I am cranky at a book. It’s The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard, and it’s probably not the book’s fault.
Isn’t the cover pretty? It makes me want to paint some of those colors on walls.
(photo from Amazon.com)
The thing is, I like books WRAPPED UP. I want loose ends TIED, and I want mysteries EXPLAINED. I like to know WHAT REALLY HAPPENED. Which reminds me: I’m cranky at another book, too. It’s The False Friend, by Myla Goldberg.
(image from Amazon.com)
If a book uses a BIG MYSTERY (in both books, a missing girl) for its momentum, then at the end I want to know the whole story. I don’t agree with readers who say “Well, but in REAL LIFE we wouldn’t know!” This is not real life, this is fiction, and I want to know. If I don’t get the answer, that says to me that the author didn’t know either: she just wrote it all mysterious-like to make it suspenseful, but she took the lazy way out and didn’t find a way that all those clues could make SENSE. I once emailed Jodi Picoult to DEMAND the answer to a mystery she left unsolved in one of her books, and she emailed me back that the ending is what we make of it. NO. The ending is what the AUTHOR makes of it. That is the author’s job. My job is to read it.
The Fates Will Find Their Way is distinctive for two reasons:
1. It is written in first person plural (we thought this, we did that). This is such an unusual style, I was constantly thinking of the only other book I’ve read that used this style (Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris, a book I thought I hated for the first fifty pages, after which I loved it). It is a VERY STRANGE style.
2. Even more distractingly, it’s a female author writing on behalf of a group of boys/men. I ALMOST ALWAYS hate this. My attitude is “You have failed to acquire authorization to represent this point of view.” You’d think I’d feel that way about ALL books with non-author narrators (“Who are you to write as if you were Mary, Queen of Scots??”), but I don’t: it’s the male/female thing only. I think it’s because that is SUCH a minefield already, what one sex assumes the other sex is thinking and feeling. I feel it less with a female author and a male narrator, of course, because I’m not personally offended when a woman makes assumptions about how a man’s mind works—but I still think, “Hey.” And I wince if it seems personal/private and negative. Since this particular female author is writing for a whole GROUP of men, I was even more sensitive to it: by attributing thoughts/feelings to a group as if there was consensus to support her claims, it was more serious than if she were claiming it only for one character.
Both books deal heavily with teenager stuff: teenage emotions, teenage cruelties, teenage traumas. The Fates Will Find Their Way deals CONSIDERABLY MORE with teenage sexuality than I would like to read about (this was one of the parts where I repeatedly thought the author should not be writing on behalf of the opposite sex); The False Friend put more emphasis on teenage cruelty. Both books made me feel uneasy about my own children entering this age.
Both of these books held me absolutely riveted, and neither one of them paid off in the currency I prefer to tender. If you LIKE books that reflect real life, in that they leave you hanging and you never find out what happened (I’ve seen reviewers saying they liked the food for thought, or enjoyed the way it made them reflect upon the mysteries of life and how little we know about the Truth, etc., etc.) (though, I find it possible to THINK without the element of CONFUSION present), then BY ALL MEANS you should read these because they were GREAT until they omitted their satisfying-resolution, mystery-finally-revealed endings.
This is EXACTLY why I am super hesitant to read literary fiction anymore and stick almost exclusively to genre work (mysteries, romance, etc.) because those books have rules: mysteries are solved, misunderstandings are resolved, and the characters I really care about survive to tell the tale. I have enough uncertainty and confusion in my real life, thank-you-very-much, and in my entertainment I prefer to know that I won’t be left frustrated and raging at the end of the ride.
I am also not appreciative of “food for thought” type writing. Just tell me what it is you want to say.
While I do love a riveting page turner, I think I will pass on these books.
I will leave you with a book suggestion. I recently read When We Were Strangers and thoroughly enjoyed it.
