A tight-knit group of graduate students is studying the psychology of lying. Then one of them is discovered dead after an experiment and everything the group thought they knew about lying, crumbles. A winter storm is coming, the campus is empty, and someone is lurking... waiting to kill again.

This is How We End Things is intriguing, but I honestly had a hard time being hooked. I received this as an audiobook ARC and unfortunately, I did find myself zoning out from time to time. The narrator was okay, and I don't think was the reason of my disinterest. Maybe this book translates better as a physical book. The plot and premise of the story is one I would normally love so I think the problem was me not the book. I am the outlier here though so if you think this book is one you'd enjoy, I highly encourage you to pick it up! It is out 9/12/23.

Thank you NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for the ARC and the chance to listen and review it honestly.

Happy reading!

I went into this hoping for dark academia vibes, and it did not really give those. If that's what you're looking for, I would say keep looking. If, however, you are looking for a nail biting thrillery murder, then this one might be for you.

The characters felt kind of "caricaturey" - like...there's the goth, the bro, the intellectual, etc, and I felt like the idea of having this many "damaged" people working in one small department was pretty far fetched. I also felt like the big twist was not as twisty as I had hoped (I predicted it pretty early on). Without spoiling anything, I felt like the twist was also a bit of a stretch in the unbelievable sort of way.

With all of that being said, I still enjoyed the read. There were real moments of suspense, and I felt like Jacobs nailed the atmosphere - it felt cold and foreboding.

This was a great one! He has become an auto read author for me and this was another winner. It was well written and even though I figured out the bad person I didn’t know why!

**Thank you to NetGalley, High Bridge Audio, and SourceBooks Landmark for the ALC of this thrilling title**

This one was ~twisty~ and I really enjoyed the audiobook on my commute and around the house!

Six psychology graduate students who study lying are conducting a study when one of them ends up murdered…

Detective Larson is tasked with solving the murder as a snow storm blows in and all hell starts breaking loose. Everyone is a suspect in this one and I 100% didn’t guess the ending until it was laid out for me.

I’ll definitely be looking for more from this author! Check this one out if you like murder mysteries, psychology, and thrillers!

This is How We End Things was absolutely incredible. I loved every minute of it. R.J. Jacobs has a new fan! I give it five stars!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Highbridge Audio for the free audio book in exchange for my honest review. This is narrated by Chelsea Stephens who does an excellent job!

This is a locked room mystery set at a university with a group of graduate students studying the impact of stress on a person's proclivity to lie. It's an interesting premise for the group of 6, all of whom have secrets. Since each is studying the art of deception, it's difficult to figure out who the real killer is.

For me this was a 3.5. It's a little slow to start and most of the characters felt a little under developed. I also did not feel a heightened sense of suspense with the solving of the murder. It was an enjoyable listen but just did not hold my attention.

I love that This Is How We End Things by @rjjacobs75 is set in North Carolina and that it involves research. I’m a born & raised Charlottean and have a Master’s of Science in Clinical Research Management from the Wake Forest School of Medicine, so this psychological thriller was right up my alley!🖤 Even if you don’t have a background in NC or research, I still highly recommend grabbing and reading this book.

I switched back and forth between the book and the audiobook. You can’t go wrong with either one; the audiobook is well narrated. The story involves a research study being run by graduate psychology majors and explores lying and deception. However, a member of the research team is murdered and it seems everyone has something to hide. The story is told from multiple POVs and is a fast paced read with excellent twists!

Thank you @bookmarked @highbridgeaudio and @netgalley for allowing me to read and listen to this book and audiobook ahead of publication in exchange for my honest review.

3.5⭐️ I would recommend the physical or ebook over the audio in this case. The story has a ton of characters and within the chapters, it shifts between all of them. I wound up having to go back and reread parts the audio had me confused about.

Overall, I liked the bare bones of the story, and found it really easy to binge. It wasn't super surprising, twist wise, but the characters were unique and interesting as was the overall premise.

I would recommend this one, but not solely on audio, since it really creates a less than optimal reading experience.

An entertaining mysterious thriller! I loved the psychology of lying aspect. The cast of characters, all with their own secrets had me wondering the whole time.

Thank you for this arc audio from NetGalley & HighBridge Audio!

ARC audiobook provided in exchange for an honest review.

Chelsea Stephens did a fantastic job with the narration of this book! It was clear and concise and always easy to understand from who voices which character was speaking. I really found the story interesting with the majority of the characters being in graduate school and studying psychology. The mystery aspect really had me stumped early on as the culprit seemed completely obvious but went an entirely different way from the one I was expecting! If you enjoy psychological thrillers be sure to give this one a try!

