Happy Endings Discussion

[paigehasissues]

So I was looking at the EW article that revealed the cover for Bloodlines by Richelle Mead and because I forgot why I don't read comments for any articles I read, I read the comments. One two-comment thread I saw went like this: first commenter doesn't want one character (who had his heart broken in the first series) to fall for the narrator, and

Comments

[future_guardian]

I absolutely hate this idea that a character must fall in love and that is the happy ending. One reason I got out of obsessively reading paranormal romance was, I was getting flat-out tired of variations of this line: They curled up in each other's arms. She sighed happily. Her life was messy, but as long as she had her man, everything else would work itself out. You know what? I'd prefer to see a character accomplish something, pull herself out of a bad situation, save the world (temporarily)...anything other than falling in love. Not that love is a bad thing, per se (it doesn't do it for me, but that's a personal concern), but it should never be written as the only way a character can be happy or have a good life. Unfortunately, in some genres it seems that's the only way to end a novel.

I'm glad you brought up endings, because there's this one type of ending I hate even more. I didn't even know I hated it so much until I wrote a review about a book I disliked big time. It is the character-is-happy-because-they-have-everything-they-want-without-sacrificing-anything ending. Have any of you read Ascension yet? The female lead gets everything she wanted (which was in this order: a man, a child, acceptance, power). The idea that this character did not have to sacrifice a thing to get her happy ending made me want to chunk the book through the nearest wall (but I won't, because the cover is so pretty).

Anyway, fantabulous discussion question.

[helbling]

Kim Harrison is good at this. Cheeseburger-equivalents her books may be, but everytime you see the heroine satisfied or happy at the end of a book, it tends to be because she's surrounded by her friends and they're all alive, not because she's happily shacked up with someone.

[crystal_ness]

Agreed.