The Endings of Books

                The ends of books are something most avid readers tend to dread, especially if it’s the end of a series. Book endings range from happy to sad, from awesome to terrible, and from cliffhangers to well-rounded story endings. You could be happy with one ending, but very disappointed with another.

                There are some endings that are obvious will happen, for instance, the Harry Potter series. After so many books and years of reading leading up to the final book, it was completely obvious that Harry would kill Voldemort and save the world. There is no way an author would change an ending after so much hype. And if they did change an ending as important as that, everyone would probably hate them and boycott their books for the rest of their lives. Readers are crazy.

                A lot of people include cliffhanger endings in their list of “Pet Peeve’s”, and it’s completely understandable. Cliffhanger endings are one of the worst types of endings, especially if it’s a book that won’t have a sequel. If that’s the case, there really is no reason the ending should be a cliffhanger. If you’re book isn’t going to have a sequel and you know that, why on Earth would you make the ending a cliffhanger and risk infuriating so many people!? If the book will be continued, that’s a different story. Then all people will have to do is wait until the next book comes out, which isn’t nearly as bad.

                Good endings are expected from books. They make people happy, and you’d think that all authors would want to write good endings so their fans are pleased. Bad endings could be terribly written, cliffhangers, or just not how the reader wanted it to turn out. A popular favorite type of ending is complete surprises. People love it when authors do the unexpected and write something ridiculous. There just aren’t endings like that in the world.

                All in all, endings can be good or bad, and they can make people happy or sad. It’s all up to the author’s discretion, and to some degree the reader’s preferences. Go read a book, it’ll make you smarter.