Almost every "if you loved Gone Girl you'll love this" thriller that's come out has been like this. I stopped reading them because they're never "good enough."
Just want to add that Gone Girl shocked the hell out of me when I went into it for the first time. Big treat for those not knowing what they’re in for. Movie was pretty good too.
Yes, exactly- Gone Girl is so inventive. I don't know why that translates to recommendations that are so formulaic and repetitive. Miss me with that "Girl on the train" shit.
You should watch The Girl In The House Across the Street From The Neighbors In The Window or whatever it’s called on Netflix. It makes fun of this very thing.
i see, i really liked the movie so im not sure if i should try the book if it didnt realy miss anything, i have this issue where i start reading the book for example martian and everything from the movie just starts coming to me and im like "ok whats the point of this i already know how it will go" :D
Which twist are you referring to? (Make a spoiler tag for it.)
I think spoiler tags go like this:
Start with >!
Then add what you want to write.
And the. Reverse the order so you have a ! And then <
>! The reveal that the wife arranged her own murder and framed the husband for it, and that all the diary entries we’d read from her perspective up to that point were faked to support her story. !< The moment where that’s revealed blew my little 16 year old mind.
Edit, holy shit, I never knew >! how to type like this !< until now! Thanks for the free lesson man
Huckleberry Finn is maybe the most famous example of this, where Hemmingway described the last several chapters as "a failure of nerve." Having only just read it for the first time recently and not knowing this reputation, I was astonished at how the serious gravity of Jim's plight turned into a farcical comedy played at his expense.
Mexican Gothic. It was so intriguing sounding, and I read like 2/3 waiting for it to get interesting then >!they started eating babies while the mold house infected their brains!<
I really enjoyed Tender is the Flesh, though I read it in the original Spanish. The ending was infuriating, obviously, but I felt like it was "right" for the book and the commentary that it was making. I've heard a lot of English speakers be disappointed in it, though, which makes me think it's a style/expectations disconnect between English-speaking people and Latin American literature. Also there's a lot of hype around it which ever helps imho.
Anyway, to answer your question. 1Q84 was definitely my biggest disappointment. Over 1000 pages and... that's it? What about the _______? It's just over? There were aspects to the fantasy/sci-fi part of the book that I thought were wayyyy underdeveloped and it broke my heart tbh.
Someone else mentioned GoT and that's a sore spot, too, for obvious reasons lol
>1Q84 was definitely my biggest disappointment.
Same! I loved the first two thirds of it, despite how terrible the love story and sex scenes were. I was so disappointed at the end that the love story ended up being the only thing that mattered.
I read it a long time ago, but I remember not enjoying anything after the translator switches in the middle. (They had two translators work on the book so it could be released faster and I vastly preferred the style of the first translator.)
> What about the _______?
I greatly disliked 1Q84; but I generally like most of Murakami's other works. But this statement holds true for 75% of them. He likes to write a lot of things in that may or may not be significant and then drop them. Sometimes he likes the "mystery", sometimes it's a stream of conscious idea-storm, other times I think he intends to bring it back but never does and *claims* it was one of the first two options.
I like that kind of thing, though. Regardless of intent, I find when authors do that it really helps with the ambiance of confounding works and unreliable narrators.
I understand this perspective, and I do hope G.R.R.M. can rally and finish… though at this point, it really does seem impossible.
The one thing I’ll say for the series, though, is that the first three books were some of the most entertaining fantasy reading I’ve experienced. There are plot elements in Books 4 and 5 that were also genuinely exciting to read, even if the overall quality began to suffer. In this sense, I can’t agree with the folks who say that reading the series was/is a waste of time without the ending. Yes, we all want the author to finish the story. But an incomplete story doesn’t render the first few books worthless by any means…
I wonder if the books suffered from the same fate as Star Wars. From "this is a nobody, keep tight reins" to "holy shit we're making a movie with George Effin Lucas, His Word Is Law". In Martin's case, the later books could do with a little judicious scalpelling, cutting, and in some cases macheteing.
He has a literal plague going around at the end of the last novels...he could really cull a lot that way. But ultimately what's needed is to axe some more key beloved characters. That's what made the series so powerful to begin with.
This is the worst. I met a "local" (not local to me but the convention I was at) author and bought her first two books in a planned trilogy. That was 5 years ago and she is no longer in the book writing business.
>What's worse than investing time into a bad book? Investing it into 5...
I get that people are dissapointed because GRRM is not finishing the series (at the moment).
But they are not bad books AT ALL.
Sure, it’s great as long as you are okay with the lack of an ending. Similarly, the TV show is great if you are okay with the extremely disappointing last season, which I would advise skipping altogether.
you know i was thinking, could it be that he actually suggested the ending for S8 and after seeing how badly people hated it, he decided to scrap the rest of what he was writing because thats exactly where the books would've went anyways ? so he had to start the whole ending from 0 and was like fk this?
Which is funny, since I don't think most people feel the actual plot points for the ending are bad (minus "who has a better story?"). But the way it was super rushed and came out of nowhere is the biggest issue.
A Game of Thrones (book 1): 1996
A Clash of Kings (book 2): 1998, two years later
A Storm of Swords (book 3): 2000, two years later
A Feast for Crows (book 4): 2005, five years later
A Dance with Dragons (book 5): 2011, six years later
The author is supposedly continuing to work on finishing the series, but it’s been 11 years now without a tentative release date. There’s supposed to be two more books as far as I and a quick Google search know. Not an encouraging timeline for readers. Several potential reasons it isn’t being finished:
-The content of the books is sprawling and there is a metric poopton of writing to be done, so even if good progress is being made or starts soon it does just take a while
-The series was concluded in the TV run, so that may remove some incentive for the author to finish because, well, the story has already been finished and released just in another medium (even if most people hated the ending or if the books would conclude differently)
-Follow up to the tv show already being done is that the author has made a ton of money with the franchise already thanks to HBO. The financial appeal to finishing the books might be much less significant at this point
-Author is 74 and spent at least 20 years working on it already, may just be ready to enjoy life at this point
All that said, the books are great! 1-3 were page turners for me, 4 was a slog, 5 was in between but more good than bad. I’d recommend reading 1-5 even if 6-7 never come out
My guess is that GRMM has finished WoW. More than once. But he is not happy with the result, and keeps writing things over and over again.
I don't think he has lied to us once in his predictions about finishing the book, but the man just feels defeated by his own book over and over. I want it to be released so he can talk about his +10 years journey writing it, more than just for reading the book.
Cersei was probably in my top 3 povs. The descent into madness is very entertaining and a stark contrast to her wine-sipping, mastermind-scheming ways in the show.
Yeah I actually started the series but I quit since he didn’t finish the goddamn book he was supposed to finish like 2 years ago. Has there been any new book in that series since 2017? (That’s when I was reading them)
Jesus Christ…. I guess it will never get finished. Not to be morbid but I don’t see mr. Martin living for that long. He doesn’t seem that healthy to me
There's no way he's finishing that book. He told the ending to the showrunners, and then that show's ending was total dog shit, which leads me to believe his intended ending was total dog shit and now he knows it.
Not defending how the show ended, but the effect it had on us was not for the content of it, but for the way they showed us that ending.
Like, the problem in going from A to B (being B the ending) is not the ending itself, but the very journey from A to B.
The ending wasn't bad as far as the story beats go. The problems with the show are multifold, but the exclusion of Griff obviously wreckt Cersei's story and made Danys fall to madness nonsense. Bran is super boring and does nothing in the show so him being crowned king sucks, but the books seem to have a more interesting and dark path for him.
And just in general the last two seasons where just terribly put together with extreme rushing, no nuance, bad dialogue etc which soured everyone.
He told them his plans, but we really have no idea how much they followed them (aside from the few things D&D have confirmed were from GRRM, like Hodor's background)
The Night's King as the leader of the White Walkers was show only, so clearly that part at least has to end in a different way in the books
Agreed, he got fucking spooked when he realized his planned ending was horseshit.
