Deadline, Mira Grant

[rowyn]

When Lut finished this book, he noted that several things explicitly defined as Not Possible happened in it, and that he didn't know what to think of it without reading the next book.

 

I had not made up my mind whether or not I actually wanted to read it; it wasn't until day 20 of the 21 days I had it checked out for that I finally started it. (Being a slow reader lately, it took three days for me to finish it. It'll be a day late going back. Oh noes!)

 

After reading it, I pretty much agree with Lut. My reaction to the ending is "?!?" It makes no sense. What is it with trilogies that the second books never have a proper ending? The first book had closure. The second does not. It's not exactly a cliffhanger, but it is definitely a "what is this I don't even" sort of ending.

 

I was not horribly depressed at the end of it, in part because I did not care about the characters this time around. This is not really progress from a 'good book' standpoint, I'm afraid. I don't know if they were less engaging or if I'd just successfully armored myself this time. Maybe some of both. Even beyond the 'this is explicitly impossible' stuff, there's a certain amount of 'this makes no sense' running through the book.  For example, the protagonists are news reporters, and there are some key points where I expect them to, y'know, REPORT. The NEWS. Of which they have a lot. And then they don't, and I am all perplexed about what they're waiting for, the rest of the global population to die so it won't matter?

 

This aside, it's engaging, and some of the major revelations do make sense, and I am sufficiently interested-and-not-depressed that I'll read the last one now. I think this one only gets a 6, though.

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I guess that's one way to deal with feeling like you've written yourself into a corner based on the way you've already said your world works...

[rowyn]

This has less of a feeling of 'was not planned at the outset' than 'should have been foreshadowed adequately'. It's like when the narrator lies to the reader in order to surprise them (which also happened, and which always makes me wonder what else the narrator isn't telling me).

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

There is a lot I'm willing to forgive in a book or a TV series if the ending pays it all off. Something might be internally inconsistent, but I might read on through to the end because of the possibility that it will be explained. When it is, in fact, NOT explained (or done so horribly), my reaction is often extremely negative. I put in all this extra time, hoping for that earlier flaw to be explained, and I was ultimately disappointed. No matter how engaged I was during the "journey," if the ending is a dud, that marks my opinion of the whole thing.

I think that, when it comes to books, I expect a certain amount of self-standing within the covers. The ending of a book is a significant break-point, and a point of reflection for me to decide whether I'll pay for the next book. It's all right if a few loose ends and mysteries are left -- aren't there always some? -- but if there's a severe flaw in the story (This thing does not make sense!) my experience is that if it's not brought to satisfactory conclusion by the end of the book, and there's no tease directly pointing to "look to the next book for an explanation!" then odds are pretty good that it WILL NOT be resolved later on. If the trail gets too cold, it's quite possible that the author has forgotten about it, or assumes the readers have forgotten about it, and unless a great big deal is made about it, it won't get a suitable conclusion. (I'm sure there are exceptions, but acknowledging a few possible EXCEPTIONS is really no different than saying "most of the time it isn't paid off.")

[rowyn]

Well, this is the sort of stuff that I expect to be resolved in tthe next book. That said, I vastly prefer books with some sense of resolution (however incomplete) at the close. This one felt like 'stopped in the middle'. I understand the limitations of physical presses, but still. Bleah.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Stranger than Fiction. I spent the whole movie waiting to find out what the explanation was behind the whole author/character thing and they *never explained it*. If I hadn't been put to sleep by the general tediousness of the movie I probably would have been angrier.