# You call that an ending?



## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

Are there any books that started out really strong, then left you with an ending you wish you could rewrite?


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## JeanneM (Mar 21, 2011)

Some may not agree, but I've always been disappointed in John Grisham's endings.  Everything seems strong throughout the books but the climatic moments always give me a feeling of being let down.


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## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> Are there any books that started out really strong, then left you with an ending you wish you could rewrite?


I read a YA a few months ago that really messed with my head at the time. A quick Google search tells me that I'm not alone. I don't want to reveal the title, because it was a quite good book and my reaction to the ending is because I'm a wussy more than anything else.

When I was a teen, I'm sure I would have rewritten the ending of Gone With The Wind, but now it takes complete narrative and logical sense to me. Scarlett is very easy to relate to when you're 14.


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## dannygillan (Mar 13, 2011)

I've always thought Stephen King's endings are his weakest point. Not so bad that they put me off reading his books, but always a little disappointing after such detailed (and usually pretty long) build up.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I feel this way when the ending seems rushed.  Like the author had a deadline and was coming up against it.

Betsy


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## PG4003 (Patricia) (Jan 30, 2010)

Jodi Picoult's House Rules was like that.  I was so disappointed at the end.


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## theraven (Dec 30, 2009)

I have that reaction to Jodi Picoult's books and also to The Lovely Bones. So many good books have been ruined for me by cop-out endings.


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## spidermanfan (Dec 28, 2010)

I really liked Congo, but the ending was truly awful.


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## beckyj20 (Jun 12, 2010)

Mockingjay left me extremely disappointed at the end! I would love for someone to rewrite it (since I can't write, I dont think I could do any better)!


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## evrose (Jan 7, 2011)

Dozens of them...

I recently finished a Dean Koontz book that had such a horrible ending, I wanted to scream, vomit, and build a bonfire to torch his collective works so no one else would have that crap inflicted on them.

Calmer heads prevailed, and I just deleted it from my Kindle.

I do seem to be going through a rash of bad endings lately. ugh.


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## bordercollielady (Nov 21, 2008)

beckyj20 said:


> Mockingjay left me extremely disappointed at the end! I would love for someone to rewrite it (since I can't write, I dont think I could do any better)!


Me too.. and not just the VERY end - but the majority of the book..


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## EGranfors (Mar 18, 2011)

I really disliked the ending of Mockingjay, and also several of Joy Fielding's new books.  And don't get me started on Cornwell!


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## bluetiger1941 (Mar 20, 2011)

Peter Høeg's _Smilla's Sense of Snow_ takes a somewhat decent story and ruins it with a terrible ending.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

I'll be shot by some of his fans but...

Stephen King's _The Stand_. The ending is freaking weak.


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## William BK. (Mar 8, 2011)

The last hundred or so pages of _The Return of the King_ could have been left out--and was wisely for the movie version.

Also, Shakespeare's _The Winter's Tale_ could have done without the ridiculous statue scene at the end--and I think this is the one play he got wrong: it should have been (and was perfectly set up to be) a tragedy and not a romance...

I read a lot of fantasy, and authors like to end books in the middle of series with a thousand plot threads still hanging. While I'm not opposed to this entirely, I think there needs to be an attempt to make the books more readable as stand alone titles too, as I don't want to wait three years (or more) before I get to an ending. Terry Brooks, Raymond Feist, and Stephen R. Donaldson are very guilty of this...


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## Steven L. Hawk (Jul 10, 2010)

Pretty much any Brian Keene novel. But the ending to _Darkness on the Edge of Town _ was especially disappointing.


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## Julia March (Feb 22, 2011)

_Perdido Street Station_. It wasn't so bad that it prevented me from rereading the book, but it seemed to me at the time untrue to Isaac's character as we'd seen it.


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## WilliamVitka (Mar 28, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> I'll be shot by some of his fans but...
> 
> Stephen King's _The Stand_. The ending is freaking weak.


This. A millions times, this. I spend who knows how many pages building up to the Stand (harhar) at the end and ... man, what a let down.


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## SM Johnson (Apr 5, 2011)

Jodi Picoult. Especially My Sister's Keeper. I got really invested in the main character, the tricky moral dilemma, then bam, total cop out ending. I was so flaming angry. Others by Picoult had the same effect, so I quit reading her.


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## GBear (Apr 23, 2009)

Most of Robert Ludlum's books, to the point where I stopped reading them. He would just paint himself (and the character, and the whole world) into an impossible corner to the point that the only way out was invariably a letdown.


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## 4Katie (Jun 27, 2009)

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. It was one of the best books I'd ever read, until he apparently ran out of paper and just ended the book. I've never been so disappointed in the ending of a book.


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## Les Turner (Mar 13, 2011)

JeanneM said:


> Some may not agree, but I've always been disappointed in John Grisham's endings.  Everything seems strong throughout the books but the climatic moments always give me a feeling of being let down.


I couldn't agree more. 'A Painted House' suffered from this majorly. And the worst part is that I read it while travelling and then lost the book, so I waited for a year until I could get another copy only to read a really crap ending.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

I just posted in another thread how Gone With The Wind affected the way I chose books for years (read the ending first to make sure I never got another disappointment like that).