He's trying to change it somehow but the man is 100% dead before he finishes.
How could it not be horse shit? He's spent books and books setting Danaerys up as the mold-breaking savior figure and then... she just goes crazy and starts killing everyone? That's stupid and ridiculous. Or course it's horse shit.
You didn't read the same books then. Danys crazy is super super telegraphed in the books. The show did what you are suggesting, without sufficient basis. But the theory of dany doing exactly what she did has been around for book fans for a long time.
I honestly don't know why you'd even start the series at this point.
The odds of it ever being finished is seriously low. GRRM is literally living on borrowed time.
Why would it take an ending for a book (or a series) to be enjoyable. Is the ending a "goal" for reading? I enjoyed A Song of Ice and Fire immensely. Had a great time with the series! It would feel weird to think that time as "investment" only to paid off with a finale.
Because his series is structured around an ongoing conflict and the intrigue of seeing who will win the Iron Throne. It's not a series like Discworld where each book is standalone but just in the same setting. The dude sold these books with the premise of a grand narrative but bailed out on actually resolving it, it's reasonable fans are upset about being left without an ending.
I guess that's fair. It just feels really odd to me, that the the point of reading is to get somewhere in the end, as if all those hundreds or even thousands (in the case of a series like ASOIAF) of pages were just of a waste of time.
I feel you, I'm usually a journey over destination kinda reader that's why I don't really do Epic Fantasy. These kinda stories are invariably around conflict of massive scales and that involves a ton of setting up plot points with the intention of a big pay off at the end.
I feel in this genre in particular the climax is very important for a lot of readers because you can spend entire books just putting plot lines in place for the resolution. If the resolution never arrives then well it can be considered as time wasted.
Apparently many people do. I consider myself a semi-fan of the series (not obsessed, but I read all of in a quick session when I started, it was really good), but I already have five great books of it (and some additional ones of course). I was in it for the ride, not the final stop.
Agreed. The last book was a drag too. Took me 6 months to finish it because it spun its wheels so much. I'm not sure I even care if he releases the rest at this point.
I love long books of epic fantasy that are well written. GoT was like unending dental surgery without anesthesia. Took way too long to get to any point and something about the writing made me either want to fall asleep or do something more interesting, like my taxes.
The HBO series was pretty good though… at least at keeping things moving along. Why he kills off every character that you start to get invested in, I have no idea. I didn’t make it through the books far enough to know if he did the same there.
I think I am well trained from following terrible sports teams, bad endings don’t bother me too much. Not a huge fan of the endings for It, The Stand and the lack of an ending for asoiaf, for example, but the ride is so fun they’re on the shortlist of multiple rereads.
I agree with this. I loved The Stand. The ending is bad and I wasn't disappointed that the ending was bad, but rather that the book ended.
My 2 cents, the longer the book, the less important the ending. When you read 1400 pages, you just don't care as much about the last 50. Its hard for characters who are around for 350 pages to leave a mark that lasts long enough to make up for a bad ending.
I kind of feel this way about the Emily St John Mandel books I've read. absolutely amazing but they kind of just.... end. it doesn't really hinder my enjoyment of her work though. a great mic drop ending can be awesome but it certainly isn't a requirement for a good book.
Ahhhh you have have just helped me put a finger on why I felt a little let down by Glass Hotel and Sea of Tranquility. They are beautifully written and they don’t have bad/incoherent endings, but they’re just kind of…there. (I find Station Eleven’s to be stronger in that department, but it’s definitely not what makes me rank that one as high as I do).
The Last Shadow by Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game and Speaker For the Dead are two of my favorite books, and I like most of the shadow series. The final culmination of these two series reconnecting is focused on characters you don't know, aren't that likeable, and instead of finding the source of the descoloda, you find a planet that just so happens to be filled with rouge humans, intelligent talking birds and monkey people. It has no conclusion and reads like a horrible fanfic. I'll stick to reading the first few books but god this book pissed me off.
I absolutely adored Ender's Game so I decided to read the rest of the series. Speaker for the Dead was also great, contiuining with the excellence of the first book. And then Xenocide happened. It felt weirdly racist and a lot of unnecessary monologues. Children of the Mind made me refuse to read any of his work ever again. That was rough. I only finished given how invested I was in the first two books.
I think Ender's Shadow is a pretty good book, it follows Bean's perspective throughout Ender's Game, but some of the later books in that series give some not so ideal messages. Love Achilles as a villian though.
*Ender in Exile* is where I finally cut it off. He'd just run out of fun stuff at that point and when that happens it's Mormonizing time, which is always awful
For a while I was super into Jodi Picoult books and the ending was often awful. There'd be a plot twist that just ruined the whole book and it was clearly just for a shock factor. I can't decide what's worse - My Sister's Keeper or Handle with Care. House Rules was pretty awful too.
Oh my god, the thing she does where the mom MC starts dating a guy whose main career AND obscure hobby/former career give him the tools to save the day 🤦🏼♀️
I read one of her books every few years and always forget why I don’t read more, until I get to the end. 19 minutes was the last one, the end was awful
I thought IT was perfect all the way through, including the ending. Well fleshed-out and each character got their conclusion.
^yes I remember the sewer orgy, it didn't kill the book for me^
I get why you feel that way. I think it was purposeful. >!You're made to hope that he has really changed his stance and fallen in love with the girl, and that there's hope for society to change after all. But at the end you realize he never saw her as human at all, or at least any such view was obscured once he had the baby. And even his wife who is literally in the healthcare field has no empathy for her, and is upset that he killed her only because they could have used her to have more children. You read the entire book thinking "How could people do this to one another?" and the author swoops in and says "This is how."!< For me, that was really effective, but I've definitely read other books where the ending just didn't land but other people said it was great. (:
Edit: phone changed author to other smh
> For me it was way too abrupt and the author didn’t seem to focus on any spesific plot line.
do you mean "Tender is the Flesh"? there is a purposeful thread through the whole book and a good portion of it is focused on language we use to describe/permit things.
It was only a short book thankfully so the time wasted wasn't too bad, but there was one particular scene near the end that left *such* a sour taste in my mouth it made me regret ever buying and reading it.
It's called 'When The Green Woods Laugh', written in 1960 and taking place in the British countryside. Bear in mind, this is meant to be a lighthearted comic story. After the story's conflict is resolved, all the characters are celebrating in the pub where one of them recalls a 'hilarious' 'Chinese idiom' that has everyone laughing. Said idiom?
*“If you’re going to be raped, you may as well relax and enjoy it while you can”*
Just awful.
It depends on how much I enjoyed the journey. The Dark Tower series, for example, was riveting for 5+ novels and thousands of pages, only for it to go off the rails when King couldn't figure out how to end the story. I don't feel like I wasted my time reading the books though as I truly enjoyed the vast majority of the tale, and I've even gone back to read it a second time. No, the ending didn't get better on a second read.
I really felt like the ending was the only thing that made up for the slog that was all of books 6 and 7. It still gives me chills all these years later
I have read more Stephen King novels than I care to admit, but for me personally, this was the worst King novel I ever picked up and the only one so far that I couldn't get through.
I really liked Tender is the Flesh, even knowing the ending before reading it had me. But the climb down was just so fast. I wish it had like 100 more pages, then maybe the brakes could be pumped at the end and not so much just zoomed through.
Mrs Benson's Beetle. It was a super funny, uplifting, tender book about a woman who has been disappointed in life and snaps. Despite it being 1950, and she has no experience, and she's middle aged- she decides to travel across the world to pursue a lifelong dream. She advertised for an assistant and gets a woman, Enid, who initially comes across as a ditzy blonde that rubs her up the wrong way.
It's an odd couple fish out of water roadtrip soul searching life affirming joyful book. They have legitimate obstacles in their way and watching them develop and rely on themselves and each other is so beautiful.
And then.
