Spine-chilling Thrills & Questions of Existence in I'm Thinking of Ending Things

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I can't remember how old I was when I experienced the most terrifying moment in my life. I remember a gaping black door, wind whipping through trees, and the taste of terror salty on my tongue, but I can't remember concrete facts like how old I was or what I was wearing. Fear can do that, erase facts and leave nothing but the feeling.

My parents were out for the night and they left me home alone. This wasn't the first time I was home alone at night, and I even enjoyed these moments of solitude, as I got to watch whatever I wanted on the tv, or just read a book in peace. I was old enough to take the dog out, but young enough to still be scared of high winds and storms.

That night was windy and dark. When the wind moves fast, it shrieks by our house, branches shake and shudder, the windows creak. I was reading in my room with all of the lights on and a flashlight by my bed just in case the power went out. Suddenly, my dog poked her nose into my room and nudged up against me.

She rarely comes down the hall to my room. I was petting her head when I heard a loud creak. I put my book down and picked up the flashlight, venturing down the hall. At the kitchen, I peered around the corner to see the back door flung wide open, the mess of black night roiling beyond.

My parents always lock the door when they leave. And now the door was wide open into the night. I ran to the door, slammed it shut, locked it, and went back to my room. I closed my door, grabbed the dog, and called my parents, telling them that the door had been open.

They said that they probably just forgot to lock the door and that the wind blew it open. Nothing happened. Everything was fine. But it was still scary - that open door was like a metaphor for all the darkness that could step into my life or blast through the hinges. My most terrifying moment happened in my own home.

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When I read Iain Reid's psychological thriller I'm Thinking of Ending Things, this moment, the one time I experienced pure terror, jumped into my mind.

The novel opens with the unnamed narrator thinking about ending things with her boyfriend Jake. She's deeply attracted to him, but she can't seem to make up her mind. She felt from the start that they wouldn't last, but she really likes him. Regardless, she's with Jake as they road-trip through the country, making their way back to his childhood home so that she can meet his parents.

During the drive, the girlfriend thinks through her relationship with Jake: when and where it began, how her attraction to him grew, the little things that annoy her, the small gestures that move her. But she's also thinking about something more sinister: the Caller, a man who's been calling her cell phone and leaving the same message over and over again. She hasn't told anyone about the Caller, not even Jake, but the calls began the same night she met Jake at a bar.

When the pair finally arrive at Jake's parent's house for dinner, the girlfriend is unsettled. The house is old but it feels familiar, and Jake's parents seem strange. When they finally depart, Jake takes a detour by an old school and he and the narrator become trapped inside the dark building.

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This novel is a thriller, but it subverts many of the characteristics of a thriller. It's literary and existential - the characters discuss physics, love, secrets, and solitude. Love, the girlfriend thinks, is understanding and knowing another person, but another person can never fully be known. She's questioning her own capacity for love and the social structures that dictate love as a necessity. Is romantic love necessary? Is it worth it to go through with a relationship and try to make things work, even if you've always known that it won't?

To love is to fully know another person, but aren't we most ourselves when we're alone? In a world where it seems like everyone is paired off, solitude is often viewed as a disease, something pitiable. I'm Thinking of Ending Things insists that solitude and loneliness are complex. What if solitude and lack of dependence on others increase one's risk for danger and harm? But what if solitude is the only respite one can have from others, and voices that crowd out one's own? What if this solitude can only be achieved through violence and destruction? What are solitude and loneliness in relation to mental illness?

Towards the end of the novel, the pieces begin to shudder into place. The reader understands who the Caller is, and who Jake and the narrator are. At the very end, there were still twists that I didn't anticipate, adding an extra layer of perversion, and sadness, to an already convoluted tale.

This is a cerebral examination of relationships, identity, fate, and death. It was totally creepy, but totally relatable at the same time. I first thought, Finally, a female protagonist who's asking the same questions about love that I am. And then I thought, Do I really want to identify with this character?

8/10 📕