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## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

There's only one I can remember reading where I was unequivocably upset at the ending - _Jerome and the Seraph_, I think it was called. It was very amusing and whimsical, a few hints of mystery, the plot started winding to a close, and BAM - it just cut off. Not in a Jane Austen 'right, that's the drama sorted, write two pages of wrap-up and we're done' sort of way, just cut off so abruptly that I spent a couple of minutes looking for the rest of the book.


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

You do get the feeling sometimes that authors paint themselves into corners they can't seem to get themselves out of.


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## nmg222 (Sep 14, 2010)

The 5 novels I read by Lee Child.  Although, considering the thin plots, iffy endings were the only way to go.


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## RhondaRN (Dec 27, 2009)

Lonesome Dove was one of the best books I've ever read.  However, when I got to the end of my Kindle version, I wondered if something malfunctioned causing the end not to appear.  It's as if he just stopped writing.  Such detail in the book, I was surprised at how it ended, with no real end.  Still, the book was so great as a whole, I forgave the author.


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## JD Rhoades (Feb 18, 2011)

dannygillan said:


> I've always thought Stephen King's endings are his weakest point. Not so bad that they put me off reading his books, but always a little disappointing after such detailed (and usually pretty long) build up.


The ending of _The Stand_ caused me to throw the book across the room and not read any more Stephen King for five years.

I mean, talk about a LITERAL _deus ex machina_! I was FURIOUS.


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## m&amp;m (Mar 14, 2009)

I am shocked that so many people have mentioned King and no one has pointed out how TERRIBLE the ending to the Dark Tower series was! It's so bad that King literally BEGS his faithful readers no to read past a certain point in the book, because they will be disappointed. I wish I had heeded the warning. It _almost_ ruined the series for me.


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## kurzon (Feb 26, 2011)

I greatly love Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series, but always feel betrayed by


Spoiler



the memory wipe


. I'm not a fan of that plot development.


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## TadVezner (Mar 23, 2011)

Yeah but King's beginnings are so boss. I agree the Stand's got nothing on the Dark Tower trilogy, when it comes to craptastic endings. I have vague memories, and I'm trying to block those as I type.


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## JFHilborne (Jan 22, 2011)

Thanks for this thread. I haven't read some of those on this list and won't bother now. Time's too short for a crap ending.


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## Pinworms (Oct 20, 2010)

I thought the end of "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" was pretty weak and not believable.  

I found the ending of "City of Thieves" to be boring and forgettable.


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

m&m said:


> I am shocked that so many people have mentioned King and no one has pointed out how TERRIBLE the ending to the Dark Tower series was! It's so bad that King literally BEGS his faithful readers no to read past a certain point in the book, because they will be disappointed. I wish I had heeded the warning. It _almost_ ruined the series for me.


Hollywood may change the ending for you when they get around to making the movies.


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## nmg222 (Sep 14, 2010)

m&m said:


> I am shocked that so many people have mentioned King and no one has pointed out how TERRIBLE the ending to the Dark Tower series was! It's so bad that King literally BEGS his faithful readers no to read past a certain point in the book, because they will be disappointed. I wish I had heeded the warning. It _almost_ ruined the series for me.


See, now I normally hate endings to most books and absolutely loved the ending to the Dark Tower. If there was one constant theme throughout the series it is that 'life is ka, and ka is a circle'. Also, and more to the point, Roland's life is the quest for the Dark Tower, not actually finding it.

Anyway, this is why Baskins-Robbins makes 31 flavors!


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## PG4003 (Patricia) (Jan 30, 2010)

I was so disappointed in the ending of House Rules by Jodi Picoult.  I kept hitting the Next Page button, thinking there had to be more.


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## Cheryl Bradshaw Author (Apr 13, 2011)

When I first read the end of Agatha Christie's Murder of Roger Ackroyd I was so irritated, and I read later that she received a lot of flack from that ending, and at the time it was quite the controversy.  Interesting enough, it's on a lot of the top #100 lists now for that very reason.  Go figure


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## StaceyHH (Sep 13, 2010)

Critchton's Timeline (and Congo), Koontz's Odd Thomas, Lev Grossman's The Magicians, that's just for starters.  

Oh! Kostova's The Historian. Absolute dreck all the way through, then she just OH BTW KTHXBAI the ending. bleh.


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## crash86 (Oct 8, 2010)

I have read all of Jodi Picoult's books and have been disappointed by every one of the endings.  I do enjoy her style of writing and she puts so much into her books but they seem to have such lame endings. I live in hope that one day she writes a good and somewhat happy ending.

I did read a book not so long ago (can't for the life of me remember what it was cause I have been reading so much lately) and the ending made me scratch my head and say ' What... that's it"  but luckily it was a free book so I couldn't really complain.


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## NapCat (retired) (Jan 17, 2011)

JeanneM said:


> Some may not agree, but I've always been disappointed in John Grisham's endings. Everything seems strong throughout the books but the climatic moments always give me a feeling of being let down.


I have always felt the same way about Michael Crichton ....


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## Mike Cooley (Mar 12, 2011)

Rather than naming books, I'll name some types of endings that I hate:

1. Deus Ex Machina -- MANY MANY examples of this. 
2. Climax too early (author keeps writing past where the book "should end" and the real end is boring)
3. WTF was that? (ending made no sense whatsoever and had no ties to the rest of the book -- Deus Ex Machina is a subset of this)
4. Ta Da -- Here's my agenda! (writer uses a solioquy at the end to expound on their personal agenda)
5. One character explains *what happened* in detail to another character at the end (this is why I don't like formula mysteries)



--Mike


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## Thumper (Feb 26, 2009)

Most Dean Koontz books I've read leave me with a _WTF was that?_ feeling; it's like he gets 85% done and realizes he needs to wrap it up and then rushes to the end.