GRARGH! That is how I feel when a book doesn’t tie up loose end and tell me what happened. What is the POINT of writing a mystery if you’re not going to tell the SOLUTION? As you say, it’s FICTION. The reason reading mystery stuff in real life makes me want to jump off a bridge is that we never really know the truth of what happened. So in writing fictional mysteries, I think authors have a DUTY to spell it all out at the end.
I am exactly the same as you, Swistle… I hate an unsolved/incomplete work of fiction! I read for pleasure, and I want a complete story. I don’t like creating my own ending/inferring the endings, because then I just get lost in the feeling of “BUT REALLY, I could be WRONG! That might not be it AT ALL!”. I’d rather just KNOW. haha.
One step stranger than first person plural? The Duggars’ book 20 and Counting with its first person plural but not actually plural narration.
“I (Jim Bob) worked in a used car lot while I (Michelle) was pregnant.” After the first few pages I was WISHING they had used first person plural.
AHHHHHH I HATE and I LOVE Jodi Picoult all at the same time for this very reason. I, like you, cannot STAND to have something left unsaid or a mystery unsolved but she is just SUCH a GREAT storyteller that I can’t help but read her. In fact, I’m headed to the library now to get “House Rules”.
But I definitely will be staying away from the books you mentioned just because I don’t want the OHMIGAWD-my-kid-will-SO-be-a-teenager-soon! feeling. Even though that’s like 13 years away still. That’s 13 years of fretting and worrying I’ll have to do until she actually gets there.
I had to give up Jodi Piccoult after 3 books – she writes an incredible A story, but her B stories had me skimming pages, gritting my teeth with exasperation and annoyance.
I am okay with different voices – as long as the story is compelling. (One thing I am loving about Anna Karenina is that you get to visit inside so many of the characters heads.)
I just finished Shutter Island and the ending blew me away – defied any expectation and left me wondering. I had to reread the prologue to ensure that I what I should had happened had actually happened. I was a little confused, but I am okay with that. It was a book that left me thinking, which is really all I ask for from most of my reads.
I agree with the Jodi Picoult endings, wonderfully engrossing stories, highly unsatifactory endings. The Tenth Circle and Vanishing Acts most recently aggrivated me in this way. Jeez Jodi, write and epilogue already!
Amanda- I put it on my library list!
Superjules- WASN’T THAT NUTS?? I wished they’d just written it in third person: “JimBob was this; meanwhile, Michelle was that.” Why the insistence on dual simultaneous narration??
I am often highly irritated by books that assume a Mysterious Tone but then it ends up there is no great mystery at all. For me this is almost worse than a no answer at all wrap up.
Also, I really DO want to go paint some walls the colors of that first book cover! Or eat them as candy!
I understand the whole gender representation “You have failed to acquire authorization to represent this point of view” thing.
However, have you ever read She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb? I felt like that was so spot on on so many levels that I couldn’t BELIEVE a man had written it.
In fact, I STILL can’t believe it.
This is the type of book review I can get behind, Thanks! My philosophy is that my real life has enough stress, drama, unsure endings….that I don’t need it in my entertaiment choices. Rarely do I want to read a book that’s “food for thought” or watch a TV show/movie that is overly dramatic. I live real life, reading books and/or watching TV is my escape from that.
Misty- I remember trying that one, but I think I gave up on the Endless! Relentless! Despair! before the end. Oprah, man. What is it with her and UNRELENTING UNPLEASANTNESS?
I can’t even talk about last year’s Jodi Picoult, House Rules, without being filled with rage about the ENORMOUS loose end left untied. I like a pretty bow at the end of my books, thank you very much.
I have The Fates Will Find Their Way sitting on my table staring at me right now, waiting for me to pick it up.
I feel exactly the same way. In fact, I read almost entirely romance novels now, for the simple reason that I like happy endings, and they always have happy endings. Except for one Danielle Steel book I read where the plucky heroine was a nurse in Vietname and the jerky hero was in the army and she gets caught in an explosion on the way to meet him, and then they spend the next TWENTY YEARS apart, having surgeries that make her completely unrecognizable and he gets married and has a Downs syndrome kid and becomes a nice person and then at the end of this ridiculous journey of self-discovery she ends up alone and he goes back to the ex-wife. WHAT THE HELL???? I read 300 pages for THIS?
