This is going to be spoilery because I'm going to be talking about endings. That should be obvious but in case it wasn't, here's your warning.
1. Hogdoggin' by Anthony Neil Smith - I specifically mentioned the ending in my review. I loved it because it just happens. Normally if an author has an ending just jump out at you you're pissed. But that's only if the author just does that cos they don't know where to go. Smith knows what he's doing and things drop out right when the tension was high and it was fantastic.
2. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson - This was a case where I felt like the author did just drop the the ending on me. There is so much build up to what happened and what will Melinda do and will she speak again? And then there's the confrontation and about 6 pages later the book is over and she's healing and we're done. It was overall a good book but the ending let me down.
3. Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix by J.K. Rowling - Yeah there are surprises and shock and whatnot in the other HP books, but this is the one that got me. Because I loved Sirius and this was before Rowling started killing people off left and right in all of the books so I wasn't expecting this major character to be bumped off. I had started re-reading the series sometime before I started this blog but I stopped after I got a few pages into the 5th book because I didn't want to get to the ending.
4. Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane - Even thought I knew the ending of this book going in, that doesn't make it less powerful. Both endings, where you find out what's happened to Amanda and where you see what Helene is up to at the end, just leave you shocked and angry. And angry. Not at Lehane but at Helene cos what the hell?
5. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke - The book is 800 some odd pages long*, and not all pages that fly by, and yet when it ended I wasn't quite ready yet. Probably because it ends on a cliffhanger and you want to know what else is going to happen because apparently 800+ pages wasn't enough. You're both happy with the ending and ready for some more.
I'm sure there are more great/terrifying/shocking/awful endings that I've read but I'm coming up blank right now. I'm going to blame this on a food coma brought on by pumpkin pecan cheesecake which was amazing. See I told you I was going to start getting to all of those great pumpkin foods in October.
So what are your top book endings that left you with your mouth hanging open?
*I would give a more specific page number except my copy of the book is upstairs. And I am downstairs**. And I'm lazy.
**Actually I wrote this last night but now I'm sitting in the room right next to where the book is. And I'm still not checking because I haven't had enough coffee yet. Just, it's a lot of pages.
