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Monday, August 11, 2014

Monday Discussions: Endings That Don’t Suck

For today’s Monday discussion, I wanted to celebrate finishing the fantastic The Last Policeman series by Ben Winters over the weekend.  Here and here are my reviews of the first 2 books in this pre-apocalyptic series.

There have been lots of kudos for this series, including from me, but what I loved about this final installment, World of Trouble, was how PERFECTLY it ended [at least for me]. I was hoping for the best and Winters delivered an ending even better than my wildest hopes.  Yay!  It was so invigorating to come out so happy from a trilogy.  That doesn't always happen.

This got me thinking about my personal reading.  Too often I love a book until the ending.  Bad endings ruin so many books for me that when I come across a great one, I am elated.

This works for TV shows too. Over the weekend, my sister and I were talking about how we are upset with the final season of True Blood becuase we feel like they are trying to hard to wrap it all up too neatly, but that led my Dad to chime in about how utterly perfect the final episode of Alan Ball's other series Six Feet Under was. We all agreed there. So we are holding out hope.

This leads to our discussion today.  Let's celebrate our favortie perfect endings in any media becuase life is too short to complain about the bad endings [plus there are too many of those to list].

Here are some recent endings I adored to kick off the discussion [besides World of Trouble]:
What about you?  For today's Monday discussion, share some of your favorite endings in books, tv series, or movies. From recently or from way back; it doesn't matter. Do not include any ending syou hated.  We are all about the positive today.

For past Monday Discussions click here.
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4 comments:

  1. Kathy at BPLAugust 11, 2014 at 5:07 PM

    Two books immediately came to mind - The Ruins by Scott Smith and The Bird Box by Josh Malerman. While I was reading both of these books, I found myself wondering "how in the world could this end?" I couldn't imagine a satisfying or appropriate ending or if I could I thought well that will probably never happen. But they both had great, believable (at least within the context of the story) endings. And thank goodness for that since, we all know, endings can make or break a book.

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    1. BeckyAugust 11, 2014 at 8:43 PM

      The Ruins has one of my all time fav endings too. I am reading Bird Box now and hoping it ends well because it is fantastic so far.

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  2. John BPL RAAugust 11, 2014 at 7:29 PM

    The best ending in the history of literature is, in my opinion (and the opinion of many others), the closing line of The Stranger by Albert Camus. It forces the reader to instantly understand Existentialism - something philosophical writers found nearly impossible to achieve. For second place, I will say that the closing line of A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway is hard to surpass. It is so powerful and, like The Stranger, almost traumatic.

    As for film, the endings to One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and Dead Poet's Society are both really great. I'm not sure which I like most. I prefer Dead Poet's Society as a film but the visual image of the huge sink being smashed through the window and the escape into freedom is probably the best thing I've ever seen come out of Hollywood.

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  3. bplTEENS TaraAugust 12, 2014 at 1:21 PM

    Honestly, I never remember the endings of things. I've seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Dead Poet's Society and loved them. I have no idea how they ended. I can't even remember how the last book I read ended. I think it's a sub-conscious attempt to keep the characters alive and the stories ongoing in my brain.

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