I have not read a Danielle Steel book since.
I feel exactly the same way about books, also movies. I am not interested in investing my fairly limited entertainment time in something that is not going to resolve. I hate movies and books in which nothing really happens or the plot is not resolved. If I wanted to resolve my own plots, I’d be writing my own darned book or movie!
I feel *exactly* the same way about the women writing on behalf of men and vice versa. It almost never feels right! When I explain this to people, everyone looks at me strangely, so I guess we are in the minority? (But the minority who are CORRECT.)
I think the only thing that may upset me more than an non-tidy ending to a book is when the ending so very wrong. I just started reading the third book in a series that I’ve been anxiously anticipating so that I’d finally know what was going to happen, and it turned out that what happened was WRONG. I was LIVID. I mean, don’t bother to write a series if you’re only going to ruin it all in the last minute. Sheesh.
Thank you for these book reviews. Both of these books are on my list to read and now I will take them off. I’m okay not having everything tied up in a bow at the end but I am not interested in reading a lot about teenage sexuality or teenage cruelty. Food for my nightmares right there.
Oh and the only first person plural book I read and loved was “The Virgin Suicides” by Jeffrey Eugenides. SO GOOD.
Posted this on MissZoot’s GoogleReader shared thingie but thought I should post it here too.
Open ended only works when it’s a series. I hate it when a book just ends without wrapping it up. I am not asking for a pretty little package, just some resolution. I mean, did the top stop spinning or not?!
Also, on the whole gender thing, I agree!! It’s harder for me to get into a book written in first person female character and a male author – especially if something physically sexually violent happens or if the narrator is a teenager. Not that men don’t feel those things to, it’s just .. I guess I am a book snob in that way. I am looking at you Chris Cleave and your book Incendiary that I just finished.
I agree with the comment that ambiguous endings should only be allowed in the case of a series. Don’t a lot of Anita Shreve books end that way? Or maybe I just dislike her endings. I generally enjoy her writing and then feel livid with the last chapter.
I tend to overlook disappointing endings for a writing style that I really enjoy…
Have you read _Prep_ by the author who wrote _First Wife_? Curtis Wittenfield I think? Her first name is definitely Curtis, because that to me is a man’s name, and as I was reading _Prep_ I kept wondering who this man was that could get into the head of a teenaged girl. I finally read the “About the author” page and all was made clear.
Anyway, I think you’d like _Prep_ if you can stand some cringing because you remember your own adolescence and also if you can stand the fact that it’s impossible to reach into the book and shake her and tell her to snap out of it. I liked it a lot.
I HATE books that don’t tie up all the loose ends. Or books that take an easy, cheap way out – like a Stephen King book I read once that was a super great story right up until the end when the answer to what was happening ended up being…magic. No actual explanation. Just magic. I was angry for DAYS. I don’t know why I was surprised – it was a Stephen King book – but I’ve been bitter about it ever since. I can write a really great story without an ending too you know. When do I get my book deal?
I laughed out loud at the Jodi Picoult email. I feel like doing that every time I read her books.
Dr. Maureen- YES, I LOVED Prep! I had that same thing, except pre-reading: I thought, “I’m not reading a book with a teenage girl narrator written by a man.” Then I saw some article about the author somewhere, and I thought, “OH WAIT I GET IT NOW.”
I’m normally pretty tolerant of ambiguous endings in fiction, but I had this reaction to Stephen King’s The Colorado King because it was marketed as a hard-boiled mystery and that’s a genre with rules. One of the rules is the mystery must be solved. Ticked me off.
My favorite book that ends in a no-I’m-not-going-to-tell-you way is Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace. Used to drive my students crazy when I taught it, but I love the ending.
