No. Books with prologues don’t require epilogues. And vice versa.
In fact, neither is required. It’s up to you to decide once you’ve written your story.
Ask yourself if they improve your story.
Don’t write either one if you are just using them to dump a bunch of information on the reader. You might as well begin or end the actual story in a chapter instead.
The only time I would really encourage the use of prologues and epilogues is when writing a series. They are especially helpful to readers as they move forward from one book to another or for readers who may jump in to read in the middle of a series, not aware of what has gone on in past books.
One last thing to consider. Research says only about 40 percent of readers actually read them. So, are they wasted effort?
Personally, I like writing them because they seem to “ground” me to my writing and get me psychologically “into” my story.
The good thing is that it seems there is no “write” or “wrong” answer to this question of whether or not to use prologues or epilogues.
brenda poulos 