Most Bungled Endings opinion thread

I'm a cranky old cuss who loves books, and feels let down personally by an ending that fails to live up to the book that led to it. This is the place I'd like to hear from others who have this feeling as well.

**SPOILERS ARE ALLOWED**BE WARNED**

Any book in any genre is fair game here. Classics are definitely included in our target field. I'll start with one of the many bungled endings that made me feel used by the author:

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier ends with Inman's death at the very moment when one would expect Inman to start living his life. In and of itself, that's not a "bad" ending...but the build-up led me to believe that something interesting had to happen SOMEtime, and this might be the place. But no. He just dies, and in a random and stupid way.

If I had not read this book for a book club I was in at the time it came out, I woud have Pearl-Ruled it at page 50 and Goodwill would have been one book richer.

Who's next?

SPOILER WARNING

I loved the book I am the Messenger right until the last few pages when you find out that it is all a hoax and the "mysterious person" is the author himself. Of course he knew everything about the protagonist, because he made him up in the first place. Blech.

I try and pretend those pages just didn't happen.

SPOILER WARNING

Well, there is the mystifyingly popular champion of all bad endings - Michael Crichton.

Let's begin with The Andromeda Strain. Fantastic thriller about a mysterious, hyper-evolutionary virus that is in danger of braking out of quarantine and killing everone on the planet. . .until it does, and then evolves into something harmless. Deus et machina, anyone?

Then there's Jurassic Park, Fantastic thriller about people trapped on an island with resurrected dinosaurs who are in danger of eating everyone and possibly even escaping the island. . .until they set themselves on fire, and mostly die out due to a pre-designed genetic flaw.

And what about Sphere? A fantastic thriller about a mysterious alien object that is in the center of bizarre wild-life and technology, which could destroy the underwater observatory, and possibly the world . . .until it turns out that everything is created out of the minds of the observers, and they can just think it out of existence.

If you can't get out of the corner, don't paint yourself into it.

Oh, I'm sure there are plenty that I could think of, but the most recent that comes to mind is The Giver, by Lois Lowry.

***SPOILER WARNING***
It's set in a futuristic utopian society, where babies are raised in communal care until they're 1, then by family units, children receive their occupations from the committee of elders when they're 12, mentioning differences is impolite, the old are "released" in formal ceremony, etc.

When Jonas turns 12, he's selected as The Receiver, and is the one individual per generation to receive and store the memories of what has gone before (i.e. in our world) - war and death and sickness, but also things like snow and hills and color that have been eradicated from the new world. Then he realizes that "release" means "killing", freaks out, grabs his baby foster brother (who was failing to thrive and then scheduled for release), and leaves the community. So far so good.

But then, instead of dealing with what that means for the community, we just follow Jonas until he gets farther and farther away from civilization, then he climbs a hill, finds a sled, and sleds towards what looks like a memory he'd received of "Christmas". And then the book ends.

So dumb, non-sensical and disappointing, and the subsequent books in the series try to explain it, but do so in a way that makes it even more dumb.

>3 JimPAX: JimPAX, I was so irked by the ending of Sphere that I threw the book away instead of donating it to Goodwill. Set me up that well, keep me turning the pages with bated breath, and then use the "it was all a dream" ending...! I hate that so very much. It was the first Crichton I read. I can't read any others now because I don't trust him not to do it again. With good reason, I see from your post.

I was one of the few (perhaps) who more or less enjoyed The Historian up until the ending which should have been immensely exciting but which fizzled like a wet firecracker in the rain.

I was incredably disappointed by the ending of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. It was a fantastic until the last 20 or so pages. The ending was so unbeliveably stupid. Why did she have to muck it up.

I'm disappointed with the ends -- and by this I often mean the last half to one-third -- of many contemporary books. It seems as if the authors (and the editors?) work really hard on the beginnings, going back over them many times to get them right, and then just kind of throw up their hands and finish them any old way. One recent example that comes to mind is Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss.

The Da Vinci Code. Well, I didn't like the whole book (yeah, I'm of that fraction...), but the ending just killed it. It was so incredibly stupid and to me it seemed like he couldn't think of anything better or more original. I was sitting there just going, "what...?" and couldn't believe I had actually been waiting for at least a good ending.

Oh, Thalia, that fraction is larger than you think, believe me. The writing was horrid.

Last two paragraphs of my review:

Then there's the ending. It feels forced, like he ran out of story and hit an "End" key. "Hmm," he says. "I mentioned this family thing at the beginning, and it was meant to be foreshadowing, so I'd better toss it in here. And I've got a hero and this female, so I'd better throw them together at the end, too."

Don't waste even $7.99 on this thing.