I couldn’t agree with you more. The biggest offender in my experience is Into the Woods by Tana French. Two mysteries, one in the past, one in the present, and only the present day mystery gets solved. Loved it until the last 50 pages when I started thinking ” damn, she’s got a lot to explain in only 50 pages,” and then she didn’t.
That should have been Colorado Kid, not King.
Is it weird that I am totally fine with books that don’t tie up their loose ends? It annoys me a thousand times more to read a too-neat ending, something that is wrapped up implausibly and therefore doesn’t ring true.
I’ve also added both of these books to my to-read list on Goodreads… thanks for the recommendation for a very specific group of readers!
Gwen- Of course I also dislike an ending that doesn’t ring true. What I’m talking about is a SATISFYING ending: one that makes sense, neither unresolved nor implausible.
Swistle, I completely agree with you. I don’t want to make up my own ending. I am reading the book for for fun, maybe to make me think, but not to make me write. And I think knowing it is a fictional story makes it even worse, because if the author didn’t write the ending, then really, nothing happened. The story just ended and I know whatever *I* try to think happened, didn’t happen because I am not the author and it’s not real! I have no idea if I am making my point…I am really tired. But, I agree with you.
Someone already mentioned it, but don’t read In the Woods by Tana French. I mean, DO because it is a very weird and interesting book and has one satisfyingly resolved mystery. But DON’T because one weird mystery is left totally unresolved and frustratingly so.
(But her other books are not like that and are also AWESOME.)
Another “we” book that is weird and also very good is The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. I think it’s the only first person plural narrated novel I’ve ever read. But very well done (and the author is male, just as the collective narrator is). And I just now see that someone else recommended it. It is really a good one.
Swistle,
You can go ahead and return to Wally Lamb’s Books O’ Misery without trepidation. The first two (She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True) are indeed very bleak but the endings are satisfying, mostly plausible, and much happier than one would expect. The third book, The Hour I First Believed, is also satisfying but not quite as happy, as I recall. I only read that one once and have read the first two several times. I haven’t read his most recent novel.
I also like Anne Tyler and Elizabeth Berg for realistically tidy endings and engrossing stories.
I had to laugh at the Jodi Picoult thing, I will never pick up one of her books again, but for a different reason. I was so pissed at My Sister’s Keeper, that I literally threw the book across the room. I felt so jerked around by that book, that was it for me. I guess it is a testimate to what a good writer she is, that you care so much for her characters, but no thanks-that kind of emotional tomfoolery is not for me.
Oh, please tell me what novel you emailed Jodi Picoult about! I hate her cop out endings.
Shelly- It was the one about the pregnant Amish girl. MAN, that book was so good! And then the ending (“ending”) made me SO MAD! And so much of it made no SENSE.
This always really pisses me off in movies. Just do a nice little vignette at the end showing them date, get married, and have babies. Not just a kiss and then BAMN done. I want to know what happened. The end of Scrubs did that so good, they showed the next like ten years in a two minute family video song type thing I HATE BEING LEFT WONDERING WHAT HAPPENED DID THEY WORK OUT OR NOT UGGGGGGGGGGGG. The movie Letters To Juliet realllllly pissed me off. So they kissed at a wedding THEN WHAT????? I like in Sweet Home Alabama during the credits it shows their wedding. Then shows a picture of them with kids THAT IS AN APPROPRIATE ENDING!
man that just got me all fired up
Jodi Picoult = emotionally manipulative. And she’s a fairly mediocre writer too, certainly not good enough to pull off the emotional manipulativeness without pissing people off. Whoever said My Sister’s Keeper was the dealbreaker – me too! I HATED that ending so much that I vowed I would never read another of hers, and I haven’t.
Oh! Plain Truth! I HATED that ending, too. I felt like she really painted herself into a corner by eliminating all possible suspects and then had to kind of insinuate that it was the least believable character. Bah! I’m done with Picoult.
StephLove, is there anything you can explain about the end of Alias Grace? I have thought and thought about that book. Which is good for my brain, but I’d love to hear the take of someone who has taught it.