To start a thread where we can warn each other about books with crap endings?

[SinisterBumFacedCat]

Her by Harriet Lane

I feel like I've wasted time reading this book because it had a truly shit ending.

Also The Deep End by Emily Barr

Please share yours....

My family look at me when tears start dropping onto my kindle, and they all read. But they don't get as affected as I do! (and they mock me!)

And, that's the other thing to say to the woman who writes lit fic... You are SO right, it doesn't have to end with all ends tied up, but you DO need to have a clue about where they go. An ending leaving you hoping is ok (when the person is at a crossroads making a choice, and you hope they pick one, even if you know they're going to pick another).

A random thing is unacceptable "I knew [this] outside the book and therefore I know..." is crap!

It's a classic, but Villette by Charlotte Brontë. (possible spoilers!)

It introduces a much, much more complex and interesting character than Jane Eyre and explores sexual repression, loneliness, feelings of negativity in a refreshingly non-judgemental way. The love interest is introduced, she starts to go up in the world, things are looking up.

And then it all goes wrong. Well, two things go wrong. If you've read the book you'll probably know the two 'twists' that I mean. I could live with the first one if the novel was going to turn into a tragic, all too real story about the nature of falling in love. But then the second just has me seething, and I want to shake Lucy by the shoulders and screech "WHY??".

In fact, as soon as it that novel was going to end with Lucy still in this position, I put it down and have never finished it. I was told by somebody to read the final page, and that is just another giant WTF moment.

I never liked Jane Eyre to begin with, but Villette was the final nail in the Charlotte Brontë coffin for me.

The Miniaturist. It just stopped.

Load of old hooey. And to be honest the story would have been more interesting without the absolutely pointless miniaturist element.

I'm still annoyed at that book.

I loved The Miniaturist, but the ending (well, the last Part of the book) left me feeling as though my heart had been ripped out.

But yes, squoosh, the whole miniaturist thing, apart from giving some "Ohhh....." hindsight moments, was a bit superfluous to the rest of the plot.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. One of the most brilliant and beautiful books ever written, but the epilogue strikes a wrong note.

Onions, you should re-read and go on to the ending of Villette! Lucy is transformed by the relationship, and by being loved, and characterises her subsequent life as fulfilled and self-determining, so it's not that the novel breaks off arbitrarily. Also, does it help to think that CB always intended the tragic ending, but her elderly father was upset by it and begged for a reprieve - she couldn't bring herself to stick on a happy ending she didn't believe in, so she left it slightly veiled...? (Is your earlier complaint about the sudden transfer of interest from Dr J to PE?)

Last, I think the epilogue of Bel Canto is meant to strike a kind of bathetic note. The spell of the captivity has ended brutally, the central romantic relationships have been smashed, and I think it's playing on that descent into the compromises etc of the world outside...? I think it originally had a prologue in Gen's voice saying the novel was about how he met his wife, too.

I do agree with whoever said Good Wives - poor spiky Jo, all that talent and rebellion taught 'womanly patience' and married off to a rather seedy old man Alcott doesn't even pretend is an attractive prospect.

'We are all completely beside ourselves'. After the 'twist' which is fairly early on, of seems to keep building and building towards something and then.......nothing, its finished.

I quite liked the end of Gone Girl?

Does the whole of the last book in a trilogy count?

Philip Pulmann's first two books in His Dark Materials trilogy were brilliant and, despite all the fantastic elements were believable since having set up the fantastic worlds the fantastic elements adhered to their own internal constructs and logic.

The third one had far too much going on and was garbled. Not so much that he'd run out of ideas but had run out of good ideas.

The Mulefa in particular were ridiculous. I kept imagining cartoon elephants on beach balls.

Another one here voting The Minaturist it just stopped lovely complex characters loads of social history I didn't know plot that went nowhere. I would actually like my money back. Villette am going to re-read I remembering loving it.

The Dome by Stephen King. I persevered and read through the entire doorstop thinking surely it will all be worth it in the end

As you've done the heavy lifting can you share? I will never finish it.

The Life of Pi really irritated me.

Oh and The Bridge by Iain Banks - starts off as a brilliant fantasy novel with a whole community living on The Bridge (Forth road or rail bridge) linking The City (of Edinburgh ) and The Kingdom (of Fife). Sets up the fantasy world , which for almost the entire book operates as a functioning world then literally goes off the rails into the "it's all just a dream" cop-out.

Btw you are all wrong about The Uninvited.

Under The Dome by Stephen King.

He doesn't usually disappoint, but I felt the ending of Dome was weak and a bit of a cop out. Such a big book to plough through too

Oh come on you The Dome readers - share. Now. Please.

Balancing Act by Joanna Trollope. Lots of naval gazing whilst drinking hot drinks and the ending is more of the same. I kept waiting for something to happen. It's what I call a "mild" book.

I know someone's said it up thread but One Day. Exact same reaction here, hurl book across room, then think in head "Fuck. Off". Crime against literature.

Same for Atonement (film version. Reached ending, thought Fuck. Off.)

But I liked We Were Liars. The last chapter was amazing. Hmmm.

There are a whole load of psychological thrillers - Gone Girl, Sister (by Rosamund Lupton), Daughter, The Girl on the Train and probably many more where the ending is at least faintly ridiculous. I've come to expect it now - I know that I'll tear through the book dying to know how it turns out only to be disappointed at the last.

The thing that spoilt The Girl on the Train for me (apart from the fact it was easy to work out whodunnit) was that there's a fundamental detail she gets wrong. The main character has alcoholic blackouts after which she can't remember anything. Her working out what's happened relies on some of those memories coming back. In fact, that can't happen: in an alcoholic blackout, your brain becomes incapable of storing memories, so you can't retrieve them because they don't exist.

I've done this book every time a thread like this comes up, it's: the tenderness of wolves.

It's just...just......shit!!!

First you're in a shack in the woods with a gender confused boy, now you're in a townhouse with some young woman, now you're lost in the snow with a woman I think was the mum of the gender confused boy back in the beginning, quick there's a wolf in the gloom of the trees!!!...- oh, it's gone now, now someone's dead in the snow The end.

heeeeeeeeeelp

can anyone fill me in on Julian Barnes' Sense of an Ending?

I finished it half an hour ago after shouting at various family members to fuck off out of it, I'm just FINISHING THIS BOOK

and now I'm walking round in a fog

an exasperated fog

tie up all the ends for me in the manner of a radio 4 drama I want everything explained. As fact, ideally. Thanks awfully

Totally agree with My Sisters Keeper- the ending of the book annoyed me so much.
Also Noeuf- yes to The State We're In! Both parts to the ending. So incredibly frustrating when other parts were so nicely tied together.

the tenderness of wolves

Oh yes - what a terrible book. Even the title - there was a trend for a while for "The something of some other completely unrelated thing" titles.

Judge me for liking YA fiction if you like, but still... Alliegiant- the last book in the Divergent series. Just don't read it!

Sniffs I'm glad someone else mentioned it :o I'm hoping that the film has the proper ending.

I liked The Tenderness of Wolves.

MuddhaOfSuburbia, my bookclub did Sense of an Ending and I was the same as you, but someone else there read it v quickly and then skim re-read it before we met because she was worried she'd forgotten it (and it's a slim volume). She says it makes much more sense on a second reading, if you can bear it!

Under the dome
The reader
Gone girl
One day

Another one who needs to know the ending of The Dome. PM me if you are avoiding posting spoilers.

thanks x