Good books, bad endings

Hello beautiful people. You know what is one of the worst feelings in the world? It’s the sadness and emptiness you have when you read the very last page of an awesome book or, even worse, the last page of a book series. I literally suffered a little depression after I finished The Dark Tower series.
The thing about reading books is that it can be very lonely. You want to talk about it to anyone that will listen. I wish more of my friends not only read books but read the crap I like. I know a lot of you out there know exactly what I am talking about.

But do you want to know what is an even worse feeling? Loving a book or series of books and fucking hating the ending. You feel robbed and like you want to track down the writer and punch him in the face.

I have felt that a couple of times in recent months.

It happened first off with Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline. I absolutely loved the first book, Ready Player One, and keep in mind, I am talking about the books here, not the movie. To be honest, when I first finished the second book, I felt very meh, like I felt let down, but I had enjoyed some of it enough to say it wasn’t a total waste. It stayed on my mind, and not in a good way; the more I thought about it, the more I disliked it.

I am not going to get into major spoilers for those of you that plan on reading it, but I will mention a few of the small things that ended up really bothering me.

So, the lead character, Parzival/Wade Watts, just casually mentions that he has had virtual gay sex and how everyone in the future, because of the technology, is much more sexually fluid. Cool, awesome, love it — but it felt like an afterthought, and the weight of such a statement and it’s implications were just dropped.

The author introduces a trans person who plays kind of a big role in why things work out the way they do, but he then does so little to tell any of their story. It just seemed like pandering. When I first read it, I was excited for the inclusiveness, but after thinking about it for a while, I just feel like the character deserved so much more. And the writer’s use of “non-binary” seemed uninformed and, well, not misused, just odd. Like he googled the words and loosely added it to his story to somehow score points for being so woke and inclusive.

This is just my opinion. Read the book and let me know what you think. Or don’t, because it ended up being such a letdown. I did like most of the 1980s stuff — lots of John Hughes and Prince — but the story that ties the ’80s themes together just does not work.

The next book series ending that truly let me down was Hannibal by Thomas Harris. So help me God, if I ever meet Thomas Harris, I will punch him in the dick so hard! I will absolutely be talking spoilers from here forward, so if you haven’t read the books and plan to, turn away now. But this book came out in 1999, so you have had plenty of time to read it. I was extremely late to the game.

Silence of the Lambs is one of my all-time favorite movies, and I have always planned on reading the series. I started with Red Dragon — great book, and the movie did the book justice. Then came Silence of the Lambs — amazing book, and, again, the movie really stuck close to the book. I will say that Red Dragon and Silence both felt very dated, though not necessarily in a bad way. The way forensics and photography have grown and advanced so much since these books were written, it feels almost ancient in the way they did things back then.

Then came Hannibal. Compelling story with characters so very unlikeable that you couldn’t wait for them to get their comeuppance. I also loved the growth of Clarice Starling from a smart, brave but timid FBI trainee to more of a badass FBI agent. She’s a strong woman with an absolute moral compass. Everything she does in her life she does to make her dead father proud. She idolized her dad and would never do anything that he would have seen as unlawful or evil.

Then, after she attempts to rescue Dr. Lecter from crazed Mason Verger’s pit of man-eating pigs and ends up being rescued by Hannibal himself, she starts to change. Granted, Dr. Lecter does keep her drugged for days on end, and he is a trained psychiatrist and a brilliant man. But do you really want me to believe that in those days with Lecter, through their many “talks,” Clarice is suddenly cool with eating Paul Krendler’s brains?!

Yes, she absolutely hated him, but did she hate him enough to dine on human flesh? NO!

Then the book ends with Clarice Starling being totally okay with just being Hannibal Lecter’s arm candy and falling in love with a man that has killed so many? So just fuck her moral compass that the writer has developed over the last two books. He completely changed who she was fundamentally and has her ride off into the sunset with a man that she believes will eventually kill her with a crossbow.
BULLSHIT!

Every time I think about it, I get heated. I am clanking on this keyboard so loud right now it sounds like gunfire.

Jodie Foster made me love Clarice Starling — smart, strong and virtuous. I read the books with such an excitement to really get to know that character. And in the last few chapters of his book, Thomas Harris fucked it up. I know they are his characters, and he can do with them what he wants. But dude! That was a dick move!

I was so mad when I finished Hannibal that I hate-read Hannibal Rising. It was a prequel, so I felt it was safe. I didn’t hate the book, and I love the character of Hannibal Lecter, so it was a mediocre thumbs up for me. The movie stuck to the book pretty well, but luckily the movie Hannibal did not stick to the book. I just need to put those last chapters of Hannibal out of my mind.

The new television series Clarice is redeeming the legacy of Clarice Starling for me. It picks up a few years after Silence of the Lambs and barely even mentions Hannibal Lecter, so it will be interesting to see where it goes.

I apologize for needing to vent, but dammit! I get very invested in these books and stories! Remember to always love more bitch less — Ha-ha! All I have done is bitch — and be fabulous. XOXO, Cassie Nova