Can you tell if someone is lying? What starts as a research project exploring the psychology of lying turns into two murders, several twists and a whole lot of entertainment. Taking place on a college campus this book makes a great back-to-school, dark-academia thriller.

I had it pretty much figured out at about 80% through, but there were other twists and turns that kept me rapt for the rest of the book. I very much enjoyed this! The audio narration was excellent and overall it was a great book. It drew me in right away and the character development was great. So many motives, secrets and out-right lies. It was fun to try to untangle them all and the ending left me with questioning what the future holds for this cast.

Overall this was a great book!

This is How End Things has a fascinating concept- five psychology grad students and their professor are doing a study about deception that involves lying to their subjects, fellow students. The grad students have formed bonds and friendships with one another over time, and one has formed an intimate relationship with their faculty advisor. When one of the grad students turns up dead, the police look to the study participants and the other grad students as suspects.

The story is told in third person POV, with multiple viewpoints. We see the actions of each student and the police officer working the case, which could get confusing at times over audio. I find more than 3 POVs to be tricky for an audiobook, and that was definitely the case here. The narrator does do a great job, but the simple fact of there being so many POVs made it hard to keep up at times.

The mystery itself was great. The murders were brutal, and the piecing together of the evidence involved old records and psychological evaluations, which this former psych major found interesting. I personally worked on multiple studies while in school and found myself thrown back to those days as the team discussed their study, the participants, and the legality involved.

I didn’t feel particularly connected to any of the characters. Each seemed to have one main thing that defined them rather than having fully drawn characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest opinion.

1.5 stars

Comparing a book to Riley Sager and If We Were Villains is both a surefire way to get me super hyped when picking up the book and to be massively disappointed when the book is literally nothing like either of those books.

To be fair, there is actually two similarities in that both If We Were Villains and This is How We End Things are set on college campus and feature six students doing controversial things under the supervision of an enigmatic professor. However, while If We Were Villains is a gripping character study that is full of tension, This is How We End Things is a fairly by-the-book murder mystery with far too many perspectives, a setup that is severely underutilized, and characters that are not particularly well-developed or interesting.

The idea of This is How We End Things is definitely interesting enough, which is why I will give it the one star for concept. However, its execution personally just did absolutely nothing for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for an ARC of this audiobook in exchange for a fair and honest review!

Thanks to #NetGalley and #HighBridgeAudio for the ARC #ThisIsHowWeEndThings by RJJacobs. This is a dark psychological thriller of who-done-it with a twisted ending. I was a little lost at times in the book, but it made sense in the ending.

R. J. Jacobs returns following Always the First to Die with his latest thriller, THIS IS HOW WE END THINGS —a gripping, intelligent academia literary thriller of deception and suspense, following a group of graduate students at a prestigious North Carolina college exploring the psychology of lying, leading to MURDER.

Mystery Suspense Meets Clever Dark Academia Whodunit!

While the experiment is based on deception, someone among them is a killer in this locked-room suspense psychological thriller, full of twists and intrigue.

Set in the idyllic town of Forest, North Carolina, in the winter, we meet enigmatic Professor Joe Lyons at a prestigious college.

Five grad students are studying the art and science of lying. They are all hiding secrets. When one of them is discovered dead after an experiment, they are all looking at one another, now trapped by a snowstorm.

We hear from Scarlett, Robert, Chris, Britt, and Elizabeth. They all have their secrets and unique personalities. Joe also hires a new member, Veronica, a lawyer the team does not care for.

They all have been trained to lie, and will make the investigation even more challenging. The detectives can pick up a trick or two. Detective Larson is tasked to solve and discover the buried secrets of all the liars with King.

Will they kill again? Who is lying, and who is capable of murder? Who is the perpetrator?

Do liars get better over time?

Cleverly written, THIS IS HOW WE END THINGS is a perfect whodunit for those readers who enjoy clever dark campus mysteries. It has a creepy setting and a cast of intriguingly secretive characters. Whom to trust?

Thought-provoking and razor-sharp, Jacobs keeps readers in suspense and guessing with red herrings, wicked mind games, and unexpected twists in this high-stakes, riveting, clever, dark, academic locked-room suspense psychological thriller!

Being a North Carolina native, I loved the references to the towns where I have lived and the claustrophobic winter snowy campus atmospheric setting. Excellent character development, and I enjoyed the psychology of lying—INTRIGUING, a fitting title! I cannot wait to see what comes next.

