BTT: Editing fun

Suggested by John :

How about a chance to play editor-in-chief? Fill in the blanks:

__________ would have been a much better book if ______________________.

This one's good for thinking and mulling over. I'm not sure there is any one book that I'd want to play fill-in-the-blanks with. Sometimes I can be on the fence about a book, and the ending (or more likely the epilogue) will push me one way or the other. Often I read epilogues with distrust. Sometimes (but not all the time) they lessen the experience as a whole.

What's really annoying is reading an entire series and then having the ending of the last novel in the series spoil your affection (or dim your affection) for the whole bunch of books. I'm thinking specifically of three series. One, I really really really hated the ending to the Foundation series. Foundation and Earth. Unless something drastic happens--and that's always a possibility it is only March after all--that book will most likely be my least favorite of the year. The Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray--concluding with The Sweet Far Thing is another example. I really really really disliked the ending. Which is a shame. Because up until the end, I was loving the book. And in my review of course, I couldn't really talk about the ending. The other series, the third series, that comes to mind is the Midnighters series by Scott Westerfeld. Loved the first two books. Loved them. Halfway through the third book though I got a bad vibe. The ending was absolutely dreadful. Hated it.

Now that I think about it, I'd much rather play editor for tv shows and movies. Those irritate me much more than books. Especially soap operas. They're very annoying when they go in a completely stupid direction. (Some of you no doubt are thinking, "Becky, they are always always always stupid." And I'll grant you you're not far from the truth. But satisfying stupidity is one thing, frustrating stupidity is something else entirely. If I'm going to watch something pointless, I want to be satisfied while doing it. Not irritated, annoyed, and yelling at the tv.)