frustrated reader rage, I have it.

Oh my god, authors, what do you have against happy endings? WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST JOY? Like, I was with you up until the point of ( spoilers for Philip Pullman's 'The Shadow in the North' )

and I almost threw the book across the room. WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST JOY? You can be a hotshot detective and still be married and have a family! That doesn't make it less interesting, that makes it more interesting (hi, Davis and Lehane! I suspect Hambly might get there eventually, but I'm only three books into the series), and I really dislike it when authors use grief as motivation instead of brains, because brains, MORE INTERESTING. I mean, you can argue that the book has a bittersweet ending because ( spoilers again )

, but to me that kind of feels like a cop-out because I'm still back here spitting at WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST JOY?

Argh argh argh.

This is also like the second time in two weeks where I've read a book where the author spends a lot of time setting up a romance and/or emphasizing how much a couple loves each other, and then by the time I'm fully invested, ( uh, maybe spoilers (including some vague ones for Malinda Lo's 'Huntress')? )

I know not everyone likes happily ever afters, or even happily for nows (I think Brave had a happily for now ending, and I'm fine with that! But it didn't have a romance (or if it did, it was Eleanor and...Fergus? The dad), so that's different), but if you're going to get me invested in a pairing, don't do something awful and irreversible to it. Eh, my preference. People differ. Clearly I differ from these authors.

I will have to wait until the outrage fades before I can read The Tiger in the Well.