So many leap to mind. Any deus ex machina ending makes me roll my eyes. So many to choose from. I loved Under the Dome by Stephen King...until the end. Wow what a crappy ending! Obviously, he couldn't figure any reasonable end to the thing so he just rushed through a ridiculous explanation. Ruined what could have been a classic book! Which left you slamming the book down at the end?
Lol I was coming in to say "Just about every Stephen King book I've read!" He's kinda known for that. I love them up until the end when it all falls apart because (usually) he reveals the monster or whatever that seemed so excellent until the curtain falls and you see how sad and pathetic it really is. And I don't mean the monster itself evokes pity or that you feel sad for it, but that the writing itself comes across as sad and pathetic.
Kafka's America (sometimes given the IMO better title of The Man Who Disappeared) was, like all of his novels, unfinished when he died. His buddy Max Brod tacked on a super sappy ending that is like a head-spinning tone shift from the rest of the book, I guess just to make it publishable.
Wheel of Time. Fortunately I stopped following after book 6, bought the rest of the series in junkshops, and skipped to the end when they finished it. So I didn't spend over £100, and spend six months ploughing through half a bookshelf, for an ending worthy of a He-Man episode.
I have a running joke about Koontz novels. "Reading this Koontz novel and loving it! Whipping by. I'm in the last 30 pages and can feel the disappointment just around the corner..." Saying that, I really struggle with endings myself and am always self deprecating on this one. My favourite ending was the one that annoyed readers the most!
I only read the first one a few weeks back and that was a slog at times. Yeah, making me question to really get stuck into it. Then again at least it sounds like at least there is an ending? GoT got progressively worse I found (though the second one is my favourite) and I guess that series will never get a proper conclusion.
The best part about "Tick Tock" by Dean Koontz was throwing the book across the room in disgust when I begrudgingly finished it.
i cant say i "love" the books (i enjoyed them), and i cant say i thought the endings were "trash" (just didnt agree with the endings).... but: Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison -cliff hanger ending -unresolved conflict My Sister The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Brathwaithe -MC didnt learn her lesson -continues the same pattern that began the book Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi cliff hanger ending ETA: Captured by Beverly Jenkins the way it built it up... the Hero was going to track down his love who was captured by his half brother and held as a slave, and there would be this epic battle between the half brother and the Hero. the Hero would of couse win and save the day and Happy Ever After..... how the ending ACTUALLY was.... the Hero is on his way to save the day, but the half brother dies (offed by one of his servants or something like that). the Hero arrives to "rescue" the maiden (giving her a ride off the island). Hero never mentions Half Brother, or his death or feeling cheated at never confronting him. No mention of the hero's inherited wealth due to the half brother's death. yet everyone celebrates the Hero for saving the day.... if there ever was an ending that pissed me off, it was this one. it felt ill deserved. (dont get me wrong.. i like this author and her other works... but this one missed the mark for me...)
Harry Potter as it progressed. No one got killed in book 1 and 2 and that was part of the charm. J K Rowling was told that her books would get better if she would “kill all her darlings.” To kill off Silas was a mistake. It’s the only family Harry had!! Book seven isn’t even as consistent as the other books. It’s hardly even set in Hogwarts unlike the other ones. The kids do not go to school and turns the whole story into a blood bath. A very disappointing end. An alternative synonym for it. Crap. Huge disappointment.
I can't remember the exact Koontz title I wanted to do that with (plus no spoilers then. Mind you...).. Someone is about to get stabbed. Hero arrives in the nick of time and shouts stop! Roll credits. Pitch book towards bin.
My daughter grew up with the HP books and loves them to this day. She wrote a lot of HP fan fiction as a teen. I started reading the books to my grandson several years ago; we bogged down somewhere in the book where Dolores Umbridge takes over Hogwarts. The ending of the final book of the series was a version of "then I woke up and discovered it was all a dream."
Two books immediately come to mind, the first being The Winter Road by Adrian Selby. I’m a huge fan of its grim and dirty tone and stakes, its fantasy/western hybrid genre, and I was deeply invested in its main characters. Not to mention the atmosphere was/is fantastic. But Selby opting for pages and pages of letter correspondence between the main characters to conclude the story was the abject wrong choice for me. It was markedly incongruous with everything that came before it. Still worth the read, but oh what The Winter Road could have been... The second is The Folding Knife by KJ Parker, aka Tom Holt. A wonderfully written book, with a very fresh and clever story, that inexplicably collapsed at the finish line. I’m still at a loss at just how much I will forever be impressed with the first 90% of the novel, yet so unimpressed with its last 10%.
