It seems like cheating to have a twist or a forced moment: isn’t the whole point of reading an entire book that when we’re done, and missing the characters and thinking about them, that we realize something new and subtle in the story?

You know, I liked it (but not loved it) up to the last two or three pages. I was even thinking of ordering it for my classroom. I was in a training session with another English teacher the other day and she overheard me mention how PISSED I was at the whole thing and gave me a high-five. I usually trust Booker Award winners, but truly, there was a serious genre shift at the end. You follow the entire second part of the book, totally suspending your disbelief that this boy could survive on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, and then, POW, “Oh, didn’t you believe that ending? Here’s a more plausible one,” and he lays you out with a horrifying “reality” ending. Horrifying in terms of what might really go on with survivors on a lifeboat. I guess you’re supposed to “choose” which one you’d rather believe, except it’s apples and oranges, genre-wise.

I think, had he done more foreshadowing, he could have pulled it off. Maybe.

Now I hear they’re making it into a movie.