Some authors use disasters or deaths or drama to end their novels, but John Irving understands that those things aren't really closure, they don't really end anything they just force you to get up and continue, wounded or not. Some authors fade to black when things get gruesome, messy, or explicit, but John Irving never does (and life never does). They're a mess (and Garp may get the worst lot of all) but that's why I like them. They're the victims of rape, car accidents, and infidelity. They're orphaned, abandoned, stranded, confused or unhappily pregnant. Of course, I wouldn't want to be a John Irving character,because terrible things are always happening to them. I love John Irving in particular, partly because I'm always wondering what's always going to happen next, and partly because, despite all the outrageousness of his characters, they behave the way real people behave. When he asks her why she read a particularly disturbing novel, she answers 'To find out what happens next.' Later, she adds, 'A book's true when you can say 'yeah! That's how damn people behave all the time.' There's a scene in this book it's a revealed that a high-up publisher gives all his manuscripts to his cleaning lady, and she's the one that tells him whether they're worth publishing or not. Because I like it so much, I'm not going to say much, except that it's always worth reading, even if you have read it before.

The world according to garp review