Today happened to be a Sunday, and it happened to be book club meeting day. We had just finished reading The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory. One person hated everything about the book, the other three of us enjoyed it -- except the ending. Can you say crappiest cop-out ending of all time? The book is about Katherine of Aragon, and right in the middle of her early life (her daughter Mary has not even been born yet)... the book jumps twelve or fifteen years for a very strange sort of 3-page interlude regarding Anne Boleyn which is really meant to be some sort of hasty wrap-up, and that's it. The end. WHAT? Are you kidding me? I mean seriously, crappiest book ending ever. It's like she just ran out of time, said "I'll end the book here, in the middle, and since most people know about Anne Boleyn, I'll throw this little moment in which has nothing to do with anything that came before..." I wanted to throw the book against the wall, which is not a good thing, because, as they say, it's the ending that sticks with you. Give your readers a bad ending and it doesn't matter how good the rest of the book was, they're going to be angry and not apt to pick up another of your books.
The rest of the book was easy enjoyable reading, nothing stand out wonderful, nothing bad, just entertaining. I very much enjoyed the comparisons of life in Spain vs. life in England, the day-to-day details about how exactly, people ran their homes, etc.
But the end... grrrr.
Anyway, we enjoyed lunch, and then, since it was such a lovely day, my nephew spent an hour throwing rubber duckys into the pool while we watched. Then drove home, and there's the day, nearly gone. I've walked the dog, and all that's left is dinner, some writing or reading, and then bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment