Happy end vs. real end

A good friend of mine recommended a book. “It’s a love story, you have to read it!“ Being such a sucker for love stories, by all means, I had to. Now, I’m not going to tell you which book this is, because I’m going to reveal a few things, which most people would define as spoilers. So if you plan to read it at any point in time, you’d better not know. It’s a story about a woman and a man, who should be together, but because of stupidity and miscommunication, they aren’t. And they keep not-being together for more than 15 years. In the end, they finally do get together. 8 months into their marriage, she gets hit by a truck while riding a bicycle, and dies. The book is superbly written: excellent vocabulary, great humor, clever remarks and comments, true life comparison. It’s kind of a day-by-day story which you can neatly snuggle into, because it’s just - real life. And then – she dies. And then I think: “Fine, I’ll never walk out of my apartment again.“ Now, the reason why I wanted to bring this subject up is this: when I read a book or watch a movie, I like to get away. I want to escape to some other place, become somebody else. And while I’m doing that, I want to have fun. It can still be exciting, thrilling, at times sad and terrifying not knowing what will happen, but in the end I want to live, and I want to be happy with all that I worked for during the movie or the book (respectively, the character in the book). When I link with my character, I don’t want to die in the end. So here’s another spoiler for you: my characters live! And they stay alive (at least the main ones). And it’s a story with a happy end! I love happy endings. And I’m aware that this is (very often) not the case in real life, but while I escape in my books (and while YOU escape in my books) there WILL be a happy end. And I will not kill my heroine on a rainy afternoon.