The last page is an ending for the book and an interruption for the reader.

The last page ends the book and interrupts the reader. The story is complete on its own terms, and you are left mid-experience, still inside something that has stopped supplying itself. That mismatch is the reason a good ending can feel like a small loss.

It is worth giving yourself a little time after finishing something rather than immediately starting the next. Sit with it, or write down what stayed. The same applies to anything absorbing that concludes: a project, a course, a period of your life. The ending belongs to the thing, and the transition belongs to you, and it usually needs more room than we give it.