# Books with WTF?! endings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 5, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199 "2017-06-05T18:25:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [June 7, 2017, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/61 "2017-06-07T15:50:12Z")
> [@psiekier](#): > > Funny you should mention Haldeman. I just re-read Marvano’s adaption of his _The Forever War_, which I enjoy the hell out of. It has a great ending that is awesome in so many ways, but that’s not why I’m here. > > _Forever Peace_ sounds like it _should_ be the sequel to _The Forever War_, but it’s not - even if it deals with similar themes and the heroes of both books have a lot in common. > > The direct linear sequel to _The Forever War_ is entitled _ **Forever Free** _… Both _Forever Peace_ and _Forever Free_ sucked IMHO. I much prefer Haldeman’s _Tool of the Trade, Mindbridge, Worlds, The Hemingway Hoax, Marsbound_ and _Camouflage_. And of course the original _Forever War_, which was just fine by itself. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/62 "2017-06-07T18:13:57Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > I disagree that this is a fantasy for many men at all. Why he put it in i do not know. But she was the hero of that piece. A 12-year-old girl getting gang banged by six boys is not “heroic,” it’s disgusting. It also was not at all necessary to the novel. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/63 "2017-06-07T19:09:37Z")
I’m still puzzled by how sex could be “not sexualized”. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/64 "2017-06-07T19:17:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’m still puzzled by how sex could be “not sexualized”. Sex that is an act of bonding rather thsn pleasure. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/65 "2017-06-07T19:19:14Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > Yeah, the ending was a big let-down for me, too. > > I’d also like to nominate a short story of King’s: [Graduation Afternoon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduation_Afternoon), from _Just After Sunset_. Nice, sweet little tale about a graduation party at a suburban home in Connecticut. Then, out of nowhere, she, and others, see a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb’s detonation over Manhattan, and everyone is incinerated from the blast) How can you expect anything else from a Stephen King story? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/66 "2017-06-07T20:09:16Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Sex that is an act of bonding rather thsn pleasure. Bonding? Shed a tear for the couple named Kelly Who are stuck fast, belly to belly For, in their haste They used library paste Instead of petroleum jelly. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/67 "2017-06-07T20:56:02Z")
The ending to [The Reincarnation of Peter Proud](https://smile.amazon.com/Reincarnation-Peter-Proud-Max-Ehrlich-ebook/dp/B005899TH8/ref=sr_1_2_twi_kin_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496868907&sr=8-2&keywords=the+reincarnation+of+peter+proud)caught me totally off guard. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/68 "2017-06-07T20:57:06Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > The ending to [The Reincarnation of Peter Proud](https://smile.amazon.com/Reincarnation-Peter-Proud-Max-Ehrlich-ebook/dp/B005899TH8/ref=sr_1_2_twi_kin_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496868907&sr=8-2&keywords=the+reincarnation+of+peter+proud)caught me totally off guard. Good film too. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/69 "2017-06-07T22:03:57Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > She does do that (the book is, after all, a paean to “modern” technology), but it isn’t until she descends into the mountains through a cloaking device that things get really weird. Also, I think the military is already experimenting with “Project X” around this time. > > I read the book in 1993, so I’m coasting on memory here. We can both be right! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/70 "2017-06-08T01:44:26Z")
Gogols’ “Dead Souls.” In fact, it doesn’t really have much of an ending at all. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/71 "2017-06-08T02:17:54Z")
Ooh, I thought of one: the final novel in **A Series of Unfortunate Events**. Lemony Snicket seems to have a bone to pick with novel structure, especially after the fifth or sixth book, and they get weirder and weirder. The whole thing, by the end, doesn’t so much peter out as seem to be a specific fuck you to the idea of a story having a tidy ending. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/72 "2017-06-08T03:00:46Z")
Some books have, well, just really lame endings, if you can even call it that. You read the book and you’re like “I just read this whole book just to have it end like _that_?” Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. The ending seems to be just the lead-in to another episode in the Joads increasingly impoverished and desperate lives, and then you turn the page and there’s just no more book there. I’m like “Huh? Was there supposed to be another chapter here?” Several, if not all, novels by Christopher Moore. Well, at least all three that I’ve read. Practical Demonkeeping. Coyote Blue. The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. All have “surprise” but rather lamely anti-climactic endings that even sort of look like they were grafted in from some other novel. This guy was supposed to be the next Kurt Vonnegut, and I can kinda-sorta see that style of humor in his books. But no. He’s not the next Kurt Vonnegut. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/73 "2017-06-08T03:38:41Z")
The happy(ish) ending of **Crime and Punishment** always seemed a bit out of place to me. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/74 "2017-06-08T06:30:03Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > Gogols’ “Dead Souls.” In fact, it doesn’t really have much of an ending at all. It was supposed to be the first in a series; Gogol burned the second manuscript. > **[Nikolai Gogol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Gogol)** > > Petersburg Tales \[fr\] (1833–1842) > Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol\[b\] (1 April \[O.S. 20 March\] 1809\[a\] – 4 March \[O.S. 21 February\] 1852) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright of Ukrainian origin. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/75 "2017-06-08T13:47:34Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Some books have, well, just really lame endings, if you can even call it that. John D. MacDonald’s last novel, _Barrier Island_, is like that. The story just meanders around for 300 pages and then… just kind of runs out. Granted, he wrote it late and old, but I was so frustrated by it that in the library hardcover, I wrote on the flyleaf facing the last page, “Hey, John, where’s the rest of this book?” He died shortly thereafter, but I refuse to take the blame for that. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/76 "2017-06-08T15:39:19Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > John D. MacDonald’s last novel, _Barrier Island_, is like that. The story just meanders around for 300 pages and then… just kind of runs out. > > Granted, he wrote it late and old, but I was so frustrated by it that in the library hardcover, I wrote on the flyleaf facing the last page, “Hey, John, where’s the rest of this book?” He died shortly thereafter, but I refuse to take the blame for that. 🙂 You deface library material but it’s ok because… ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/77 "2017-06-08T15:53:12Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. The ending seems to be just the lead-in to another episode in the Joads increasingly impoverished and desperate lives, and then you turn the page and there’s just no more book there. I’m like “Huh? Was there supposed to be another chapter here?” The ending of the movie was much better! ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/78 "2017-06-08T15:54:58Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > The happy(ish) ending of **Crime and Punishment** always seemed a bit out of place to me. Another case where the ending of the movie (made in the USSR) was better. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/79 "2017-06-08T16:26:05Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > You deface library material but it’s ok because… [ol] [li] It was in pencil.[/li][li] It was 30 years ago.[/li][li]I have found many such notes in library books over the years.[/li][/ol] ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/80 "2017-06-08T17:41:38Z")
The Chung Kuo series by David Wingrove By the last book almost all the main characters are dead and Earth has been taken over by intelligent plant life. Suddenly the few main characters left alive find themselves on an alternate Earth were most of the main characters are still alive. Also it turns out that the big villain is actually an immortal superpowerful alien. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199.md?page=5)