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Schola
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 1867
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 Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 10:38 am Post subject: |
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Yet does realism automatically mean that the romantic elements have to be compromised? If so, then we're implying that a relatively realistic ending like what we have in The Marriage Bed actually isn't romantic--which makes it a decent novel with a good resolution and a suprising character arc for the hero, but not a good Romance.
I can think of a few books in which the ending makes it clear that the future will not be completely smooth--that the hero and heroine might even (horror of horrors!) bicker once in a while--and yet the Romance conventions are met without question.
Also, I don't know about anyone else, but I've noticed that the usual way to defend The Marriage Bed as a Romance is to "attack" (I use that term rhetorically) the HEA. When we consider how important the HEA is to Romance, that's kind of like cutting Christ out of Christmas.
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"To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance." (G.K. Chesterton) |
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Azure
Joined: 24 Mar 2007
Posts: 42
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | For me, I think it would be MySister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Some issues with the legal background made me insane at times, but it was the ending that really got me. I actually liked parts of the book until I got to the ending. I wasn't expecting a romance-style ending, but the ending they got didn't seem to fit well either. |
After tearing up half a box of Kleenex, I accepted the ending of My Sister's Keeper and it remains my favorite Picoult book.
HOWEVER!! I recently finished Picoult latest book, Handle with Care, and all I can say is that I nearly wrecked a perfectly good ebook reader because that ending was not only horrible, it was pointless. |
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Tee
Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 4051
Location: Detroit Metro
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 9:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Azure wrote: | | After tearing up half a box of Kleenex, I accepted the ending of My Sister's Keeper and it remains my favorite Picoult book. HOWEVER!! I recently finished Picoult latest book, Handle with Care, and all I can say is that I nearly wrecked a perfectly good ebook reader because that ending was not only horrible, it was pointless. |
We're on the same wave length here, Azure. My Sister's Keeper is my favorite Picoult book also. I thought it was very well written. I too just had Handle With Care to read and couldn't get past the first third of it. Congratulations on making it to the end. I had a rough time with it. |
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IslandGirl
Joined: 12 Oct 2008
Posts: 636
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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Spoilers so please skip if you don't want to know about the books I'm mentioning.
Atticus Kodiak series by Greg Rucka. It started as this almost updated gritty rough romance throughout the series between Bridget and Atticus and takes a turn and he ends up with another in the later books. I was disappointed. Not your typical romance it's suspense but it had a nice love story throughout between those two. I was very dissapointed about how it all turned out but couldn't complain too much since it wasn't really a romance series.
Hate to harp on this again but disappointed with Suzanne Brockmann's characters Sophia and Decker and how that turned out as well.
Maybe I have bad luck with series.
Sands of Time Sydney Sheldon novel. Good romance with various couples throughout this suspense novel but one couple's ending really sucked. She decides she wants to be a nun leaving him heart broken.
Another Sydney Sheldon novel Rage of Angels. I wanted her to actually stay with the supposed bad guy mobster instead of who she fell for who I thought was a jerk. I actually like this author a lot as it's again not your typical romance novels but incorporates romance in his thrillers and suspense. I've read many of his novels because of it. He'll be missed.
I can't remember the title of this one or who wrote it but I was so angry with one book that killed off the main character at the end. What a slap in the face. It was a mystery that had romantic elements. A cop that gets shot by the bad guy when his ex girlfriend comes back to him and takes his gun away leaving him defenseless because she doesn't want him involved with danger anymore. She dumps it in the lake or something as they are walking away and then he's a goner. Oh and this is after he leaves the female cop to go back to his ditzy ex. Yeah that was so bad I blocked out the author and title from my mind. lol
Then theirs your classic Gone With The Wind. I mean come on Rhett give Scarlett one last chance after all she was a fool but finally grew a brain. HUH what a shame that we'll never know what Margarett Mitchell might have done had she lived longer. Loved the movie but the book ending just kills me for some reason even more.
I guess like sucky endings in movies we'll get them in books as well. |
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IslandGirl
Joined: 12 Oct 2008
Posts: 636
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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| To add one more Summer Sister Judy Blume. Oh how I cried at the end of that one and it really pissed me off that ending. |
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JMM
Joined: 23 Mar 2007
Posts: 492
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 10:21 pm Post subject: |
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With TMB, I didn't buy the HEA. I believe that the second the heroine gets pregnant/too big to comfortably have sex/sick/etc, the "hero" will start trolling for a new mistress. "I told you, I'm not going without if you refuse me! So WHAT if you are eight months pregnant with triplets!"
The Fireflower - I kind of liked the ending. We knew the heroine and hero lived a long happy life together, even if it wasn't "perfect".
