Hi, this is Carson.
I think "Happy Endings" is sort of a story about stories. It reminds me of the fairytale ending "they lived happily ever after", which I always hated when I was younger because it doesn't make sense; obviously people get old and die, and anyways doesn't living happily get boring after a while?
Margaret Atwood more or less dismisses endings in general. Two things in particular stand out to me. First, the way that mundane worries are tied in with highly dramatic scenes is interesting. In about three pages, there's a murder and two suicides, and real estate values are also mentioned twice. The same words, "stimulating and challenging", vague words that often lack meaning to begin with (as in college applications, for example), are used to describe everything from hobbies to the main characters' sex life. Second is (obviously) the structure. It resembles a "choose your own adventure" book at the start, except you don't actually get any choices in the story. I'm not usually a fan of unusual structures (I have to admit, I like a plot) but I think the contrast between the author's cynical voice and the structure that parallels a not very literary or serious genre works quite nicely.
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