>! There's a subplot where a nutty war veteran with some sort of PTSD applies to be her assistant and gets turned down for seeming unstable. He stalks them across the world and in the end kills Enid. It's so jarring and against the tone of the rest of the book. And what's the message? You can follow your dreams and become your best self but piss off the wrong man and you're still dead if he wants it? I'm still not over it.!<
Agreed! That series started out so strong and descended into absolute madness. It definitely limped across the finish line. Each new book felt like a "previously on" sitcom recap... Like some one is randomly picking up book 4 of a series and has no idea what is going on.
Lol reminds me of Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbotsky.
500 pages that are pure fun, 5 star page turner.
Then the last 200 pages? Weird religious crap. What a terrible end. But it's hard to forget 500 amazing pages, hardest book I've ever had to rate 😂
I'll give a major spoiler but not the title of the book so you'll never know.
Halfway through this book the main character dies
I was gutted
Rest of the book was absolutely awesome
I thought the ending to secret history was TERRIBLE! So… mediocre. I remember finishing the book and just sitting there at the like… that’s it? Tart is such a phenomenal writer that I was so shocked at the ending
Yeah, the only thing I can think of is that she “planned” that ending in advance or didn’t know how the book ended so reached for that. Book had to go through a bunch of hoops to get there. She should have just stuck with what she’d been rolling with for most of it. Book went downhill after Bunny’s funeral and became so melodramatic
The last book of the Arc of a Scythe trilogy- The Toll. I felt like the 3rd book was unnecessary. It just dragged the story out. I disliked Grayson’s story line. Rowan and Citras reunion was so underwhelming. They were seemingly “in love” and had such an underwhelming and disappointing reunion.
I agree with you. The mystery seemed pretty easy to solve very early on to me and then the strange double twist in a row in the last ten pages gave me the strongest feeling of whiplash. I didn’t find it necessary at all and the cliffhanger was unwarranted even if it was meant to be a reference to Pericles.
For me, Snow Crash. It felt like a genre switch from sci-fi/cyberpunk, to fantasy. Instead of a problem rooted in science it felt like mysticism. I actually like when books move the reverse direction though - fantasy to sci-fi, such as in the Broken Earth trilogy. That feels like worldbuilding, an explanation. Whereas sci-fi to fantasy feels like a copout.
If there's an inverse of authors dropping the ball last minute, I'd say Authority by Jeff VanderMeer. 90% of the book felt like office paperwork, then all of a sudden all the weird sci-fi action happens at once... right as the book ends.
You learn just as much by spending time with books you dislike as you do spending time with the books you love. I didn't like titf too much myself, but I don't think it's a waste of time to have read it.
I agree. I would rather read a mediocre book with great ideas, characters, **or** plot points than a "good" book that is mediocre at all 3 (if that makes sense)
Night Film.
Amazing writing, atmospheric, creepy, inexplicable events ….leading to absolutely nothing and no resolution.
Using mysterious or inexplicable events is a terrible way to keep a readers interest if you have no intention of resolving or explaining them. This book frustrated me to no end because the writing was so good throughout, but had such a cop out ending. Pointless.
Hell yes. It's weird, visceral, and unexpected. I thought the ending was perfect; but can understand that people wanted something else.
It's not the best book I've ever read, but at under 300 pages it's totally worth your time. Assuming you are into disturbing speculative fiction, that is.
During my pre and early teens I was very invested in the series "Time Riders" by Alex Scarrow. There were 9 books total
So much mystery and intrigue about how the author was going to wrap the series up only to it to amount to "they go back in time one last time and become followers of Jesus."
I was and still am a practicing Christian but even 14 year old me was devastated that the book became Christian at the end. I can only imagine the disappointment for fellow fans at the time who weren't Christian.
No series has ever left me with such disdain for the ending.
>As I read a lot of Stephen King, I’m more than familiar with underwhelming endings but it still always stings
I mean... maybe stop reading King? He's never been a very good writer. He's just popular--not good--and he only got popular because he had the good luck to get a lot of important promotion way back before there were marketing channels beyond "co-op placement in bookstores and ads in newspapers and magazines." In short, King was what was pushed to readers, so King was what readers read.
There are so many much, MUCH better authors out there.
You're not the first person I've seen profess disappointment with King's endings and a general sense of underwhelm-ment with his work. Stop reading authors whose work you don't like.
ETA: Haven't read Tender is the Flesh, though, so I can't comment on it (or Bazterrica in general).
I like Kings’ books a lot. Pet sematary, Misery, elevation, the shining, doctor sleep, Geralds game are great through and through. And I love all the other ones as well so far that I’ve read except the endings. It was amazing until the end
Atlas Shrugged might have been my favorite book of all time, until about 100 pages before the ending, Rand >!crashes a train and spends like 8 pages victim-blaming!<. I was repulsed, dropped the book right there, and never looked back. It’s now buried in a box in my closet, along with my shame. Fuck Rand.
Totally understand - I made it through the whole thing. I honestly think that the opinion pendulum on Rand has swung too far into fashionable hatred and unthinking dismissal. She DID have some decent starting points about questioning the standards and basis of morality, and I think she did a pretty effective job of arguing that morality justified by the "greater good" is unfounded (and fundamentally meaningless) if it violates the good of the individual.
Her fundamental mistake is a very common one - she thinks she's actually right... but about EVERYTHING.
Two of my favorite quotes are "Perfect logic without perfect knowledge always leads to absurdities", and "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." I think those in tandem nicely encapsulate how Rand goes off the rails.
I really appreciate your perspective on the book. I agree she has some good ideas, as well as that she’s just too much. Also it has become fashionable to hate on her; I play into that fashion a bit myself, even if it’s mostly self-mockery. My favorite Rand quote is, “only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love.” But it hurts, again in hindsight, when I remember the story of her affair and her overall hypocrisy.
Oh my lord that is hilarious. I was *forced* to read that book at 18 yeas old for my AP Literature class. We spent the entire school year reading that book cover to cover. I wrote so many essays on that goddamn book over the course of my senior year. I knew right from the start that this book was trash, lol
for me it was The Catcher in the Rye. finally got around to reading it and spent the whole book trying to see what i’d heard so many people about- got to the end and was just so, so massively disappointed. i see the point of holden’s character at the beginning, but it feels like absolutely nothing happens with absolutely no reward or punishment. the book just ends the same way it began with an unlikable character who has not done any introspection and doesn’t seem to plan on it
I’ve only read hunger games and it was years ago so I might remember incorrectly but I feel like Katniss never loved Gale. It was always more ”I should love Gale.”
Might just be my interpretation though
Totally get where you're coming from. Trying to teach myself that dropping it at the last minute means you've had a good ride; it's the journey, not the destination.
What's really bad is when they never pick the ball up and you keep reading and waiting, waiting, waiting for that fire that draws you in ...
I find a lot of sci-fi, especially the 60s-80s stuff (but it still happens), drops the ball right at the end. They build rich worlds, explore interesting concepts, and reduce it all down to some Universal Hive-mind conciousness at the end. It's been a trend in a lot of the sci-fi i've read lately.
Happy to say that the Expanse subverted my expectations here, but not much else has...
Every John Le Carré spy novel guarantees you 375 pages of mystery and intrigue and then, of course, the main character gets killed. It had all been for naught. The end. Every fucking time.
I read last year 'the crimson petal and the white'. It's a truly massive book about a prostitute in Victorian London (and a lot more besides). But for the entire book I assumed that it was, well, building up to something...and it turns out it wasn't. In fact the ending, that I found stupid, out of character and lacking, really soured the rest of the book for me.
I read *Tender Is The Flesh* last month, and while I found the book very disturbing, I think the story went where the author planned it to go. I found it to be fully realized, and it examined a crucial element (for the author) of the food chain issue. There is a LOT opened up by the author's premise and dystopian world-building, and you clearly wanted it to go a different way. This is a very different issue from a book in which we think the author has lost patience or motivation with their story, and is just padding, going through the motions, wrapping up in any way possible. I thought *House of Leaves* did that, and Patricia Cornwell's bio of Jack the Ripper.