Headcrash by Bruce Bethke had one of the most atrocious endings I'd ever read. I liked the book up until them, but something like 10 pages from the end it felt like the author had just...given up. Thrown in the towel.

**SPOILER** (as much as I remember, anyway) It was like he didn't know what to do with his main character, so he just threw him on some random beach somewhere with a bunch of other people who'd been thrown there, and nobody had any motivation to try and get anywhere better (for no good reason), and...it was abrupt, it had nothing to do with the story, it didn't make any sense, and it was just a huge letdown.

I liked the rest of the book, but that...yeah. The end was just awful.

I felt completely let down by The Crimson Petal and the White's ending. I loved the book right up until the very end... when suddenly it seemed as though he just got tired of writing. The characters were all left hanging. Grr! Apparently there's a book of short stories that follows some of them further, though, so I'll be looking that up when I've got the time and the inclination.

Seems as though many of us see a trend. I call it the brisk dusting of authorial hands, someone else called it throwing in the towel...we're all sensing the same thing, like the "editors" who get paid to do the job of making books better stop reading about 50-100pp before the end and just let the author go without guidance.

But how about endings that just make you want to urp? I think here of Charles Dickens and his "'Tis a far, far better thing I do..." junk at the end of A Tale of Two Cities. Shut up, Sydney!

I'm in total agreement with Cold Mountain--I felt that this book suffered so much from being a first novel, because Frazier probably got stuck with a neophyte editor who was afraid to jump in and make him work on the ending. To me, the book was completely ruined.

One of my favorite 4/5ths of a book is Corelli's Mandolin. While I don't think the ending completely ruins it, I was definitely disappointed.

My Sister's Keeper was a fabulous book, but the ending was a cop-out if you ask me. I was left thinking "Come on..." And that pretty much the only way I can describe it.

Hi, Retro ~ Yes, I totally agree with you about the dreadfully contrived and mucked up ending to The Lovely Bones. I had really been enjoying it till then.

Thalia and Link ~ IMHO, The DaVinci Code in its entirety is one of the most badly written novels I've ever read, and I've read a few. Actually, the ending was the best part, because that meant IT WAS OVER! :)

Xicanti ~ Do you suppose writers just get tired of writing, leaving the characters all hanging? Or could it be diabolical plots between writers and their publishers to set people up to buy the sequels? :D

It's a long time since I read it but IIRC Emile Zola ends Nana on a fairly random and unsatisfying note. It always felt like he finally got bored and killed her off just to end the book and get it done with...

Douglas Adams, of course, ends The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy extremely abruptly, because he had to send the manuscript off that day and that was the point he'd reached when the ultimatum came. Luckily it seems to be fairly common knowledge that it continues on in part 2...

I like the final ending (book 5 of 3) from Adams where it is blatently obvious that no more books were possable ever, the probablity line of earth was finally flat, no matter how many times you twisted it, he was NOT going ot write another!

Chrichton I thought the comments at #3 were very harsh. Sphere wasn't all a dream, the characters made a consious decision not to use the powers the real artifact grants, becasue they couldn't control the side effects. Quite a valid point in todays technology I think.
Jurassic "until they set themselves on fire" what? I have no recollection of that at all. The help cry eventually goes to the mainland and the army come in and bomb the place flat.
Andromeda Strain I'll grant you is a bit of a get out.

The worst of all though has to be Stephen King's Dark tower series when Roland finally gets to the top of the tower he's been hunting through seven books he cycles back to the beginning again..... grrr.

The Painted House by John Grisham. It might just be me, but I hate depressing endings, like most of Jack London and the other male authors of his time. Leaves me flat. I know, literary giants. They still leave me flat.

Now, A Tale of Two Cities had me sobbing in an inspired way, so go figure.

#14 - you are being way too nice to the ending of Captain Corelli's Mandolin. I would call it stupid beyond belief but then I'd be overpraising it.

#13, about A Tale of Two Cities. It's a long (really long) time since I read it, but it has the distinction of being the only book whose first and last lines I know by heart.

Sadly, two of my favorite Stephen King novels have the worst endings he has written in my opinion.
"It" was such a wonderfully creepy book and then it completely fizzled out at the end. "High Ho Silver, Away!" Seriously?
Also I thought the ending for The Stand was particularly weak after such a deep and complex book. The whole hand of god thing felt very contrived.

I'm totally with you on It ... and didn't all the male "heroes" also have to, uh, sleep with the one woman at the end to defeat the evil spider thing?

