Worst Ever Ending to a Book

[ATDrake]

I generally end up not finishing books that tend towards having bad endings.

But I'd have to say that Jeff Lindsay's Dexter in the Dark, which involves a mystical element that I'd normally joke about not being able to spoil because you can't spoil what's already rotten, is one of them.

Mind you, the entire book is pretty bad in that sheer WTF way (the actual writing and other parts of the plot are okay, but that particular detail has a certain distorting effect).

I'm not spoiling it because you must read and experience it in its sheer WTFery compared to the rest of the series. Or just hit up Wikipedia for the synopsis.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by Barty

If anyone is reading Harlan Corben's Tell No One, do NOT read the last few pages.

That's like telling a chocoholic not to eat that last chocolate in the box...

For me, I hate books that end with the gratuitous death of the main character. All the plot lines have been neatly sown up, everyone is about to ride off into the sunset, and then a bus runs over the hero as they walk home.

[wyndslash]

@atd: aw man, me too. i hate bad endings. i want endings that make me feel all fuzzy and warm inside

[JeremyR]

I really hated the ending to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.

[EowynCarter]

The worse ending ever :
"To be continued". When you don't expect it, having missed the info about 3 books becoming 4...

[wayrad]

The worst ending I've read recently was the conclusion to David Weber's Out of the Dark. It's your basic alien-invasion story, where the humans hold their own through ingenuity and refusal to give up, but are increasingly hard pressed. You wonder what they are going to pull out of their hats to defeat the alien oppressors, and then...well, they're rescued. I can't even bring myself to mention by whom.
Semi-spoiler follows:

Spoiler:

Suffice it to say that when a minor character named Basarab was introduced, I got my first inkling of where things were going, but couldn't quite bring myself to believe it.

[SlowRain]

Originally Posted by Zetmolm

Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg.
Actually, I cannot say that the ending is bad. Rather, the ending is missing. It's a thriller, and in that genre you expect all mysteries to be resolved in the end. It's as if the author was afraid to make some choices, and just stopped writing rather than complete the plot.

I'm going to defend this one a bit. Smilla's Sense of Snow is more than just a thriller--it's a literary thriller. The ending seems to be unresolved.

Spoiler:

It is resolved in the sense of us knowing what is really going on and why everything happened. Only the justice is left unresolved. Why is that? You have to think about who Isaiah and Tørk represent in the novel and if justice has ever been done in their situation in the larger sense. It's an ending that's specifically designed to leave you feeling angry for the victim as a way of promoting awareness and inspiring action. It's an 'activist' sort of ending, and Peter Høeg isn't the only author who has used it.

[kaleissin]

Books with the final pages missing have the worst endings. Second worst is when the pages are mixed up. Pages 39-60 followed by pages 99-120 followed by pages 61-98.

Are there ebooks with such problems?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by kaleissin

Books with the final pages missing have the worst endings. Second worst is when the pages are mixed up. Pages 39-60 followed by pages 99-120 followed by pages 61-98.

Are there ebooks with such problems?

The Learning Curve by Alan Fletcher has a few pages in the wrong order, but they are close together so they are easy enough to spot.

[rhadin]

The endings I dislike most are those that tell you the story, which wasn't great to begin with, will continue in the second book of the series. The author should have given up long before thinking about a sequel!

Next to those endings, the endings I dislike are the ones like in Paul Levine's False Dawn, where you learn that the cardboard hero, Jake Lassiter, survived a convoluted, contrived plot. It would have been better to have killed him and started over again.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by wayrad

The worst ending I've read recently was the conclusion to David Weber's Out of the Dark. It's your basic alien-invasion story, where the humans hold their own through ingenuity and refusal to give up, but are increasingly hard pressed. You wonder what they are going to pull out of their hats to defeat the alien oppressors, and then...well, they're rescued. I can't even bring myself to mention by whom.

I have to admit I'm a big Weber fan but when he deviates from the Harrington universe or the Safehold series, he tends to fall a bit flat. I, too, found the ending (and even the premise) of Out of the Dark to be one of the worst endings because it shows thaqt he is thinking of more in the series rather than burying it and getting back to the universes in which he is king.

[Joykins]

Eva Ibbotson wrote a bunch of really charming, literate romances, but some of them had horrible endings. Particularly _The Morning Gift_. I mean, it's a ROMANCE, you only have a few options because the ending has to be happy, but basically, separating the lovers for 9 months and throwing in a Surprise Secret Baby from start to finish in what? a chapter maybe? is an of awful way to end an otherwise remarkably good book. Rushed and well, what was the point of all that horrible separation, pregnancy etc. if you didn't get to see their emotions during it?

[BoiseShan]

I loathed the ending of The Help. It was far too tidy for such a turbulent era.

[edbro]

Read War and Peace. It never ends.

[Penforhire]

Interesting mention about Perdido Street Station. I didn't think the ending was THAT awful but it was an anti-climax to the wild ride that made up the bulk of the novel. All through the book I'm mentally oogling and ahhing at the spectacle of Mieville's imagination and the end felt slap-dashed together and monochrome by comparison.