers, all drawings or sketches or paintings, and a painters easel in front of a furnace.

They start to drive home and it begins to snow heavily, turning into a storm. They stop at a DairyQueen and the girls behind the tills start laughing at the couple. (Perhaps because it was one man doing two voices talking to himself?) Then Jake stops by an old school. They start to make out and about to have sex in the car when Jake see's someone looking at them from the school building. He gets angry and storms inside to confront him. The main character follows him and the story changes to sort of a horror atmosphere with dark hallways and seemingly a predatory stalker and a missing boyfriend.

The story ends by revealing that Jake, the caller, and the main character are all the same person. Jakes parents died long ago, and Jake was a caretaker for the school building despite being incredibly smart, his social skills prevented him from working in a better job.
Throughout the story, the main character mentions "thinking of ending things", referring to ending their relationship with Jake despite being attracted to him. When I started this story I thought it meant ending their life. Which actually turned out to be correct as the main character(s) kill themselves in a closet at the school building.

The caller storyline gets concluded, revealing that one day Jake left his house and went to a pub. He met a girl and thought about giving her his phone number but couldn't manage it, and regretted it. He couldn't bare not knowing how things would have ended if he had given her his number. So from how I've understood it, Jake created a separate personality for this girl in his own being. He'd call his *own* number, thinking he was calling the girl from the bar. Then the 'girl' personality would look at the phone and be confused how her own phone number had called her in the middle of the night, and we go through this story through this girl personality's point of view.

It was a very confusing experience but I enjoyed it. The book recommends re-reading it from end to start, but I'm personally not going to. If you enjoyed Fight Club, you'd likely enjoy this book too.

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