Where I End by Sophie White. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.
“My Mother.
At night, my mother creaks. The house creaks along with her.”
Good Jaysus! What the hell did I just read?! This review will be mainly about the unsettling vibes of Sophie White’s Where I End because discussing the plot would give too much away. But, also, if I explained the whole story, you wouldn’t believe me anyway.
Aoileann lives on a remote island with her Móraí and her mother, who will not, or cannot, leave her bed. Having moved to the mainland, Aoileann's father, whom she calls Dada, visits once a month. The other islanders go out of their way to avoid Aoileann for reasons she does not fully understand because they have always reacted this way to her.
When Rachel, an artist, arrives on the island with her newborn son, Aoileann sees the life she never had and a future she never dreamed of until now.
“My house.
I don’t understand my house. It has never been explained to me. From the outside it is backwards. Circle it and you’ll see.”
If you’ve read more than one review of Where I End, you’ll have seen it repeatedly described as visceral, gruesome, chilling, unsettling, dark, twisted, and horrific. These are also my descriptions of the novel. It is a novel full of body horror. It is also full of psychological horror. It is bone-chillingly disturbing and made my skin crawl multiple times.
None of this sounds appealing, yet I could not stop reading. I almost missed a meeting because I needed to see how it ended. On a sentence level, Sophie White has crafted a literary horror story that snakes its way into your brain and will not leave. These characters are fictional, but I desperately want to know how things turned out for them all following the novel’s conclusion. That’s how immersive this book is and how brilliant a writer Sophie White is.
Where I End has surpassed Human Remains by Elizabeth Haynes for the title of the creepiest novel I have read, and I didn’t think anything could get more disturbing than Human Remains.
Where I End by Sophie White is published by Tramp Press and is available in paperback and ebook format.
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