Happy April! I promise I don’t have any April Fools jokes planned for y’all, just some straight-up honest gushing about books.
You guys! Surprise endings or shocking plot twists is one of my absolute favorite things in a book. A big twist gives the book such a wonderful feeling of fun and excitement! A book without any big surprises often falls flat for me. I want a book that can keep me on my toes!
So, obviously, I had a really hard time with this theme because I couldn’t pick just one favorite! Here are some of the amazing contenders that I was thinking of:
- Life of Pi by Yann Martel (OMG THAT ENDING!!!!)
- Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (okay, I was 15, it was shocking at the time…)
- The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy (never saw his identity coming)
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (seriously, what even HAPPENED?!?!?!) - The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (if you tell me you saw the love interest coming, then I’m calling you a liar)
- An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green (maybe I would have been less surprise if I’d have known it was a series…)
In the end I went with a book that a) I’m sure I’ve never used for Calendar Girls before and b) I read before ANY of these books. And, if we’re being honest, it might be the book that MOST shocked the socks off me. Ever. So, without any further ado, my favorite book with a surprise ending is…
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Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Oh. My. Word.
Obviously I can’t tell you about the ending without spoiling the entire book, and the ending is the BEST PART. But let me tell you, even without a shocker of an ending this book would be one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s easily my favorite science fiction novel. It’s readable, but scientific and speculative. It’s got space travel and military history, but it’s also about character growth and relationships. This book is everything.
Ender’s Game follows a young boy, Ender Wiggan, who leaves his family to train to be a military commander at an elite space school at the tender age of 5. He and his friends are the only hope the world has if the evil aliens, the “buggers”, ever decide to come back to invade. Ender might be the most brilliant young person to ever live, and he excels at Battle School, but doing so comes a great cost to him mentally and emotionally.
What I love about Ender’s Game is the difficult questions it asks about the cost of doing what you “have to do.” Is it worth it?
If you’ve never picked this one up, I highly recommended it. It’s written in a sort of young-adult style, but before YA was really a genre, but it appeals to readers of all ages. Teachers, have it in your classroom library because it’s a book your boys will be engrossed by. And girls, but we all know how difficult it is to find something the guys will love.
April Fools
Favorite Book with a Surprise Ending or Twist
Our Picks
Ender’s Game – Katie (that’s me!) @ Never Not Reading
Odd & True – Adrienne @ Darque Dreamer Reads
The Empress – Teri Polen
We Were Liars – Deanna @ Deanna Writes About
Behind Her Eyes – Lucinda @ Lucinda is Reading
Behind Her Eyes – Sam @ Modern’s Witch’s Bookshelf
Illuminae – Dani @ Mousai Books
Father Figure – Sophie @ Beware the Reader
Nerve Damage – Sophie @ Beware the Reader
Girls of Paper and Fire – Clarissa @ Clarissa Reads it All
Our Dark Duet – Ashley @ Inside My Minds
The Wicked Deep – Flavia @ Flavia the Bibliophile
The Cruel Prince – Lindsey @ Lindsey Reads
Calendar Girls is a monthly blog event created by Melanie at MNBernard Books, and Flavia at Flavia the Bibliophile, and is now be hosted by me (!), Katie, and Adrienne at Darque Dreamer Reads. It is designed to ignite bookish discussions among readers, and was inspired by the 1961 Neil Sedaka song, Calendar Girl.Paragraph
Just like the song, each month has a different theme. Each blogger picks their favorite book from the theme, and on the first Monday of the month reveals their pick in a Calendar Girls post. Make sure to post back to the hostess’s post, and I will make a master list for the month. The master lists allow everyone to see the other Calendar Girls’ picks and to pop on over to their blogs. Thus, we all get to chat about books and even make some new friends!
Never Not Reading 
I have not read this, but we watched the movie, and I stopped paying attention to it about halfway through, lol. Have you seen the movie, and does it compare to the book?
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In some ways, yes, but as always the book is better. I just didn’t feel that the movie captured the tone, even though the content is pretty much on-par. It was pretty boring, honestly, and the book is too completely page-turnery. I started reading at red lights because of Ender’s Game.
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Yeah, I got really bored with the movie and didn’t quite understand what was happening, so I let my husband finish it and I went to do something else, lol. Maybe I’ll give the book a try though.
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Ender’s Game is a good choice though I think I was spoiled for that 😦 What really surprised me in Evelyn Hugo was her connection to the writer didn’t see that coming either!
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I know I didn’t either! I knew there was going to be something, but I didn’t think it was going to be THAT.
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Hahahaha That’s the problem with today’s topic as it’s hard not to spoil as the twist is exactly what made us choose our winner!!!
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Haha, right?
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I have had this book on my TBR for absolutely years – now I definitely have to read it! Fantastic choice!!!
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Thanks!
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Haven’t read Ender’s Game (totally should though) but OMG Evelyn Hugo was sooo good!
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YES! But you can’t talk about it at ALL because the spoiler comes so early on in the book, and if you say even the littlest thing it would spoil the surprise and impact of the moment.
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