Worst endings/plot turns ever?

Hey, don't get me wrong. I wasn't offended but every story should be reviewd as it is.

 

I agree and disagree.

The Colorado Kid was bad, beginning to end.
I didn't care for the Regulators either.

But Cell, I loved... until the really bad ending.

Stephen King has a number of those.

Here are two:


Thinner:

Spoiler

Okay, so the guy had was cursed and getting thinner and thinner. He tracks down the Native American and the curse gets put--into a pie? And somebody has to eat the pie to take the curse?
Groan...

Dark Tower: Wizards and Glass

Spoiler

Rolland and the Ka-Tet act out the Wizard of Oz? They all have to put on ruby slippers? Seriously?

I think of Stephen King as the worst author I love.

He was my Gateway author--I became a fan (and, more generally, a reader) when I read The Shining back in 1981-1982 or thereabouts. But some of his books are really bad. I recently set my mind to reading everything he's ever written, and am down to 2 books left, not counting the book about the Red Sox that I have no interest in reading. All I have left now is Rose Madder and Under the Dome. Well, that, and I'm in the middle of a rather obscure nonfiction Stephen King book, "Secret Windows: Essays on the Craft," which was sort of a follow up to On Writing, containing some really old articles by King about writing.

For the general category, I'll add Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, thankfully fixed in the movie. Possibly the worst ending ever.

Spoiler

Robert Langdon falls out of a helicopter over the Vatican and saves himself... by using a piece of cardboard as a hang glider?

My incredulity only goes so far. He would have been Robert SPLAT done.

 

^ I agree Stephen King does not deserve the popularity he gets; but saying that there are a few books and short stories of his I like - though these are few and far between.

Misery I liked, and I hear Bag of Bones is among his best, I got a copy of it today for a few pound and read the first five pages or so, and I can't wait to read it; it is, from what little I've read, very good. However, I think Stephen King gets worse as he gets older, a bit like Steven Spielberg.

 

If you take it at face value then Alice in Wonderland is basically "and then she woke up. The End"

Pretty lame

 

One of the Sword of Truth novels by Terry Goodkind ends with the main character inexplicably half-recovering from being poisoned, in order to tell his companions the ingredients they'll need for the antidote. This fails because not only was he in a coma, but the magic he has cannot be used for random information gathering. I have rarely seen a deus ex machina as bad as that one was.

I was annoyed by the Cell ending at first, but then I realized that it suited the story. I mean, there are two options - either the phone thing works, or it doesn't. If it works, he gets his son back and joins the others. If it fails, his son dies and he joins the others. Either way, the story is over.

 

CharlieVer - I LOVE Wizard and Glass, but i must agree with you. He should have released it when the main storyline was complete. (Especially now when he will be releasing a new Dark Tower book.)

For me though i'd have to suggest Wolves of the Calla. Yes continuing the Dark Tower theme. The first four books i believe i loved because every page was like turning a corner with something to discover with every flip of the page.

Wolves of the Calla, i felt started something new towards my reading experience. It felt like Mr King was constantly predicting his story and giving us heads up on what was about to occur, via Roland. I never felt like i was experiencing some grand adventure by the end. Not like i got in the first four books at least.

Oh, and the moment he introduced a certain ego into the story was the day i lost a lot of respect from King.

 

Personally, the one story that always comes to mind when I think "bad ending", is "Jane Eyre".

Spoiler

Throughout the whole book, she is going out in the world to find a place for herself, and in the end she decides to marry the most selfish, cruel, and pathetic man in the world. Seriously. He already had a wife, who sadly, went a little crazy, so what is a man to do but lock her away and find someone else to marry? Next, because it will make "him" happy, he wants her to stay, even after she finds out about his wife, never mind that he is considerably older than Jane. Last but not least, he has a temper tantrum when she leaves, cries, and begs her to stay. AND SHE RETURNS LATER TO MARRY HIM! I was seriously dissapointed with her. I'll never believe this book was supposed to be romantic. Gag. (The fact that his first wife was dead by the time he married Jane does not matter, since he attempted to marry her while his first wife was still living.)

Anyhow, that is my rant on what I think is the worst ending ever. Feel free to disagree.

 

My main problem with this is; what happened to the boy really should have taken a back seat to The Pulse. Call me cold-hearted but the characterisation wasn't enough to allow to make me feel connected to the characters and to care about that story, and thus, I thought the book was dull and the ending bad because the characterisation so god-awful.

 

Going Bovine, by Libba Bray.

Spoiler Alert--

Spoiler

In short, the kid was diagnosed with mad cow disease, which is fatal. The worst part is, this kid is a jerk. NO ONE likes him. He has no friends, and his family despises him.

But wait! After he's hospitalized, while he's going in and out of his hallucinations, an angel comes to him, and tells him there is another way. At first, you're like "What? No. I don't believe this."
But Bray writes the "quest" so well, you start believing that he actually might live, and he's actually going on this mental quest to defeat his disease, and at some point, he'll wake up, and become a better person, right?

No. Not at all. Instead, on the VERY last page, Bray pretty much goes "and it was all a dream", and he dies. That is how it ends.

It was a good book, and maybe that's real life, but that really sucks.

 

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Bag of Bones I can wholeheartedly recommend. I read it in my public library one summer, and loved it so much I went and bought the hardcover. It still gets picked up every few weeks and I flip through the pages, re-reading favorite portions over and over.

 

I am not a huuge fan of the twilight series in the first place, but I was really disapointed in the ending of those book. I was all ready for a real battle.

 

SMeyer says it was because if they did have a real battle many characters on both sides would die and she would lose fanbase. Basically, she didn't want a Deathly Hallows repeat.

The plot twist I hated most in the series was when Vampire!Bella turns out to be a God Mode Sue and it totally impervious to any of the regular vampire hardships, so she's free to be beautiful and wear designer clothing and have "awesome" vampire hanky-panky all day. She doesn't even need to take care of her daughter, 'cause she's busy reading Tennyson! Even Jasper acknowledges the unfairness in the situation.

 

I wonder if she knows she wouldn't have to kill off any named characters? I mean even in Deathly Hallows you could probably get away with not really killing anyone. While I think the book is better with the deaths, as it makes things more serious and gives that sense of anything could happen, it could easily work without them. She could have easily had that big battle and have the main characters come out maybe a bit banged up, maybe have some of them assumed dead and such. But yeah. Seems like she just didn't want to do her own story any justice.

I never finished the first book, but I had heard that Bella was somehow exempt from the troubles a new vampire goes through. I am not even sure whats worse. The idea that she ignored her own established rules by accident, or being completely aware of it and having a character comment on it.

I am starting to think that Smeyer is just trolling everyone.

 

Any novel by Stephen King written in the last twelve years. I reaaly like his writing style, but he sucks at having a decent ending. The novel "It" had a cheesy ending, but at least it was a true ending. After that novel, not so much.

 

I don't know about that. I really liked the ending to The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. I also enjoyed the ending to From a Buick 8.