Still..it must not bother me _too _much, since I've read more than a couple of his books....


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## JustDucky83 (Mar 20, 2011)

My favorite kind of endings are the cliff hangers, I love to be tortured lol So for me when I am questioning what happened, and I am dying for the next book those are the most exciting for me. ANd the ones that leave you to make your own conclusion, sometimes I like those kind too.


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## BarbraAnnino (Jan 27, 2011)

JustDucky83 said:


> My favorite kind of endings are the cliff hangers, I love to be tortured lol So for me when I am questioning what happened, and I am dying for the next book those are the most exciting for me. ANd the ones that leave you to make your own conclusion, sometimes I like those kind too.


Me too.

I can't think of a book off the top of my head but there's a movie by M. Night Shyamalan called The Happening with the worst ending in cinema history. Ironic title since not much happened.


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## JustDucky83 (Mar 20, 2011)

BarbraAnnino said:


> Me too.
> 
> I can't think of a book off the top of my head but there's a movie by M. Night Shyamalan called The Happening with the worst ending in cinema history. Ironic title since not much happened.


I know what your talking about! I think he had a few that had horrible endings


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## Alice Y. Yeh (Jul 14, 2010)

Do epilogues count?

The one for Harry Potter #7 left me thinking, "What the *expletive* was that?"


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

Mike Cooley said:


> ...
> 5. One character explains *what happened* in detail to another character at the end (this is why I don't like formula mysteries)


That was one of my gripes with Charles Stross's _Halting State_. Overall I'd still recommend the book (even in spite of the 2nd person present tense), but I really didn't like the pages of exposition at the end explaining what had happened (instead of telling/hinting at it throughout the body of the story).


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Alice Y. Yeh said:


> Do epilogues count?
> 
> The one for Harry Potter #7 left me thinking, "What the *expletive* was that?"


I liked the idea of the epilogue. . . . but I didn't like what 'happened' in it. . . . I was _sure_ that they'd be meeting Dudley with his _wizard_ son on Platform 9¾. I'm still pretty sure he was there; she just forgot to mention it.


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## kCopeseeley (Mar 15, 2011)

SM Johnson said:


> Jodi Picoult. Especially My Sister's Keeper. I got really invested in the main character, the tricky moral dilemma, then bam, total cop out ending. I was so flaming angry. Others by Picoult had the same effect, so I quit reading her.


BIGGEST. DISAPPOINTMENT. EVER. Never read another of her books again. What a betrayal of her readers.

I think I must be in the minority, because I couldn't stand the second book of the Hunger Games series, but I LOVED Mockingjay (except for the part about her sister. That killed me.). Then again, people always think I'm crazy when I say that my favorite of the Harry Potter was Order of the Phoenix and my favorite of the Twilights was New Moon (less Edward than the other books. hahaha).


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## EliRey (Sep 8, 2010)

James Patterson's Roses Are Red had one the absolute worst endings that I can remember. I wasn't just disappointed I was PI$$ED!!! Ironically I read it during a trip where everything went wrong, truck broke down costing a fortune to fix, husband jumped in pool with new expensive phone in his pocket, got the sunburn of all sunburns so it was only fitting that I finish this book on the somber ride home.


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## dixiehellcat (Jan 23, 2011)

m&m said:


> I am shocked that so many people have mentioned King and no one has pointed out how TERRIBLE the ending to the Dark Tower series was! It's so bad that King literally BEGS his faithful readers no to read past a certain point in the book, because they will be disappointed. I wish I had heeded the warning. It _almost_ ruined the series for me.


YES! Omit the almost for me though. I felt like I had totally wasted a large chunk of my VERY limited reading time. And I love me some King, too! argh!


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## xtine (Feb 17, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> I'll be shot by some of his fans but...
> 
> Stephen King's _The Stand_. The ending is freaking weak.


Couldn't agree more.

Hand of god? Really? After all that you give me the hand of God?

Stephen King is one of my favorite authors, but in general, his endings just don't work.


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## KerylR (Dec 28, 2010)

Songs From The Other Side Of The Wall.  This was the worst WTF moment in WTF***ery ever.  The book is a sort of YA Lit Fic.  It's more high art writing than genre.  Great.  It's chugging along well, there's a bit of a mystery, a bit of romance, and everything looks like it's about to wrap up well.

Then two pages from the end we get the plot twist that required the least believable coincidence in the history of coincidence to make sure the happy ending gets tanked.  There's suspension of disbelief, which the story already required a good deal of, and then there's full frontal reader lobotomy which is what the ending required.  

I don't ever remember being more disappointed by an ending in my life.


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## nmg222 (Sep 14, 2010)

xtine said:


> Couldn't agree more.
> 
> Hand of god? Really? After all that you give me the hand of God?
> 
> Stephen King is one of my favorite authors, but in general, his endings just don't work.


Curious, what do you think the book is about? It's a classic good v. evil/ God v. Devil
Mother Abigail wasn't exactly an old women sitting in a Nebraska cornfield.


