Have you ever finished a really good book, and then wondered what to do next with your life? It’s stressful stuff! 

The problem is the fact that the book often ends on a cliffhanger, the loose ends aren’t tied up, you’ve reached the end of a series, you’re waiting for the next book in a series, or the book was just so good that you have no idea what to do after that. Have the authors ever considered what it does to Book Fans; just waiting for a book that will or won’t come? If they’re going to finish writing a series, they had better do it properly! If they don’t, they will encounter the wrath of the Book Lovers!

Authors must decide to deliberately annoy the readers, because sometimes it is painfully obvious that two characters like each other, and the tension is too much to handle. Just kiss already! Then there’s the factor of the author killing off your favourite characters in the book. Just as we get to know them; they’re gone. It’s also really easy to fall in love with fictional characters, and once you have finished reading the book you wonder how you will ever live without them?

Genevieve, work experience student

After all of that emotional trauma with the previous book you will find another book which is almost as good as the last, but soon that book will come to an end. It’s just a never ending cycle of growing excitement and then the emotional pain of having to part with the characters, which you have grown close to. Again. You could say it’s like breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend over and over.

One of the only ways of coping with this is to make your friends read the books and then talk to them about it. This way your pain isn’t bottled up inside of you, slowly eating away at your insides. Another way to relieve you of your pain is to write your version of how it should’ve ended, how you think the events should’ve happened, or what could’ve happened next. This is what the experienced users of the Internet (aka teenagers) call Fan Fiction.

‘You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.’ – Paul Sweeney.

Written by: Genevieve – work experience student @ City of Tea Tree Gully Library