Do you ever feel cheated by an ending?

Have you ever read a book that has let you down with the ending?

This has happened to me a few times.

One book by a great Author finished with an open ending, where it didn’t really finish. Nothing was achieved by me spending several days reading it. Nobody won and the baddies weren’t stopped. The sad thing is that it was a brilliant book that had me excited to reach the end.

Another Author who did this to me was the Horror writer Shaun Hutson. It was many years ago and I can’t remember which of his books it was (I loved his books in my 20s and devoured everything he did!) It had what I like to refer to as the “Called in for your tea” ending. It was almost like he had been called down for dinner and had called out “Give me a minute I just have to finish the book.”

Obviously not true but that is what it reminded me of. It was rushed and finished abruptly.

Sometimes TV lets you down with the ending too. I remember a series called Sea Of Souls, where identical twins who were separated at birth meet again. One is married with a son the other is single. The single one sets out to steal the other ones life. She succeeds! It ended with her murdering her sister, stealing her husband and son and getting away with it. You work out that the husband knows, but has decided the newer model is better but the confusing thing is that the child doesn’t realise that the imposter isn’t his mother.

This is unrealistic, the child would have known.

This episode left me wound up for days, I was so annoyed by it. It is years since I saw it but I still think of it sometimes. Maybe the author wanted to leave a mark on people’s brains; he/she certainly did on mine.

Open ends are becoming increasingly popular nowadays, I see it a lot in short stories.

Call me old fashioned but I love a great ending, if it is going to be left open I want some more to come.