# Books with disappointing endings (spoilers, obviously) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 11, 2009, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137 "2009-03-11T22:03:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/21 "2009-03-12T14:26:10Z")
> [@omgzebras](#): > > Stephen King’s _Dark Tower_ series was getting pretty bad toward the end. The last couple books were just awful and the ending of the final book was even worse. I admit there were some extremely low points in that series, but I think it had the only possible ending. I know a lot of people don’t care for the ending of The Stand, either _eyes **Mean Joe** ’s flamesuit_. But I think it seems just like one of those “God moves in mysterious ways” deals. I also liked the final conversation: (approximation) “Do people ever learn?”/”I don’t know….I don’t know.” ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/22 "2009-03-12T14:27:52Z")
> [@Just\_Some\_Guy](#): > > **Everything every written by Neil Stephenson.** I have to say that Neil seems to be learning how to write endings. **The System of the World** , for all that it is an enormous self-indulgent (wonderful) mess, has an actual ending. \*\*Anathem \*\*has a good ending, I think. His earlier books, though, have terrible endings. I especially hated the ending of **Cryptonomicon**. At the ending… Our heros are sitting on a pile of gold in the middle of the Philippine jungle. We have already learned that just knowing where a pile of gold in the jungle is does you no good at all–you have to get it out. In addition, this gold is on land owned by the Roman Catholic Church–which has significant political influence in the Philippines. Also, lawyers. Also, of course, it turns out that the whole Quest was a total waste of time, because one of the main characters knew the Answer the whole time. Man, I really hate that ending. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/23 "2009-03-12T14:33:04Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Thomas Harris’s Hannibal has an _infuriating_ ending. Do tell. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/24 "2009-03-12T14:44:42Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > I admit there were some extremely low points in that series, but I think it had the only possible ending.[/spoiler] I agree that it had the only possible ending, if we define “ending” as “what happened when Roland actually climbed the Tower.” But I also agree that the last three books in particular squandered all the promise of the first four (I loved _Wizard and Glass_, though I know lots of people hated it). Not to mention the waste of all the overlay with other novels, and the mind-bogglingly-bad insertion of himself into the story. That trick can be done to great effect; King did not pull it off. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/25 "2009-03-12T14:57:08Z")
I can think of three books offhand that I found highly entertaining for the first two-thirds or so, but then seemed to just meander and sputter out to a dull end: “Glory Road” and “Citizen of the Galaxy” by Robert A. Heinlein “Henderson the Rain King” by Saul Bellow ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/26 "2009-03-12T15:03:55Z")
The Day After Tomorrow by Allan Folsom. For the majority of the book it is pretty good, but I had some second thoughts about halfway through. That hint wasn’t going where I thought it was going, was it? It did. ‘They’ saved Hitlers brain. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/27 "2009-03-12T15:12:13Z")
This is great. I can use spoilers but not vew them. 🙂 Anyway, I agree that most of Stephen King’s books end sucky. I never read the Dark Tower series, and won’t, considering I know what the end is already. I’ll be back when I think of more…I admit to being really disappointed in the ending of Tai-Pan though. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/28 "2009-03-12T15:12:32Z")
I don’t know how well known he is outside of Australia, but Matthew Reilly’s _The Six Sacred Stones_ ends with the protagonist _in the middle_ of a fall to his doom No. Just… no. You do not stick such a horrible cliffhanger in a book so that people have to wait two bloody years if they want to see what happens next. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/29 "2009-03-12T15:40:07Z")
The most famous example of a book with a disappointing ending is _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_. > [@dalej42](#): > > _Great Expectations_. I don’t like either ending. Even [one with the robot monkeys and the Genesis Device](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pip_(South_Park_episode))? ---
**Author:** ![rainy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@rainy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rainy)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/30 "2009-03-12T15:42:21Z")
> [@MeanJoe](#): > > Most Stephen King novels. I’ll face the flames with you on this. I wish the publisher would start inserting a special page somewhere near the end that reads “If you have enjoyed this book so far, stop reading now.” I’ve always guessed that King’s prolific nature meant he had already conceived his next novel before finishing his current one, and rushes his endings in order to move to the next project. I can’t think of any of his books where I liked the ending, actually. ---
