The question:
__________ would have been a much better book if ______________________.
My answer:
A Time to Dance (Karen Kingsbury) would have been a much better book if instead of the miraculous healing there was courage, strength, and perserverance. I love happy endings as much as anybody - and I love Karen Kingsbury books - but in this one I would have liked to see her deal with the shocking reality that people actually face. I would have loved for the happy ending to mean that the people in this book found a way to love and be content, even joyful, despite the circumstances they found themselves in. Because that is real life. Now, of course, we don’t always want to read about real life, but it could have been a way to encourage people through their difficulties rather than just taking the difficulty away - since that rarely happens in life. I think the healing was just an easier way to end the story.
This post was written byLeah and is filed under Booking Through Thursday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 13th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I think you have a very interesting general point here, even though I don’t know the book you mention. I think of a number of books where there is a ‘happy ending’ that stretches credulity. I remember hearing Philip Pullman saying once that what was needed was an ending that gave grounds for hope. Now that I can go with, but the eternal happy ending sometimes asks too much of me.
March 13th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Ann - I love that! - “an ending that gave grounds for hope!” That is exactly what this book needed. Thanks for your comment.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Well, I agree with you, this book disappointed me in that regard.
I haven’t read the book Atonement, but the movie sort of addressed the idea as well…something that really stuck with me.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Life is not about happy endings. It is about how to face adversity.
Some books go overboard with fairy tale endings. The case in point is epilogue in Harry Potter 7.
Here is my BTT post!
March 13th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
I don’t know the book you mentioned but I like your explanation. I wrote about Harry Potter. Happy BTT.
March 16th, 2008 at 8:43 am
Life is SOMETIMES about happy endings, not just very often. Life can be really GOOD sometimes. When I was going through a really dark time the thought that kept me going was where there is life there is HOPE. We must have HOPE to keep going. As far as the books, Harry Potter is a completely different genre than “A Time to Dance” and Karen Kingsbury books in general. Harry Potter is FANTASY and Karen Kingsbury writes REALISTIC FICTION. You can’t really compare the two. Fantasy is just that completely make believe.