Spotlight Sunday: April 6, 2014 – What Makes An Ending Satisfying?

Spotlight Sunday on Swoony Boys Podcast and Fiction Fare

By now you know that when the four of us are together, in person or via the magic of the internet, the conversations almost always come back to books. We love them. We love the people who write them, the people who publish them, and the people who read them. In fact, we have so many feelings about books that we wanted to find a way to share our conversations with you! Welcome to a new week of Spotlight Sunday, hosted by Fiction Fare (Erin & Jaime) and Swoony Boys Podcast (Kassiah & Meg), where we dish about ALL things bookish. Each week we’ll post a topic, we’ll start the conversation by telling you some of our thoughts, and then it will be your turn to sound off in the comment section.

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What makes an ending satisfying to you? Does that change if it’s a standalone or part of a series?

Erin: This is an interesting question because I admit it, I love a HEA ending. Now…I know I’m not always guaranteed this but if the ending makes sense and isn’t a complete 180 degree turn from the rest of the story and the characters paths make sense I can get on board but I hate when something is done for shock value (or maybe sometimes that is just my impression). In a series, if one of the books ends on a huge cliffhanger with absolutely no resolution to things, I find that extremely frustrating. This doesn’t mean all the answers have to be given and every issue needs to be resolved by the end of book one or two (or however many books are in the series) but at least give me something that will allow me some closure yet still look forward to the next book in the series.

Kassiah: I agree with everything you said, Erin. I love HEAs and though I have come to sort of expect them (especially in YA), I am okay with not having one if it makes sense for the story and the characters. But I abhor when authors are driven by the shock factor. Just…

I feel like a lot of books that are part of a series end with a cliff-hanger unnecessarily. I can think of several cases where I wonder if the original idea was just for one (or maybe two) books, but they decided to expand it into a series and needed to fill-in. I love when books that are part of a series have an ARC for the individual books and for the whole series. The best example I can think of for this is Harry Potter–each of those books had their own storyline that fit within the entire plot. We wanted more at the end of each book, but the immediate conflict presented in each book was resolved, and I appreciated it and respected JK Rowling so much more for it.

Meg: I was nodding along with everything you guys said. I don’t like to be given a cliffhanger just for the purpose of shock and awe. I want to be left wanting more without being desperate. When that happens the anticipation is sometimes too much and can even take away from the next book. I don’t need happy little bows on everything in a series, but I want a lot of resolution with standalones. Being left wanting more usually happens no matter how much info I get, but I don’t want to be left asking a million questions. (Actually that part goes for series too!) Have you guys ever read a standalone that you finished and were SHOCKED that it didn’t have a sequel?

Jaime: Obviously this is going to be different for every single person because we all read for different reasons and have different expectations. That being said, I do have certain expectations when I read a book… I absolutely need to have a resolution. I don’t like open endings where the author wants us to fill in the blanks. It just doesn’t work for me and completely ruins the entire series for me when this happens…(I know you all know what series I’m thinking of when I say this.)

That being said, I know that there are books out there that I love the final outcome and yet I see others who completely hated it. I absolutely agree with you all though about the cliff hangers – there is definitely a right way and a wrong way to do this.

As for a standalone that I was shocked wasn’t a series… the one that comes to mind for me is Valkyrie Rising. I swear I read that book and went looking to add book 2 and didn’t even realize it wasn’t going to be a series until the author did an interview with us and she confirmed that that was it for the story. It left such an open ending and I swear I STILL have it on my series bookshelf because I never thought it wasn’t… I even think I reference it being a series in my review!! FAIL LOL

Now that you’ve read some of our thoughts, let us know what you’re thinking in the comments below! We’ll be back next week with a brand new topic and lots more to talk about.

Past Spotlight Sunday Topics