my book is not here, so i do not know what precisely is in the cliffhanger, but if it is the place where we find out that some people are not as dead as one might have been led to believe, then it is a million times better with the cliffhanger, because without it it would have been such a sad ending (although the tree gave a certain person two seed pods, so one kind of knows anyway, but ...). so, if that is the cliffhanger, then: definite thumbs up!!!