Hi Everyone,
How do you like your books to end? Do you like Happily Ever Afters or at least an ending that wraps everything up in a nice, neat package? In a series, do you prefer a story-line that ends nicely, and maybe secondary characters pick up the next book? Or do you prefer your dramatic cliff-hangers (a la Rick Riordan) where you have to wait a year (or longer) to find out if your beloved character is even alive? What about stand-alones? There are a select few novels out there that I have read, where the ending leaves it open for the reader to decide! These drive me bonkers…
Don’t get me wrong, my favorite book is one that leaves me constantly thinking about the story-line and the characters, be it the next day or a year/decade from now. I love those books, as they take up a permanent residence in my soul. Those are fantastic. As a child, there are mystery books where you the reader have to decide who is guilty and those are fun. You know ahead of time that it is up to you.
But what about those novels that completely blindside you with an open ending?!?!? There is no chance ever of a sequel, but you are left trying to figure out what the character decided to do and how it affected everyone’s future. I feel robbed on these books. I waded out the roughly 300 pages, only for the book to end in the middle of a conversation!!! Where the “giant” twist happened in the last 15 pages and the entire novel’s world is upside down… then bam, it ends. I have to decide if they righted themselves and things are okay in the future. But how am I supposed to do that, when the characters’ reactions to the twists have been brushed over? It is so frustrating to me…
I am the type of reader who wants to fully live in the world that I am reading and I want to KNOW what happens next with the characters that I have grown to understand. There has only been one book that ended in mid-sentence that I truly appreciated, because the plot lead up to that ending. But the book I read earlier this week, did not prepare me for the “what-ifs” style ending. Grrr. I mean, the author succeeded in creating a book that I now need to discuss, even if by myself, because now I have to figure out how I want the story to end.
So now that I have thoroughly vented, tell me about your favorite endings. Do you like to know every detail, or do you prefer the thrill of hanging on the precipice as you wait for the long-anticipated answer?
Either way, I hope you…
Enjoy!
~Ariesgrl