**Author:** ![FallenAngel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@FallenAngel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FallenAngel)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/31 "2009-03-12T16:05:57Z")
_Brightness Falls_ by Jay McInerney. While he never did anything to surpass his debut in _Bright Lights, Big City_, he’s still an excellent storyteller, and I’d enjoyed a couple of his other books. Until I read this steamer. It was a pretty interesting and engaging story, with a lot more layering and a more diffuse collection of characters than you normally see in his work. The he completely betrays the two primary characters and everything they’d gone through in this emotional rollercoaster of a story, and he manages to do all that _in the last two paragraphs_. When I finished that book I would have thrown it at him had he been in the room. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/32 "2009-03-12T16:12:21Z")
> [@cjepson](#): > > …“Glory Road” and “Citizen of the Galaxy” by Robert A. Heinlein… I must disagree with you as to the first. I don’t remember the second well enough to have an opinion either way. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/33 "2009-03-12T16:43:57Z")
_What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?_. So all six children are sitting up at dawn, outside the house, the all their possessions scattered on the lawn, while watching their house burn up. Their house with their mother’s corpse in it burn up. Their house with their mother’s corpse in it that they deliberately set on fire burn up. So what happens after that? ---
**Author:** ![Jettboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@Jettboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jettboy)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/34 "2009-03-12T17:17:39Z")
The Bib Le. The protagonist, Jesus, dies in the end, and then the author(s) tries this goofy, zombie-esque “resurrection” nonsense that had me rolling my eyes and muttering “…come on, man.” ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/35 "2009-03-12T17:36:27Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Do tell. Are you saying that you don’t know what the ending is, or you don’t know why I would be infuriated by [spoiler]the notion of Clairice Starling–the well-developed, three-dimensional, sympathetic protagonist of Silence of the Lambs, not merely losing to Hannibal Lecter, not merely being raped by him, but being brainwashed to such an extent that she both joins him in his cannibalism and likes it? Hard to imagine why THAT would be vexsome to someone who likes Clarice. :rolleyes:[/spoiler] [QUOTE=Jettboy] The Bib Le. The protagonist, Jesus, dies in the end, and then the author(s) tries this goofy, zombie-esque “resurrection” nonsense that had me rolling my eyes and muttering “…come on, man.” [/QUOTE] As Jesus dies about 1/10th of the way through the New Testament, your [del]joke[/del] objection makes about as much as sense as Kant’s categorical imperative–i.e., none. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Emily\_Litella](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emily_litella/32/3370_2.png) [@Emily\_Litella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emily_Litella)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/36 "2009-03-12T17:59:18Z")
It’s been years since I read Cats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, but I thought the whole book was just a set up for a joke at the end: Main character touches substance “Ice 9” to his lips to turn himself into a statue that’s giving the finger to God. ---
**Author:** ![Jettboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@Jettboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jettboy)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/37 "2009-03-12T19:04:03Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > As Jesus dies about 1/10th of the way through the New Testament, your [del]joke[/del] objection makes about as much as sense as Kant’s categorical imperative–i.e., none. 😃 Nah, the book peaked at the big death scene; everything after that was pure fluff, just a vain attempt to keep the reader from putting the book down. Most of the sequels were shit, too. ---
**Author:** ![LVBoPeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/858c86/32.png) [@LVBoPeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LVBoPeep)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/38 "2009-03-12T19:27:01Z")
> [@rainy](#): > > I’ve always guessed that King’s prolific nature meant he had already conceived his next novel before finishing his current one, and rushes his endings in order to move to the next project. I can’t think of any of his books where I liked the ending, actually. For the most part I’d agree, although I love Stephen King. But I will say that I thought _The Shining_ and _Misery_ had good endings, if not great. And although a novella- _Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption_ was just about perfect in every way, including the ending. ---
**Author:** ![PeskiPiksi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e495f1/32.png) [@PeskiPiksi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeskiPiksi)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/39 "2009-03-12T19:30:11Z")
On the topic of Stephen King, agreed he has a lot of weak endings. Particularly _IT_, and not just for the big scary spider stuff, which I agree was very anti-climatic. I’m thinking more of the fact that the Losers all forget each other again was disappointing. Not unrealistic, maybe, but it sucked anyway. It’s still pretty much my favorite book of his, though, for all the stuff that came before. And in his defense, I’ll offer up _Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption_. Kick-ass ending. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137/40 "2009-03-12T20:14:46Z")
_Salem’s Lot_ has a good ending, IIRC. I have no objections to the endings of _The Stand_ or _Misery_, either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-disappointing-endings-spoilers-obviously/489137.md?page=3)