I'm Thinking of Ending Things

An unnamed narrator travels with her boyfriend, Jake, into the Canadian countryside. She is going to the family farm for a first meeting with his parents. It is getting dark. The weather is getting worse.

And that is about as far as a plot-based review can get with Iain Reid's debut novel without straying into spoiler territory. It arrives billed as "psychological suspense," a smart move since the horror label could still decimate its potential audience. But I'm Thinking of Ending Things is exactly the type of novel that could, and should, show up on the Shirley Jackson award list. The situation becomes unsettling within the first dozen pages, and for it's finale, Reid deploys tropes familiar to any horror reader and watcher. His success lies in weaving his plot so tightly that you are as committed to the ride as the passenger in the front car of a roller coaster cresting that first hill.

And this from a man whose previous, well-received book was a memoir of traveling cross country with his grandmother.