What I’m Reading: I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

Synopsis: “I’m thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It’s always there. Always. Jake once said, “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.” And here’s what I’m thinking: I don’t want to be here.”

My take: An unreliable narrator who remains unnamed, a background chorus discussing a crime, and the conversations between Jake and his girlfriend work together to create a thrilling, smart novel, which ponders, among other things, the idea that it is never possible to truly know a significant other.

The tension remains high throughout the text as the story moves from a roadtrip repeatedly interrupted by a mysterious caller—The Caller—to a farmhouse with disturbing images that haunt long after the tale concludes.

“But how do we know when a relationship becomes real?” It is a thought-provoking line, a seemingly insignificant moment within their meandering conversation, and yet I get to the end and immediately want to re-read the entire book, in part because of this question.