#12 xicanti: you wrote -

'I felt completely let down by The Crimson Petal and the White's ending. I loved the book right up until the very end... when suddenly it seemed as though he just got tired of writing'.
**SPOILER***
I thought that he had the most trouble with Agnes near the end. Gets on a train as directed by Sugar to go to the West Country: then found in the River Thames: and all the way through we're told she has a malignant tumour. He got fed up with Agnes I presume. Enjoyed the book though like you,

Hi all,
I am new here and I was taken by this topic so here's joining in:

I have to agree that My Sister's Keeper was one of the worst endings. The book had an interesting premise and really tried to explore the characters and the ending just felt so horribly contrived. It's like she tried for shock value rather than realism. I feel ambivalent about most of the Picoult books I've read anyway.

I also have to agree with fyrefly98's assessment of The Giver. It was so ambiguous and I'd hoped for a little more closure, one way or another.

Cold Mountain on the other hand, was FANTASTIC! It's a tragic story, a tragic time, and unlike My Sister's Keeper, the ending was completely believable. I was prepared for it on some level. There was foreshadowing and fate a plenty for the reader and though it was sad, it felt true. It wasn't random.

Just my humble opinion.
:-)

Oh,

I have to add Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell as a bungled ending. I make it a habit not to read the back covers, forewords, introductions or footnotes of classics because it's assumed that everyone knows the plot, ending, and major themes and they often give everything away. It ruined Tess of the D'ubervilles *SPOILER* when I found out by reading a footnote from the third chapter that she died in the end.

Anyway, I didn't know that like Ms. Gaskell died before she finished writing the book so I was stunned when I turned the page in happy anticipation of the just, neatly solved, marriage = happiness, Victorian conclusion and instead found the after-word of some professor extolling the virtues of Gaskell. She used conjecture and genre knowledge to provide an outline for a possible Gaskell ending. Duh! I knew how it was going to end at that point! I wanted to read of the reunions, confessions, marriage proposals, and new houses in flowery, verbose, Victorian-ese. I wasn't reading the novel for its suspense and original plot! I resented being jarred out of her world.


I am still a tad peeved about that bad ending

I was also severely let down that Laurie married Amy in Little Women. It's not just that he should've been with Jo, but Amy and Laurie just don't work.

>21 rebeccanyc:, rebeccanyc have you encountered A Far Better Rest yet? One of my sisters sent it to me a few years back, knowing of my distaste for A Tale of Two Cities and wanting me to experience the same plot but from Sydney Carton's POV.

I had forgotten I owned the book, and thanks to this discussion, have dug it out, cataloged it, and am now using it as a bus read. The miracle of LT....

#28, oh richarddadderus, you don't want to know how many years ago I read A Tale of Two Cities! Just because I remember the beginning and the ending sentences doesn't mean I remember what happened in between (except for Mme. Defarge knitting)! I would have to read it again before reading anything that took another angle. But thanks for the idea.

Mansfield Park has always been a favourite but I always wanted Fanny to marry Henry instead of the saintly but po faced Edmund. Her life would have been full of the unexpected and she might have been a little less buttoned up.
What am I saying? There would be no buttons at all.(Sorry Jane, such vulgarity.)

Zadie Smith´s "White Teeth"

The first two-thirds of the book aren´t too bad. Smith turns the self-consciousness of her (presumably) white readers back on itself, which is a neat trick, and she´s funny and erudite throughout. Then the book begins to drift. The reunion of the novel´s twin brothers, one of which has moved to Bangladesh and become perfectly English, and the other, who has stayed in England and asserted his Muslim identity, feels a little too neatly dualistic. And then Smith realizes that she´s got to solve the problem she´s created. You know, how to reconcile fundamentalist urges with a liberal society, how to find a middle path between apocalyptic screeds and dangerous scientific optimism. In the book´s final scene, everything seems to be coming to a head.

And then Smith chickens out.

Sure, there´s a big revelation that completely undoes what we´ve learned about the charactes and removes the basis of trust they´ve shared all their lives. But then the book suddenly ends, and we don´t know what the heck that entails. Smith, who´s explored how multicultural societies hang together, just unravells the whole thing and leaves it there. What a fraud.

Personally, I think she ran out of ideas, and just couldn´t figure out how to end her own novel. Considering that "On Beauty" was just about floor-to-ceiling terrible, I´m beginning to think that unless she turns this around quick, she might not have more than two thirds of a book in her.

4: fyrefly98 consider rereading the ending of The Giver again. I think it's a very clever ending.

***SPOILER WARNING***
The point of view is from Jonas who is exhuasted, starving and delirious. So, then what exactly is it that looks like a memory he'd received of "Christmas"? It could be real, but it could just be his delirium. He may be coming up to something quite different then what thinks he sees. Maybe death?

I went to a reading of Cold Mountain and the first question asked of Charles Frazier was why Inman had to die. I don't really remember Frazier's response (mostly just the collective groan from the audience that the ending had been revealed). But I believe he mentioned that the book was based loosely on a great great uncle and that had been his fate. I thought the ending was beautifully sad. I can't imagine it any other way.