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## bnapier (Apr 26, 2010)

nmg222 said:


> See, now I normally hate endings to most books and absolutely loved the ending to the Dark Tower. If there was one constant theme throughout the series it is that 'life is ka, and ka is a circle'. Also, and more to the point, Roland's life is the quest for the Dark Tower, not actually finding it.
> 
> Anyway, this is why Baskins-Robbins makes 31 flavors!


Agreed...I would have been even more pissed if he had have ended it

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

after Roland opened the door and that was it. I LOVED the actual ending but was FURIOUS over how the Crimson King was killed...by a character that we had only met about 80 pages before. What the HELL?!?!?!


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## Neekeebee (Jan 10, 2009)

The last two Sidney Sheldon books I've read left me wondering what happened to the rest of the book. I even went to the bookstore to look at a paper copy to make sure my Kindle got it all.

Alexander McCall Smith's_ Friends, Lovers, and Chocolate_ had the worst ending in recent memory. I was so intrigued by the storyline and then the ending felt like a huge betrayal. Stopped reading the Sunday Philosophy Club series after that.

N


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## Alle Meine Entchen (Dec 6, 2009)

Alice Y. Yeh said:


> Do epilogues count?
> 
> The one for Harry Potter #7 left me thinking, "What the *expletive* was that?"





Ann in Arlington said:


> I liked the idea of the epilogue. . . . but I didn't like what 'happened' in it. . . . I was _sure_ that they'd be meeting Dudley with his _wizard_ son on Platform 9¾. I'm still pretty sure he was there; she just forgot to mention it.


Actually, according to her website, she considered it, but decided not to do it:


> Harry and Dudley: Future Hope?
> 
> A couple of people have told me that they hoped to see Dudley at King's Cross in the Epilogue, accompanying a wizarding child. I must admit that it did occur to me to do that very thing, but a short period of reflection convinced me that any latent wizarding genes would never survive contact with Uncle Vernon's DNA, so I didn't do it.
> However, I know that after Dudley's brave attempt at reconciliation at the start of Deathly Hallows, the two cousins would have remained on 'Christmas Card' terms for the rest of their lives, and that Harry would have taken his family to visit Dudley's when they were in the neighbourhood (occasions dreaded by James, Albus and Lily)


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## Barbara M (Nov 21, 2008)

Cold mountain.  Worst ever.

It has the sad ending, which is where the book should have ended then it has the happy "life goes on" ending.  Who needed that? we all know life goes on.  Totally spoiled the whole thing for me.


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## Chloista (Jun 27, 2009)

ellenoc said:


> I just posted in another thread how Gone With The Wind affected the way I chose books for years (read the ending first to make sure I never got another disappointment like that).


I have to respectfully disagree with this. I first read GWTW when I was 13, and the ending seemed open-ended to me. However, as an adult, not really. You spend over 1,000 pages getting to know the character of Scarlett, and to a lesser degree that of Rhett Butler. When that book ends, based on your reading of both characters, you pretty much know how it ends. Scarlett will also be emotionally immature and optimistic that she can put to right things she willfully destroyed (albeit through a lack of understanding of people around her); and Rhett, who is pretty much emotionally used up at the end, has moved on.

A wonderful story, and the ending is just like life: left open-ended in terms of black-and-white endings, but very clear to those who have really thought about the emotional make-up and character of both Rhett and Scarlett.


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## Chloista (Jun 27, 2009)

I thought the ending of "IT" by King was pretty lame.  A very scary book throughout -- and then the payoff is some huge spider creature.  

Really?


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## apbschmitz (Apr 22, 2011)

Well, how about the last 70 or so pages of War and Peace, where Tolstoy flogs his theory of history, already adequately explained throughout the book, for so long that you think your eyes are going to bleed.


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## Will Granger (Apr 12, 2011)

dannygillan said:


> I've always thought Stephen King's endings are his weakest point. Not so bad that they put me off reading his books, but always a little disappointing after such detailed (and usually pretty long) build up.


Hi Danny,

I agree with you about King's endings. It seems like he gets tired of the plots and just ends them. I hated the endings to _It_ and _The Dome_. Then again, it's hard to criticize King. I think Shakespeare also had some weak endings. Maybe this is a lesson for us


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## Will Granger (Apr 12, 2011)

Chloista said:


> I thought the ending of "IT" by King was pretty lame. A very scary book throughout -- and then the payoff is some huge spider creature.
> 
> Really?


I agree about *It*. In some ways, it (pun intended) was my favorite of King's books, but I did not like the ending either.


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## Will Granger (Apr 12, 2011)

_The Lost Symbol_ by Dan Brown. Then again, the beginning and middle were pretty bad too. I used to live in D.C. and really wanted it to be good, but the ending was weak. I didn't get the big deal about the Rotunda and the Washington Monument. 
I'm not going to read any more of Brown's books.


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## BuddyGott (Feb 4, 2011)

JeanneM said:


> Some may not agree, but I've always been disappointed in John Grisham's endings. Everything seems strong throughout the books but the climatic moments always give me a feeling of being let down.


I'm usually okay with his endings, but I hated the ending of _The Summons._ Up until the ending, I had loved the book. Then, I was like, "Seriously, this is how it ends" Big disappointment.


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## Hayden Duvall (Mar 24, 2011)

Hell to the yes about the It ending- made all the worse by the fact that it is such a fabulous book up until the spider.


