I’m Thinking of Ending Things: I don’t regret reading, wouldn’t recommend



Ugh.. Iain Reid

I am confused by the reception of this book- NPR lists it as a 2016 Best Book of the Year. After reading, I saw a Netflix adaptation article (didnt read it). I am on the borderline of meh and asking for my money back from the thriftstore it was bought from.

It opens with an unnamed woman in the passenger seat of a car. She makes the mental statement -I’m thinking of ending things- which quickly shifts from a line read as suicidal to a boyfriend break up scenario. Throughout the book she has a confused personal perspective, flipping mid sentance between twitterpation and total disgust for her human companion, Jake. The car trip has purpose- a drive into the deep country with Jake in order to meet his parents for the first time.

The book follows her confusing personal journey but is heavily peppered with the anonymous woman’s mental baggage- hermitism competing with loneliness, recurring night terrors, obsessiveness, strange harassing calls she won’t discuss with others- to name a few. She rarely shares any mental perspective of her life. Her brain is on a loop in the novel, giving commentary on Jake himself, conversation occurring in the car, ending the relationship, and her annoyance/joy for the trip. All you really know for sure about her is that she is Not a student.

The circular conversations and aloof verbal attitudes of both her and Jake left me feeling like I was at the table next to some teenage coffeehouse intellectuals, sure to a fault their world views are unique and groundbreaking.

The actual text of the book turned out to be a huge gimmick. It breaks down midway, with full pages carrying no reference to pronouns or names. I frequently skipped backwards to follow the thread again. I couldnt tell if the writing was on purpose, bad, translated from another language. Descriptions from page one are disjointed and fractured, making the novel feel rough and lacking editorial oversight.

Some of my complaints make sense after reading the ending, others after the author notes. I excuse none as reasons for dragging me through this hot garbage. Not recommended.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Interview: Q&A with Khaled Talib, 'Gun Kiss' author

Image
I recently had the opportunity to interview Crime/Thriller author Khaled Talib. He allowed me a few minutes of his time to pick his brain about both his upcoming Thriller Gun Kiss as well as to ask him about the writing and publishing process in general. I was pleased to get some insight into his upcoming novel and dig deeper into what makes Khaled tick. We also learned about some launch week giveaways and events that will be happening, so scroll to the end for details on how to participate and enter contest The launch window leading up to a book release is crunch time for many last minute details. I am grateful for the late night responses it likely took in order to answer my questions! Slated for release on 12/01/2017 Synopsis of Gun Kiss : When the Deringer pistol that shot Abraham Lincoln is stolen and ends up in the hands of a Russian military general, covert agent Blake Deco is tasked by the FBI to head to the Balkans to recover the historical weapon. Meanwhile, the ...
Read more

Blood and Tacos - Penetrator ManKill and others kick ass content

Image
Blood and Tacos issue 1 is pretty awesome folks. You can read it for free at  bloodandtacos.com Alternately, if you want a copy you can save and keep forever and ever, it is for sale on Amazon for a whole dollar. $0.99 cents of glory. In a nutshell, it has a series of short stories that are written to appear as if they were long lost relics of the manly man era of pulp fiction. You know the time frame… we are talking chest hair, mullets, cheesy one liners, blood, fist fighting. All the things that make a Charles Bronson film awesome and the Joe Don Baker movie “Mitchell” so damn terrible (awesome). Current issue includes work by Gary Phillips, Matthew C. Funk (what a name), Johnny Shaw, and lots of other awesome authors.. Each story is written as if the author “Found it” in an archive. Check the About page of the site for more details. There are no unicorns here, unless they are fighting against a grizzly. The men don\’t cuddly, they fight fuck then flee, leaving b...
Read more

Happy Policeman (Patricia Anthony)

Image
Back in the summer of 2010, I decided to see about curbing my book spending, and instead work on reading books already on my shelves. This was an obvious failure, when I was on the Powells Books website and found a bargain Sci-fi bin of books for about a dollar. I bought seventeen books and have been slowly working my way through them. Patricia Anthony’s ‘The Happy Policeman’ was in that pile of books. I am not sure how this ended up in the dollar bin. Turns out, this book was incredible, worth far more than the dollar I paid for it. I bought it sight unseen, had no idea what the novel was about, but the cover art painted by Mark Smollin caught my attention, the title was unusual and the book became mine. THIS BOOK WAS NOT ACTUAL SCI-FI. Do not auto-ignore this book if you are a genre snob, you may be missing out. Likewise, do not pick this book up thinking it will be handed to you on a platter, Patricia Anthony did a great job in obfuscating the end game and (as in my cas...
Read more