The Ending Writes Itself: a review
With managing our farm, writing, publishing, and marketing, I rarely have time to read these days, which is bad because writers should read, just as musicians should listen to music. It helps us think about our own writing and hone our own craft.
Luckily, my husband took some vacation time, and we had most of a week at a lake. We hit a couple of bookstores and I found a book with the intriguing premise of six midlist authors summoned to a Scottish castle of the world-renowned author, Arthur Fletch, only to learn that he's died, leaving his last great opus unfinished. They must each write the ending in the next 72 hours, the winner to earn a million dollars for the ending and another million for a three-book deal that will make their name as authors. I rarely buy new books (I much prefer places like Half Price Books and MacKays) but I jumped at this one. Only later did I realize it was co-written by the author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRoue, which I loved. I jumped right in, and read every chance I got, loving the story...
... right up until the last few pages. I could (and may) write an article on the things I did like: the look at writers, the ways we avoid writing, procrastinate, struggle to find the words or fix a plot hole; the look at the publishing industry which I think is highly accurate; the twist on the classic And Then There Were None; the pressure of the clock ticking down the hours until there could possibly be rescue.
Seeing writers live the same things I experience made me want to sit down and write, even though I'm in the editing stages right now that feel like wrestling (and often losing to) a 12-armed octopus.
AFTER THIS PARAGRAPH, SPOILERS.
I think many of the reviews have been overly harsh. Some felt the characters were two-dimensional and hardly distinguishable from one another. I disagree, apart from maybe Millie and Cate. I raced through the book, getting back to it every second I could, enjoying it—until the last few pages felt like a bomb blowing a hole in that enjoyment, leaving me only with questions and the feeling the story didn’t really add up.
FROM HERE ON OUT: SPOILERS.
I guessed the killer fairly early by the simple fact that it's almost always the person you least expect and usually the one that the least is said about. It didn’t take long to see who was being set up as exactly that person. It is true, as one reviewer said, so little was said about her that I don’t even remember what genre she wrote.
But there were many things that were left unexplained at the end in no particular order because, in fact, I'm procrastinating at my own writing:
After all the deaths, after the clock runs down and the safe opens, an unnamed person takes all the authors' devices (it wasn’t Cate, who is presumably dead by the time the clock runs down). We never learn what was done with the devices. It seemed like a setup that whoever took them (Eleanor?) was going to steal their WIPs or...something...but then...nothing.
There seems to be no reason for the scene to hide the identity of who took them. It’s one of the scenes that hinted toward Arthur Fletch perhaps being alive after all—but we're told at the end he isn’t. So, if Eleanor was the only one in the house, why hide her identity? Just to carry out the red herring that Fletch is alive?
The meeting between Eleanor and Ava/Priscilla at the end left me thinking Eleanor had somehow arranged all of this murder, or had some idea it was going to happen, since she specifically chose writers with few family or friends to notice or complain about the murders. But once again...nothing.
We learn from the old (or auld) Scotsman who rescues Kenzo that Eleanor shooed all the staff off the island and tried to remove him, too, but he hid. In Eleanor’s conversation with Ava/Priscilla, she hints or says that she removed everyone so there would be no witnesses—another hint that she planned this awful weekend or knew there would be murders. Yet we never learn that she’s behind any of it. Did she push to have Cate included somehow expecting her to kill? It's completely unexplained.
There's no real motive for Cate killing everyone. To win the contest when she just writes books with AI anyway? That doesn’t make sense to me. We never hear a back-story that would explain how she became such a psychopath. Because her mother poured too much time into writing and Cate felt neglected? That seems like a stretch at best. To find the gold book? She didn't need to kill to do that.
I found it hard to believe that Cate, who is a slight 22-year-old, had the strength to strangle a man much larger than herself, and one who continually works out and is therefore much stronger even than the average man.
There was no explanation for how she knew all about the secret rooms and hidden passages within hours (or less) of arriving at the castle.
There were minor distractions—such as Jaxon learning the third book of his trilogy won’t be put out by his publisher because he’s not making enough sales. It’s been ridiculously easy to self-publish for twenty years. So why is he in such agony over this, rather than putting it out on his own?
