How much of you can fall off before something important is lost?

OK I swear I got the recommendation to read this book from my fellow CBR 8 readers. I can’t seem to find it again on this site though! Anyway, whoever recommended it to me (it had to be someone?), thanks! It’s definitely a mind hump (I didn’t want to use the F word). Here are my favorite things in books: an unreliable narrator, apocalyptic / post apocalyptic / dystopian worlds, and being in suspense. This book had 2 out of 3 (there was no apocalypse).

So, when *mystery person* recommended this book to me, I thought it was about committing suicide. “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”, to me, screams I’m thinking of killing myself. I thought that was an interesting concept. For at least the first third of the book though, it’s actually a girl thinking of ending a relationship with her boyfriend. I’m in a new (just under 6 months) relationship, and although I’m totally not thinking about ending things at all with him, some of the new relationship talk struck me. Like this line: “The details I know about Jake…are trivial and inconsequential compared to the large truths that take time to eventually reveal themselves”. And this one: “After spending so much time alone, I started to feel like I knew Jake well, really well. If you’re seeing someone constantly like Jake and I did after only two weeks, it starts to feel intense”. I understand these lines. The beginning of a relationship is very intense. You feel like you know so much about them in such a small amount of time, but there’s still so much more to learn. And as someone who spent / still spends a lot of time alone, it resonated with me. Much of this book did. When I got to the end, this resonance (resonation?) scared me a little bit.

Anyway, enough about me. There’s a boyfriend and girlfriend taking a road trip to visit the boyfriend’s parents. The trip is kinda long and cold, and the parents are weird. The middle third of the story is about the parents and dinner. The girlfriend is left alone in the house a bunch, and it’s all quite awkward. She hears the parents arguing about (she thinks) Jake, and she finds a strange painting studio in the basement.

The final third of the story is when things get truly weird. The couple is on their way back home in a snowstorm. I really don’t want to say any more, because I want you guys to read this book. I read it in about 2.5 hours. You can do it too!!