Sunday, March 29, 2015

SFF: The 5 Books with Endings that Made You Mad

The Sunday Fun Five #24

Sunday Fun 5:
#19: The 5 Books To Kickstart Your Reading Journey
#20: The 5 Character Couples that are Matches Made in Heaven
#21: The 5 Unconventional Romances that Somehow Worked for You
#22: The 5 Books That Remind You of Spring
#23: The 5 Irish Authors Whose Works You Want to Read More Of
#24: The 5 Books With Endings that Made You Mad
For the 12th of April: #25: The 5 Sunday Fun Fives I Had the Most Fun With
Feel free to participate by commenting below or writing a blog post: I wrote up some guidelines for blog participation here.


 A Countdown of

The 5 Books With Endings that Made You Mad


Although it's technically a 'fun five' list, this also a scale I could rate 'bad' endings on. An Embers ending would be an ending that made me mad at first, but eventually won me over, and a Life of Pi ending would be an automatic:


As always, there will be no spoilers, just pure ending angst on my part.


5. Embers by Sándor Márai
When I finished Embers for the Travel the World in Books Readathon, I was supremely irritated. The ending bothered me, to the point I took it upon myself to think of a better ending. Alas, I could not- the irritable ending was a perfect fit for this book, making the reader actually think instead of: 

From We <3 It


4. The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow by Cory Doctorow
Although this is technically a novella, I had been expecting it to be a bit longer than it was: the Kindle version deceived me into thinking I'd get 40 more pages (which were instead an essay and interview). That wasn't the only thing wrong with the ending, I lacked some serious resolution, but it wasn't too bad- just deceitful.


3. A Dance With Dragons (ASoIaF #5) by George R.R. Martin
From the master of fantasy suspense: way to keep us hangin', Mr. Martin. You'd think with 1000+ pages of (usually) chock-full plotting, it would be a satisfactory installment. Nope. And, the tv series will soon surpass this book, leading to an outbreak of reader-only angst. I think I'll stick with my books anyway...


2. Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier
Grr... Tracy Chevalier is one of my favorite historical fiction authors. But she seriously wronged me with this book. The ending, from what I remember, was a bit like this: fa lala lala- THE END. I didn't take it seriously- I reread it. The ending still sucked. We're not yet in 'kill it with fire' range, but I admit I considered crisping this book's edges, and perhaps rewriting that ending myself.


1. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
I honestly didn't like this book that much, even before I came to the ending. But, I always feel like some endings can redeem the entire book, and others just make you want to gnash your teeth. This is a major teeth gnasher for me, although it seems so well beloved by most others. Well, guess what- this is my ultimate least satisfactory ending- as of now. Hopefully I won't find another book I want to throw into the fires of Mount Doom, because it takes a long time to bring even small objects there.

Was there ever a book ending that made you want to 'kill it with fire'? What constitutes a bad ending in your opinion?

4 comments:

  1. The Long Walk is a novella by Stephen King. It was boring but I read it because I figured there had to be a big dramatic ending. There wasn't. I threw the book across the room. This was about 25 years ago and I'm still bitter.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've never read Stephen King, but I have to say if I read a book of his that seemed boring, like you did, that the book would then have a huge finale. Sometimes excellent endings can redeem previously lackluster books. I don't blame you for being bitter.
      Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Heather!
      ~Litha Nelle

      Delete
  2. I never thought that A Dance With Dragons could have a bad ending!! I haven't read it, but yeah.... And also, Life of Pi's ending was already spoiled for me, and I kinda liked it. :)
    Great post!!

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    Replies
    1. I knew something was up with the Life of Pi because it was so 'trippy'. A Dance with Dragons doesn't necessarily have a bad ending, it's just disappointing because it's cliffy, and who knows how long before the next book will be out. It takes some time for Mr. Martin to write.
      Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Raffy!
      ~Litha Nelle

      Delete

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