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## MrPLD (Sep 23, 2010)

I'm likely way out of my depth, but Raymond Feist's "Faerie Tale" ending to me was a bit of a "And magic happens *poof*"

Maybe sometimes there is just no good way to end a story - other than to write another part


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## Will Granger (Apr 12, 2011)

Hayden Duvall said:


> Hell to the yes about the It ending- made all the worse by the fact that it is such a fabulous book up until the spider.


Why did he come up with that spider? The book was so good up until then. Lots of people still say they are afraid of clowns even though they never even read _It_.


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## ChristopherDavidPetersen (Mar 24, 2011)

I haven't read the book (if there even is one), but "No country for old men", the movie was didn't even have an ending. I had to rewind video a couple of times because I thought I missed something. Unfortunately, I hadn't. What a terrible disappointment.

Also, I always hate it when I read or watch something where the climax is disproportional to the build up of the story. I feel that the higher the emotional attachment, the longer of the ending should be, as well as sustained. I don't want to read something that is 500 pages long and the climax is only a half page blip. That's just retarded - I end up feeling cheated.

Just my two cents...


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## Anna Elliott (Apr 24, 2011)

ellenoc said:


> I just posted in another thread how Gone With The Wind affected the way I chose books for years (read the ending first to make sure I never got another disappointment like that).


Oh! Gone With the Wind! It broke my 16 year old heart when I read it in high school.  I would add I Conquer the Castle to the list of those types of ending, too.


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## valleycat1 (Mar 15, 2011)

Here's an oldie no one else has mentioned.  How Stella Got Her Groove Back.  The old 'one guy devastated her, so here's a hunk (immediately) to make her whole again.'


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Knight in Shining Armour by Jude Deveroux. I hated the ending so much its preventing me from reading other books by the same author. It really peeved me off this ending. Others love it. I felt so let down and cheated. I am still peeved after all this time. 

It was one of the first books I read on my Kindle back in 2008. It was like $1 then. Oh those were the days of really really good sales of regular books. 

Anyway, never forgave the author on that one. Now I see her name in the Kindle store, I scroll on by.


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## jongoff (Mar 31, 2011)

A Canticle for Liebowitz. This is a great book, a classic, but I always thought the ending wasn't quite up to the rest of the book.


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

Will Granger said:


> Hi Danny,
> 
> I agree with you about King's endings. It seems like he gets tired of the plots and just ends them. I hated the endings to _It_ and _The Dome_. Then again, it's hard to criticize King. I think Shakespeare also had some weak endings. Maybe this is a lesson for us


Maybe he just paints himself into corners he can't find the way out of.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

xtine said:


> Couldn't agree more.
> 
> Hand of god? Really? After all that you give me the hand of God?
> 
> Stephen King is one of my favorite authors, but in general, his endings just don't work.


I think I read the ending three times thinking I must have missed something.


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## Lee Sinclair (Dec 19, 2010)

It's odd how much a letdown can scar you. I'm still trying to recover from the ending of "The Desire" by Patricia Hagan. I'm going to try to use the spoiler alert thing because I don't know how to share how the ending let me down without "giving it away." Oh, my goodness. I just previewed the spoiler alert thing.  It looks awful.



Spoiler






Spoiler



"The Desire" is a civil war historical romance which I was enjoying, for the most part, although the heroine was a tad arrogant about her medical skills. Throughout the story, the heroine was making a really big deal about how important nursing the wounded was to her and she even wanted to train as a doctor after the war. But the hero wanted a stay at home wife and mother. It seemed to be building up to a big conflict between them over this difference. And then nothing. They were temporarily separated by events, then got back together and everything was wonderful. What It had been built up so much I felt like I must have missed how this difference in their outlook had been resolved. Maybe I missed that sentence. But it has really put me off reading anything else by her even though most of it was a really interesting story.


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## Keith B. Darrell (Apr 27, 2011)

If the author is a good writer, he or she will usually be able to carry off a good ending consistent with the quality of what preceded it. There have been a few endings that didn't appeal to me because I didn't feel the characters received the outcome they deserved. The books I've read with badly written endings usually had poorly written middles and beginnings too.

Sometimes, I'll read a few pages into a story and imagine what direction I would take it in. Almost always, I wind up with an imagined ending completely different from the author's. In fact, there's only been one time when I read a story and the author did exactly what I would have done.


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## NaomiMarx (Apr 9, 2011)

I wonder if there are differences to endings if you compare an author with a deadline to a publisher versus and indie writer. There are far too many endings that just drop off, as if the author felt they were done with the story and just cut it off to be done with it. Which is too bad. I have read far too many books with bad endings to list them here, but I find many classical books tend to end well. (for the most part)


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## Lynn McNamee (Jan 8, 2009)

I read through this entire thread and was surprised to see that my nominee was not mentioned. Although many mentioned King, none mentioned his total bomb: _From a Buick 8_.

That was the only book of his that I hated so much I got rid of it. In my pre-Kindle days, I owned every book of King's, all in hardback. They weren't collector's editions or anything like that. Heck, they were dog-eared and well-worn from my constant rereading. But, _From a Buick 8_ went into the trashcan.

Come to think of it, I think that was the only book I have ever thrown away. I generally give them to friends, trade them to used bookstores, or donate them.

In _From a Buick 8_, King painted himself into a corner and couldn't get out... so, he never even bothered to try.

I'm a fan of King. Even though I'm not pleased with every one of his books, I love his writing. (I think I'm one of the only people who actually liked the ending to the Gunslinger series.  ) But, that one book almost made me drop him for good.