For me, it wasn't Inman's death that bothered me. It was what came after his death. I have to admit, it's a bit vague in my memory at this point, but I remember a picnic and a "happily ever after" feeling that left me cold.

>34 cabegley:

but I remember a picnic and a "happily ever after" feeling that left me cold.

Well, it is Cold Mountain after all... sorry bad pun.
But it wasn't happily ever after, in my humble opinion. It seemed more to me that life goes on. I mean, Ruby did find love but can you really begrudge that poor woman, with all that she had been through, a partner?

Ampersand -- I saw "White Teeth" on television. The first part was great, while the second seemed disjointedly all over the place.

Posting in another thread it jogged my memory about a really bad ending.

Adam Roberts wrote a book called ON. It was about a planet that was one giant mountain with a big gully next to it.

There were many civilizations that lived at different levels. The story follows a rube from a rural place as he wanders through various civilizations, and has various adventures. There is no real reason for the story other than to show us Robert's neat ideas. The book ends with the POV basically waiting for their equivalent of a bus to take him somewhere else. What a totally annoying thing to do.

I wonder if anyone else had the same reaction to The end of the road by John Barth as I did?

** SPOILER ** The woman junior professor was pregnant by one of two of her colleagues, but neither the characters nor the reader knew by whom. I felt that the woman dying from the abortion not only resolved nothing (besides ending the narrative), but also changed the whole moral stance of the book-- from a pretty courageous examination of complex emotional interactions among intellectuals, to a kind of cheap anti-abortion screed. I haven't trusted Barth's morals since then, though I think he's one of the finest American writers of this century. A shame.

>38 abirdman:: Oh my yes. The End of the Road became such a crappy title after the end of the book that I was tempted to toss it away. A brisk dusting of authorial hands, it felt to me like Barth just had enough of these people and was unwilling to resolve their difficult entwinement, so he just ended it.

Grrrr.

The worst ending i came across in 2006 was in the novel oh, play that thing byRoddy Doyle. The final section of the book where the narrator sacrifices himself to hie enemies to save his wife and daughter who then proceed to rescue him is awful.

Golophin, I read Roddy Doyle's Oh, Play That Thing in 2005, and it was certainly one of that year's worst for me, and yes, an inexcusably awful novel.

#8, Rebeccanyc, I agree with you on Inheritance, I expected a bit more there...especially for the Booker Prize winner.
#37, ficus Fan, I agree about the ending of ON. I'm not sure I liked the direction of the last part of the novel anyway.

****SPOILERS******
I notice that sometimes first novels sometimes have problems with endings. Gwendolyn Brooks' A Year of Wonders should've ended when the young woman got on the boat, instead it went off on this whole other tangent... Also, the first book by Carol Goodman, Lake of Dead Languages is really good first novel but the ending is just too damn tidy after all the trauma in the book.

I'm usually pretty liberal when it comes to first-time authors, allowing for some imperfections here and there. Sometimes it's so obvious though.

So, are they really bad endings or just ones which don't fufill our expectations? Was it bad enough to not want to read a book by that author again?

I notice that sometimes first novels sometimes have problems with endings. Gwendolyn Brooks' A Year of Wonders should've ended when the young woman got on the boat, instead it went off on this whole other tangent...


Ava, you mean Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders right ? The story about the English village and how it dealt with the plague ? I don't remember anything about a woman getting on a boat -- but I could have spaced it.

In any event I don't think I was bothered by the ending, and if I was, it wasn't enough to stick in my mind 4 years after reading the book.

I don't remember anything about a woman getting on a boat -- but I could have spaced it.

She did.

****SPOILER ALERT****

Near the end of Year of Wonders, the main character (Anna?) went off to the Middle East and became a doctor in the harems! Total wish-fulfillment that didn't belong to the story. Geraldine Brooks is very talented, but ends up without enough creative discipline. Too much of the novel struck me this way, and I haven't been willing to try another. Perhaps I'll get March from the library, and consider it my re-test for the year. :)

Thanks, Eurydice, I read it so long ago and I didn't want to give out spoilers. So much of the book was very good but that ending was wacko - maybe we should blame the editor for not catching it (and thanks FF for the name correction).

I did read March and very much enjoyed it. She based the character of Mr. March loosely on Bronson Alcott. I'm not sure I liked the impression given of Marmee (who is, of course, off stage) at the beginning of the book, but I might've just been too sentimental about an old favorite classic and its characters. It's a good re-test.

>32 dchaikin:
No, I get that, I think we've just got a difference of opinion. You seem to appreciate that ambiguity, while I just found it annoying and disappointing. What I really wanted was to see what was going on back in Jonas's town after he'd left, or at least some way to bring his story to a satisfying close, and what I got was... a sled.

