Why Can't I Have A Happy Ending?

I hate reading school assigned texts. Why do we always have to read depressing books? The themes of the novels we have had to read have always been suicide, death, tragedy etc. Most of the books we read in English class leave me wanting a box of tissues or angry at the lack of empathy humans have. Whatever happened to reading a book with a happy ending?

 I think this goes all the way back to fifth grade when we had to read Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson. I won’t dwell into a whole plot summary but I’ll state a brief synopsis: a young boy and girl become best friends, they build a club house and dub the area where they hang out Terabithia, girl dies tragically, the end.  This really struck me because the girl in the novel, Leslie Burke, was my age when she died. She wasn’t sick or in some terrible situation (like in the middle of a war torn country); she was just an average kid who died in a freak accident. She slipped off of a rope, fell in a river, hit her head and drowned. It could happen to anyone. After reading Bridge to Terabithia I was left gloomy, depressed and with a feeling of mortality.

Ever since fifth grade it seems the books we are forced to read in English become more distressing, weighted with heavy issues and pessimistic. In sixth grade we read Number the Stars by Lois Lowry set during the Nazi occupation of Denmark in the late 1930’s. I remember being haunted by the fact Annemarie’s sister died and that she never heard from her neighbors the Rosens again. Seventh grade we had to read The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros which discussed rape and domestic abuse and The Cay by Theodore Taylor which depicts the heart wrenching story of a man dying during a hurricane in the attempt to save a young boy while stranded on an island. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton in eighth grade introduced me to gang violence and I can’t even recall how many teenagers die in that novel.  High school English followed this pattern of tragic endings to stories as we read Night by Elie Wiesel, Montana 1948 by Larry Watson, “Romeo and Juliet”by William Shakespeare, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare, “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Ordinary People by Judith Guest and many more depressing books.

I understand that we are supposed to experience ‘catharsis’ and feel others painful experiences through reading but could we read an upbeat pleasant novel once in awhile? I’m not saying that we read sugarcoated books that sound like Disney princess stories but there should be some middle ground. I wouldn’t mind having a Nicholas Sparks novel added to the curriculum one year. Reading depressing novels in English class for the past six years has started to take a toll on me and my view of the world has become a lot more cynical as a result.