#Microblog Monday 337: Do You Like Happy Endings?
Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.
*******
I recently started reading romance novels because I discovered I like happy endings. I like stress-free slides into happiness in the final pages. I just read a very funny book with a very wistful, somewhat sad-ish ending, and I sort of refused to believe the final page was the final page. There needed to be a second ending that was 100% happiness.
Which isn’t to say that I’m only reading happy books. I was just reading The Push. Not happy. But, yes, I really like happy endings.
But I also love this post asking if happiness (or the happy ending) is worth the risk (to honest reality). Life usually isn’t neat and tidy.
What do you think? Do you like happy endings? (Um… not those happy endings. I mean, the kind in books and movies.)
*******
Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.
10 comments
I love happy endings. These days, I mostly read books that are happy. I am not usually big on romance (but some are great when I am in the right mood!)
Life has been difficult enough that I can’t handle any more sadness. I used to love dark, depressing fiction when I was in college and grad school. These days, I have to be very careful with what I read. Some books can push me over the edge – and I can’t afford to be all darkness & despair because I’ve got to stay positive and strong. So, I’ve got to read books that help me be positive and strong 🙂
I only want happy endings in my books – I don’t care much about movies because they’re smaller time commitments. If I wanted reality, I wouldn’t be reading books. I’d be doomscrolling…
I discovered about 10 years ago that I despise most books with happy endings. It was after I read The Violets of March by Sarah Jio. If I recall correctly, the book is about a women who is possibly suffering from depression(?) and goes to an island where she grew up. There are two men that are into her, blah blah blah, she falls in love with one and everything works out in the end. I hate love as a ‘solution’ plot device in books. It’s lazy and unrealistic. Your mental health problems will not go away if you get married. A few years later I read A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Wonderful, heartbreaking book. A book about how the human spirit is not unbreakable, and mental health problems follow people through life. That clinched it for me. I don’t need a book to be sad, but if the author ‘solves’ the book crisis with a relationship, I am usually annoyed.
I do as long as it’s not out of the blue. And I only want happy endings in books right now.
It depends on the book, but overall, yes, I like happy endings. Like you, I have been reading more romance during the pandemic, primarily because I am finding that I am using reading as an escape from real life (even more than usual), and books that deal with heavy subject matter or that don’t have a happy ending don’t really fulfill that purpose.
Yes! If I’m spending time reading, or watching a movie it’s generally to escape from real life which is sucking so I want all the happy endings. Like, for the last 5 years I simply would not watch something that wasn’t guaranteed a happy ending. I watched a lot of HGTV and Disney. And Friends. I typically read mysteries, and I definitely seek the resolution type happy ending there. I’ve never been much of a fan of strict romance although if there’s romance in my mystery it’s a bonus. LOL
It depends on my mood. I can’t read too many easy happy endings at once – just as I can’t read too many thrillers, or historical fiction or nonfiction at once. I like a good variety. But I like happy endings as a break and an escape from other reading, which I sometimes find means the gloomier it is the more literary it is deemed to be! lol
I love books and shows with happy endings. I loved watching the wonderful hit with a happy ending for Daphne (trying to avoid spoiling anything =)). I project my feelings onto other people so much that it needs to be pretty clearly stated that the character is happy with the outcome. Like maybe not a great example but I was longing to see Kinsey from Sue Grafton’s series ultimately find love. But Sue passed before we could read her final work and for her, maybe she would not have paired Kinsey off with anyone since she was so independent. But I would’ve liked to leave her in a unambiguously content spot even just lacing up her shoes for a run…
Happy endings, yes! But I don’t like “romance” novels. I like witty and sharp sorts of happy endings. “In real life,” I’m a literature professor, so we don’t get many happy endings. Satisfying endings, yes.
I’m like Mali. I like happy endings, but I also like some variety. I like when there’s a bit of a twist or surprise at the end that we didn’t see coming. I like endings that are happy, but not in the way we might expect — e.g., with a wedding &/or a baby. Maybe that’s because those of us who are childless not by choice have had to learn that our stories can still be happy, even if they don’t end with a baby.