The End of Mr.Y - Scarlett Thomas reviewed by Ayane

The End of Mr Y was a book I impulsively purchased from a charity shop in Leamington Spa a while ago.
The cover is maroon red with and black fonts, and I was mostly attracted to the black edging (the pages were edged with black ink).
From the back cover, I knew that it will be about a girl who finds a rare book called "The End of Mr Y" and the mystery uncovers.

Here is a NON spoiler version of the summery by me;
The story is based in England. Ariel Manto, an English Literature PhD student who finds an extremely rare book "The End of Mr Y" written by her PhD subject Lumas in a second hand book shop near university. The only known copy of this book is to exist in a bolt of a bank in Germany, and it is known to be cursed.
Knowing this, Ariel start reading the book, and finds the way to travel outside the physical world staring to uncover the truth about the physical world. However, this is a start of her dangerous adventure....

Well, I thought the book was well written - especially the subject becomes extremely complex, scientific and philosophical from half way through. 
It is not only about traveling outside the physical world, but question about our existence in a more realistic sense (rather than fantasy sense).
I could relate to the character very well as I am also a PhD student in the UK. There were some locations and scenes I can picture it as my local university town.
The story is also narrative by Ariel, the main character - and let me tell you, she swears a lot! It sort of made the narrative realistic, but maybe a little over-done.

The story moved in a good pace (though it seemed to drag a little near the end when the tension was meant to be building up) and like I said earlier, it is very philosophical and made me think about the world a lot. The ending was suggestive and not conclusive - which I usually like, but I wasn't sure about this case. I mean, I think it would have been extremely difficult for it to be conclusive (you will know what I mean when you read it!) but it was a shame that it almost ended like a fantasy love story (which I must say, was the downside to other book I recently read; Night Circus by Erin Morgenstein).

So, I think I would give 7.5 out of 10 stars - very interesting concept and well written, but as a story, the ending wasn't as strong as I wanted it to be.