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I'm Thinking of Ending Things

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I'm Thinking of Ending Things

By: Iain Reid
Narrated by: Candace Thaxton
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About this listen

Soon to be a Netflix film directed by Charlie Kaufman

Jake and his girlfriend are on a drive to visit his parents at their remote farm. After dinner at the family home, things begin to get worryingly strange. And when he leaves her stranded in a snowstorm at an abandoned high school later that night, what follows is a chilling exploration of psychological frailty and the limitations of reality.

Iain Reid's intense, suspenseful debut novel will have listeners' nerves jangling. A series of tiny clues sprinkled through the relentlessly paced narrative culminate in a haunting twist. Reminiscent of Michael Faber's Under the Skin, Stephen King's Misery and the novels of José Saramago, I'm Thinking of Ending Things is an astonishing and highly original literary thriller that grabs you from the start - and never lets go.

©2016 Iain Reid (P)2016 Simon & Schuster Genre Fiction Horror Psychological Thriller & Suspense Scary Fiction Exciting Suspense

Critic Reviews

"In a novel this engaging, bizarre and twisted, it shouldn't come as a surprise that its ending is even stranger than the narrative route that takes us there...but it does. Reid's novel is a road trip to the heart of creepyness." (Sjon)

"I'm Thinking of Ending Things is one of the best debut novels I've ever read. Iain Reid has crafted a tight, ferocious little book, with a persistent tenor of suspense that tightens and mounts toward its visionary, harrowing final pages." (Scott Heim)

"Here are some near-certainties about I'm Thinking of Ending Things. Number One: You're going to read it fast. Over the course of an afternoon or an evening. The momentum is unstoppable once you start, you won't be able to stop. And Two: once you race to the end and understand the significance of those final pages, you won't be able to stop thinking about it. This novel will find a spot in your heart and head and it will live there - for days, weeks, months, or (in my case) the rest of your life. Yes. It really is that good." (Nick Cutter)
All stars
Most relevant  
a repetitive story that tries to have a twist but is just nonsensical. you keep listening hoping it will get better - it doesn't. I even replayed the last few chapters thinking I'd fallen asleep and missed something but no.

time I'll never get back

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I loved it… so clever…wish i had written it… performance also very well done

Couldnt stop listening

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Narrator was quite good considering so many characters and the fact a lot of it is thoughts, which limits inflection etc. Found the actual story to be quite boring and uninspired. Once you figure out who the bad guy is/how it all played out, it only really explains some of the extra weird details that are made out to be so important earlier on, making it feel like there was a lot of liberation taken with the psychological profiling/reasoning of said bad guy. The two main characters absolutely insufferable!

Pretentious?

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Not going too much into the storyline itself for fear of revealing spoilers, but this book is incredible for so many reasons! The performance from Candace Thaxton was very good too. It was very rare that I would have to think about who was speaking. Granted, this is not a book one can idly listen to while doing other things. I had to focus on what was being said and what was being happening to understand the climax of the book, but the payoff was well worth the effort. Definitely recommend!

Incredible!

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This was an interesting story. I heard it’s written to be consumed in one sitting, so that’s what I did. The ending is ambiguous and the story as a whole is a little strange, but it’s still enjoyable.

One sitting

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I read this 3 years ago and the story still sticks out to me as one of the most frightening in how it unfolded... I never could have guessed where this was truly going!

This was a wild ride

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I’m still not entirely sure I know what happened even after the end, a bit too philosophical for my taste.

Confusing

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The narratress's voice is far too frantic. One of those audiobook readers who has the habit of putting too much emphasis on every line, every word (I found Andy Serkis like this). It makes the dialogue too fraught, makes the characters sound like they're always annoyed, makes every conversation an argument. I assume it's just the default vocal pattern she falls into with all her books. Reading the lines on the page they would be much more languid, low-key I think, and therefore more eerie. However the twist that comes in the narration toward the end was unexpected and very good (I wonder what it looked like on the page?).

As for the story, what I thought at first (going mostly off the Netflix movie trailer) was going to be a low-key postmodern vaguely feminist familial/folk horror piece turned out to in fact be a genuinely haunting, though not very harrowing, postmodern exploration of mental illness in a way that felt to me at least truly original. The 'twist' I saw coming, if not a mile away, then at least a good few hundred yards away. How very sad. And more than a little close to home.

Compelled a one-sitting listen

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The beginning of the book is seemingly normal, but eventually makes the reader unsettled as the story progresses. Big twist at the end, highly recommend.

Chilling

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And a strong story. I hope to hear more from Ian Reid in Audible soon

Perfect narration

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