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Your really annoying ending to a book?!

204 replies

Liltzero · 09/04/2023 15:55

I've just finished reading a book where the plot was a woman investigating the death of her sister, a death which the police thought was suicide, but she thought murder. The ending was maddening! The reader was left not knowing whether our chief character was murdered by the same man who killed her sister or was she rescued in the nick of the time?!

What books have you read with a frustrating or wrong conclusion or non-conclusion?

OP posts:
CableTidy · 14/04/2023 11:25

16 Horses by Greg Buchanan. It seemed quite well written but the ending was rushed and confused and I had more questions than answers. It was the first book I'd read in a while where I felt really angry that the ending was a real disappointment

SequinsandStilettos · 14/04/2023 11:26

Wrt How to kill your family. There was a thread on here about what constitutes homage and what is plagiarism.
Kind hearts and coronets screenplay 1949.
Copyright is 70 years.
I read some the updated Austens recently but that was very transparent and sold as such. I have no idea why How to kill your family got such great reviews.

MamaNewtNewt · 14/04/2023 11:32

I am clearly in a minority in that I didn't mind the ending of Small Pleasures and really liked the ending of A God in Ruins.

Absolutely hated the ending of Captain Corelli though and agree that Stephen King has issues ending books (but I still love him) but won't hear a word said against the ending of the Dark Tower series.

I generally dislike books where the ending is too ambiguous though I can't think of specific examples right now.

Mercedes519 · 14/04/2023 11:33

I’m glad someone mention God in Ruins. Just finished it, really enjoyed it but it kind of just stops. Left me wanting more but in a frustrated way, like she just decided to stop rather than the story finishing.

Haven’t read a lot of Stephen King but 1966 is a massive slog, interesting concept and then boom, stupid twist and crappy ending

AnnaBegins · 14/04/2023 11:49

Jodi Picoult Wish you were here - it's basically a really fab story which then goes "and then I woke up and it was all a (covid) dream" Confused so disappointing!

Iamblossom · 14/04/2023 11:59

Sherrystrull · 10/04/2023 09:42

I came on the thread to say the same. Horrible ending.

Show quote history

I loved that book. I agree the ending wasn't very kind and it was tragic, but it wasn't a bad ending, just shocking!

Unlike The Girls That Disappeared, where the plot needed to end with a decent explanation of why they did, but the one it did end with was so preposterous and unlikely it infuriated me.

Sherrystrull · 14/04/2023 12:15

I think I found it so bad was that I desperately wanted a happy ending for the characters.

Fifiellz · 14/04/2023 12:30

I really enjoyed Last One at the Party.

Read it straight after Covid so not to everyone's taste but I loved it until I got to the last page and then it's like - what happened to the rest of the book!!

It's not a cliffhanger it just feels like the author disappeared before the book was finished so someone else just typed The End

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 14/04/2023 12:40

I've just finished Lessons in Chemistry. Loved the main character. Hated the ending - for all her independent feminism, the ending was far too convenient.

(I realise I'll be in the minority in this opinion).

MurderAtTheBeautyPageant · 14/04/2023 12:45

I haven't read Lessons in Chemistry but I this tweet I saw yesterday about it made me snort.

Your really annoying ending to a book?!
Nowhereelsetogo90 · 14/04/2023 12:52

goingforalovelywalk · 11/04/2023 09:19

Not really on topic but I remember reading a Jodi Picoult book (which I loved) and the movie version ending was totally different. I think they actually missed the point of the book, by changing the movie ending. Hhmmm!

My Sisters Keeper? My Mum still remembers going to see that with me as a teenager and I shouted out loud in the cinema that the ending was wrong 🤣

meatbaseddessert · 14/04/2023 12:59

Life of Pi. Exciting tale of escaping tigers while adrift at sea!

'And then I woke up'.

Hmm
BotCrossedHun · 14/04/2023 13:01

I too remembered being annoyed at the changed ending in My Sister's Keeper.