The thing is, I don't think I would have been nearly as angry with the ending had the rest of the book not been so superb.


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## Mike Cooley (Mar 12, 2011)

RedAdept said:


> ...
> The thing is, I don't think I would have been nearly as angry with the ending had the rest of the book not been so superb.


SO TRUE. If the whole book is kind of mediocre, a bad ending is certainly more expected. But when they
build you up and up and up and then end it badly, it's more of a shock. And more of a disappointment.

Also if the book is 400+ pages you've got a lot of time invested in it so I think that adds to the anger if the ending
does not hold up.

I just thought of another kind of ending that sometimes works but often is a cop-out: "It was all a dream..."

Mike


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## ChristopherDavidPetersen (Mar 24, 2011)

Mike Cooley said:


> I just thought of another kind of ending that sometimes works but often is a cop-out: "It was all a dream..."


I absolutely HATE those endings. I feel SO ripped off... That's how book burnings were invented


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

I'm with Jeannie M on John Grisham. I can't read his books any more, the endings annoy me too much. And... contraversial one here, Captain Corelli's Mandolin. I don't like it because in order to make it sad, the feisty heroine who is smart and full of chutzpah has to suddenly be passive and whatever the opposite of proactive is!.  Actually that probably is passive. 

I know the whole world disagrees with me but... (sigh). As I say, it's not that the ending is unhappy, it's that in order for the book to have a sad ending the heroine has to act completely out of character. Twice.

Cheers

MTM


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## Marc Johnson (Feb 25, 2011)

I'm with the people that don't like Stephen King's ending. Love his work but his endings are terrible. While I didn't mind the ending ending of The Dark Tower, the resolution or lack thereof between Roland and Flagg was so disappointing. I would have forgiven some of the things introduced in the last few books, if only it ended the way it began.


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## David McAfee (Apr 15, 2010)

m&m said:


> I am shocked that so many people have mentioned King and no one has pointed out how TERRIBLE the ending to the Dark Tower series was!


This. ^^^ And the ending of CELL was pretty bad, too.


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## Erin Zarro (Apr 30, 2011)

*Cell* is on my TBR pile, so this is good to know (thanks, *David!*).

Jodi Picoult's *Handle with Care* is one of the best books I ever read, but the ending sucks. All that build up and drama and then...what? I actually thought I hallucinated it, it was so unbelievable. Good book, though, despite that.

Cheers,
E.


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## Keair (Apr 18, 2011)

I have come across quite a few books like this in my life. I think the most disappointing ending came not from a single book for me but from the book that was supposed to be the last of Anne Rice's vampire chronicals. You could almost feel that she didn't want to end the series and it came through in a strong way with the "ending" book. In many ways, I have always felt that she did this so she could go back to Lestat if she is ever so inclined but if that really is the end of the series (it's been about nine years now so it does sort of look that way) than it was a terrible disappointment...one I am obviously still not over. hahaha


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## Debbie Bennett (Mar 25, 2011)

I read my daughter's books and when she was into Jacqueline Wilson I thought they were really good - until the endings. Or non-endings. The books just stop as if she'd hit her word target. I know they're supposed to be real-life which doesn't have a neat little tied-up-with-bows resolution, but I used to shut the book and be left unsatisfied.


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## ChadMck (Feb 25, 2011)

The only ending that truly scarred me was the ending to "The Dark Tower" by King. I put so much time and anticipation into those books that there is no way he could have ended it to anyone's satisfaction, but to end it how it ended made me really angry.


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## joepr (Mar 16, 2011)

yes, I read it, and it was stupid a  I thought it was going to be


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## KindleChickie (Oct 24, 2009)

Fred Saberhagens An Old Friend Of The Family.


Spoiler



It goes from them flying to roof tops to them trudging thru snow in pursuit of a rogue vampire. And the snow trudging went on and on and on.


 It was the most anti-climatic ending I have ever read.


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

Actually, I read a Jodi Picault with a rubbish ending too, I can't remember what it was called but it was bout one sister who was really ill and one who was well and felt she played second fiddle the whole time (which she did). The ending was a big cop out.

cheers

MTM


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## BrentNichols (Mar 18, 2011)

Micheal Crichton's Sphere bugged me a lot.  I loathed the ending, although it was clearly the ending he'd been planning and building toward.  I guess the whole silly metaphysical point of the book is what I didn't like, but it was the ending that brought it home to me.  To be fair, that makes it a book that's not to my taste, not a book with a bad ending.  Still... Bad Micheal!  Bad!


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## schillil (Apr 22, 2011)

Do books that are supposed to have sequels and don't count? I loved If I Pay Thee Not in Gold by Piers Anthony and Mercedes Lackey, but because she (who was writing from a plot line of Anthony's) wrote it in her style, which he didn't like he nixed the whole blasted series after it hinted that there was way more story. Ugh! I also agree about the epilog in HP. I wanted there to be more meat to it if it had to be there.


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## rayhensley (Apr 16, 2011)

The ending to _The Damnation Game _was a little weak.


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## aaronpolson (Apr 4, 2010)

It's not in print anymore, but the novelization of _Logan's Run_ ended poorly.

No spoilers here... Just one of those rare occasions when the movie was much better than the book.