Also, since we find out in Messenger that it wasn't delerium or death or anything, but a real sled and a real village, it just seems a little too pat and neat and "oh, look, it brings things full circle to the beginning of the book" for my taste. Like... how conveeeeenient that someone from Village just *happened* to leave a sled right where he'd find it.

I wouldn't call it a bungled ending, exactly, but the final book in the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters (Tomb of the Golden Bird) gave me the impression that in her mind it was time to be done with the whole thing. The sparkling dialogue was missing and I got a sense that she said to herself, "OK, what loose ends were left from the previous seventeen books that I should tie up here?" and proceeded to do so, even though logic would have said one or two of them were unlikely to have ended the way they did.

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles. I had to read it several years ago for a discussion group. The leader of the discussion explained that there were really two endings to the book. I just didn't get it!

>46 fyrefly98: fyrefly98, I see your point now. I'm not familiar with Messenger, but it seems to kind of kill the end of The Giver.

****SPOILER ALERT****
I was hoping for death as an option (sorry Jonas) because I was assuming his memories would ripple back through everyone in his hometown.

After staying up to finish Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith last night and being thoroughly disappointed by the ending, I thought of this thread and had to post.

Most of the book was great, probably my favorite in the 5 I've read by the author thus far. I was so intrigued by the "cellular memory" theory and the way the transplant recipent and donor might be involved that I even told my husband the plot when I was halfway through the book, something I only do if I'm really enjoyng a story I know he won't read. But then it seemed the author went and put in 2 completely far-fetched coincidences, left a bunch of questions hanging, and took the easy way out. I so did not see that coming. I felt so let down.

>49 dchaikin: dchaikin - First, I would heartily DISrecommend checking out Messenger. The Giver was (in my opinion) really good until right near the end, but Messenger is pretty terrible all the way through. I wouldn't have touched it at all, except that I'd read The Giver and Gathering Blue and I'm a completist - I couldn't not read the last one.

***SPOILERS****
I spent the first 2/3 of The Giver thinking/hoping that Jonas would actually change things in his community by killing himself (throwing himself in the river). It seemed like that's what she was setting up by talking about the previous Receiver who died, and whose memories flooded back to the community. That would have been the brave choice, and instead she kind of wimped out and said... "oh, well, if he runs far enough away, then his memories leave him too. yeah."

> 45

Avaland, yes, sorry, as to spoilers: I didn't know how else to do it effectively. As we seem to be agreed on Year of Wonders, I'll definitely seek out March. Thank you.

>50 neekeebee:, neekeebee, I was completely fascinated by Friends, Lovers, Chocolate until the last 45pp...and then, sensing the disappointment to come, I left it on the donations pile. So frustrating, isn't it? A wonderful storyteller just downs tools almost at the end. I'm led to wonder if there isn't some sort of work stoppage in the authorial world....

>53 richardderus:

Thanks, richardderus. You made a good move, putting the book down before you got to the end. I did not foresee the betrayal to come until it was too late! I kept turning the pages, thinking that he would find some way to salvage it. It has occurred to me that the reason I had such a strong negative reaction was maybe because the first part of the story was so engrossing. If it had only been so-so, the ending would not have disappointed so much. So I guess Alexander McCall Smith deserves credit for that, at least.

Maybe it's just me, but i didn't get the last 1/3rd of A passage to India by E.M. Forster

Thought it was a good read until then. What the heck was that all about anyway?

Still scratching my head about that one.

50/53/54 - you intrigued me enough to make me buy the book when I found it second-hand this afternoon. So I may be joining you in the ranks of the disappointed; maybe not. :-)

>55 Bill_Masom:, Bill_Masom, I don't remember the last third of A Passage to India since 30 years have passed since I read it. What about it made you scratch and ponder?

>56 BoPeep:, BoPeep, well...I hope you love the hell out of Friends, Lovers, Chocolate and think we're all wet, since you've gone and bought it! Convince me, if that's the case, to pick it up and read the last 45pp, and you'll have done my reading life a great service.

>54 neekeebee: neekeebee, you said If it had only been so-so, the ending would not have disappointed so much....I so heartily agree. It would be vastly easier if the book one was reading was ~meh~ to forgive or, even more likely, not even notice a let-down of an ending.

The Broom of the System was the first David Foster Wallace book I ever read. He ended it in the middle of a sentence. I was enjoying the book up until then, but I felt completely ripped off by the ending.

Editrixie: The rules of attraction by Bret Easton Ellis starts the same kind of way ... when I was a bookseller, I can remember a customer coming back and trying to exchange a copy because she thought her particular copy was just missing pages through some kind of publishing error.