Which brings me to a question: do any of you ever hate the TOO happy endings? Where a deux ex machina comes along and gives the hero/heroine EVERYTHING in the world?
The Fireflower would have been ruined for me if the hero had somehow been given his manor back even though he didn't marry the other woman.
In Lord of the Night, IIRC, the hero gets to marry the heroine and keep his status. I disliked that ending. What's the point of a HEA without some sacrifice? |
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RichMissTallant
Joined: 06 Jun 2008
Posts: 148
Location: Washington, DC
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 11:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I've managed to stay away from that book and haven't read it, probably due to all the hating of the ending. It is considered a good book by some though, isn't it? Even the Shreve book I mentioned gets raves over on Amazon, but many agree with me, that the ending, well, sort of sucked. |
A Knight in Shining Armor was one of the first romance novels I ever read that wasn't stolen out of a pile in my mom's nightstand. I was going through a time travel kick and really loved it, but the ending made me really sad. Bittersweet, really.
A few others mentioned here are amongst my favourite novels - Atonement and The Time Traveler's Wife. Beautiful books, sad endings. But in this case the endings don't "suck" because the books are still so good. I've noticed that a lot of people hate the ending to Atonement so much that it sort of ruins their entire enjoyment of the book (not on this board, from conversations I've had with people about it), and on top of that so many people hate Briony, too. But with TTW, I wasn't expecting to be so gutted, but it just gave me goosebumps, and made me appreciate Niffenegger even more as a writer.
Oh and whoever pointed out the stupid ending to the miniseries version of A Room With A View - yes!! What was that?? I was so disgusted.
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"Excuse me," said an icy voice from the bed. "I'm frigging bleeding to death. Mathilda can go tip a pike." -- Derek Craven, Dreaming of You
http://dreamingenigma.livejournal.com |
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Elizabeth Rolls
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
Posts: 1026
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 6:08 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Oh and whoever pointed out the stupid ending to the miniseries version of A Room With A View - yes!! What was that?? I was so disgusted. |
That would be me, Miss Tallant. I think the problem was that of all novels A Room with a View has very little need for alteration to make it a successful screenplay. So the screen writer in this instance was in the position of not only having to work with the novel, but also having to compete with a prior flawless production ie the Helena Bonham Carter/Daniel Day Lewis version. So to make it different this totally stupid epilogue got tacked on. I can sort of see the writer's dilemma. At every turn the production mirrored the old Merchant Ivory version because they both stick with the book, as in this instance they damn well should, and inevitably the viewer makes comparisons -and considers pulling Helena and Daniel out of the DVD cupboard.  I'm probably too harsh on the production, but because it kicked me in the teeth instead of providing the promised HEA I was annoyed. If, in fact, that was how the book ended, or I'd never read the book or seen the earlier movie, I'm not sure I would have been quite so annoyed. I think though that if EM Forster had ended the book that way the whole style would have been far darker so that the ending would not have felt contrived.
Elizabeth |
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willaful
Joined: 02 Jan 2008
Posts: 1468
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| Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 3:49 pm Post subject: Re: Books that the ending sucked!!!!! |
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| Cora wrote: |
Actually, I have seen plenty of films which would be improved if Godzilla stomped onto the set and gobbled up the entire cast or if the Daleks suddenly landed and exterminated them all. Some films would be improved even more if the above happened ten minutes into the film.
As for sucky endings, I have always hated the ending of Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier. It was such a wonderfully romantic adventure complete with a dashing pirate and then - spoiler - the dashing pirate returns to France and heroine stays with her dweeb of a husband. Yes, she had children, but she could have taken them along. Or the husband could have been hit by a stray bullet. |
Yes, but we were talking about books/movies that are GREAT up until the end. Not ones where we want the characters to get et. ;-)
I just watched FC recently and that ending should've come with a warning label! Spoiler I don't know about the book, but the movie made it a bit more acceptable by making the husband very noble and sympathetic at the end. Still - hunky pirate!
The comment about overly happy endings reminded me of one I feel very ambivalent about, Julia Quinn's Minx. In the epilogue the heroine is finally having a baby after many years of trying. On the one hand, I appreciate seeing some realistic difficulty in that area, instead of the Wonderland of Fecundity we usually see. On the other hand, for that particular heroine, who had so many issues about feeling unfeminine, it seemed just cruel to stick her with an infertility issue too.
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"I say, don't read the classics -- try to discover your own classics; every life has its own." -- Rudolf Flesch, _How to Make Sense_ |
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Nani
Joined: 28 May 2007
Posts: 35
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| Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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| JMM wrote: |
Which brings me to a question: do any of you ever hate the TOO happy endings? Where a deux ex machina comes along and gives the hero/heroine EVERYTHING in the world?
