Recently I watched The Brothers Bloom with a bunch of friends. I'd never seen it before, but I really liked it, and would strongly encourage you to see it if you haven't already.
The brothers are con men, and have been since their childhood. Thus, The Brothers Bloom is a story about a con. As with most con stories, it features unreliable narrators, delightful twists, and tiny-but-important details. These aspects are among my favorite parts of a story. It's why I love Heist Society and White Cat; Chasing Vermeer and the 39 Clues.
When I was younger, I read a lot of mysteries. I devoured as many of the Boxcar Children books as I could find, and enjoyed Encyclopedia Brown as well. But somewhere along the line of my transition from middle-grade books to young adult, the supply of straight-up mysteries dwindled, and I had to turn to other genres to get my figure-it-out-before-the-end fix.
The thing is, though, I don't enjoy figuring out the twist really far in advance. If I figure out the twist (Character X is really the princess!) long before the characters do, I get bored by the characters' obliviousness nine times out of ten. Alternatively, when I only come to the solution when it is revealed to the characters, I feel cheated. I complain that there weren't enough clues. (There's a quote in the most recent Doctor Who companion book-thing about River Song's true identity about twists only being fun if the consumer is able to figure it out beforehand, and even if they don't, the clues are there for them to go back and review.) The sweet spot for me, I've found, is when I figure out the last piece of the puzzle anywhere from a chapter to a page ahead of the characters. This way, I've figured out the clues the author has hidden along the way, but I also don't have an excessive amount of time to wait until the characters figure it out themselves.
I like books that challenge me as a reader. I want to analyze the text for hidden meaning, come up with wild (and plausible) theories, and try to predict the final outcome. By attempting to identify how clues and red herrings are placed (does the careful description of the gun matter for the plot, or to establish this character?) I like to think that I'm learning something valuable about the execution of good writing. That being said, I don't want a to-be-read-pile consisting solely of The DaVinci Code and its brethren. Sometimes I need something less challenging, and more straightforwardly entertaining.
What about you? Do you like guessing the twists ahead of time? Do you also over-analyze descriptions?
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