What Happens At The End Of Rules Of The Heart?

Question

The last few chapters completely shocked me—did anyone else get emotional about the main character's final choice? Really felt like the author was playing with my heartstrings, and I'm torn on the ending's bittersweet tone.

Skylar McDonald · Answer

I have not been able to find the exact ending to ‘Rules of the Heart’ as it was an unofficial translation, but an alternative novel with similar circumstances and ‘emotional barriers’ being broken down is ‘The Heart That Wouldn’t Surrender’. A doctor and soldier are forced into a marriage of convenience but constant ‘tension’ is created between the couple as they attempt to protect each other from heartache while trying to stop themselves from falling deeper in love. A wonderful and satisfying story in the end.

Yazmin · Answer

The ending of ‘Rules of the Heart’ is heartbreakingly slow and painful. We see the older Harriet sorting through decades of letters and slowly comes to terms with why she never had the love she wanted. The long affair that she had with a married man produced two children, but was never going to end in him leaving his wife and children for her. In the end, he took the safer option of marrying a younger woman from the same social circle as Harriet. The novel shows how Granville’s marriage to this younger woman was a betrayal by Harriet of her friend, as well as being a comment on the way marriages were and how power was exercised in society. What struck me most about the last chapters of the novel was the sense of sadness and of the cost to Harriet of this long affair. She had hidden pregnancies, suffered social ruin, and spent decades trying to come to terms with what had happened to her. In the end, she is left with the memories of the affair and its consequences. I closed the book on Harriet feeling sad, but also very impressed with how Granville had portrayed the grief of this woman and how he had avoided romanticizing her situation. He had presented her with a realistic and long-lasting portrayal of heartbreak, and that had been very satisfying to read.

Alice · Answer

I guessed that the end of the book would be about closure of some sort for Harriet, and I was right. However, I didn’t imagine that it would be about closure of a long, doomed passion. Older Harriet fetches out a sealed envelope which contains letters that her lover wrote to her seventeen years previously. We then revisit the past and relive seventeen years or so of Harriet’s life through her recollection of these letters. Her love for Granville produced children, but in the end he married her up with a younger relation of hers in her circle. Harriet knew that he was only doing this for practical reasons in order to preserve her dignity and for the sake of their children, but it was difficult for her to come to terms with the fact that she would have to spend the rest of her life with someone else whilst remembering the real attachments that she had made with Granville. The book’s ending is heartbreakingly inevitable but also strangely tender. It is a good historical story with a sting to the end which lingers long after you have finished reading the book.

Dominic · Answer

This novel ends in 1819 with an older and bitter Harriet reading through 17 years of correspondence with her lower class lover, concluding that in the end he did marry up into her family – taking the ‘respectable’ route. The aftermath of their very long affair is low-key and not particularly dramatic – ie Harriet’s children from him are brought up by various relatives, she makes certain social compromises, and spends her time looking back on the affair with regret and memory. The mood of the book’s closing is one of thoughtful and sad nostalgia – all very sensible given the historical basis for the novel, and not at all exploitative or vindictive.

Johnemmanuel Elimanao · Answer

Retcons the inciting incident. In the last chapter of the book it’s revealed that the protagonist has been misremembering a terrible event. Instead of it being a ruthless act of violence by someone else, it was an accident with no one to blame. Everything the protagonist had done since then, their whole journey of revenge/homage was based on a lie. The rest of the book follows them to the actual site of the event and them coming to terms with their memories. It was a huge twist and a huge risk as it made the entire story that had occurred before completely meaningless. But it worked for me as the story wasn’t about these external events, it was about the protagonist’s relationship with his anger and his grief. A really powerful read about the stories we tell ourselves.

