- Joined
- Nov 14, 2014
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Just curious, as you all have more experience than me...
I have just finished this book, and the whole experience has been a massive disappointment on many levels, so that's why I'm asking for other opinions, I think I'm a little biased and require some objectivity.
To make it very short, the book starts with a car crash against a tree. One of the passengers survives and goes on with his life. Meets a girl and gets married, etc. etc. In the end, you find out that the guy "lived" that stuff while on the brink of death, still at the crash scene, and that his wife was actually the passenger of another car that got smashed in the crash. I've gone back to the accident scene, and there is absolutely no mention of another car at all.
I'd have felt happier with the ending if the author had mentioned that the driver had swerved and smashed into the tree to avoid another car (he was under the influence), but as it reads, he just "misjudged a curve". As a reader, I feel that was misleading, and that the "big reveal" was therefore rather "meh". There's something about not picking up clues that make you go all "aaaaaah I've got it now!" at the end, but if you can't even get the chance to guess, what's the point?
Just wondering if deliberately omitting details is common practice among authors, or if there really is a certain craft in building up a plot to get a big reveal and that this author kind of failed meaning another disappointment to add to my list.
Don't get me wrong, though, the disappointments caused lots of thinking, and there was lots of learning done in the process
I have just finished this book, and the whole experience has been a massive disappointment on many levels, so that's why I'm asking for other opinions, I think I'm a little biased and require some objectivity.
To make it very short, the book starts with a car crash against a tree. One of the passengers survives and goes on with his life. Meets a girl and gets married, etc. etc. In the end, you find out that the guy "lived" that stuff while on the brink of death, still at the crash scene, and that his wife was actually the passenger of another car that got smashed in the crash. I've gone back to the accident scene, and there is absolutely no mention of another car at all.
I'd have felt happier with the ending if the author had mentioned that the driver had swerved and smashed into the tree to avoid another car (he was under the influence), but as it reads, he just "misjudged a curve". As a reader, I feel that was misleading, and that the "big reveal" was therefore rather "meh". There's something about not picking up clues that make you go all "aaaaaah I've got it now!" at the end, but if you can't even get the chance to guess, what's the point?
Just wondering if deliberately omitting details is common practice among authors, or if there really is a certain craft in building up a plot to get a big reveal and that this author kind of failed meaning another disappointment to add to my list.
Don't get me wrong, though, the disappointments caused lots of thinking, and there was lots of learning done in the process