Okay guys, brace yourself for this post becauuuuuse.... jeez. So much to say about this and so little at the same time!
Book #2 of 2023 was the International Best Seller I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid. It was also adapted into a movie on Netflix, which I also watched after reading it. I don't remember when I bought the book, I know it was during a barnes and noble book haul. But I think I first saw it on Goodreads.
It's a quick read, less that 250 pages, I gave myself a couple days to read it and I finished it in about six days.
Where do I start? My initial thought about this book was that it would touch base on mental health and possibly touch base with the topic of suicide. Because when you read the title, it gives that impression, at least it did for me, initially.
I usually gravitate towards the chick lit, rom-com, family type stories. Don't get me wrong I love a good scary story or psychological thriller, I just haven't read one in a whille. And to be honest, I wasn't fully sure what I was diving into but I saw international best seller and saw that it was turned into a Netflix movie I had to see what it was all about.
Alright, lets get to it. I'm going to try to make this a good review without putting too much of the story out there and also without confusing you, as the reader.
The story is told in 1st person, (I, we, me, us). The narrator, a woman, who, throughout the story remains nameless is going on a small trip to meet her boyfriends parents after dating for two months. However, she isn't sure if she should even be on this trip with him considering, she's thinking of ending things.
It has a lot of dialogue in which the woman and her boyfriend, Jake, engage in conversations about various topics. Jake is a man she met at a bar during a trivia night and is described as very knowledgeable. So conversations go from a simple story to a whole moral concept at times. Most of the time we, as the reader, are more inside the narrators head while she thinks about ending things with Jake and why she should and why she shouldn't.
When they get to the farm, where Jake's family home is, Jake gives her a tour of the farm even though it's cod and snowing outside. When they get inside to meet his parents, they take a while to come and say hi.
This is where things get a little... crazy and confusing. In short, she meets the parents and things just feel off. His mom is in a flowery summer dress, and barefoot revealing a toe with a missing toenail. I mean, I find that strange to meet your sons girlfriend for the first time in such a way. In these scenes it seems as though there is no connection to jake and his parents. it's as though he doesn't even want to be there. Which makes me feel uneasy, why invite if you're not comfortable being in the situation. That's just me though.
While she is in this house, which is described as the rustic old timey type farm house, the type you would see in oh I don't know Texas chainsaw massacre or the conjuring.
Reid does a great job in heightening situations for the reader to feel as though things are happening while also revealing some foreshadow, only the foreshadow can be a bit confusing as well.
There were times where this drove me crazy. My anxiety would build while reading a scene and then the scene would drift back into normal conversation or normal scene and I'll be sitting there confused as to why I was feeling scared or anxious. it drove me nuts. Reid played with my emotions more than the boys in grade school did. Haha. Only difference is, I grew to appreciated this.
I thought about referencing these parts where scenarios heightened but if I did I would be giving a lot away, a lot of the scenes are very dragged out to full pages.
There were other scenarios that were brought into the story that to this day i still do not know how they fit into the story at all, and they are also things that didn't get mentioned very much in the movie adaptation.
I can honestly say that I didn't like the movie. The book was so much better, as all bookworms will always say. I thought that the movie would depict the story a little bit better and show the heightened scenes so much more, but it turned out to be a more mind bending story with too much talking and too much unnecessary switch ups. The movie gives the narrator a name, Lucy, which changes in variation throughout the movie. If anyone has watched any darren aronofsky movies, or has seen the horror movies, hereditary, mother! or even midsommar, this movie is definitely in line with one of those.
My overall rating: 3 out of 5 stars
The movie gave me more of an appreciation for the book but the book is definitely a book I'm glad I got through and got to experience reading it but it's not something that I would want to read again. I'd love to discuss it with anyone who has read the book or has seen the movie I think there is a lot that can be discussed and dissected. It's just not a book that I would find myself rereading.
Have you read this book? Have you seen the movie? What did you think of it?
Are you liking the book reviews? Am I missing anything? Is there a better approach you would like me to take on them? I'm here for the improvement, please let me know what you guys think of the the reviews so far.
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