Eulisis Romero · Answer

I was surprised that no one mentioned the mid-credits scene for this book. The very last chapter is followed by a short section from the point of view of the antagonist of the story. It is a single page long and follows this very conflicted person to a coffee shop where he purchases a cup of coffee and reads a newspaper with a front page story about the hero of the story. He looks up from the paper and for a split second there is a tiny, satisfied smile on his face before he walks out of the coffee shop. The smile was real. He was a very complex character who for most of the book was evils incarnate and this one page gave a glimpse into the fact that he too is human and in his own way was glad that things worked out for our hero. That one page of story made a huge difference in how I felt about the book and changed it from good to great. It demonstrated the same generosity of spirit that the story had shown.

Charity Agada · Answer

It’s a wonderful meta-commentary on stories in general, because the protagonist is a writer. He finally completes the novel he’s been struggling to write throughout the book. The final chapter of the book is the first paragraph of the writer’s novel, “Rules of the Heart.” But instead of mirroring the opening of this book in all the same negative ways, it is instead full of hope and promise. In other words, the writer of this novel learned all the lessons he needed to write a better novel by living through his own story. It’s clever without being obnoxious or self-congratulatory. It’s a wonderful ending to the book, one that makes you wonder just how much of the book you read was just the protagonist’s story, too. A wonderful ending to a wonderful book that makes you want to immediately re-read the whole thing.

Lovely Jane Candado · Answer

I found the ending of this book to be profoundly sad yet beautiful. The main love interest, Alex, dies from an illness he had been suffering from throughout most of the book. In the final chapters the main character Sam learns to move on from Alex’s death and continues to live his life by the ‘rules’ that he and Alex came up with during their time together. The final scene is of Sam walking into their favorite cafe, ordering two coffees as he normally would, and then handing one of them to a stranger. The act is so small yet it shows how much Sam still loves Alex and how he is carrying on Alex’s love in his own way. I found this book to be so beautiful and I was crying by the end of it, but it was in a good way. It wasn’t a tragic ending for the sake of being sad, it was sad but also showed how grief can be an extension of love. It was a really honest and powerful read and I would recommend it to others, just be sure to bring a box of tissues!

Fhatima Cader · Answer

I still have no idea whether Puddle the acrobatic dog and Citizen return to each other or not. It's like they are on opposite sides of an airport security checkpoint and one of them turns around. But you can't see their face because they're on the other side of the crowd. As it is, the ending of the book is wonderful for discussions and arguments. Also for fan fiction, which is amazing. But as for a closure seeking reader like myself, I was a bit dissatisfied. Because you can argue for and against a re-union of Puddle and Citizen for a long time and that's much more fun than actually reading the book.

Muhammad Hamza · Answer

To be honest, it was kind of forgettable. I mean, lots of very poignant moments were conveyed in very effective ways, and by chapter three it was clear that the boy would get the girl and that the business would flourish, and that all of the characters would learn their lessons. I feel like it was very competently written to be emotionally manipulative in all the right ways, but it didn’t really surprise me or challenge me in any way. I think that lots of books can hit all of the right notes and still feel kind of hollow to me, perhaps because I’ve read so many books in this genre recently. It’s very comforting and well-executed, and that’s probably why people like it so much. But I need an ending with a spark of the unexpected, a risk, and this book didn’t take any chances. It was like the literary equivalent of a Hallmark movie finale: all warm and fuzzy and immediately forgotten.

Sulakshan Nilakantan · Answer

The epilogue is set 10 years after the rest of the book. It’s a series of snapshots of the characters’ lives. We get to see a Christmas card, a text message on a phone screen, a photo of a garden. We piece together what each of the characters is up to and it’s so satisfying because it feels so real. We don’t get a lengthy explanation of each character’s life, we get glimpses, like scrolling through each of their social media accounts. It’s so ‘show, not tell’ and it’s done to perfection. Since this book, so many other books have attempted to do the same but none of them have quite managed it as successfully.

What Happens At The End Of Rules Of The Heart?

11 Answers

Kaugnay na Mga Aklat

Contract of Hearts

The Heart They Gave Away

Love and Crosses: What The Heart Wants

The heart Beneath the Thorn

The Heart That He Stole

My Heart Is Now Yours

Paksa

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