Ever read a book, got to the end, then read the epilogue and thought ‘well fuck that killed it for me’.

Is it just me or does there seem to be more and more epilogues in books lately? Especially epilogues that are unnecessary and total shite, which no author or editor in their right mind should have ever written/allowed. Obviously there are authors and storylines that use the technique well, but I still think that they are becoming over-used and miss-used.

Srsly why bother? I mean generally a story already has some kind of conclusion, doesn’t it? Even if an ending is open ended, why not leave it to us, the reader, to use our own imaginations about where the characters and their stories go to from here?

One of the reasons I like reading so much is because I can actually use my imagination, my own creativity to engage with a story. An unnecessary/crap epilogue can absolutely ruin an otherwise good story, leaving the reader feel hollow with an unconscious or sometimes conscious dislike of the author’s writing and work.

A case in point

I purchased this book based on the recommendation of a blog *I know – quel shock*. I admit that it was initially a bit hard for me to get in to, but anyway the story was along the lines of: an out rich, city boy meets a closeted poor, country boy, they get it on, bad things happen to both of them but they fall in love, and city boy buys country boy a ranch of his own where they both live happily ever after, the end… ??… well, it should have been, but no… an epilogue appears… describing events some time in the future where the city boy is grieving because, after fulfilling one of his life long dreams, the country boy has died of cancer and, although still relatively young, city boy will never get over the love of his life… ??… ???? …?????????? …WTF????????????????????????

Just why did I need to know this?!? I would have been happy to imagine country boy teaching city boy how to do things like muck out shit, and city boy taking country boy to the big smoke where they could do the dirty in the back room of a nightclub somewhere, but no city boy is crying, curled up into a fetal position clutching the treasured belongings of the now dead country boy.

Yeah, I s’pose it could have been touching, blah, blah, blerk, but still… just why??