Why I Read the Ending First

A blessed companion is a book, - a book that, fitly chosen, is a lifelong friend,... a book that, at a touch, pours its heart into our own. ~ Douglas Jerrold

Many, many moons ago, I read Where the Red Fern Grows. C'mon, you did, too. Right?

Did you cry like a baby?

I did. And I swore that I would NEVER read a story without a happy ending EVER AGAIN. Of course, that was before I took English lit (and why, oh why, must all "literary" novels and "classics" be so flipping morose?), but now that I'm a grown up and no longer have assigned reading, I look for HEA. Period.

Real life is depressing enough, isn't it?

So... the other day I pick up a book I checked out at the library and flipped to the end (of course) and thought, "Huh. There isn't a blank page at the end like usual." and then I read the last line. It read: "I searched eagerly for his faded".

What? His faded... what? He who??

Can you believe it. The book was printed without the last page or pages. And if I wasn't the kind of girl who read the ending first, I'd have been REALLY mad to have invested all that time in a novel and then not gotten the end.

What puzzled me was that I surely was not the first person to have checked it out. Why didn't someone else tell one of the librarians?

So, I stand by my habit. All HEA's, all the time, and I'll read the last page. Just to make sure.