On Books (Part Six)

I just finished reading a book for teens that will remain unnamed. If you want to know what it is and you can't guess, I can tell you in person, but I'm finished blogging about living authors who are still working on their careers, unless I only say nice things about them. And I'm going to say some not nice things about this book.

First of all, it was the finale of a series. I don't really like series books, with the exception of Harry Potter. I do read series often enough, but it's more in the form of professional development than recreation. I work in schools, so I feel I should read teen books; particularly the ones that are wildly popular.

This series has never been my favorite. It's too violent, too disturbing, and too vague. I never got very grounded in the world it took place in, and I think most of the reason is that the author him/herself didn't have a concept of where exactly it was going until the series as a whole was half over. I could be wrong about that. Maybe I just read it too fast. But this is the type of book you must read quickly. You can't hover over words and sentences; you can't digest any of the details because you have to find out what happens next. I agree that for a good story the stakes have to be high, but this was over the top. By the end, I had to be dead to all feeling because it was too much. The semi-happy ending wasn't even happy to me; I guess that bothers me the most because it's not supposed to be. The author crafted the story in such a way that there was never a possibility of a happy ending, and yet, it couldn't be tragedy because the main character was narrator--present tense narrator, I might add.

The series is obviously a tremendous achievement, and one that I could never hope to come close to. The next to last book, typically, ended up unraveling every knot it could, leaving the readers hanging in the most suspenseful way possible. The finale tied up all the knots neatly enough, I think. And yet, there are just too many things about it I don't like, and too many things about the ending that dissatisfy and annoy me.

It's always true in a story of suspense like this that people die. People you care about die. But the ones who died in this one, rather than bringing the story full-circle, just seemed to de-legitimize everything that happened, and by the time it was final, it was impossible to believe there was any reason for the story to go on. The protagonist had been through the wringer ten too many times by then, realistically falling apart after each one, and I really got tired of reading about how she had to deal with the worst case scenario over and over and over and over.

In spite of the gentle denouement, there was really no note of hope for the future and no reason for the characters to keep going. Just too depressing. I think I'll lay off teen books again for a while.