(growls in frustration)

In which I don't spoil the ending, but I do give a hint about it.

Wallace Stegner and I are in a fight. I finished Angle of Repose. And, as I wrote over at Goodreads, the "ending is...disappointing. Not nearly magnificent enough to fit the rest of the book. And Stegner, whom I was holding up as my example of a writer you can trust, sweeps the rug out from under his own story with a cheap trick, and then leaves us hanging. I almost tossed the book across the room."

I love a good ending. I savor a great surprising but satisfying twist. I love an "aha!" I can take ambiguity and questions. I'm even occasionally up for a slightly unrealistic but makes me smile happy as a banana split tie it all together ending.

What I cannot stand is for an author to sell out his own story, and with it, his readers. I respect story. I respect beginnings and middles and ends. I think beginnings are promises and middles are journeys and the end has to be some sort of destination and fulfillment of the promise. If your beginning is the first slice of bread, and the middle is turkey and cheese, your ending cannot be beef nachos.

I know life is an unsure journey. And I am sure better Stegner scholars than I could eloquently justify the "WHAT?!" moment in the first sentence of the last chapter of this book. But me, I feel cheated.

I'm going to read The Last Olympian. Rick Riordan had better not let me down...