I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid: Book Review

Rating: 2/5

Read: April 18th, 2017

“Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.” 

Wow, was this a strange book. I don’t even know where to start with this review, but I’ll do my best.

I hate writing negative reviews, but I say my own truth, I say what I think of the book, and I don’t lie. I’m in no way bashing the author, but these are just my feelings.

I guess I’ll start off by saying that I found the premise/plot of this book to be really great (especially once you know the ending), but it was hugely let down by the… uh, really bad execution of it by the author.

I found the writing to be so confusing, and just plain annoying at times, with the same internal dialogue being said over and over again, but in slightly different ways. Although I did decipher the ending after I’d finished reading it, it was still disconcerting that the author wrote it in such a way that made very little sense.

Ultimately, the idea was there, and it was a great idea, but it couldn’t be done in a way that gave it justice. 

“Both fictions and memories are recalled and retold. They’re both forms of stories. Stories are the way we learn. Stories are how we understand each other.” 

Anyway, onto the characters. Aka. people with absolutely no appeal and no substance.

I can’t say too much about the characters without spoiling the ending, so I’ll just say they were underdeveloped, and just plain boring at times.

If theres one thing I did kind-of like about this book, was the ending (even though it was badly written and terribly confusing), it honestly was so creepy that it actually had me turning lights on in my room :’) Okay, okay, it was late at night, give me a break… hahaha

“Just tell your story. Pretty much all memory is fiction and heavily edited. So just keep going.” 

All-in-all, it was a decent book, and I’d say the ending was almost worth it, if it wasn’t so badly executed, but I guess, read at your own discretion. 
You never know if you might really like it, and at least understand it a bit more than I did.