Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme, hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books & Dani @ Literary Lion, where they discuss certain topics, share their opinions, and spread the love by visiting each others’ posts.
What is a “Good” ending? (Suggested by Rian @ Dogs and Books)
Hello everyone and welcome to another LTB! This week is a free week for whatever topic we might want to revisit. I looked through this list and felt that this short and sweet topic would be appropriate for this last LTB in September (already?!).
For me, a good ending is definitely hard to describe. It definitely is a combination of how much it makes sense, whether it was anticipatable, and honestly just overall how it makes me feel. In mysteries and thrillers I’m usually looking for that “satisfying” feeling of justice being served. I think chilling/suspenseful endings can also work well for these genres. Not a fan of something too random or out of the blue, but of course an unexpected twist for the ending is always much appreciated.
For other books, logical flow and a nicely tied up (or a tactfully loose) ending both work for me. I don’t need every last thing to be explained, but preferably things that were put forward to be important. I also really enjoy when there’s a good moral to the ending of the story, or if there are bigger themes that are addressed subtly (or even not subtly, sometimes). Even a really good journey can sometimes be good enough, and the ending can simply be of less importance at the very end.
Probably the worst endings for me are the ones that don’t make sense. Or extreme cases of deus ex machina (or most cases, really). When the ending couldn’t have been reasonably expected (e.g. random unknown character ends up being the killer), it really dampens the whole suspense that the book was building. That all being said though, the ending isn’t everything for me. If everything but the final final ending was good, I would say overall it’s still a good book. Yes I would maybe dock half a point at the end for the ending, but I would never throw away all the merits of the book just because of the ending.
And that’s all for today! What do you all think of book endings? Is it (literally) the be all end all of the value of a book? Or just a small part? Let me know in the comments below!
Down the Rabbit Hole 
We completely agree. It’s hard to describe a perfect ending. Mostly we just don’t want the ending to feel rushed.
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this is a really well-written post. random endings really are the worst.
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