Tl;dr: I recently resumed reading for enjoyment after a decade, but have been skipping epilogues in books, thinking they’re just teasers. A friend suggested it’s like not reading prologues and claimed the epilogue is crucial for the story’s conclusion. I am wondering what I might be missing in the epilogues?
I got back into reading for enjoyment (i.e.: not for school purposes) in 2022 after taking the better part of a decade off from reading. Since I’ve picked reading back up, i have yet to read the epilogue’s of any of the books I’ve read lately (Shadow of the Gods, Mistborn, The Way of Kings are some examples).
I honestly never thought it was a big deal because I always felt like the book ended in a way that made sense, and I thought the epilogue was a teaser that was included to get you excited to read the next book. Not that it had an impact on the actual story.
Fast forward to last night me and a couple buddies were chatting about the recent “I don’t read prologues” that has come up on social media lately. During this conversation one of my buddies said “yea not reading the prologue, is like not reading the epilogue”. To which I said that I always read the prologues but have yet to read the epilogues. This blew his mind, and he said I’m missing the literal ending of the books. But again I never felt like I was missing something.
So genuine question, what am I missing ? What does the epilogue actually do for the story if it isn’t a fully formed chapter like the dozens of others ?
by Robob69