Jackie says, “I love books with complicated plots and unexpected endings. What is your favourite book with a fantastic twist at the end?”
So, today’s question is in two parts.
1. Do YOU like books with complicated plots and unexpected endings?
2. What book with a surprise ending is your favorite? Or your least favorite?
My answer to the first part, “do I like complicated plots and unexpected endings?” is a resounding YES! I think it’s one of the things I liked best about Dune. All the intrigues and plots and subplots made it like taking a long trip down a winding road and checking out all the historical markers, garage sales, and tourist traps along the way. I hate reading a book where I know what’s going to happen, it really takes a lot of the fun out of it. Maybe that’s one of the things I didn’t like about The Blue Notebook, none of it was a surprise… except just how far human depravity can go.
As for what book with a surprise ending is my favorite, I’d say The Book Thief is my favorite book. I don’t know whether it was a “surprise” because we know Liesel is going to die by page 3, and yet… somehow… her death is still a shock, like when a person with cancer dies in a car crash. You knew their end was coming, but when it happens it’s a shock. It wasn’t the fact she died, but the how and what all happened in the book before that. I actually cried for several minutes, and couldn’t start a new book for a few days because of how much emotions it had wrought in me. That’s why The Book Thief is my all-time favorite book. I’ve never had a book reach me so deeply.
As for my least favorite “surprise ending” book, that’d be BoneMan’s Daughters. By the time the end came, I was hating the book so bad, there was nothing Dekker could do to bring me back. I’d lost my willing suspension of disbelief, so the ending was ridiculous to me.
So how about you? Do you like complicated and twisty books? What’s your favorite surprise ending?
Check out other Twisty Booking Through Thursday answers!
Filed under: Booking Through Thursday | Tagged: BoneMan's Daughters, Booking Through Thursday, BTT, complicated plots, Dune, favorite books, meme, reading, surprise endings, Ted Dekker, The Book Thief |
In the Shadow of Mt. TBR 
I have not read the Dune series since college (it was ’87) so my memory is quite foggy. I have to agree with The Boneman’s Daughters. My answers: http://www.rundpinne.com/2010/01/booking-through-thursday-complicated.html
The Blue Notebook & The Book Thief I want to read but they are chunksters and I just don’t know if I can :-0
I agree with the ending of The Book Thief. Sure, we knew what was supposed to happen, but it was an unexpected ending despite that.
Here’s mine:
http://literarilyspeaking1.blogspot.com/2010/01/booking-through-thursday-january-28.html
LOL!! I remember that you didn’t like that Dekker book.
Here is mine
I loved The Book Thief..
And I like unexpected endings!
Booking through twisty
I love surprises and then realizing the clues I missed.
I love complicated twists and turns and have The Book Thief in my TBR pile. You’ve made me excited about it!
I’m right there with you — The Book Thief is incredible and almost ruined me as a reader! I was so emotionally wrecked after reading, I couldn’t immediately pick up anything else. Definitely a surprise — in a good way.
I love surprise endings too. There are so many books that follow a formula and it’s so easy to figure out the ending. It’s great when the author throws a curve ball that you never see coming.
I’ve had The Book Thief twice from my library and started it twice but couldn’t finish it because of prior commitments and those pesky due dates. I am definitely going to get it again and will make the time to read and enjoy it. Thanks!
I loved The Book Thief too! Having the devil narrate the book was so clever.
Excellent questions! I like to think that twisted plots and unexpected endings are my favorite reads, but I don’t think they are…I just don’t have the time. Oh, well, there is always tomorrow! Happy reading!
Ah…Book Thief was a beautiful book wasn’t it, I cried some too 🙂