Many reader, like myself, want a happily ever after. I mean why are you reading a feel good book if it's going to make you feel bad? That defies the laws of its genre. However, is the want for happiness worth the loss of realism? 

Don't get me wrong, I am a die hard happily ever after gal. I'm guilty of skipping over books because I was told that it had a bad ending. But the few times that I read a book that didn't necessarily have a good ending, I fell in love with them. Obviously this has more to do with the contents of the book rather than its ending but all I know is that these books were memorable. 

When thinking back to why they were memorable, one thing that stands out is the fact that these books were not afraid of telling you the ugly truth. The ugly truth includes sometimes being left off with out the safety of your favourite character.

Life is unpredictable and books like most other forms of media are an author's representation of life. Many times than not, life sucks and people suffer. We walk in and out of lives like we jump in and out of books. Unless a book continues until the day the character dies, which would be a bad ending. It will stop at some point in the characters life once the conflict is resolved, however insufficiently. 

Similarly, we humans walk into each others lives without knowing and then leave for various reasons. The time is the important part and one may leave at a bad time of another's life, leaving their story unfinished in your mind. But this doesn't mean that because last time you saw Johnny, after his girlfriend dumped him, that he will still be sitting there moaning for the same girlfriend.

Had to add Mulan!

I guess what I'm trying to say is, unhappy endings are not the end of the world, unless the character died then yes, it is the end of the world for them. We walk in and out of lives, books, school but the story doesn't end until the person end.

So lets celebrate realism and life because although it sucks at times most of the time if you know were to look, it's pretty damn awesome!

-MARI