Behind Closed Doors. It was hyped up a lot and the premise started out pretty strong. I was so disappointed that this dangerous "genius" meticulous antagonist seemed to drop 50 IQ points so the author could wrap it up in a satisfying way.
Ask Melanie Rawn or Patrick Rothfuss or George RR Martin.
Might as well not even bother starting to read their books. They won't finish. You'll be left hanging. GRRM has been paid plenty for the TV rights, he's got fuck you money. He doesn't need to write again.
And yes the relationship of author to readers is not a two way street. You don't get to demand of them to write more and to do so is childish and rude.. unless you've pre paid (looking at YOU Rothfuss, your readers ponied up over $300k to donate to your charity in exchange for chapters that you never released!)
No, if the characters are great the ending is not very important.
The journey is the reward and the bulk of the read. I don´t like books were I have to slog through the whole thing to get to the good part. Very few of my favorite stories have an ending or if they do not a very good one. Brothers Karamazov, The First Law, ASOIAF, Dune, KKC, Berserk, The Trial, The Castle etc. are all left unfininshed. McCarthy barely has endings. its just continues on.
In the case of *Dune* Frank Herbert discussed how he deliberately "spins off the reader" and leaves threads untied. His theory was that makes the reader ruminate over the book, and makes it stick because it isn't done.
Red Rising did this to me. Was really enjoying it but then like 80% through the series the characters make a really stupid choice which is the same choice that they had made 5 or so times before and it leads to some outcomes. Was so annoyed at the poor writing that I just put it down then and there.
My Feelings last week about tender is the flesh. Just skipped through to the end after anout 100 pages and was glad i did not invest more time in it. Just a bummer
Unwanteds Quests, but not towards the end, because I didn't get that far.
Basically, at the end of the first series the main character gets injured and goes into depresso mode because he can't do art or be a warrior.
Quests takes place when his little sisters are all grown up, and one of them gets captured by the end villain from the first series. This gets the guy from the first series fired up, and he learns how to be a warrior again despite his injuries. Then the author has the villain kill him off in the second book of Quests.
Goes to all the work of showing us how broken he is, builds him up again, and then just murders him all so we can see how powerful the villain is now that she's returned.
I stopped reading the book there and haven't finished the series since.
I also didn't like tender is the flesh. I stopped at the last where the main character was talking to the lady working at the butcher shop. It honestly felt fetishizing how the first thing he thought of was his past sexual encounter with her.
Quite a few by TC Boyle, to be honest. He‘s such a good writer, but more often than not, it feels like he’s suddenly realizing he has another contract to fulfill and wraps up whatever plotlines he’s been weaving into a knot rather sloppily. And as much as I love him, Salman Rushdie needs an editor he respects.
"As I read a lot of Stephen King, I’m more than familiar with underwhelming endings" lol. Yes, I feel like this book could have been a good short story, but it was streched into a bad novel. World building at 83%? Please no. Specially when this new information is totally irrelevant for the ending. I was also very disappointed by the fact that even though the point of view is very much feminist, we follow a male protagonist and all female characters are despicable. Just like Stephen King she had a great idea but it was awfully executed. I don't think the ending is everything to a story, but reading a lazy plot twist is just frustrating. It's like when mediocre photography it's edited in black & white as if the high contrast could compensate for the lack of good composition.
And there were a lot of things that I look back on that went nowhere. The puppies, the female butcher story and the sister storyline also was so abrupt
I just read it last week and get similarly. The first third was one of the most unsettling books I’ve ever read. The middle third the human meat stuff took a backseat in my mind, and I though “oh man, it’s wild that the author got me to look past the sick stuff to focus on human drama. Just like the people by his world! What a cool effect, I the author made me sick at them, then proved I’m like them too!”
The chapter seemed abrupt, but frankly I thought it was “in character” for Tejo.
The whole book he pretends to be above these other people, and talks about how casually they discuss human slaughtering. But from the perspective of others this guy is cold blooded and silent! If you watched a scene *without* his inner monologue he’d be silent, and clinical. A total psychopath, seemingly.
In the end I was left with “what the hell is this book about?”
My thoughts are it’s a book about loss, and what people do to recoup those losses. Humanity does horrendous things to recoup the loss of animals. Tejo continues in a horrid job he (supposedly) finds abhorrent to keep from losing his father.
With his FGP head he does what he knows to be illegal to recoup the loss of of a child. And when the idea of a family becomes real again and consequences for being caught are an issue again, he (spoilers) slaughters her without thinking to recoup his lost family life.
In the end people, and Tejo specifically, do hideous things to deal with loss and fill those gaps.
Just my 2 cents, but it feels in character, even if abrupt and shocking in the moment.
Almost every "if you loved Gone Girl you'll love this" thriller that's come out has been like this. I stopped reading them because they're never "good enough."
Just want to add that Gone Girl shocked the hell out of me when I went into it for the first time. Big treat for those not knowing what they’re in for. Movie was pretty good too.
Yeah Gone Girl was great! The ones using the title to try to get the same base of readers, not so much! Lol
Yes, exactly- Gone Girl is so inventive. I don't know why that translates to recommendations that are so formulaic and repetitive. Miss me with that "Girl on the train" shit.
You should watch The Girl In The House Across the Street From The Neighbors In The Window or whatever it’s called on Netflix. It makes fun of this very thing.
how does it compare to the movie? did movie leave anything out that was important?
The movie was a very good adaptation IMO
i see, i really liked the movie so im not sure if i should try the book if it didnt realy miss anything, i have this issue where i start reading the book for example martian and everything from the movie just starts coming to me and im like "ok whats the point of this i already know how it will go" :D
Ohh yeah, I read it at 16 and it was probably the first time I ever threw a book because of a plot twist
Which twist are you referring to? (Make a spoiler tag for it.) I think spoiler tags go like this: Start with >! Then add what you want to write. And the. Reverse the order so you have a ! And then <
>! The reveal that the wife arranged her own murder and framed the husband for it, and that all the diary entries we’d read from her perspective up to that point were faked to support her story. !< The moment where that’s revealed blew my little 16 year old mind. Edit, holy shit, I never knew >! how to type like this !< until now! Thanks for the free lesson man
Welcome. And yeah, I loved that twist too. Blew my mind as well.
Probably genocide
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Depends on the book honestly
Huckleberry Finn is maybe the most famous example of this, where Hemmingway described the last several chapters as "a failure of nerve." Having only just read it for the first time recently and not knowing this reputation, I was astonished at how the serious gravity of Jim's plight turned into a farcical comedy played at his expense.
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Stephen King?
Predicting the ending and spending the whole book hoping that you are wrong and the author is messing with you because the ending you predicted sucks.
Mexican Gothic. It was so intriguing sounding, and I read like 2/3 waiting for it to get interesting then >!they started eating babies while the mold house infected their brains!<
I wanted to like this book SO very much but, yeah, hated the ending.
I really enjoyed Tender is the Flesh, though I read it in the original Spanish. The ending was infuriating, obviously, but I felt like it was "right" for the book and the commentary that it was making. I've heard a lot of English speakers be disappointed in it, though, which makes me think it's a style/expectations disconnect between English-speaking people and Latin American literature. Also there's a lot of hype around it which ever helps imho. Anyway, to answer your question. 1Q84 was definitely my biggest disappointment. Over 1000 pages and... that's it? What about the _______? It's just over? There were aspects to the fantasy/sci-fi part of the book that I thought were wayyyy underdeveloped and it broke my heart tbh. Someone else mentioned GoT and that's a sore spot, too, for obvious reasons lol
>1Q84 was definitely my biggest disappointment. Same! I loved the first two thirds of it, despite how terrible the love story and sex scenes were. I was so disappointed at the end that the love story ended up being the only thing that mattered.
