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Disagree with ending?

Bel Canto (Ann Patchett) has a notoriously annoying ending.

I agree about Stephen King - he can really set something up, and then it all falls a bit flat. Not to mention leaving exciting hints unresolved. Though I recently read Dreamcatcher and was happy with the ending. And I liked the ending of the Dark Tower series, it's hard to see what else he could have done.

I think endings must be a hard thing for authors to deal with. Even Jane Austen contented herself with a quick who-married-who chapter at the end, and assumes they all lived happily ever after.
 
Two spring to mind: The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold, and The Rule of Four (can't remember the author). In fact, I was so disgusted by the latter book's ending that I hurled it across the room. :mad:
 
weak endings?hmmmmmmm

'The End',by lemony snicket has a RLY lame ending that leaves about 50 million question unanswered.......

'The Princess And Curdie',besides beings the biggest ple of retarded cr**,and the worst book i have EVER had the misfortune of reading,has an ending EVEN lamer then the rest of the book,which seems impossible,as you will know if you try to read it....

there are more..but i cba to say em...
 
Come on now...

One of the most famous (if not THE most famous) bad endings in literature:

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

But for the ending, it would be one of the greatest masterpieces in all of Western Literature (...well, American Literature, at least).
 
Bovine_Belle said:
My Sister's Keeper by Jodie Picoult. The ending is a real cop out and spoiled the whole book, which wasn't as good as the idea anyway.
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Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult was that way. I loved the book until the end, which was completely unexpected with issues being unresolved. It's the only one of her books I've read so now I don't know whether to read another one or not.
 
I've not read anything else by Jodie Picoult, but I know a lot of people rate her books. I'm not much of a people-person and ended up getting fed up with the characters rather than feeling sympathy for them.
 
The Host by Stephanie Meyer. I know she is setting it up for a sequel, but what she did to poor Wanda. . . I was disappointed. :mad:
 
Huckleberry Finn

Migey said:
what happened at the end?
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Mark Twain brings Tom Sawyer (from the earlier book) back into the story and the entire tone changes. The first time I read this I hated the ending. The second time around, some years later, I saw that the slave Jim kept his dignity. Twain had made him a very full, very sympathetic character. Now the juvenile Tom is playing all sorts of tricks with Jim's freedom, but Jim stays above it all.

Not very satisfactory, but in some ways believable.
 
Blindsided said:
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Don't want to spoil it for anyone, but the ending kinda pissed me off.
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That was kind of a head-scratcher ending for me too. I loved everything else about that series right up until then.

Also, Thinner by Stephen King, and Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.

I've never gotten angry about a book's ending - usually I just have to laugh. It's like the author left me with a little practical joke at the end. In a perverse sort of way, I even enjoy endings like that, because they aren't what I expect.

J
 
Yes. Both endings to the 7th Harry Potter book made me squirm.

" Rose Madder" was the one Stephen King book I threw down in disgust over it's ending.

The worst one this year however has been " The Stone Diaries". It was doing all right there at the beginning, and towards the middle I got the feeling she was working up to something really big. Then..it ended. I sat there for a long time thinking " What? Is that it?"
 
books that were good until ending

Your favorite 2 books that had terrible endings which in my opinion makes them only average books. Mine are "The Giver" and "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Books can be repeated as I want to find out which book gets nominated the most. Thanks Kenney
 
I find that this happens when an author is reaching their deadline and does a quick clean-up job and just ends it. The two that immediately come to mind are:

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson and The Partner by John Grisham.

Snow Falling on Cedars is a murder mystery that keeps you wondering who and what all the time and then wraps it all up in a few pages at the end. Very disappointing.

I've only read two John Grisham books, The Testament and The Partner. The Testament was very good and ended well. The Partner was very compelling and intriguing... and ended like crap.

Also, now that I think about it, The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux seemed to end quickly and left me a little let down. Not too much though.
 
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. What an awkward ending--it just stops in the middle of the story. Now that I think about it, How to Be Good had a similar problem . . .
 
I've always said that Neal Stephenson can't write a decent ending. They always seem so abrupt and unsatisfying.
 
sparkchaser said:
I've always said that Neal Stephenson can't write a decent ending. They always seem so abrupt and unsatisfying.
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Hell yes. The ending to Snow Crash was, to narrowly avoid a pun, abominable.

I'll usually forgive a weak ending if the rest of the novel is truly great (say, Roth's The Plot Against America). On the other hand, a fair or decent novel can be completely ruined by a poor ending (Steven Hall's The Raw Shark Texts, for instance).
 
beer good said:
I'll usually forgive a weak ending if the rest of the novel is truly great (say, Roth's The Plot Against America). On the other hand, a fair or decent novel can be completely ruined by a poor ending (Steven Hall's The Raw Shark Texts, for instance).
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That's why I always cut Stephenson a break. He tends to be a great storyteller.
 
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