(Yes, it does happen)


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## GBear (Apr 23, 2009)

ChristopherDavidPetersen said:


> I absolutely HATE those endings. I feel SO ripped off... That's how book burnings were invented


On the other hand, it provided a perfect satirical ending to the original Bob Newhart show.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

I'm still wondering why King bothered to write _The Colorado Kid_. There is no resolution at all of the mystery, and all that remains is a character study of characters we never find out much about. Very disappointing.

It has nothing in common with the TV series that it supposedly inspired, by the way.

Mike


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## Craig Allen (Apr 2, 2011)

Larry Niven's The Integral Trees had a very week ending.  I'm sorry to say that as I really like Ringworld and I love his work with Jerry Pournelle.

I agree about Stephen King's endings--they leave a lot to be desired (though I liked the bookends that were part of 'Salem's Lot).  I think a lot of writers get a great idea and can't wait to write about it, and then end up writing themselves into a corner.


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## Tara Shuler (Apr 24, 2011)

It wasn't the ending that bothered me, but I was extremely disappointed in the big sex scene in Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer.

She built this big thing up about Edward being afraid he would hurt Bella if they made love, and when they finally did it, all she described was the aftermath.

I guess her publisher could have made her do that because of the young adult nature of the book, but it was a HUGE disappointment for me.


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## JohnJGaynard (Jul 26, 2010)

David Foster Wallace (author of INFINITE JEST) always had problems with endings.


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## R. H. Watson (Feb 2, 2011)

aaronpolson said:


> It's not in print anymore, but the novelization of _Logan's Run_ ended poorly.
> 
> No spoilers here... Just one of those rare occasions when the movie was much better than the book.
> 
> (Yes, it does happen)


Do you mean a novelization of the movie, or the novel the movie was based on? I never read it so I have no opinion; just not clear on which one you mean.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

The book that inspired me to consider writing, got me to love horror, and got me into reading adult novels was Peter Benchley's "Jaws."  Great book and vastly different in many ways from the movie.  However, the ending was VERY unsatisfying. NOTHING like the movie, in fact Benchley hated the way Spielberg wanted to end the film.  IN the book (SPOILER ALERT) well, the shark just kind of....dies...  Blowing it up was better.

Benchley then treaded familiar ground with BEAST a decade or so later and that ended sucked, too.  Kind of Deus ex Machina ending, which I never really like.


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## R. M. Reed (Nov 11, 2009)

aaronpolson said:


> It's not in print anymore, but the novelization of _Logan's Run_ ended poorly.


Novelization? The movie was based on a novel, and they put out a novelization?
A new movie is being made that is said to be much closer to the book.


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## Tamara Rose Blodgett (Apr 1, 2011)

The last "Undead" book from Maryjanice Davidson left a bad taste in my mouth....I don't know about "rewriting" it but geez...slay us now!


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## lungtastic (May 23, 2011)

Tara: "It wasn't the ending that bothered me, but I was extremely disappointed in the big sex scene in Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer."

One of the many things that I hated about that book. Breaking Dawn absolutely ruined the Twilight series for me, there was all this build up to everything and it all felt like a let down.


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## StephenLivingston (May 10, 2011)

I felt that James Kelman's novel A Disaffection didn't really have an ending.  It just stopped.


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## Ben Dobson (Mar 27, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> I'll be shot by some of his fans but...
> 
> Stephen King's _The Stand_. The ending is freaking weak.


I was going to post that--I love the Stand like crazy, but it has just the worst ending.


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## MichelleStimpson (May 29, 2011)

SM Johnson said:


> Jodi Picoult. Especially My Sister's Keeper. I got really invested in the main character, the tricky moral dilemma, then bam, total cop out ending. I was so flaming angry. Others by Picoult had the same effect, so I quit reading her.


I agree. The ending of My Sister's Keeper really put a bad taste in my mouth for her books, but I enjoyed the movie.

As an author, however, I have to say that for me, endings are hard. I don't really like happy endings (Alfred Hitchcock fan here), but my publishers seem to think that readers want happy endings...


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## David Kazzie (Sep 16, 2010)

I was really let down by the ending of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. And the beginning. And the middle. 

Wait. Now that I think about it, maybe I really liked the ending. Because my suffering was over.


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## Colin Taber (Apr 4, 2011)

I'm not surpised to see King get mentioned here. Like so many others, I really love The Stand, but the ending is lame.

In his book On Writing he actually talks about how he doesn't plan stories, just thinks up interesting characters and situations, then lets the story run free. I suspect this is why the endings are so mixed in quality and so often unsatisfying. As many have suggested, he just writes himself into a corner or simply loses interest.


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## samanthawarren (May 1, 2011)

EGranfors said:


> I really disliked the ending of Mockingjay


This. Hunger Games was strong (mostly), Catching Fire was alright, and Mockingjay was like she said, "Well, I guess I gotta finish now that I started. Fine. Let's get it over with."


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## David Kazzie (Sep 16, 2010)

Since The Stand has been mentioned so often, I'd be curious as to any thoughts people had about what WOULD have made a good ending. Like many of you, I adore that book, but I admit I wasn't crazy about the ending either.

I guess this drifts into spoiler territory. Can people cover up their answers with the spoiler tag?


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## VegasWriter (May 25, 2011)

evrose said:


> Dozens of them...
> 
> I recently finished a Dean Koontz book that had such a horrible ending, I wanted to scream, vomit, and build a bonfire to torch his collective works so no one else would have that crap inflicted on them.
> 
> ...