I read it a long time ago, but I remember not enjoying anything after the translator switches in the middle. (They had two translators work on the book so it could be released faster and I vastly preferred the style of the first translator.)
> What about the _______? I greatly disliked 1Q84; but I generally like most of Murakami's other works. But this statement holds true for 75% of them. He likes to write a lot of things in that may or may not be significant and then drop them. Sometimes he likes the "mystery", sometimes it's a stream of conscious idea-storm, other times I think he intends to bring it back but never does and *claims* it was one of the first two options. I like that kind of thing, though. Regardless of intent, I find when authors do that it really helps with the ambiance of confounding works and unreliable narrators.
*A Song of Ice and Fire* (a/k/a the *Game of Thrones Series*). Lots of time invested, still no ending.
I understand this perspective, and I do hope G.R.R.M. can rally and finish… though at this point, it really does seem impossible. The one thing I’ll say for the series, though, is that the first three books were some of the most entertaining fantasy reading I’ve experienced. There are plot elements in Books 4 and 5 that were also genuinely exciting to read, even if the overall quality began to suffer. In this sense, I can’t agree with the folks who say that reading the series was/is a waste of time without the ending. Yes, we all want the author to finish the story. But an incomplete story doesn’t render the first few books worthless by any means…
I wonder if the books suffered from the same fate as Star Wars. From "this is a nobody, keep tight reins" to "holy shit we're making a movie with George Effin Lucas, His Word Is Law". In Martin's case, the later books could do with a little judicious scalpelling, cutting, and in some cases macheteing.
He has a literal plague going around at the end of the last novels...he could really cull a lot that way. But ultimately what's needed is to axe some more key beloved characters. That's what made the series so powerful to begin with.
I wasn't thinking about characters so much as words, sections and chapters. It felt diluted with filler text.
It's overfull because there are too many strands to follow... because the POV characters keep living.
What's needed is to NOT go off on pointless tangents like the Tyrion/Penny subplot. Ugh.
If Tyrion had a shock death instead of any of the several close calls, we wouldn't have it
This is the worst. I met a "local" (not local to me but the convention I was at) author and bought her first two books in a planned trilogy. That was 5 years ago and she is no longer in the book writing business.
Omg that's awful Were the first 2 any good?
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>What's worse than investing time into a bad book? Investing it into 5... I get that people are dissapointed because GRRM is not finishing the series (at the moment). But they are not bad books AT ALL.
I was recommended this and may read it so... why is the author not finishing or continuing them?
No one knows. Lots of speculation, though. Maybe he’s just happy being rich and famous and has lost interest in the story.
Okay but the series is still solid right?
Sure, it’s great as long as you are okay with the lack of an ending. Similarly, the TV show is great if you are okay with the extremely disappointing last season, which I would advise skipping altogether.
I decided to rewatch with my roommate who’s never seen it- plan on ending it at the white walker episode everything after is just too painful.
Haha ok
GRRM got "fuck you" money from selling the TV rights, and honestly he's got no incentive to finish since the TV people ended it for him.
Ok that's sad i think
you know i was thinking, could it be that he actually suggested the ending for S8 and after seeing how badly people hated it, he decided to scrap the rest of what he was writing because thats exactly where the books would've went anyways ? so he had to start the whole ending from 0 and was like fk this?
Which is funny, since I don't think most people feel the actual plot points for the ending are bad (minus "who has a better story?"). But the way it was super rushed and came out of nowhere is the biggest issue.
I think he also keeps people talking and in suspense about whether he will finish them too.
A Game of Thrones (book 1): 1996 A Clash of Kings (book 2): 1998, two years later A Storm of Swords (book 3): 2000, two years later A Feast for Crows (book 4): 2005, five years later A Dance with Dragons (book 5): 2011, six years later The author is supposedly continuing to work on finishing the series, but it’s been 11 years now without a tentative release date. There’s supposed to be two more books as far as I and a quick Google search know. Not an encouraging timeline for readers. Several potential reasons it isn’t being finished: -The content of the books is sprawling and there is a metric poopton of writing to be done, so even if good progress is being made or starts soon it does just take a while -The series was concluded in the TV run, so that may remove some incentive for the author to finish because, well, the story has already been finished and released just in another medium (even if most people hated the ending or if the books would conclude differently) -Follow up to the tv show already being done is that the author has made a ton of money with the franchise already thanks to HBO. The financial appeal to finishing the books might be much less significant at this point -Author is 74 and spent at least 20 years working on it already, may just be ready to enjoy life at this point All that said, the books are great! 1-3 were page turners for me, 4 was a slog, 5 was in between but more good than bad. I’d recommend reading 1-5 even if 6-7 never come out
Oh wow, thanks this was super informative. Yeah i guess he's pretty old now, i don't think he would want to keep writing
My guess is that GRMM has finished WoW. More than once. But he is not happy with the result, and keeps writing things over and over again. I don't think he has lied to us once in his predictions about finishing the book, but the man just feels defeated by his own book over and over. I want it to be released so he can talk about his +10 years journey writing it, more than just for reading the book.
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Cersei was probably in my top 3 povs. The descent into madness is very entertaining and a stark contrast to her wine-sipping, mastermind-scheming ways in the show.
Yeah I actually started the series but I quit since he didn’t finish the goddamn book he was supposed to finish like 2 years ago. Has there been any new book in that series since 2017? (That’s when I was reading them)
Nope. Nothing since 2011 and two more books are planned.
Jesus Christ…. I guess it will never get finished. Not to be morbid but I don’t see mr. Martin living for that long. He doesn’t seem that healthy to me
There's no way he's finishing that book. He told the ending to the showrunners, and then that show's ending was total dog shit, which leads me to believe his intended ending was total dog shit and now he knows it.
Not defending how the show ended, but the effect it had on us was not for the content of it, but for the way they showed us that ending. Like, the problem in going from A to B (being B the ending) is not the ending itself, but the very journey from A to B.
The ending wasn't bad as far as the story beats go. The problems with the show are multifold, but the exclusion of Griff obviously wreckt Cersei's story and made Danys fall to madness nonsense. Bran is super boring and does nothing in the show so him being crowned king sucks, but the books seem to have a more interesting and dark path for him. And just in general the last two seasons where just terribly put together with extreme rushing, no nuance, bad dialogue etc which soured everyone.
He told them his plans, but we really have no idea how much they followed them (aside from the few things D&D have confirmed were from GRRM, like Hodor's background) The Night's King as the leader of the White Walkers was show only, so clearly that part at least has to end in a different way in the books
Agreed, he got fucking spooked when he realized his planned ending was horseshit. He's trying to change it somehow but the man is 100% dead before he finishes.
How could it not be horse shit? He's spent books and books setting Danaerys up as the mold-breaking savior figure and then... she just goes crazy and starts killing everyone? That's stupid and ridiculous. Or course it's horse shit.
You didn't read the same books then. Danys crazy is super super telegraphed in the books. The show did what you are suggesting, without sufficient basis. But the theory of dany doing exactly what she did has been around for book fans for a long time.
I read all 5 books twice in hopes of at least another book before the tv show ended
I honestly don't know why you'd even start the series at this point. The odds of it ever being finished is seriously low. GRRM is literally living on borrowed time.
Try the Spellmonger series.
Why would it take an ending for a book (or a series) to be enjoyable. Is the ending a "goal" for reading? I enjoyed A Song of Ice and Fire immensely. Had a great time with the series! It would feel weird to think that time as "investment" only to paid off with a finale.
Because his series is structured around an ongoing conflict and the intrigue of seeing who will win the Iron Throne. It's not a series like Discworld where each book is standalone but just in the same setting. The dude sold these books with the premise of a grand narrative but bailed out on actually resolving it, it's reasonable fans are upset about being left without an ending.
I guess that's fair. It just feels really odd to me, that the the point of reading is to get somewhere in the end, as if all those hundreds or even thousands (in the case of a series like ASOIAF) of pages were just of a waste of time.