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Amen to that! I just hate it when the whole conflict is built on a social/financial/familial/... problem the h/h being together creates, and then at the last minute everything turns out effortlessly perfect anyway.  It makes all of the earlier drama look like a cheesy plot device.
I have a particular distaste for the multitudes of orphans finding out they have a (possibly dead) stinking rich old uncle who's a member of nobility to boot, and thus becoming a perfectly acceptable match for their previous unattainable beloved. Why bother creating this conflict in the first place if the h/h won't have to overcome it, I'll never understand. |
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Cora
Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 1088
Location: Bremen, Germany
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| Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 6:53 pm Post subject: Re: Books that the ending sucked!!!!! |
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| willaful wrote: |
I just watched FC recently and that ending should've come with a warning label! Spoiler I don't know about the book, but the movie made it a bit more acceptable by making the husband very noble and sympathetic at the end. Still - hunky pirate!
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Well, in the book (spoilers) the husband was not noble, but a drinking, fat idiot. Okay, maybe he wasn't fat - it's been ages since I read the book and I might be projecting someone else on the husband. But he definitely was an idiot. |
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RichMissTallant
Joined: 06 Jun 2008
Posts: 148
Location: Washington, DC
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| Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 11:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | That would be me, Miss Tallant. I think the problem was that of all novels A Room with a View has very little need for alteration to make it a successful screenplay. So the screen writer in this instance was in the position of not only having to work with the novel, but also having to compete with a prior flawless production ie the Helena Bonham Carter/Daniel Day Lewis version. |
Oh, I've been meaning to see that version, thank you for putting it into my head! It's such a lovely book. The scene in the field of violets is probably one of my favourites in all of literature...I just get goosebumps every time!
_________________
"Excuse me," said an icy voice from the bed. "I'm frigging bleeding to death. Mathilda can go tip a pike." -- Derek Craven, Dreaming of You
http://dreamingenigma.livejournal.com |
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Azure
Joined: 24 Mar 2007
Posts: 42
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| Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 9:29 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | To add one more Summer Sister Judy Blume. |
Oh, I hated the end to that book!
Now that I think about it, the first book I can remember being disappointed by the ending was also by Judy Blume. It was Forever. I should add that I was thirteen at the time and didn't realize that the ending was supposed to be realistic. I just remember being very disappointed. |
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Chamomile Tea
Joined: 28 May 2009
Posts: 25
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| Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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"Queen of Babble" trilogy by Meg Cabot.
God.
*pinches nose*
First of all, her heroine made me grind my teeth to the gumms, she was so naive and stupid!! 
Then the author introduces this really cool-awesome-thoughtful-hotashell hero, Luke. All is well for our pair for the 2.5 books. Then all of a sudden (highlight for spoilers) she makes the heroine and her BEST GUY FRIEND - who is also the hero's BFF - suck faces at some ball or something, (I don't remember exactly, I was shaking with rage at this point and I might have skipped a page or 30...  ) and suddenly she falls head over heels with him and the true hero - Luke - turns out to be a cheating bastard! There's even a scene, where the guy friend-turned lover *is sick to her stomach* calls his "supposed" BFF and puts him on speaker to show his new lady-love what an a-hole her ex is.
*rants and flails hands*
I threw the books in the trash that very same day. I was so devastated. I genuinely LOVED Luke. Who does that sort of thing to her readers?!?! I really want to know.
To make the matters even worse, I read somewhere that the "Queen of Babble" series was a sort-of-autobiography. God.
And let's not forget "Tempted"by Megan Hart. That one had a disaster written all over it. What a crappy ending. (highlight for spoilers) It's so obvious that the heroine was unhappy with her husband and he with her. Their marriage was done and over with the second the other man left. And he genuinely loved his best friend's wife. I was secretly (ok, very openly  ) rooting for the two of them. I wanted her to dump her boring husband and run off with his best friend. He was a much more interesting character.
Ok, I'm done b*tching now. |
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willaful
Joined: 02 Jan 2008
Posts: 1468
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| Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 5:42 pm Post subject: |
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Cabot did the same thing in the last "Princess Diaries" book. The heroine is too big a wimp to break up with the boyfriend she really feels nothing for, so of course he has to turn out to be a total asshat to make it okay.
I had been planning to read the "Babble" books, but now I think I'm better off not bothering.
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"I say, don't read the classics -- try to discover your own classics; every life has its own." -- Rudolf Flesch, _How to Make Sense_ |
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