The red cap is a minor distraction. It’s used as a hint that Fletch is still alive. When Kenzo is rescued at the end by an old Scotsman in a red cap, we’re told, No, that red cap was always mine. It was the old Scotsman, not Fletch, that everyone kept seeing in the red cap. Fletch just liked to take it from me because he liked the look. Now, Fletch is so insanely wealthy that he owns his own castle on his on island and commissioned a book made of gold and precious gems. But he doesn’t just buy his own red cap? And given that the Scotsman lives in his own cottage on the island, how is Fletch constantly stealing his cap?
There were many parts that seemed to have nothing to do with the story. It opens with Cate being dumped by her girlfriend. The girlfriend, getting dumped, being gay—none of it has anything to do with the story. None of it is ever brought up again, even to show us anything about her character. So why was it there at all, let alone as the opening? There is such a thing as misdirection in novels. But this doesn't work as misdirection, in part because it doesn't misdirect us to anything.
Likewise, it’s brought up several times that Ava/Priscilla really doesn’t like ‘old, white men.’ We have no idea why, unless we’re supposed to assume that black women disliking old, white men is just the way of the world? It seems like a bit of a stereotype; maybe the authors think all black women think this way? I don’t know. Priscilla's feelings about race are brought up over and over, yet it doesn’t seem to have any bearing on the story. It doesn’t impact any of her decisions, for instance. To me, it didn't expand, explain, or enhance her character in any way.
Throughout the book, we see writings of the various authors--a poem, an acceptance speech, Cate's girlfriend complaining that she's never present--followed by the words, found on so-and-so's computer or texts found on so-and-so's phone. Most of them had no real bearing on the plot. Found on...suggested that after the authors left their devices locked in a safe for the weekend, someone removed them and began searching them. Yet that never panned out. Only at the end of the weekend, does a nameless figure remove them. So how could anyone have been finding these writings on their phones and laptops throughout the weekend?
In the very last pages, we see Kenzo appearing to talk about his new horror novel, a barely-fictionalized account of the weekend of murder in the Scottish castle. Eleonor is there, watching him like a hawk to make sure he doesn’t say anything she doesn’t approve of. Her goal is to cover up all these murders on the island. She has given the island and castle to the old Scotsman in exchange for his silence about the matter.
This begs the question of how she covered up multiple murders and bodies: Millie bludgeoned and left in a bedroom; Jaxon strangled and apparently left in his chair in his room; Sienna pushed down the stairs and her body carried to the cellar until they could get off the island; Malcolm at the bottom of a cliff; Cate drowned and pinned underwater not far from shore by the golden book she refuses to let go of. Did Eleanor leave the three bodies in the castle? Pay someone to remove them? Call the police? Did she figure the old Scotsman would be fine living on the island with a now-abandoned castle and five dead bodies hanging around the castle and island?
Once again, her desire to hide all of this makes her seem complicit while the ending gives no evidence that she is. It’s an ending that doesn’t make sense, that seems to put forth contradictory information, giving behavior and conversations that suggest Eleanor is really the one behind it all and yet never saying so and, if so, not explaining why, or how she got Cate to kill everyone or why.
And this I found the great irony: for a book called The Ending Writes Itself, I felt it really didn’t. It was left hanging and in many ways didn’t make sense or clear things up. I’m left wondering how much these issues are simply the result of authors high enough in the publishing/writing world that they can afford to write a book fast and not catch these things, if they were trying to be ironic by not writing a clear ending, or if these questions were left open deliberately as a setup for a sequel.
It didn't seem like it was being set up for a sequel. I could be wrong of course. Eleanor seems to be complicit and is running around free. If there is a sequel, I don’t think I’d read it. I really did enjoy the journey but the abrupt stop at the end, with too many things unexplained, ruined it for me, especially the failure to give any motive, whether it was all Cate or whether Eleanor was behind it. I have no idea why either of them would want to kill all these authors. 'To win a contest' isn't believable from a 22-year-old and there's no explanation at all, if Eleanor is complicit, why she'd want to do this.
~ ~ ~
If you like this article, you may also like:
Meeting Margaret: the author who inspired my own tales
If you'd like notecards, puzzles, and more with our Farm Photography, check out our store at Zazzle.
Find the Blue Bells Chronicles at amazon or order them at any brick & mortar store:
Comments
Post a Comment