The Finish: Glossy? Or Matte?

From: Beautiful Book Covers

“I’ve basically hated the endings of the last few novels I’ve read, and I am cranky about it. Like being stuck in bumper to bumper traffic cranky. Like not having eaten in five hours cranky. Like being stuck in traffic WHILE also being hungry cranky. I don’t know what your maximum capacity for crankerdom is, but I’m just about hitting the ceiling on mine.

     Let me clarify my stance on endings. I don’t need them to be happy. I’m actually not the number one fan of happy endings, because with the kinds of complicated stories I tend to gravitate towards, a truly happy ending, more often than not, feels oversimplified and tacked on. I don’t want all the strings hanging loose at the end, but I equally don’t want all those strings tied up into neat and pretty birthday package bows. […]
     For me, a satisfying ending is when a dramatic question has been thoroughly explored throughout the course of a story (Can Anna Karenina find happiness with Count Vronsky? Can Peter Pan convince the Darling children to stay with him in Neverland? Can Hamlet avenge his father’s death?) and an answer that makes sense has been reached. Often the answer to the dramatic question in question is NO, because it was always SUPPOSED to be NO. It’s not the ending that feels GOOD, but it is the ending that feels RIGHT.
     If Anna ran off with Vronsky with no consequences, if the Darling children stayed in Neverland forever, if Hamlet was just like 'Fuck this Elsinore noise, I’m getting out of this crazy castle and maybe also Denmark,' yes, those characters might be happier but we the readers wouldn’t.”
— Kit Steinkeller, BOOKRIOT
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