If the inconveniences of life didn’t get in my way, I could have easily read This Is How We End Things in one sitting!

Each time I picked up the book, I was immediately transported into the tension-filled, blustery world of Dorrance University, where deception reigns among the grad students in a psych study. When one of the students is found dead in the psychology building, secrets are uncovered, fingers are pointed, and everyone is a suspect.

I've admittedly become a bit of a thriller snob over the years, and I've gotten to the point where I feel like I've seen it all. However, this book had me constantly second-guessing myself. Just when I deemed a character innocent, we learned another juicy secret of theirs that had me questioning everything.

The dark academia vibes are a ton of fun, too. Forest, North Carolina is the quintessential college town, and I loved getting a taste of the students' lives in the psychology world. After all, a study about the science of lying? The idea alone was enough to hook me.

While the atmosphere and concept were the first pieces to capture my attention, the layered, complex characters (amongst about a thousand other things, honestly) kept me turning the pages. It initially felt like a lot of names to get familiarized with, but they were written in such a way that made them distinct and easy to follow. Plus, we gradually learned new information about each one that made them all intriguing - and suspicious.

Bottom line, don't miss out on this book. It's fast-paced, darkly atmospheric, and it'll stump the inner detective in you. I promise you'll find yourself glued to it as soon as you pick it up.

An absolutely incredible dark academia thriller! If you are looking for a spooky mystery this winter, you have to read this one, especially when snowed under! Atmospheric and suspenseful!

Unfortunately, this book and I were a bad match.

Every single one of the characters was unlikable and one-dimensional. I just didn't care what happened to any of them.

Too much detail on irrelevant matters, and not enough on the important stuff (like the psych experiment).

The plot took a predictable path, filled with lots of drama. The dialogue was sometimes odd, sometimes cheesy.

Then we have a wrap-up ending, where the characters discuss the case, explaining (to us, by way of each other) all the details that led to the murder and either didn't make it into the story or readers might have missed as clues.

Many readers have loved this one. While I was not one of them, you might be.

*Thanks to Soucebooks Landmark and NetGalley for the free eARC.*

The characters were boring and I was not able to connect with any of them. There was some intrigue and mystery at the beginning but not enough for me to keep reading.

This Is How We End Things by R.J. Jacobs is a compelling murder mystery/thriller that reminds me of a true crime podcast - such as Southern Fried True Crime. I enjoyed the uncommon setting at a highly regarded research university in North Carolina. I knew there was dark academia but have only seen high school-aged academia stories, so this was refreshing. There are no wasted words, everything is relevant to the mystery and it was hard to put down! If murder mystery/domestic thrillers are your thing, this book will not disappoint.

Let me begin by saying that I love nothing more than a thriller/mystery with an academic setting - and this one completely scratched that itch in the best way. I was in a terrible slump and my reading pace had really slowed down until I picked this one up.

Though a little predictable, I loved the characters and I loved the way the author forces the reader to maintain skepticism around the relationships and the characters as individual players. Each player in this story, both major and minor, could've done it and it really has the reader guessing until the final hour. I felt like I was a member of this research group as I learned more and more about the past and the guilt of each other characters - an excellent book that I'm going to keep recommending to fellow academic thriller lovers!

This was a solid psychological thriller with an academic setting. I appreciated the psychological research detail and the topic of deception was a clever plot point.
While the ending wrapped things up a little too nicely, I did enjoy the story and would read more from this author.

This was a fun, fast read that had a fun twist. I really enjoyed the way psychology was incorporated into this thriller...it made it both interesting and engaging. The character development was a bit lacking but really, you don't need it to get into the story. A good one when you're in the mood for a wintery fast-read.

This is How We End Things, R. J. Jacobs

Out now!

Dark academia & thriller perfection!!

As a practicing psychologist and thriller lover, Jacobs has crafted a whip-smart locked room mystery set within the constructs of a grad student research project.

Blurring moral and ethical lines, Dr Lyons and 5 top grad students embark on a research study about deception. All of whom are masters at manipulation and trained at the art of deception.

The science of lying becomes a key component in the forensic investigations after 2 of the 6 wind up dead. Who killed whom? When? Why? It’s a race to find the “tell” before the next fatality.

Secrets and deception are at the crux of this tension filled unputtdownable thriller!

I know one thing for sure - I’ll be on the look out for more dark academia stories from R. J. Jacobs !!

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for the digital copy to read and review.

Ⓑⓞⓞⓚ Ⓡⓔⓥⓘⓔⓦ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐

𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕚𝕤 ℍ𝕠𝕨 𝕎𝕖 𝔼𝕟𝕕 𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤
𝗥.𝗝. 𝗝𝗮𝗰𝗼𝗯𝘀
Thriller
336 pages

Sʜᴏᴿᴛ Sʏɴᴏᴘsɪs

A group of grad students are working on a rather intense project with a well-known professor when all hell breaks loose.

Mʸ Tᴴᴼᵁᴳᴴᵀs

In This is How We End Things, the grad students are taught to be deceptive. That is what the police officer is told before she talks to this oddball group. Their research relies on it.

Each character has their quirks, making it a rather interesting group to figure out. Some are downright unlikeable, making it hard to sort out who the real evil one is. That is what made this story pop for me.

The author takes you on a fast ride as the story plays out. Right at the juiciest part, a monster storm hits, adding to the suspense. If you live for thrillers, this one is top-notch.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing this ebook for me to read and review.

👀Check out my book blog for more reviews! Latishaslowkeylife.com

Ok friends -I'm officially a fan of R.J. Jacobs!