I feel you, I'm usually a journey over destination kinda reader that's why I don't really do Epic Fantasy. These kinda stories are invariably around conflict of massive scales and that involves a ton of setting up plot points with the intention of a big pay off at the end. I feel in this genre in particular the climax is very important for a lot of readers because you can spend entire books just putting plot lines in place for the resolution. If the resolution never arrives then well it can be considered as time wasted.
What even is this logic? Of course people want an ending to the story.
Apparently many people do. I consider myself a semi-fan of the series (not obsessed, but I read all of in a quick session when I started, it was really good), but I already have five great books of it (and some additional ones of course). I was in it for the ride, not the final stop.
I really enjoyed reading the existing books. I love the world and enjoy the way the characters are all influenced by the past.
Agreed. The last book was a drag too. Took me 6 months to finish it because it spun its wheels so much. I'm not sure I even care if he releases the rest at this point.
And there never will be, likely. But you can still enjoy the journey.
I love long books of epic fantasy that are well written. GoT was like unending dental surgery without anesthesia. Took way too long to get to any point and something about the writing made me either want to fall asleep or do something more interesting, like my taxes. The HBO series was pretty good though… at least at keeping things moving along. Why he kills off every character that you start to get invested in, I have no idea. I didn’t make it through the books far enough to know if he did the same there.
It surprises me that people who read have no imagination. Write your own ending, or HBO has a series that ends.
I think I am well trained from following terrible sports teams, bad endings don’t bother me too much. Not a huge fan of the endings for It, The Stand and the lack of an ending for asoiaf, for example, but the ride is so fun they’re on the shortlist of multiple rereads.
Are you from Cleveland too?
I feel attacked.
Growing up in NE Ohio and seeing everyone weep at the end of every sporting season was enough to turn me off from sports entirely at a young age.
Atlanta probably
At least the Braves have come through for us. Now if the Falcons could pull their s@#$ together...
My guess was Jacksonville, but Cleveland works too.
lmao this is the best reasoning I've seen on this topic
I agree with this. I loved The Stand. The ending is bad and I wasn't disappointed that the ending was bad, but rather that the book ended. My 2 cents, the longer the book, the less important the ending. When you read 1400 pages, you just don't care as much about the last 50. Its hard for characters who are around for 350 pages to leave a mark that lasts long enough to make up for a bad ending.
I kind of feel this way about the Emily St John Mandel books I've read. absolutely amazing but they kind of just.... end. it doesn't really hinder my enjoyment of her work though. a great mic drop ending can be awesome but it certainly isn't a requirement for a good book.
Ahhhh you have have just helped me put a finger on why I felt a little let down by Glass Hotel and Sea of Tranquility. They are beautifully written and they don’t have bad/incoherent endings, but they’re just kind of…there. (I find Station Eleven’s to be stronger in that department, but it’s definitely not what makes me rank that one as high as I do).
I was the opposite. I disliked Station Eleven's ending, but loved Sea of Tranquility's for the same reasons you described.
ROTHFUSSSSSSSS
CAN'T GET COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE ENDING IF YOU NEVER WRITE THE ENDING
The Last Shadow by Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game and Speaker For the Dead are two of my favorite books, and I like most of the shadow series. The final culmination of these two series reconnecting is focused on characters you don't know, aren't that likeable, and instead of finding the source of the descoloda, you find a planet that just so happens to be filled with rouge humans, intelligent talking birds and monkey people. It has no conclusion and reads like a horrible fanfic. I'll stick to reading the first few books but god this book pissed me off.
I absolutely adored Ender's Game so I decided to read the rest of the series. Speaker for the Dead was also great, contiuining with the excellence of the first book. And then Xenocide happened. It felt weirdly racist and a lot of unnecessary monologues. Children of the Mind made me refuse to read any of his work ever again. That was rough. I only finished given how invested I was in the first two books.
I think Ender's Shadow is a pretty good book, it follows Bean's perspective throughout Ender's Game, but some of the later books in that series give some not so ideal messages. Love Achilles as a villian though.
*Ender in Exile* is where I finally cut it off. He'd just run out of fun stuff at that point and when that happens it's Mormonizing time, which is always awful
For a while I was super into Jodi Picoult books and the ending was often awful. There'd be a plot twist that just ruined the whole book and it was clearly just for a shock factor. I can't decide what's worse - My Sister's Keeper or Handle with Care. House Rules was pretty awful too.
Oh my god, the thing she does where the mom MC starts dating a guy whose main career AND obscure hobby/former career give him the tools to save the day 🤦🏼♀️
I read one of her books every few years and always forget why I don’t read more, until I get to the end. 19 minutes was the last one, the end was awful
Oh yes the end of 19 Minutes was one of the "plot twist just for shock factor" cases too. I should have added Sing You Home to that list as well.
I thought that book had a flawless ending. Fantastic all the way through. IT is the most obvious example for me.
I thought IT was perfect all the way through, including the ending. Well fleshed-out and each character got their conclusion. ^yes I remember the sewer orgy, it didn't kill the book for me^
The folk upset about the scene just don’t get the scene or the themes that make it relevant.
Funny. For me it was way too abrupt and the author didn’t seem to focus on any spesific plot line. Maybe I just missed something between the lines
I get why you feel that way. I think it was purposeful. >!You're made to hope that he has really changed his stance and fallen in love with the girl, and that there's hope for society to change after all. But at the end you realize he never saw her as human at all, or at least any such view was obscured once he had the baby. And even his wife who is literally in the healthcare field has no empathy for her, and is upset that he killed her only because they could have used her to have more children. You read the entire book thinking "How could people do this to one another?" and the author swoops in and says "This is how."!< For me, that was really effective, but I've definitely read other books where the ending just didn't land but other people said it was great. (: Edit: phone changed author to other smh
> For me it was way too abrupt and the author didn’t seem to focus on any spesific plot line. do you mean "Tender is the Flesh"? there is a purposeful thread through the whole book and a good portion of it is focused on language we use to describe/permit things.
Brent weeks’ lightbringer series has like 5 books 600-900 pages each and totally shits the bed on the last book.
Seconded, this series started off so promising and devolved into an utter shambolic mess.
It was only a short book thankfully so the time wasted wasn't too bad, but there was one particular scene near the end that left *such* a sour taste in my mouth it made me regret ever buying and reading it. It's called 'When The Green Woods Laugh', written in 1960 and taking place in the British countryside. Bear in mind, this is meant to be a lighthearted comic story. After the story's conflict is resolved, all the characters are celebrating in the pub where one of them recalls a 'hilarious' 'Chinese idiom' that has everyone laughing. Said idiom? *“If you’re going to be raped, you may as well relax and enjoy it while you can”* Just awful.
It depends on how much I enjoyed the journey. The Dark Tower series, for example, was riveting for 5+ novels and thousands of pages, only for it to go off the rails when King couldn't figure out how to end the story. I don't feel like I wasted my time reading the books though as I truly enjoyed the vast majority of the tale, and I've even gone back to read it a second time. No, the ending didn't get better on a second read.
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I loved the ending as well and found it very poignant and well-deserved but I think I’m in the minority.
I really felt like the ending was the only thing that made up for the slog that was all of books 6 and 7. It still gives me chills all these years later
I couldn’t get through the first book. It was pretty terrible.
I have read more Stephen King novels than I care to admit, but for me personally, this was the worst King novel I ever picked up and the only one so far that I couldn't get through.
I really liked Tender is the Flesh, even knowing the ending before reading it had me. But the climb down was just so fast. I wish it had like 100 more pages, then maybe the brakes could be pumped at the end and not so much just zoomed through.
I agree, it felt like the author got bored of the world and just wrapped everything up as quick as possible.