>Editrixie: The rules of attraction by Bret Easton Ellis starts the same kind of way ... when I was a bookseller, I can remember a customer coming back and trying to exchange a copy because she thought her particular copy was just missing pages through some kind of publishing error.

Luckily, I disliked Less Than Zero so much, I never picked up another book by him. At least he did it at the beginning before the reader had invested anything in the story, right?

I so have to agree with Retrogirl85's hatred for the last few chapters of The Lovely Bones. I decided to read it on a whim, the really got into the in depth way in which it looked at the ramifications of a tragedy on a close family, and how the effects of such an event would be viewed by the dead family member. Very touching, dramatic, poignant...

And then, out of the blue, the last couple of chapters suddenly switch gears and wrap up like a bizarre hybrid of a teen romance novel and an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents based on a Roald Dahl story.

Rubbish.

Oh, yes, Reverends ~ that was it exactly! I enjoyed The Lovely Bones right up till I got to the bit about...no, I won't include a spoiler here. But the ending so troubled me that I have never recommended the novel to anyone. You hit the nail on the head with your succinct and clear analysis of the novel. Thanks!

richardderus, RE: A Passage to India

"I don't remember the last third of A Passage to India since 30 years have passed since I read it. What about it made you scratch and ponder?"

It's been about a year and a half since I have read it myself.

***SPOILER***
The part after the trial, when the doctor went to be the court physician in a different part of India. The whole death, funeral, and storm on the lake part I just didn't get.

I suppose after thinking about it, it was probably symbolism. The westerner having no clue and being way over his head in social customs.

I just didn't need it, I guess. Didn't really enjoy that part of the book. Liked the first third.

I am willing to have it explained to me.

Bill

>

>63 Bill_Masom: Bill, oh...it flows back in syrupy clarity, bubbles obscuring parts and thick sweet glop of time covering the whole thing. I'm unsure, at this distance in time, how much is from the book and how much is from the movie in my mind.

Symbolic of India's consumption of all invaders, either assimilating or defeating them by sheer weight of endurance. (That's the death.) The storm is the price India exacts for misguided attempts at "dominon." Then the funeral, the return of life to the great wheel...well, what could be more Hindu than a funeral? It's liberation, is death, getting out of this vale of tears for a while to rest and recuperate for the next "grade level lesson."

Facile, I grant you, but that's the way I've got it filed in my mental database. Tagged "ho-hum." The writing itself was pleasant, and I don't remember being sorry I read the book. I've simply never picked it up again, nor recommended it to anyone.

Nicoletort #15 -- I felt exactly the same way when I finished My Sister's Keeper -- I was furious with the author and felt betrayed. Then someone suggested I reread the Introduction and then it made sense. In the Intro, she says that when you create a human being for a specific reason, when that reason ceases to exist, then so do you. Does it make sense now? Think about it -- it's far deeper than you at first realize.

For all you readers who hated the ending of The Lovely Bones, how else would you have ended it? I found it strangely satisfying.

SPOILER ALERT:

The part at the end of The Lovely Bones that I had so much trouble with was when she borrowed the body of another girl to have sex. It was so jarring after what had gone before, like a bad YA romantic horror story. Reverends puts it very well(message #61) .

She borrowed the body of another girl?!? Maybe I blocked that bit out of my mind. The way I remember it, she somehow manages to become more solid, though in a hazy way (?), through force of her own will. Am I rewriting the ending here?

Just finished The terror by Dan Simmons ... after a pretty suspenseful tale of polar exploration gone awry ...

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!

one of the main characters becomes an "Esquimeaux" shaman ... the concept could have worked, but was very very unconvincingly handled ... both before and after the character's "conversion."

#68 Sandragon ~ Or maybe it was me who misremembered that bit. At my age, that wouldn't surprise me one bit. :) Even so, whether she borrowed another girl's body or got more solid, the ending still didn't match the rest of the novel, which I thought was a powerful and compelling study of grief and loss, instead degenerating into a B-rated pulp horror melodrama for young teens. IMHO. (Is that too strong a way to put it? If so, sorry to have offended.)

#70 Storeetllr,
I can understand that. This part of the story didn't bother me as much, but you are right it wasn't consistant with the rest of the novel. What really stuck with me was how her murderer was killed and no one knows how except the girl and the readers. I loved this ending and that probably made me gloss over the inconsistancy. I'd never really thought it over before.

Yeah, that part was okay. Just that bit about her hanging around her high school, obsessing about sex and seducing her old friends. It was just creepy and, like you said so eloquently, wasn't consistent with the rest of the novel.

#67 - she had to do that to make up for the fact that she was raped.

I was going to post about Geraldine Brooks' "Year of Wonders", actually. I think it should have ended when she got on the boat, too- but when I think of books I've enjoyed, I conveniently blank out on the ending. Writing is hard work, but 'wrapping it all up' seems to be even harder!