I agree, but I think the most recent Koontz books don't even merit reading to their disappointing end. I want the "early" Koontz back!


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## R. M. Reed (Nov 11, 2009)

_The Stand_ is a religious allegory at heart, so the hand of God thing isn't completely out of line. _Under the Dome_ has a McGuffin ending, in other words, it could be replaced with almost any other explanation and still work. For King the story was about the people in the town and how they reacted, not the actual mechanism of the dome.

I read the first three Frankenstein books by Koontz and thought they were weak throughout, but then the last part just seemed way too convenient. I have seen others here say they love those books, so what do I know.


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## lungtastic (May 23, 2011)

I loved _Under the Dome_, it's one of my favorite King books and I sat there and couldn't stop reading it for two days. The ending wasn't entirely a let down, but I kept waiting for more to happen or there to be this huge climax but it never came. And the explanation seemed a little weak, too.


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## dharts (Feb 15, 2011)

I recently read "The Center of Everything" by Laura Moriarty and absolutely loved the book, until I got to the ending. Someone needs to tell Moriarty there's a difference between an ambiguous ending and one that just runs into a brick wall and stops.

It was like someone had put a page limit on the book and it snuck up on her and she had to just bring the book to a screeching halt. It pretty much ruined a wonderful book.


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## kellymcclymer (Apr 22, 2010)

samanthawarren said:


> This. Hunger Games was strong (mostly), Catching Fire was alright, and Mockingjay was like she said, "Well, I guess I gotta finish now that I started. Fine. Let's get it over with."


It's hard to argue without spoilers, but I'll try. I think the series/Mockingjay ending worked, from a realism basis, because of what happened to each character throughout the book. It would have been a mockery of all the reality of human nature to end otherwise. Catching Fire ending was...abrupt...but I knew there would be a final book


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## samanthawarren (May 1, 2011)

kellymcclymer said:


> It's hard to argue without spoilers, but I'll try. I think the series/Mockingjay ending worked, from a realism basis, because of what happened to each character throughout the book. It would have been a mockery of all the reality of human nature to end otherwise. Catching Fire ending was...abrupt...but I knew there would be a final book


I was excited about the final book after reading Catching Fire. Finished Catching Fire at 11pm, and bought/started reading Mocking Jay minutes later. But it just didn't have the umph and excitement that the other two had. There were some exciting parts, but they felt... contrived. Like they were there simply to be exciting parts. I was left extremely disappointed.


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## kellymcclymer (Apr 22, 2010)

samanthawarren said:


> I was excited about the final book after reading Catching Fire. Finished Catching Fire at 11pm, and bought/started reading Mocking Jay minutes later. But it just didn't have the umph and excitement that the other two had. There were some exciting parts, but they felt... contrived. Like they were there simply to be exciting parts. I was left extremely disappointed.


Part of that was Katniss's recognition that winning still didn't mean anything, right? That she was still a pawn? Which was why I thought her solution absolutely fit her nature to the core. But that budding cynicism...or returning cynicism?...definitely affected the excitement level (so much easier to root for the white hat guy if there's a chance the black hats will be vanquished forever). I respect the reality of the choice, but I grant you that it sucked some of the excitement out of things.


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## Dolorous Edd Tollett (May 29, 2011)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> Are there any books that started out really strong, then left you with an ending you wish you could rewrite?


Game of thrones #1 had me scratching my head, I thought


Spoiler



Drogo would at least survive the first book



The law of Nines by Terry Goodkind was a decent read until the end.

The Philosophical Strangler got out of hand at the end (if you read it, you know what I mean).


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## Colin Taber (Apr 4, 2011)

Dolorous Edd Tollet said:


> Game of thrones #1 had me scratching my head, I thought
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> ...


This is the problem with Game of Thrones;


Spoiler



so many characters die, and so randomly, that it devalues the whole shock of such events. For example, I know I've distanced myself from the remaining characters, part in fear for the ones I like who could be taken at any time, and partly just because the odds of any of them seeing the last page of the last book are so slim


.

That doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, I just feel the mortality hand has been over played to the story's detriment.


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## dmburnett (Feb 4, 2011)

Lovely Bones just sort of left me disappointed.


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## Jon Olson (Dec 10, 2010)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I feel this way when the ending seems rushed. Like the author had a deadline and was coming up against it.
> 
> Betsy


Or just got sick of it.


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## Dolorous Edd Tollett (May 29, 2011)

Colin Taber said:


> This is the problem with Game of Thrones;
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> ...





Spoiler



The life expectancy of any one prospective hero seems to be about 3 chapters with a few who seem to be too stubborn to die (John Snow). What is going on with Arya, is she going to be the ultimate 10 year old assassin? Too many plot threads, not complaining, I love it but you need an Encyclopedia Westeros just to keep up. All of my favorite characters are losing noses, hands or going blind.


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## Colin Taber (Apr 4, 2011)

I agree 100%

Like you say, you still enjoy it, but ultimately it's taking away from the 'high' quality of it. Despite some people's insistence that it is a monumental piece of lofty work, I think that it's more soap opera. Which is, of course, why we're getting a whole swag of TV seasons and not a set of movies.

I'd just like to see GRRM focus on what we want and to resist the urge to introduce more character POVs. We're in the middle of the story and I'm now ready to slide into the ending.


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