“I am living in a time that eats up the world.”

On the Calculation of Volume I is a strange, unsettling Danish novella translated into English in 2024. It follows Tara, who becomes trapped in a time loop on November 18th. As the day repeats, she begins to lose her sense of self: she ages while the world resets, her hair and nails keep growing, and anything she consumes disappears whereas anything consumed by others will reappear when the loop starts over. Everyone else moves through each loop untouched, including her husband, who forgets every version of the day she remembers. Her isolation turns into a quiet, existential terror. The intimacy that once grounded her slips away, leaving her unmoored in a world she can influence but no longer truly belongs to.

The repetition becomes a study in identity. As the prose shifts with Tara’s unraveling mind, the loop forces her to reflect on what makes a person real.

It’s quintessential Scandinavian lit fic: eerie and deeply introspective, a meditation on existence, intimacy, identity, grief, love, and the imprint one person leaves on the world. If literary fiction is your thing, this one is worth your time.

EDIT: it might just be over the general qualifications of a novella, but as it is only around 165 pages, I don't think of it as a novel.

An avid crime and thriller reader who's spent some two years in a fantasy-only-phase, I was beyond elated when V.E. Schwab, one of my favourite fantasy authors, announced her first (co-written) thriller. The concept sounded fantastic: A remote island setting, a mystery more multi-facetted than the protagonists initially think, and a commentary on the issues within the publishing industry all at once? Yes, please.

Well, the result is a somewhat slow-paced, intensely character-driven novel with a great deal of mystery and a side of crime. The Ending Writes Itself starts off reasonably enough. It sets some page time aside to introduce the characters properly, and it is almost immediately clear who is and isn't likeable and, consequently, who the reader is and isn't rooting for. The majority of the novel is spent exploring characters, character development, and character dynamics, with the novel's setting -- both the house in particular and the island in general -- serving as a secondary focal point. While I imagine that some less patient crime readers might end up bored, I feel that most lovers of the genre appreciate the fact that a remote setting has to be extensively explored to be effective, and a large cast of characters had better be properly developed to evoke emotions upon their demise. At the same time, I do understand that within this genre, it might not be ideal not to have the plot take precedence -- without an at least somewhat fast-paced plot, there is little thrill in a thriller. In this case, the pace picks up eventually, and our authors begin dying like flies. At first, someone unexpected, then someone expected, until, eventually, only one remains.

It took me quite a while to deduce who the killer is, not because their identity was ultimately unexpected but because barely anyone would have been unexpected. There is such a great deal of ambiguity in all of our authors -- characters -- despite the detailed insights we get into them, almost, though not quite, in a Roger Ackroyd type of way, and I think it takes quite a bit of talent to write a set of characters like this.

So, as I've argued quite passionately, I am very happy to forgive the slow pacing. What I am less likely to forgive, however, is the rushed ending. The way the culprit is revealed is fine, as is their motive and their approach, the way they justify their actions, and the way they committed their crimes. The way they are done in, however, is more reminiscent of a comic-book villain's ending, and the way the remaining questions are answered in the epilogue rather than the main story seems a bit lazy (a word I have never before and will hopefully never again use for anything written by V.E. Schwab). The same applies to the ending awarded to the characters who survive the island: They seem like afterthoughts more than a part of the story proper.

As a rule, I adore almost everything V.E. Schwab puts out. Her settings are beautifully atmospheric and her characters as vivid as it gets, her plots are usually engaging, and her messages heartfelt. The same applies to The Ending Writes Itself -- and how rude of me to only mention Victoria; I am sure Cat contributed just as much. It's just that I am unfamiliar with her work, which makes her influence somewhat hard for me to discern. Either way, I was entirely on board with their approach up until that uncomfortably rushed ending, which I unfortunately disliked enough to lower my rating by an entire star. Yet, I had a great time with the novel as a whole and am looking forward to potential future installments -- The End (... or is it?)