Disappointing Book

[DrFaroohk]

I just read a book with a wildly disappointing ending - I won't give name or author because I dont want to spoil it, but basically the protagonist's lover wound up screwing him over at the very end.

I would have no problem with this, if it was done properly...but the author apparently didn't understand "point of view". Several sections of the book were from the POV of the lover, and she was constantly thinking about how much she loved him and was loyal to him and stuff. If the betrayal was part of the scheme, her thoughts wouldn't be "Oh I can't wait to get back and see Jim. He's such a wonderful man and I love him." Her internal thoughts would be more like "I'm getting so sick of Jim. He's annoying, and I hate him, and I can't wait to fuck him over."

It just doesn't work, and if not for this one minor transgression the book would've been good, but you juust can't do that crap!

[Ginger Tea]

It could have been a last minute change to the ending, which would require too much of a rewrite and as you say alot of it was from the 'villains' perspective, it might not make it a shocker of an ending

[Boozy]

There are a few wildly popular authors who appear to do this.

I've read several Jeffery Deaver and Dean Koontz novels over the years, and these guys are hacks. They both share their characters' inner dialogues with the reader, only to have that information tossed aside at the end in order to provide a "twist" ending.

It's not a "twist" if it makes no bloody sense. It's just a shitty ending.

[telecom_goddess]

The shittiest ending I ever saw in a book was by Ira Levin. He wrote Rosemary's Baby which is a classic and great book. He also wrote a sequel called Son of Rosemary that has the worst ending ever and made me so mad i almost threw the book out the window.

[Ginger Tea]

I refuse to read any King books as I've seen way too many bad ending TV movies of his work, 'The Stand' aired not to long after the UK started the national lottery, so the 'hand of god' ending just had me going "it's yoooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!" in the style of the adverts
IT's pennywise the clown = shit scary
IT's the big whatever it was = meh

the only good King adaptations that had good endings were the ones I didn't know were King stories to begin with like the green mile.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I read somewhere that IT ended up being a female and laying eggs, is this true? O_o I hate clowns, so I've avoided reading that book for that very reason.

[Lachrymose]

I refuse to read any King books as I've seen way too many bad ending TV movies of his work

Well, there's the problem.

Since all you've seen are the movies, I'd be willing to wager you'd be pleasantly surprised by most of the books.

No comparison at all, in general.

[DrFaroohk]

I've read a few king books...never really got into them. I like the movies simply because its a faster way of getting the story into my head.

I've only ever read one deaver book, the blue nowhere, and my only real problem with that is I don't think he did as much computer research as he could have. It's 2002 and people are still using dialup and C:\. That's...not right, is it?

Love dean koontz, except for how wordy he gets. I have a habit of skipping over large sections of his books because I don't want to read the fifteen page description of what his bedspread looks like.

Except Koontz is tricky and will slip things in there to fool you. "...and I walked into the bedroom and saw that it was blah blah blah blah blah blah clothes on the floor blah blah blah blah blah blue carpeting blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah OMG SOMEONE SCREAMED blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....."

And yeah...IT was like this giant spider that laid eggs and stuff. The clown always scared me. Unbelievably. I heard they were remaking the movie soonish. Wonder who'd be in it...

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

After seeing the Musical "Wicked", I was pretty keen on reading the original book.

Rather wish I hadn't since it really seemed like the author got tired of writing the story and said "Fuck this! Rocks fall, everyone dies!"

Then he wrote a sequel. Was good for a while then the same thing. "Fuck it! Rocks fall, everyone dies!"

Another series I red was the Inkheart series that was the basis for the film. At least for that one, I understood why the third book was so grim. The author's husband died between the second and third book. But due to contracts and the people who enforce them with no consideration for the fact that real life buts in once in a while, she was forced to finish the third book before she had managed to get herself back together after her loss.

The third book reflected that.

[Eisa]

I've only ever read one deaver book, the blue nowhere, and my only real problem with that is I don't think he did as much computer research as he could have. It's 2002 and people are still using dialup and C:\. That's...not right, is it?

We still had dial-up at home until last year. It's not that farfetched. The only reason we switched is because I very sneakily got my dad to go to the coffee place that has wireless and he couldn't take using THAT speed and going back to dial-up. LOL He was researching high-speed Internet at the coffee place.

I have no idea what book it was, but I remember reading some kind of romance book...where the main character had all this intriguing drama and stuff with a guy who was actually a bit of a douche but you know...total stereotype she'd get with him, right? Wrong, she went with the boring, nice guy. And while on the one hand, it was like YAY for not going for the douchebag, it made no sense. Both in the book and in the romance genre in general.

[Ginger Tea]

Nostalgia Critics review of IT

It's (no pun intended) been a while since I've watched IT so I forgot alot of the stupidity of the movie. again never read the book, so I can't compare how he wrote it to how it came on screen
did the book do the flashbacks or was it presented chronologically? TBH it would probably work better chronologically, but then you would have part one the young versions and part two the adults and the fail of an ending.

OT but similar vein, "Peter Benchley's Shark" afaik that is the title of the tv movie two parter, he wrote Jaws apparantley and disliked how his book and the movie demonised the great white so he wrote a story to address it, least thats what I read
What the movie was wasn't that
It ended part one nicely (in a way) a fade to black/titles with an underwarter-esque hatch beeing pounded, sadly part two royally f'd the story up although some parts could have been re-edited into part one, dropping some of the dross and it could have been a better story ending with the dull thuds in the darkness and leave it at that, no closure, no resolution. sometimes things suck when someone wins (broken arrow I'm looking at you, if I was Travolta I would have blown the train moments after my helecopter was destroyed)

blair witch 2 book of shadows
remove all blair witch (or atleast is real) elements from the movie and call it "spooky shit happens in the woods" and it would be way better, same as linkara's silent hill dead/alive review "call it spooky town usa, it has nothing to do with SH, but even without the references what little there are, it's still a terrible story" (paraphrased)

[Eisa]

He does the flashbacks. It starts with like what happened to Georgie, than what happened in 1980-whatever with a gay guy the clown...er...yeah. And then it starts flashbacking between each individual person and what they do when they find out that It's back [when Mike calls them], and going into a particular event of that summer that was important...it's actually pretty cool. And there are some interludes about what Mike found out about Derry and how many times It has eaten people before. And then when it gets to where they're all together, it stays on them as adults for a while, but still goes back and forth as they kind of...mirror what happened. I actually really like it, I don't think it would work well if presented chronologically.

Also... Hi you Silver AWAAAAAAAAYYYY!

[Boozy]

On the subject of disappointing books, my brother always gets me books relating philosophy to things like South Park or Zelda.

I know what you mean! I've received many books along those lines as gifts.

Those books are made because gift-givers like your brother are out there. He knows a little bit about your tastes, but not enough to really understand what you like about those things. He's not able to extrapolate and say something like, "Hmm, he enjoys South Park. I'll find him a book that contains a lot of social satire."