Literary Quote of the Month

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies," said Jojen. "The man who never reads lives only one." - George R.R. Martin, A Dance With Dragons

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

If You Know the Ending... is it still fun?


I was reading some reviews of Hawk Mountain by Conner Habib. I can't remember off hand how I happened to find the title, but I must have run across it in some list of "books to read next". The book starts out with Todd Nasca's high school bully popping back into his life after so many years and how that might have happened coincidentally... or not. And no matter which way, the consequences have  tumultuous results... The tension seems to built right from the start, but some of the reviews I glanced thru have a common negative comment - that the climax of the story happens before the ending... way before the ending. Which made me pause to think... should it matter? If the story is a good one that keeps your eyes pressed to the pages, will the reveal too soon, ruin the story so much so that you don't need or want to finish the book? 

There are books that you know right from the beginning what happens, but that is the story - everything that leads up to the climax. 

I can't recall right now any books I've read where the climax is in the middle of the book. I guess I'm going to have to read Hawk Mountain and find out if I still want to read it after "the climax"... but somehow I think I will. I hate to not finish a book no matter how bad it is... but let's save that for another discussion...

What do you think? Have you read any books where you find out the "Big Story"  way before the ending? and how did that effect your reading of the book?

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