Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

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:
MamaNewtNewt · 14/04/2023 18:22

@SequinsandStilettos yeah I don't think the ending of Life of Pi was a dream I thought it was a way for him to reduce the trauma when sharing his story.

Cinnamon23 · 14/04/2023 18:30

MurderAtTheBeautyPageant · 14/04/2023 11:16

A rip off of Kind Hearts and Coronets I believe. And I saw her publishers touting it as a clever and completely original twist.

Pfffffffft.

Show quote history

I didn’t know about this! Wow…

Xiaoxiong · 14/04/2023 18:32

The fucking Goldfinch. Made worse by the fact that I enjoyed all of it so much until the last page which ruined the entire preceding 1000 pages. I wish I'd never finished it!!

redyellowpinkbluegreen · 14/04/2023 18:48

Behind her eyes is such a stupid ending. When it came out on Netflix everyone raves about it but I just couldn't bring myself to watch it. It's just so stupid!

SpideysMummy · 14/04/2023 18:55

redyellowpinkbluegreen · 14/04/2023 18:48

Behind her eyes is such a stupid ending. When it came out on Netflix everyone raves about it but I just couldn't bring myself to watch it. It's just so stupid!

Yes! I was waiting for someone to say this. It was fucking infuriating.

Birleygirl · 14/04/2023 18:57

CallipyJean · 11/04/2023 09:46

I love Kate Atkinson but I really hated the end of A God in Ruins. I felt really cheated!

Me too! I was really cross with it! I put me off reading any more of hers, but I like her writing so much. I figure everyone has an off day. Shrines of gaiety is sat there waiting for me.

MyBestFriendKenny · 14/04/2023 19:03

MissDollyMix · 14/04/2023 11:17

How are we 2 pages in and no one has mentioned One Day? I literally threw that across the room in disgust! I wanted redemption for the main character but he still remained as awful as ever and the girl…. Whatever her name was… might not have existed at all…

I also threw this book across the room. It must be over fifteen years since I read it and it is still the most enraging end to a book I've ever read.

SummerHouse · 14/04/2023 19:10

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!

This doesn't do justice to how very bad that book is. Sure, it was all a dream in the middle of the book, then at the end it wasn't all a dream. Or was it? Who cares?!! Just pleased to finish it.

I have liked Jodi Picoult but this one is not for me. I think it triggered some post covid rage with all the shopping wiping and the partner being angry that the main character visited her covid positive dying mother.

LeChatChat · 14/04/2023 19:13

I hated A God In Ruins pretty much entirely - poor Teddy from Life After Life. Either die in flames or live a bloody miserable life full of generations of miserable people. The ending was poor but I was glad the grinding misery was over, I suppose.

ErrolTheDragon · 14/04/2023 19:21

Mine is Charlotte Brontë's Villette. Not the ending we want, and then she makes it worse. Confused

HowardKirksConscience · 14/04/2023 19:27

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.

Haha 😂too right

HowardKirksConscience · 14/04/2023 19:29

Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending.

Had no idea what was going on in the final chapter. I read the last bit again and still had no idea. In the end I googled it but realised I didn’t care anyway.

LethargeMarg · 14/04/2023 19:29

Op I know which book you read- don't want to say title as it's a spoiler but the ending I found really harrowing and horrible . I loved her second (?) book though -such an improvement
I also didn't like the ending of our house or apple tree yard (I actually found apple tree yard pretty grim the whole way through )

MamaNewtNewt · 14/04/2023 19:29

ErrolTheDragon · 14/04/2023 19:21

Mine is Charlotte Brontë's Villette. Not the ending we want, and then she makes it worse. Confused

Oh wow I am starting to think I'm just not getting the ending of books as this is another one that I kinda liked.

So1invictus · 14/04/2023 20:43

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.

Haha, I stopped following Nigella out of sheer petulance when she raved about the smug, arrogant, entitled, lacking in self-awareness middle class utter twaddle that is Wintering by Katherine May.

So1invictus · 14/04/2023 20:45

MyBestFriendKenny · 14/04/2023 19:03

I also threw this book across the room. It must be over fifteen years since I read it and it is still the most enraging end to a book I've ever read.

Show quote history

I was already fucked off from the start as I graduated in real life on the same day they did and HE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CALLED DEXTER (but something like Pete, or Paul, or Simon) and if she'd have really been the poor working class where's my ferret girl she was supposed to be she'd have been Karen or Sharon not Emma.
I didn't even care by the end. I hated both of them. And his weird abusive mother.

JaninaDuszejko · 14/04/2023 21:17

HowardKirksConscience · 14/04/2023 19:29

Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending.

Had no idea what was going on in the final chapter. I read the last bit again and still had no idea. In the end I googled it but realised I didn’t care anyway.

I knew what was going on but I still hated it. Just read an synopsis to remind myself and got annoyed at the main character all over again.

YourMagicSwirlingShip · 14/04/2023 21:30

A God in Ruins - yes totally agree, great book but the ending really pissed me off. Not as much as that pile of crap Behind her Eyes on netflix, though - still irritated that I bothered seeing that through to the end.

I quite liked Small Pleasures!

LetUsPonce · 14/04/2023 21:36

All The Light We Cannot See. I was really annoyed by what happened to the main male character. I felt the author just got bored with him.

Kelpie78 · 14/04/2023 21:41

Either My cousin Rachel or A watermelon, a fish and a bible. Both so frustrating.

SequinsandStilettos · 14/04/2023 21:45

where's my ferret girl
Grin

redyellowpinkbluegreen · 14/04/2023 22:14

@SpideysMummy so glad you agree because everyone seems to love it and i just think it's absolutely ridiculously far fetched.

Mercedes519 · 14/04/2023 23:18

@Birleygirl enjoy Shrines of Gaiety. Just don’t look forward to the ending… Kate hasn’t got any better at it!

doubleshift · 15/04/2023 00:22

Small pleasures! I actually feel angry at the time I've wasted reading a book that the author couldn't be bothered to finish. I can't believe it got published in that state! Absolute bollocks ending by which time I'd forgotten the random info about the accident from the start of the book. What a waste of some otherwise good writing. Feel conned into buying it.

LadyGAgain · 15/04/2023 00:24

Memoirs of a Geisha