Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Top Ten Book Endings That Made Me Say "Whaaaa?"

It's Tuesday again so here's another Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. This week's topic is top ten book endings that left me with my mouth hanging open, maybe because of a cliffhanger when dammit, this story was supposed to give me some resolution jerks. Maybe because that was so amazing . Maybe because it was so awful I can't believe the author screwed me like that, coping out as they did.

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.

Comments (26)

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After reading Shutter Island, I've wanted to get my hands on Gone Baby Gone. Sounds like it fits this week's list very well!
1 reply · active 701 weeks ago
I loved Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Very long but so worth it!
1 reply · active 701 weeks ago
My girls and I cried when Sirius was killed off...at the time we did NOT see it coming.
1 reply · active 701 weeks ago
I didn't do a top ten this week, maybe I'll do it later, but I can only think of a few that really shocked me: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, The Time Traveler's Wife and The Book of Illusions/Paul Auster.
1 reply · active 701 weeks ago
Two of my favorite writers in your top 5. I feel that someone is starting to "get" the appeal of crime fic :)
1 reply · active 701 weeks ago
I loved JS&MN! I think she is working on the sequel to it now too.

A few of my "Holy C##p!" endings off of the top of my head might include--

The House of Mirth Edith Wharton
Two on a Tower Thomas Hardy
Cold Mountain Charles Frazier
No Country for Old Men Cormac McCarthy
Villette Charlotte Bronte
1 reply · active 701 weeks ago
I've got JS&MN at home (and as an e-book, now that I think of it), both versions unread, so I need to get on that stat. I've read HP. The rest are totally unfamiliar to me, but I love that they made your list -- I'm going to look for them!
1 reply · active 701 weeks ago
Wasn't Sirius's death completely weird? There were two deaths in Harry Potter where I was like "Wait, what? Did that just happen?" Both for him and for Dumbledore, it seemed to happen so unexpectedly, I was just left in disbelief until fairly later when it became evident that yeah, they weren't coming back.

Which is probably JKR trying to teach us about death and its unpredictability, etc etc, but DAMN that curtain! And I don't even like Sirius as a character! But that curtain sucks.
1 reply · active 701 weeks ago
A Fine Balance had an ending that upset me so much I threw the book against the wall. The book in general was pretty intense; I'm surprised it took that long.
1 reply · active 701 weeks ago
I started reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke but couldn't finish it. I'll have to pick it back up sometime!
1 reply · active 701 weeks ago
Well I just finished one that had me wanting to sock the author. In the Woods, by Tana French really failed to resolve the underlying mystery.
1 reply · active 701 weeks ago
I can't remember the ending of Jonathan Strange now, but I remember being rather surprized and upset by the ending. "Ends on a cliffhanger" sounds like a good description of what would make me feel that way.
1 reply · active 701 weeks ago
Oh, Gone Baby Gone is a good one. I immediately thought of A Thirteenth Tale... that ending made me want to start the whole book over again.
1 reply · active 700 weeks ago

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