I had the privilege of reading the e-book and listening to the audiobook narrated by Chelsea Stephens for an engaging performance for all voices. Fans of authors Carol Goodman, Riley Sager, and David Bell will enjoy this one!

Stay tuned for my #AuthorElevatorSeries Interview, Elevator Ride with RJ on pub date— where we go behind the book & the author! (My blog)

Thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark for an ARC and HighBridge Audio for an ALC via Netgalley for my honest opinion.

Blog review posted @
JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 5 Stars
Pub Date: Sept 12, 2023
Sept 2023 Must-Read Books

When I read that this was dark academia, I was hoping that the psychological study would both be darker and play a bigger role in the plot. The blurb also states that this follows a close group of friends, but they never felt like friends to me. I think this would of been better if told solely from Scarlett's PoV as it would hidden how much more developed she is compared to the other characters. I did not find the twists or final solution satisfying.

3.75⭐️

<i> Campus is empty, a winter storm is blowing in, and someone is lurking in the shadows, waiting for their chance to kill again.

Forest, North Carolina. Under the instruction of enigmatic Professor Joe Lyons, five graduate students are studying the tedious science behind the acts of lying. But discovering the secrets of deception isn't making any of the student's more honest though. Instead, it's making it easier for them to guard their own secrets – and they all have something to hide.

When a test goes awry and one of them is found dead, the students find themselves trapped by a snowstorm on an abandoned campus with a local detective on the case. As harbored secrets begin to break the surface, the graduates must find out who's lying, who isn't, and who may have been capable of committing murder. It turns out deception is even more dangerous than they thought... </i>

This was an enjoyable conventional murder mystery story, but it hurt itself with the missed potential within it. While the twists and suspense were entertaining on their face, the fact that the story centered around a group of faculty and students involved in an arguably unethical psych experiment left the door open to many deeper possibilities. The ethical and philosophical questions that could have been explored, and the ways they could have driven the narrative, became hard to ignore. I found myself wanting THAT story more than the classic genre tale we received.

Chelsea Stephens did an excellent job narrating the audiobook.

Thank you R.J. Jacobs, HighBridge Audio, and NetGalley for providing this ALC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

Let me start by saying I’m a sucker for a book that has psychological aspects and this one hit the nail on the head. AND it was a campus thriller? YES PLEASE!
I admit the beginning of this book had me confused. We are thrown a lot of characters at once and it was hard to keep them all straight. Once I got the characters down I flew through this book. I think bouncing between physical read and audio really helped me.
Every single character in this book is a suspect at one point but I guarantee the big twist will leave you going wtf? - I did guess it pretty early on but I still love how the ending was executed.
If you like psychology and campus thrillers then I definitely recommend this one!

A thriller about a closed door dark academia study in the Psychology Department of a university during a snowstorm, you say? Hell yeah! And that excitement is exactly the problem with this book.

I went into this one with high expectations. I wanted to love it... Unfortunately, it was more of a train wreck. I felt like it was all over the place and rather disjointed. And I found it incredibly difficult to connect with any of the characters. The secrets and/or twists were predictable or underwhelming. The audiobook narrator did a fine job. But overall, it just didn't work for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, HighBridge Audio and the author for an ALC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Rating: 1.5 stars ✨

Learning about the social psychology of lying through ethically questionable studies in the world of dark academia should have set up the perfect premise for This Is How We End Things. I've always been fascinated by the idea of why people lie but I was disappointed with what I heard here. Psychological assessments didn't translate well into an audio format and the plot barely skimmed the surface of the psychology behind lying and deception. It failed to truly dive into the core of human nature even though it was written by a psychologist. Instead, I was led into a boring investigation where nothing really happened until the end.

The third person narration took away from the atmosphere of the story and there were too many changing points of view. None of the characters were likable or trustworthy with everyone hiding secrets that were mostly anticlimactic. I had figured out the identity of the killer well before the reveal and the motivation seemed incongruous to the story. There was no sense of urgency or danger moving the story forward and the snowstorm that should have created elements of a locked room mystery almost seemed like it never actually happened.

The only reason for the extra half of a star was the narrator, Chelsea Stephens. Her voice was easy to listen to up to 2x speed and I would definitely listen to her audiobooks in the future. She perfectly captured the individual voices and personalities of very different characters throughout. Unfortunately, she wasn't enough to change my opinion about the story itself. I listened until the end but I often found myself distracted and regret the decision not to stop earlier.

* Special thanks to HighBridge Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review this ALC. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. Available September 12, 2023. *