But at the same time, the novel's ending annoyed me too - it was like a cop out, to this difficult moral dilemma that she'd spent so much time building up, and then just chose an easy way to end the book without resolving that dilemma. I was cross about that.

ZittiEBuoni · 14/04/2023 13:04

I've read the book in the OP, won't name it, but yes, that annoyed the hell out of me too.

I feel very, very few books end well compared with the enormous number that begin well.

WandaWonder · 14/04/2023 13:13

I hate a big long intense books that keeps on going then ends in the last 2 pages

Feels rushed and the author forgot about so did a botch job

Bellisina · 14/04/2023 13:18

Agree with how to kill your family. Was quite enjoying it, then the dreadful ending. Small spoilers, but I actually found it remarkably sexist- and I also hated how this genius planner would sit and write everything down? So so awful.

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 14/04/2023 13:22

MurderAtTheBeautyPageant · 14/04/2023 12:45

I haven't read Lessons in Chemistry but I this tweet I saw yesterday about it made me snort.

Thank you @MurderAtTheBeautyPageant. It very "Emperor's New Clothes".

ClassicHummus · 14/04/2023 13:37

Big Brother by Lionel Shriver.

Generally love her work and loved nearly all of this book - but closest ending to 'and this was all a dream' that I've ever come across.

SequinsandStilettos · 14/04/2023 16:29

just chose an easy way to end the book without resolving that dilemma
Well, no, Picoult had that ending from the very start before she even put pen to paper. It is meant to be a cruel twist of fate whereby the mother is robbed of the very child she gave birth to as a saviour sister to her pfb- not necessarily punishment for playing God but certainly the death you don't see coming. Having put all her efforts into the sick child, the brother and subsequent sister are overlooked. You don't know what you've got til it's gone - the overwhelming grief for the one who should not have died. It's her best book in my opinion.

SequinsandStilettos · 14/04/2023 16:31

*Life of Pi. Exciting tale of escaping tigers while adrift at sea!

'And then I woke up'*

It's been a while but wasn't the whole thing made up because he was in denial? It all happened but not the way he told it because that makes him the sole survivor who ate all the others?

Nailsandthesea · 14/04/2023 16:32

goingforalovelywalk · 11/04/2023 09:19

Not really on topic but I remember reading a Jodi Picoult book (which I loved) and the movie version ending was totally different. I think they actually missed the point of the book, by changing the movie ending. Hhmmm!

The same I think this was my sisters keeper

Bobshhh · 14/04/2023 16:37

Agree with small pleasures.

and that stupid book about conscious swapping nonsense during dreams that was made into a Netflix series.

BotCrossedHun · 14/04/2023 17:03

SequinsandStilettos · 14/04/2023 16:29

just chose an easy way to end the book without resolving that dilemma
Well, no, Picoult had that ending from the very start before she even put pen to paper. It is meant to be a cruel twist of fate whereby the mother is robbed of the very child she gave birth to as a saviour sister to her pfb- not necessarily punishment for playing God but certainly the death you don't see coming. Having put all her efforts into the sick child, the brother and subsequent sister are overlooked. You don't know what you've got til it's gone - the overwhelming grief for the one who should not have died. It's her best book in my opinion.

It would have been interested to see some of that discussed and dealt with though, which might have changed my mind. As it was, it just felt to me like a cop-out.
I'd have been interested also to see the family dynamics carrying on after a saviour child refused to play that role.

MorrisZapp · 14/04/2023 17:10

Edgar Sawtelle, about an amazing young man whose family breed specialist dogs. Turns out the story is based upon Hamlet, which I haven't read.

Six hundred slow pages (I stayed because I loved Edgar and was frightened for him) only for THAT to happen.

Fuck you, Shakespeare.

mdh2020 · 14/04/2023 17:50

Robert Harris’ The Second Sleep - he seems to get fed up with the book and it has a weak ending rather like a child writing a story and ending it ‘and then they woke up’ or the Emmerdale story line where they flew a plane into the pub.