Is it because the main body of the book is based on the author's "big idea", and endings are just an afterthought? I guess nobody gets a brilliant idea about a conclusion and then decides to write a book leading up to it.
But it's starting to frustrate me of late. Whether it's high fiction, lowbrow, teen reading (have to plough through lots for teachers' college), it's getting to be a real problem. Perhaps I should just put books down when my marginal utility starts to decrease, and not bother with most endings?

I recently read a Ben Elton book, Dead Famous, and found myself really enjoying it. I read it in super-quick time and all, but the ending was such a let-down of humungous proportions that I found myself questioning just why this is happening to me so often.

Thoughts, people?
It's probably a problem in movies too, but relatively few movies leave me so deeply unsatisfied with their conclusions.

personally, i feel like most authors grow lazy and usually bored writing it so they go quick and try to finish it fast so they can start something else.

I'm sure it's something like that, but it's still such a letdown. Take your time people! When I get off my arse and write something, I'm making damn sure that the ending is not horribly rushed.

the same thing happened to me when I read The Alienist. I avoid any detective/murder stories because most of them are so formulaic and this one is no exception. It had the tired "we find the killer he ties us up and just when he's going to kill us someone comes in and shoots him" type of ending. It was a letdown because the book is so cool.

i think sometimes authors write themselves into a corner and can't get out, therefore relying on sort of 'hand of god' mechanisms to save themselves.

there's also change/change back models where an author who is writing something that could be considered oppositional has to change his or her ending in order to make a story acceptable when selling it back to an audience perceived as more conservative. witi ihimaera and tennessee williams are good examples of this. this also often happens when novels are turned into films... for example adaptations of once were warriors, the sun also rises and cat on a hot tin roof.

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i've not read many books with bad endings

I don't know.
When I feel that an ending is "bad" it's usually because I loved the book so much that I didn't want it to end and when it does I feel let down.

Also, in my experience, endings are the most difficult part to write. Maybe that's why some of them suck.

a horrible ending can ruin an otherwise amazing book. thats why its such a piss off.

at the same time, a great ending can somewhat redeem a mediocre book.

Yeah i usually feel really disapointed when i get to the end of most books. Especially when they've been so exciting in earlier sections.
But i'm having the same problem myself because i'm trying to write my memoirs from the year i was 18...there's a lot of really exciting stuff...but i have no idea how to end it!! I mean the real ending is - she grows up and becomes a bore, but i cant write that!! Maybe i'll just kill her off.

i found alot of douglas coupland's books are like this, great story but the end it just sorta fizzles and leaves me a bit unsatisfied with it all

Hm. I read this a year or so ago & I don't seem to remember it having a disappointing ending. It was a good book, but I think I found it quite.. loose. Far from the best I've read.

I found this with Microserfs.

Very unsatisfying ending.

Valley Of The Dolls ending was just car crash depressing. I love love loved that book, but just the ending, grrr...still makes me cringe with meloncohly. I suck, I know, Im sorry..

microserfs fizzled out, but when he tried to do something with an ending like in girlfriend in a coma it came across as retarded. they have to go to the exact same place before everyone started dying. oh yeah?. ruined a book i'd enjoyed


oh and

I read my sister's keeper by jodi picoult and that had to be one of the worst ending i've ever seen! it seriously was like she went .. okay i've written 400 pages, i can stop here ... and made up this randomly stupid out of the blue ending! it pissed me off!
i'm scared to read any more of her books in case the same thing happens again.

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i think there may be something on my head.

Lord of the Flies anyone? Excellent book and the end just KILLED it.

well, whats your definition of a "bad" ending?

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when that bitch breathes, the air comes out crooked.

An ending you feel detracts from your enjoyment of the book? I haven't defined it, as it's obviously very subjective, but I put the question out there because I hear the same thing from lots of people, and was wondering if other people who might have had similar feelings would come up with any ideas as to why. Do you have any? Why might a book, even if you don't consider that "so many" have bad endings, have a bad ending?

agreed

nice avatar btw

I was wondering this same thing. I just finished watching Six Feet Under, and I felt incredibly satisfied with the ending, because it left a lot open and hopeful, but it also really told you everything you needed to know about the characters' outcomes.

In a way this show bugged me because it was so macabre and life-like, in that it refused to engage the traditional narrative of happily-ever-after. I think that when those narratives are disrupted (especially in a self-conscious manner), which they are in a lot of contemporary fiction, we feel unsatisfied. Now, some of it may just be bad writing, but some of it is really that conscious effort to disrupt and question our desire to fall back on the comfortable plot arc which includes a denouement.

I make the comparison with TV, because I feel like a lot of TV (and movies too) is compelled to follow the happily-ever-after path because of advertizing dollars, while fiction is more likely to be prized for it's cutting edge and ability to bring to light things which we consider ugly and repressed. So it seems only natural that fiction would forgo the denouement and traditional ending. It usually leaves me with a really unsettled pit in my stomach, and then I know it's doing it's job.