This is How We End Things is an intense psychological thriller that had me hooked from the start

It has a dark academia vibe mixed with a locked room mystery (hello snow storm on campus!). The story centers around a group of grad students studying the science of lying. One of them gets murdered, and suddenly everyone's a suspect. All of the students are trained in the art of deception so you never know who is telling the truth and who is hiding some major secrets. Deception on another level! Even so, I was very happy that my amateur sleuthing self figured it out.

If you're into tense, dark academia stories, give this one a go. It's a total winner!

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for the complimentary copy to read and review.

I really struggled with this book and the main reason is that I really struggled to like any of the characters or relate to them. It made it difficult to stay engaged in the book. I was excited based on the synopsis but the actual execution of the story fell flat. This is my first book by this author and I'm not sure, based on my experience with this book, if I would read their other works.

This was hard for me to get into… I just didn’t connect with the characters. But the plot itself was intriguing. Students studying lying need to figure out who killed one of them before it’s too late. Snowstorm +murder=suspense. Thank you NetGalley for the advance digital copy

I really enjoyed RJ Jacobs "This is How We End Things". Thank you to Net Galley for the advance copy, even if I read it after publication. As someone who worked on graduate research projects, I really appreciated the story told from a controversial research study on emotions, status, and lying. RJ Jacobs, who is a clinical psychologist, incorporates many psychological concepts into the story and features elements of research design, analysis, and IRB processes, although I am wondering how this study would have ever received IRB's blessing. Nevertheless, Jacobs' storytelling pushes the narrative forward, and I couldn't put the book down. This was an interesting mystery, leaving me making hypotheses (and null hypotheses) to determine the outcome. Really enjoyable whether you have been a part of research projects or not.

A great read - the author did a great job of creating suspense and descriptions that made the story come alive in my mind. Although I figured out what was going on before the reveal, it was still a great read and would be a great on screen!

All alone on a college campus, 5 students that study liars are about to be dragged into a game of cat and mouse that might just leave them all dead. Discovering the secrets of deception does nothing to help these students to become honest people, and it's about the fall down on their heads.

When a test goes wrong and someone ends up dead, the students find themselves trapped in the middle of a snowstorm on an abandoned campus with time ticking away. Who will die next? They're hoping that they can figure it out before anyone else has to lose their lives.

I found this novel absolutely intriguing. The idea that they students study lying really gave this book a fun spin, and I love an atmospheric novel in which the background is almost another character in the book. I kept thinking I knew what was going on, but then I'd be thrown for a loop. Jacobs is excellent at keeping you guessing until the very end.

Snow should be flying any time now in my neck of the woods, so if you're ready to cozy up while there's a blizzard outside, this novel is for you.

This is not my typical genre but I really did enjoy this one and watching as the plot unraveled.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review.

In a North Carolina college, five grad students are working with a psych professor on an experiment about the psychology of lying. During one of the sessions a test subject gets violent, but the group thinks it’s handled. Later, one of them is found dead at the office. Since it’s a locked academic building, it has to be someone from their own group - who has been lying to them all, and why?

I really liked this one - it combined a pretty college campus with a disturbing mystery, a local detective trying to solve it, a once-in-a-decade snow storm, and a race to close the case before anyone else ends up dead.

The beginning of this book moved a little slowly, but the great pacing in the second half saved it. I like when books with a lot of characters start out with the action to hook the reader and then take the time to introduce people and themes. It felt like there was so much explanation up front about who the students were and what the experiment was about, when the book only got interesting at the first murder. Overall I really enjoyed it once the pacing picked up!

Mysteries, thrillers, and I do not always get along.

It seems like, at least for me, too often they give up their secrets too early or go overboard with the drama, especially after the Big Reveal. In my very humble opinion, it’s an awfully delicate balance. And harder still if you mix in dark academia as a backdrop.

Full disclosure, I haven’t read a lot of dark academia but since This Is How We End Things takes place on a college campus and is a mystery/thriller, it seems like it fits for dark academia. I could be wrong.

I can happily say now that R.J. Jacobs’ This Is How We End Things and I did get along, very much so.

Using the specter of a complex, ethically vague psychology experiment, especially one focused on lies and deceit, struck just the right tone to make a pair of murders all the more complicated and interesting. Each of the graduate students involved in running the experiment immediately become suspects and, to his credit, Jacobs makes each of their potential motivations and backgrounds entirely unique and plausible. The novel reads almost like a psychological experiment is being done on the reader, as you can’t help but try and suss out the Lie only to have your emotions and reactions twisted when That was a lie, but This is too.

It probably helps the believability of the story that Jacobs is a licensed psychologist, and they do say to ‘write what you know.’

Even as you, the reader, have your focus on the students running the story, it can be a little hard to feel too connected to them. I think is because you know they’re lying about something and you know you’re reading a murder mystery so it seems more than likely one of them is the murderer. But that lack of a connection also works because it helps with the vibe of the story that the reader is part, maybe the subject, of the experiment and you wouldn’t then get too close to the conductors. Especially after some of the morally questionable things these conductors do.

In the end, it works. Absolutely. The twist is revealed a little too early in my humble opinion, but I never guessed what it was.

If you’re in the mood for a psychological thriller/mystery with wintry dark academia vibes, This Is How We End Things is the book for you.

*****

What’s your favorite psychological thriller with dark academia vibes?

(I received a copy of This Is How We End Things through NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Landmark in exchange only for an honest and original review. All thoughts are my own.)

What a fun book to read! I am such a fan of dark academia books and this book hit all the right notes, especially when it involves psychology students!
4,5 stars