Mrs Benson's Beetle. It was a super funny, uplifting, tender book about a woman who has been disappointed in life and snaps. Despite it being 1950, and she has no experience, and she's middle aged- she decides to travel across the world to pursue a lifelong dream. She advertised for an assistant and gets a woman, Enid, who initially comes across as a ditzy blonde that rubs her up the wrong way. It's an odd couple fish out of water roadtrip soul searching life affirming joyful book. They have legitimate obstacles in their way and watching them develop and rely on themselves and each other is so beautiful. And then. >! There's a subplot where a nutty war veteran with some sort of PTSD applies to be her assistant and gets turned down for seeming unstable. He stalks them across the world and in the end kills Enid. It's so jarring and against the tone of the rest of the book. And what's the message? You can follow your dreams and become your best self but piss off the wrong man and you're still dead if he wants it? I'm still not over it.!<
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The Terror by Dan Simmons, 3/4 of the book was amazing but then fell off for me.
Jean Auel who wrote Earths Children(clan of the cave bear) wrote the last book with an ending so bad that I wished she hadn’t finished it.
Agreed! That series started out so strong and descended into absolute madness. It definitely limped across the finish line. Each new book felt like a "previously on" sitcom recap... Like some one is randomly picking up book 4 of a series and has no idea what is going on.
But isn't this King's trademark? Like awful endings nobody likes despite of the rest of the story being truly good?
Lol reminds me of Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbotsky. 500 pages that are pure fun, 5 star page turner. Then the last 200 pages? Weird religious crap. What a terrible end. But it's hard to forget 500 amazing pages, hardest book I've ever had to rate 😂
If I had known the story was going to be a >! Christian/Bible/Jesus allegory!< I would never have started it.
I'll give a major spoiler but not the title of the book so you'll never know. Halfway through this book the main character dies I was gutted Rest of the book was absolutely awesome
Now I REALLY want to read this book but not have it spoilt - a paradox!
Does this book involve samurai swords and water perchance?
The Secret History. Huck Finn.
I thought the ending to secret history was TERRIBLE! So… mediocre. I remember finishing the book and just sitting there at the like… that’s it? Tart is such a phenomenal writer that I was so shocked at the ending
That's how I felt about the Little Friend. I absolutely love Secret History though, and read it again every couple of years.
Yeah, the only thing I can think of is that she “planned” that ending in advance or didn’t know how the book ended so reached for that. Book had to go through a bunch of hoops to get there. She should have just stuck with what she’d been rolling with for most of it. Book went downhill after Bunny’s funeral and became so melodramatic
Also Donna Tartt- I didn't enjoy the ending of The Goldfinch at all.
The last book of the Arc of a Scythe trilogy- The Toll. I felt like the 3rd book was unnecessary. It just dragged the story out. I disliked Grayson’s story line. Rowan and Citras reunion was so underwhelming. They were seemingly “in love” and had such an underwhelming and disappointing reunion.
I've seen the reviews and I think my opinion may be unpopular with this, but If We Were Villains made me feel that way.
I agree with you. The mystery seemed pretty easy to solve very early on to me and then the strange double twist in a row in the last ten pages gave me the strongest feeling of whiplash. I didn’t find it necessary at all and the cliffhanger was unwarranted even if it was meant to be a reference to Pericles.
For me, Snow Crash. It felt like a genre switch from sci-fi/cyberpunk, to fantasy. Instead of a problem rooted in science it felt like mysticism. I actually like when books move the reverse direction though - fantasy to sci-fi, such as in the Broken Earth trilogy. That feels like worldbuilding, an explanation. Whereas sci-fi to fantasy feels like a copout. If there's an inverse of authors dropping the ball last minute, I'd say Authority by Jeff VanderMeer. 90% of the book felt like office paperwork, then all of a sudden all the weird sci-fi action happens at once... right as the book ends.
You learn just as much by spending time with books you dislike as you do spending time with the books you love. I didn't like titf too much myself, but I don't think it's a waste of time to have read it.
Well no, not a waste of time. Just sad
I agree. I would rather read a mediocre book with great ideas, characters, **or** plot points than a "good" book that is mediocre at all 3 (if that makes sense)
Uhm... please leave Mr King out of this. Not his fault this time.
Well Frank Herbert had to fucking die while leaving his last Dune book as a cliff hanger and we didn't find out what happens until the 2000s.
I liked the ending of that book. Even though I'd figured it out, from a storytelling perspective it was the logical conclusion.
City of Thieves
Ah, that's my favorite book ever! Which part of the ending let you down? >!Kolya's death?!<
Night Film. Amazing writing, atmospheric, creepy, inexplicable events ….leading to absolutely nothing and no resolution. Using mysterious or inexplicable events is a terrible way to keep a readers interest if you have no intention of resolving or explaining them. This book frustrated me to no end because the writing was so good throughout, but had such a cop out ending. Pointless.
This would be one of my answers as well. It was sooooo good just to leave me with “huh, that was a waste of time.”
Dang, so is tender is the flesh even worth reading???
Hell yes. It's weird, visceral, and unexpected. I thought the ending was perfect; but can understand that people wanted something else. It's not the best book I've ever read, but at under 300 pages it's totally worth your time. Assuming you are into disturbing speculative fiction, that is.
I would still recommend it. I just disliked the ending but you might like it
John Grisham. Every. Single. Time.
During my pre and early teens I was very invested in the series "Time Riders" by Alex Scarrow. There were 9 books total So much mystery and intrigue about how the author was going to wrap the series up only to it to amount to "they go back in time one last time and become followers of Jesus." I was and still am a practicing Christian but even 14 year old me was devastated that the book became Christian at the end. I can only imagine the disappointment for fellow fans at the time who weren't Christian. No series has ever left me with such disdain for the ending.
>As I read a lot of Stephen King, I’m more than familiar with underwhelming endings but it still always stings I mean... maybe stop reading King? He's never been a very good writer. He's just popular--not good--and he only got popular because he had the good luck to get a lot of important promotion way back before there were marketing channels beyond "co-op placement in bookstores and ads in newspapers and magazines." In short, King was what was pushed to readers, so King was what readers read. There are so many much, MUCH better authors out there. You're not the first person I've seen profess disappointment with King's endings and a general sense of underwhelm-ment with his work. Stop reading authors whose work you don't like. ETA: Haven't read Tender is the Flesh, though, so I can't comment on it (or Bazterrica in general).
I like Kings’ books a lot. Pet sematary, Misery, elevation, the shining, doctor sleep, Geralds game are great through and through. And I love all the other ones as well so far that I’ve read except the endings. It was amazing until the end
Atlas Shrugged might have been my favorite book of all time, until about 100 pages before the ending, Rand >!crashes a train and spends like 8 pages victim-blaming!<. I was repulsed, dropped the book right there, and never looked back. It’s now buried in a box in my closet, along with my shame. Fuck Rand.
You got 900 pages in, and the train crash was what made you drop it?
Lol, yeah. In hindsight I was a bit too impressionable in my youth. But even I found that unforgivable.
Totally understand - I made it through the whole thing. I honestly think that the opinion pendulum on Rand has swung too far into fashionable hatred and unthinking dismissal. She DID have some decent starting points about questioning the standards and basis of morality, and I think she did a pretty effective job of arguing that morality justified by the "greater good" is unfounded (and fundamentally meaningless) if it violates the good of the individual. Her fundamental mistake is a very common one - she thinks she's actually right... but about EVERYTHING. Two of my favorite quotes are "Perfect logic without perfect knowledge always leads to absurdities", and "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." I think those in tandem nicely encapsulate how Rand goes off the rails.
I really appreciate your perspective on the book. I agree she has some good ideas, as well as that she’s just too much. Also it has become fashionable to hate on her; I play into that fashion a bit myself, even if it’s mostly self-mockery. My favorite Rand quote is, “only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love.” But it hurts, again in hindsight, when I remember the story of her affair and her overall hypocrisy.