I know that its already been said a few times but I too was really dissappointed with the ending to My Sister's Keeper. Up until the last 20 pages or so I was in love the entire story. All the characters were so vividly drawn and the premise was great. But with the ending I thought that the entire story was for nothing. The struggles that the characters faced meant nothing and that the parents were vindicated in creating a genetic match for their sick daughter. For when Anna dies and Campbell moves forward with the transplant and then Kate goes on to live a full, happy life without another relapse it just tells Anna's mother that she was right in what she did...and that Anna should have just followed through with her purpose all along instead of causing all that fuss. In some ways I think that Picoult got scared of writing the ending and shyed away from anything that might be too shocking and so went for a safe path.

Another book I didn't like the ending to was How to be Lost. I found that initially the story was hard to get into but once I did I jsut wanted to know more about all the sisters...and to me the books ends before it ever really has a chance to begin. What happens to them after the door opens and Agnes walks in? The whole story is about looking for the lost sister...but then screaches to a halt right when she's been found.

What about Anita Shreve's The last time they met I was disappointed, but then thought, yeah, I could see it coming, something in the relationship seemed a bit off...
But the best reaction I heard of was someone who took the book and threw it across the room

My Sister's Keeper spring to mind immediately when I saw this thread. Irishey, I know what you mean when you say you felt betrayed by it. It completely flies in the face of everything she seemed to be developing up until the last few pages of the novel.

The Dive from Clausen's Pier really disappointed me as well. I was expecting chick lit when I bought it, but it turned out to be a surprisingly thoughtful book about love, obligation and finding the life that's right for you. But the choice that the narrator made at the end felt completely at odds with everything she'd experienced and learned about herself before. Worse, I couldn't even reach into my own mind to find any logic that could have supported her decision. It's so heartbreaking to love a novel and to feel that it's really speaking to you up until the last few pages.

#77 - (possible spoiler alert)
MarianV - I just finished The Last Time They Met last night. I had read this thread yesterday but had skipped over the ones that contained items about books I hadn't read yet, including yours. I read your message this morning - I would have to say that I also threw the book across the room - what the heck was that ending??!!! After I thought about it, I guess I agree with you that the relationship seemed a bit off but not that off - what is this, that weird episode of Dallas where Bobby comes out of the shower? Absolutely hated it - hated it even more when I remembered the blurb on the back cover where it said something about their relationship coming to a tragic end or something like that. I think this may be the worst ending of a book that I have ever read.

I completely agree with you about The Dive from Clausen's Pier.
It was so beautifully written and all the description about the sewing and
the fabrics etc, it was just wonderful. A lovely surprise, strangely hypnotic. I remember being dissapointed at the end though.

#6: I, too, was disappointed by the ending of The Historian. Not just the anticlimactic confrontation, but the entire revelation that the guy just wanted a librarian!

I know this message is old - I've just joined and am not sure how these message boards work. I just felt compelled to say that until now I thought I was the only person on the planet who didn't love Cold Mountain! I couldn't finish it. I also thought the ending of Year of Wonders was absurd. Ruined the book.

rebeccanyc-The Inheritance of Loss but it did leave me feeling sort of stranded, or maybe abandoned is the right word, at the end. I felt the same at the end of Shalimar the Clown. I loved them both, anyway. Which may explain why I felt that way - I got so caught up in them. I wanted answers, and there aren't any.

#82 vgilder1 I've just joined and am not sure how these message boards work.

Welcome! One hint: it's helpful to include the message number (as I've done here). Even though you click on "Post a message" below the post you're replying to, your post will appear at the end of all the existing posts, potentially many messages later.

#82 - THANKS! This is so much fun!

I wouldn't go as far as saying it was 'bungled' but I thought the ending to Memory Keeper's Daughter was a bit weak. The book flowed along at a fairly slow but even pace, and then suddenly it felt that the story had to be wrapped up. It felt out of place with the tone of the rest of the book. It was as if the author didn't have a clear plan about how the story should end. Nevertheless, I still think it the book is pretty good.

I agree wholeheartedly with your choice of Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. After that, I again realized why my reading list is so devoid of novels.

WARNING: SPOILERS and run-on sentences of rant to follow…

Atonement by Ian McEwan was a fantastic read until the end when it devolved into a literary w*nk. It did this by taking the view point back to the most frustrating character in the whole book who had grown up to be a really pretentious author who was suddenly telling the story all along, hadn't learned anything and now she reveals that the two most intriguing characters (whose lives she destroyed with her pretentious rubbish) are dead and have been for years…OR HAVE THEY?

