Your Preference To An Ending? Happy or Sad?

…. So you have read the bulk of ‘a’ book and arrived at the end.

The beginning was encouraging and built to a suspenseful focal point leading towards a dramatic climax.

Upon approach you suspect whether the Author is going to present you with the proverbial happy conclusion or a tearjerker?

The synopsis for example, (but not an actual book I am working on myself) is based around a story surrounding a child who is abused and brutally beaten for years by her Mother.

Her Mother then becomes terminally ill due to a hereditary disease and a transplant is imperative.

The only person suitable as a donor is her only daughter.

Should the book inevitably end with the child psychologically damaged but fulfilled with the fact she has saved her Mother’s life by donating her organ to leave the reader feeling self-satisfied and of course this is the ending society would expect?

Or, should the book end with the daughter murdering her Mother by way of revenge for the years she spent suffering violence at the hands of her Mother and some readers will feel some compassion for the victim?

Or, would the reader prefer the opportunity to choose from ‘both’ endings because he has the choice of reading a happy and a sad ending provided by the Author?

Which of the endings would the reader consider the more realistic not the more appropriate?

JANE.E.HILL