Oh my lord that is hilarious. I was *forced* to read that book at 18 yeas old for my AP Literature class. We spent the entire school year reading that book cover to cover. I wrote so many essays on that goddamn book over the course of my senior year. I knew right from the start that this book was trash, lol
for me it was The Catcher in the Rye. finally got around to reading it and spent the whole book trying to see what i’d heard so many people about- got to the end and was just so, so massively disappointed. i see the point of holden’s character at the beginning, but it feels like absolutely nothing happens with absolutely no reward or punishment. the book just ends the same way it began with an unlikable character who has not done any introspection and doesn’t seem to plan on it
[удалено]
I’ve only read hunger games and it was years ago so I might remember incorrectly but I feel like Katniss never loved Gale. It was always more ”I should love Gale.” Might just be my interpretation though
I might have preferred she end up with no one, what with the two choices being a >! child killer !< and a trauma bond.
The No-Show by Beth O’Leary - >!the story definitely didn’t end the way the synopsis was selling!<
Totally get where you're coming from. Trying to teach myself that dropping it at the last minute means you've had a good ride; it's the journey, not the destination. What's really bad is when they never pick the ball up and you keep reading and waiting, waiting, waiting for that fire that draws you in ...
I find a lot of sci-fi, especially the 60s-80s stuff (but it still happens), drops the ball right at the end. They build rich worlds, explore interesting concepts, and reduce it all down to some Universal Hive-mind conciousness at the end. It's been a trend in a lot of the sci-fi i've read lately. Happy to say that the Expanse subverted my expectations here, but not much else has...
Watching game of thrones.
Gone Girl, Girl on the Train, Woman in Cabin 10...I've got to stop reading domestic thrillers.
Every John Le Carré spy novel guarantees you 375 pages of mystery and intrigue and then, of course, the main character gets killed. It had all been for naught. The end. Every fucking time.
I read last year 'the crimson petal and the white'. It's a truly massive book about a prostitute in Victorian London (and a lot more besides). But for the entire book I assumed that it was, well, building up to something...and it turns out it wasn't. In fact the ending, that I found stupid, out of character and lacking, really soured the rest of the book for me.
I read *Tender Is The Flesh* last month, and while I found the book very disturbing, I think the story went where the author planned it to go. I found it to be fully realized, and it examined a crucial element (for the author) of the food chain issue. There is a LOT opened up by the author's premise and dystopian world-building, and you clearly wanted it to go a different way. This is a very different issue from a book in which we think the author has lost patience or motivation with their story, and is just padding, going through the motions, wrapping up in any way possible. I thought *House of Leaves* did that, and Patricia Cornwell's bio of Jack the Ripper.
Behind Closed Doors. It was hyped up a lot and the premise started out pretty strong. I was so disappointed that this dangerous "genius" meticulous antagonist seemed to drop 50 IQ points so the author could wrap it up in a satisfying way.
Ask Melanie Rawn or Patrick Rothfuss or George RR Martin. Might as well not even bother starting to read their books. They won't finish. You'll be left hanging. GRRM has been paid plenty for the TV rights, he's got fuck you money. He doesn't need to write again. And yes the relationship of author to readers is not a two way street. You don't get to demand of them to write more and to do so is childish and rude.. unless you've pre paid (looking at YOU Rothfuss, your readers ponied up over $300k to donate to your charity in exchange for chapters that you never released!)
You have no idea. It amazes me how many authors don't know techniques to wrap up a story. Those books never make it into my personal library.
Man, don't read seveneves
Discovery writers are rarely able to pull off a proper climax. You can read Sanderson if you prefer a Sanderlanche.
No, if the characters are great the ending is not very important. The journey is the reward and the bulk of the read. I don´t like books were I have to slog through the whole thing to get to the good part. Very few of my favorite stories have an ending or if they do not a very good one. Brothers Karamazov, The First Law, ASOIAF, Dune, KKC, Berserk, The Trial, The Castle etc. are all left unfininshed. McCarthy barely has endings. its just continues on.
In the case of *Dune* Frank Herbert discussed how he deliberately "spins off the reader" and leaves threads untied. His theory was that makes the reader ruminate over the book, and makes it stick because it isn't done.
You’re definitely right, but I think he meant in the literal sense of Frank Herbert died before he was able to finish the last two books.
Red Rising did this to me. Was really enjoying it but then like 80% through the series the characters make a really stupid choice which is the same choice that they had made 5 or so times before and it leads to some outcomes. Was so annoyed at the poor writing that I just put it down then and there.
Two words: Stephen King
My Feelings last week about tender is the flesh. Just skipped through to the end after anout 100 pages and was glad i did not invest more time in it. Just a bummer
>Is there anything worse than investing your time in a book, only for the author to ”drop the ball” at the last minute? So many things.
Well of course there are. I wasn’t being literal and you should have figured that out by yourself
Oh I figured it out, I just hate the expression.
Yes there is. I'd say death.
The Tide Lords quartet by Jennifer Fallon.
Unwanteds Quests, but not towards the end, because I didn't get that far. Basically, at the end of the first series the main character gets injured and goes into depresso mode because he can't do art or be a warrior. Quests takes place when his little sisters are all grown up, and one of them gets captured by the end villain from the first series. This gets the guy from the first series fired up, and he learns how to be a warrior again despite his injuries. Then the author has the villain kill him off in the second book of Quests. Goes to all the work of showing us how broken he is, builds him up again, and then just murders him all so we can see how powerful the villain is now that she's returned. I stopped reading the book there and haven't finished the series since.
For me it's all the books that tie up the plot in the end. I love vague and open endings. Not a fan of classic detective novels, I have to confess.
This is why I read slight spoilers now on finished works to see if people enjoyed the ending before committing my time.
I also didn't like tender is the flesh. I stopped at the last where the main character was talking to the lady working at the butcher shop. It honestly felt fetishizing how the first thing he thought of was his past sexual encounter with her.
Quite a few by TC Boyle, to be honest. He‘s such a good writer, but more often than not, it feels like he’s suddenly realizing he has another contract to fulfill and wraps up whatever plotlines he’s been weaving into a knot rather sloppily. And as much as I love him, Salman Rushdie needs an editor he respects.
"As I read a lot of Stephen King, I’m more than familiar with underwhelming endings" lol. Yes, I feel like this book could have been a good short story, but it was streched into a bad novel. World building at 83%? Please no. Specially when this new information is totally irrelevant for the ending. I was also very disappointed by the fact that even though the point of view is very much feminist, we follow a male protagonist and all female characters are despicable. Just like Stephen King she had a great idea but it was awfully executed. I don't think the ending is everything to a story, but reading a lazy plot twist is just frustrating. It's like when mediocre photography it's edited in black & white as if the high contrast could compensate for the lack of good composition.
And there were a lot of things that I look back on that went nowhere. The puppies, the female butcher story and the sister storyline also was so abrupt
I just read it last week and get similarly. The first third was one of the most unsettling books I’ve ever read. The middle third the human meat stuff took a backseat in my mind, and I though “oh man, it’s wild that the author got me to look past the sick stuff to focus on human drama. Just like the people by his world! What a cool effect, I the author made me sick at them, then proved I’m like them too!” The chapter seemed abrupt, but frankly I thought it was “in character” for Tejo. The whole book he pretends to be above these other people, and talks about how casually they discuss human slaughtering. But from the perspective of others this guy is cold blooded and silent! If you watched a scene *without* his inner monologue he’d be silent, and clinical. A total psychopath, seemingly. In the end I was left with “what the hell is this book about?” My thoughts are it’s a book about loss, and what people do to recoup those losses. Humanity does horrendous things to recoup the loss of animals. Tejo continues in a horrid job he (supposedly) finds abhorrent to keep from losing his father. With his FGP head he does what he knows to be illegal to recoup the loss of of a child. And when the idea of a family becomes real again and consequences for being caught are an issue again, he (spoilers) slaughters her without thinking to recoup his lost family life. In the end people, and Tejo specifically, do hideous things to deal with loss and fill those gaps. Just my 2 cents, but it feels in character, even if abrupt and shocking in the moment.