Because you as a reader must decide in your own mind if they lived happily ever after even though this is supposedly biographical and you can't change facts with denial…OR CAN YOU?

Ugh. So annoying. Decide upon an ending and then stick to it. All of this 'the power is YOURS!' stuff is a major cop-out.

The book was divided into parts and I'd heartily recommend part one as it was truly gripping. Atmospheric, descriptive, great characterisation and historically interesting. Part two is great if you like war stories but part three should have been leant on by an editor.

And then burned.

I had to blank it from my mind and pretend it never happened. Disappointing.

Sorry to post two in a row but Great Expectations really annoyed me at the end. Mind you, so did Bleak House.

#88 icantmakeme, Although I wouldn't have said it as dramatically as you did, I too found the ending of Atonement extremely annoying.

Robert Heinlein's The Cat Who Could Walk Through Walls had one of the worst endings for me. It's like the author got tired of writing it, and just ended it without any real closure.

Interesting that a lot of people on the 'Best Endings' topic have mentioned Atonement as one of their best.

Isn't diversity a thing of wonder? Perhaps I missed something.

Pug Hill by Alison Pace had an ending that made me cringe/ want to throw the book across the room.
It was a piece of chick-lit, about a woman who favourite dogs are pugs & whose favourite type of pug are the all-black ones. The end saw her at the beginnings of a beautiful romance w/ an old flame who owned... a black pug

Okay, another Cold Mountain post. I did not think the ending was "bad", only sudden and abrubt. I remember counting the plates she was setting down and then counting the people! Oh, crap, he died! All the struggle he went through to get back. It felt bleak to me, but I did not mind. I still think it is a beautiful novel with wonderful character development.

I was a tad disappointed with the ending of Kim Stanley Robinson's Sixty Days and Counting. After writing an entire trilogy with the same characters and the world facing environmental catastrophe, it kind of faded into predictability character-wise and left the Earth in mid-plan.

Thank you! I just finished Corelli's Mandolin. I loved it up until the ending. I'm so glad I'm not the only one.

I would like to list the handmaid tale. The book had so much horror in the beginning and the end ws a let down - we dont even know her fate at the end.

I couldn't agree more with Retrogirl85 (post 7). The ending of Lovely Bones was a really contrived and completely silly.

I'm amazed that no-one else has posted Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! (Darn touchstones... will try reloading it later.)

*******SPOILER************** (just in case anyone like my husband hasn't read it yet and plans to)

Did no-one else think the reason the Elder Wand didn't kill Harry was rubbish and pathetic? Like it had been tracking who Harry defeated? He took Lucius's *other* wand. Why does that make him master of the Elder Wand? Gah!

Incidentally, if anyone has a good theory on this or I'm just being a bit stupid and not noticing the terribly obvious reason this works, that would be great. Another friend has given me a good reason for the King's Crossing chapter, which also made me feel kind of cheated at the time, so maybe there is one and I'm just not seeing it....

When I was in first year of University we had to read The Riders by Tim Winton... when I got to the end I threw the book across the room.

***SPOILER*****

I couldn't stand not knowing where his wife and child had gone. I spent the whole novel trudging through this guy's dreary life waiting in suspense to find out where she went... And I get nothing. NOTHING! And yes, I realise the literary merits of the journey and the self-discovery and blah blah, but I wanted to know what happened to her, dammit!

#18

I realize I'm almost a year late commenting on this, but Adams indicated in interviews that he was considering writing a sixth book, because the ending and generally depressing tone of Mostly Harmless mostly reflected the fact that he was having a bad year and he felt it was an inappropriate way to end things. Specifically, he was talking about reworking The Salmon of Doubt, which had started out as a Dirk Gently novel but which he felt included elements more suited to HGTG.

Although I liked the book overall, I thought Brick Lane had an ending that just didn't fit at all. It was almost like s different author wrote the last few chapters.

I didn't read all the preceding comments, but I would like to add my two cents' worth about the ending of the last Harry Potter, not the story itself, but the epilogue. I, for one, would rather imagine what the future held for everyone, than be tied down to prosaic, take- the-magic-out-of-it next generation stuff. Beauregard

Even though I absolutely loved My Sister's Keeper and read it all in a day, I can understand why people felt the ending shouldn't have ended like it did. I've read several of Picoult's books, and I like the shock factor that she puts in them. Sometimes I feel like I can predict the ending of a book as soon as I start reading it, and I like the fact that you can't do it with hers.

However. I HATED the ending of Nineteen Minutes. **Spoiler***
Jodie would have never killed Matt. No one can make THAT complete of a turn around. I realize that maybe Picoult was trying to show how Jodie was still connected with Peter, but she could've done that just by having Jodie let Peter live and ignoring Matt's command. She could've done a number of things that wouldn't complete contradict Jodie's character.