I’m thrilled to welcome you today to my stop on the blog tour for the utterly terrifying Where I End by Sophie White. Thank you to Helen Richardson and Tramp Press for giving me the opportunity to read and review this creepy but beautifully written book.
About the book:
‘My mother. At night, my mother creaks. The house creaks along with her. Through our thin shared wall, I can hear the makings of my mother gurgle through her body just like the water in the walls
Teenager Aoileann has never left the island. Her silent, bed-bound mother is a wreckage – the survivor of a private disaster no one will speak about. Aoileann desperately wants a family, so when artist Rachel and her baby move to the island, Aoileann finds a focus for her relentless love.
Where I End, Sophie White’s stunning literary debut, is concerned with the power family
has to create whole worlds: it’s a story about isolation, neglect and the dangerously
intoxicating nature of love.
This exceptional, inventive novel of psychological and physical horror will captivate readers from its beautiful and atmospheric opening sentences to its shattering conclusion.
About the author:
SOPHIE WHITE is a writer and podcaster from Dublin. Her first three books, Recipes for a Nervous Breakdown (Gill, 2016), Filter This (Hachette, 2019), and Unfiltered (Hachette, 2020), have been bestsellers and award nominees, and have been described by Marian Keyes as such fun – gas, clever stuff,’ and by White’s mother as very good, of its type.’ Her bestselling memoir Corpsing (Tramp Press, 2021), was shortlisted for an Irish Book Award and the prestigious Michel Déon non-fiction Prize.
Sophie’s publications include a weekly column ‘Nobody Tells You’ for the Sunday Independent LIFE magazine. She has been nominated three times for Journalist of the Year at the Irish Magazine Awards. She is co-host of the chart topping comedy podcasts, Mother of Pod and The Creep Dive. Sophie lives in Dublin with her husband and three sons.
My Review:
Where I End by Sophie White is a terrifying horror story that is the perfect book to read as we head into the spooky season. A beautifully written but atmospheric story, I was drawn into it from the very first page as we are introduced to teenager Aoileann and the strange world in which she inhabits.
An unsettling read, Where I End is told from Aoileann’s point of view and is set on an isolated island somewhere near Ireland. Living in a small cottage, Aoileann helps her grandmother look after her mother who has been bed bound for as long as she can remember. Aoileann’s mother is a withered husk of a person, known as ‘the bed thing’ and kept hidden away from the other islanders. Aoileann’s world is a narrow one, having never left the island, and she is avoided by the local community and seen as something different to everyone else. Treated appallingly by everyone around her, Aoileanne leads a solitary and lonely life, never really understanding what happened to make her mother the way she is.
And then artist Rachel arrives with her newborn baby and Aoileann soon latches on to her, becoming obsessed with the young mother as she desperately searches for love and acceptance. With her home life becoming increasingly more difficult by the day, her friendship with Rachel is the only thing keeping her going. But what is seen as a casual friendship by Rachel is something else altogether to Aoileann as her obsession begins to take a dark and unpredictable turn…
Sophie White’s writing is deliciously creepy as the tension rises and the sense of impending doom increases by the second. I don’t want to say too much more for fear of spoiling what is a cleverly plotted, dark and sometimes uncomfortable read, so all I will say is that, wow, I loved every word of Where I End. An atmospheric literary debut that sent shivers down my spine, it is the perfect book to read at this time of the year and is one that I would highly recommend.
Where I End by Sophie White is available to purchase now:
Check out what these other lovely bloggers have to say about this superb book:
Cal Turner Reviews 
Wow this book sounds creepy! Like you said, perfect for the spooky season. Sounds like a book I read a while back called The Memories we Bury by HA Leuschel. It has the same “neighbor moves in and MC becomes obsessed” type of trope. I absolutely loved that one, and am definitely going to check this one out too! Thanks so much!
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