Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all had a great week since I last did one of these, mine has been pretty quiet really, but I’m heading back up to Scotland on Thursday to take my driving test on Friday, so wish me luck guys! By this time next week I could finally be a licensed driver! Anyway, the lovely ladies over at The Broke and The Bookish are actually going on hiatus for a month, but I couldn’t leave you guys for a month without new lists, so I’ve combed through the archives and come up with a month’s worth of posts for you all! This week I’m going with Top Ten Book Endings That Left Me With My Mouth Hanging Open. I promise not to actually spoil the endings of any of these books, and if you have read the books, please no spoilers for the actual details of the endings in the comments. So here we go, books whose endings had me with my mouth hanging open:
- My Sister’s Keeper-Jodi Picoult
Not the stupid movie ending! The movie’s ending is totally wrong, so if you’ve seen the movie, that’s not the ending I’m talking about. The book’s ending was heartbreaking and made me angry but it was also the perfect way to end the story. And I never saw it coming.
2. Dangerous Girls-Abigail Haas
This is the book that ruined all other YA thrillers for me because this ending was so twisted and dark and perfect and two years after reading it, my mind is still completely blown and I still have no idea how I never saw that ending coming.
3. A Gathering of Shadows-VE Schwab
I nearly threw the book across the room when I finished this one! It was a very long wait between reading this and ACOL for me and I read AGOS in August 2016, so I have no idea how those who read it when it first came out managed.
4. Mark of Athena-Rick Riordan
I still have not forgiven Rick Riordan for this particular cliffhanger! I swear, the wait between this and House of Hades was the longest year of my life.
5. The Hunger Games-Suzanne Collins
I literally just wanted to grab the next book as soon as I had finished this one because I couldn’t wait to see what happened next.
6. Heir of Fire-Sarah J Maas
I was totally speechless when I finished this one. I was on the bus and it was so hard to stop myself from crying in public.
7. Allegiant-Veronica Roth
Okay, so this ending wasn’t actually a surprise because I had been spoiled for it before reading, but it was still a gut punch actually reading it. Contrary to popular opinion, I actually think it was the perfect ending for this book.
8. Empire of Storms-Sarah J Maas
This ending was a total gut punch, perhaps even worse than Heir of Fire. It was just so heartbreaking and painful and why do we now have to wait until 2018 to find out how everything ends???!!!
9. 13 Minutes-Sarah Pinborough
This book is so twisted all the way through, but the ending is especially so. I totally wasn’t expecting it, but it brought the book full circle and made everything fit so perfectly.
10. A Court of Mist and Fury-Sarah J Maas
Yes I know I have two other SJM books on here already, but all of these endings left me totally shocked. I had been warned by a friend that the ending to this book was crazy, but it still blew me away when I finally read it.
11. Traitor To The Throne-Alwyn Hamilton
Whilst the pace in the middle may have lagged, the last ten chapters or so before the conclusion went at breakneck speed, and built up to a conclusion that I totally did not see coming!
12. Noughts and Crosses-Malorie Blackman
I am still not over the ending to this book. It’s been around 8 years since I first read it. So yeah, that ending had an impact. I know why it had to end the way it did, but it still ripped my heart out and stomped on it.
13. Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix-JK Rowling
I know, I know, why would I choose this one over HP 6 or 7, both of which also have pretty shocking endings but I really didn’t see the character death that happened in this one coming and it left me totally devastated, which is why I chose this one over the other two.
14. The Faceless Ones-Derek Landy
Derek Landy really upped the stakes with the ending of the third Skulduggery Pleasant book, it was such a cliffhanger, and waiting for the fourth book was absolute torture.
15. Dark Days-Derek Landy
The fourth Skulduggery Pleasant book is my favourite of the series and a large part of that was the ending, I did not see it coming at all!
I think I’ll leave it there, before I go completely overboard! What are your favourite books with shock endings? Have you read any of these? Also Happy 4th July to my American readers, if you’re in America, what have you been doing to celebrate? Let me know in the comments!
We will continue my improvised TTT topics next week (as the girls are on hiatus until mid-August), where I will be talking about Books I Wish I Could Read Again For The First Time. In the meantime, I will have a review of The Bone Season and my latest #RockMyTBR update up soon.
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I’ve read the first two books in Veronica Roth’s Divergent series, but I DNFed the last book. Was it really that good? The narrator for Tobia’s chapters made me cringe. I ended up leaving it alone
Oh it wasn’t good at all, literally the only good thing about it was the ending!
Oh my. I’ve literally only read Harry Potter of your list so now I’m having a case of “Reading a blogpost and ending up with my mouth hanging open”, haha!
Ha ha! Hope you get to some of them soon 🙂
OMG noughts and crosses is so good. The ending left me heart broken. Great list
Yes it is! Me too. Thanks 🙂
I hear you with AGOS and HP….
Some endings that had my mouth hanging open: All the Bright Places and Everything Everything
Yes, those were shockers. I haven’t read either of those!
oooh this is a really cool TTT topic! I was SHOCKED when I read the ending of Allegiant, but I hated the way it ended at first. Now I feel sort of lukewarm about it– I see how it makes sense, but I still feel like the trilogy could have concluded in a more effective way.
Thanks! Yes it definitely had the shock value. I don’t know, I really can’t think of another way she could have ended it that made as much sense as the ending she chose.
I was exactly the same with The Order of the Phoenix and The Hunger Games. I couldn’t believe. To this day I hate J.K Rowling.
I know right! I wouldn’t go quite that far, but I was definitely shocked!
Love this prompt!
A Gathering of Shadows was my favorite from the entire trilogy, so I’m glad it made it to this list. (Yes, that horrible cliffhanger though.) HP and the Order of Phoenix was so cruel. T__T Luckily, I read the HP series after all the books were out so essentially there was no wait before I could pick up the 6th book. I haven’t started the Divergent series but I’ve been spoiled for Allegiant, sadly, so I know what you mean by how shocked you were. XD
Oh and good luck with your driving test! 🙂
Thanks! Yes that was a brilliant book, but the cliffhanger was awful! Ugh yes, I know. I think the sixth book was already out when I read the series as well (although I’m not sure if the seventh was). Ugh, yes, it’s so annoying that people do that. Thank you!
Heir of Fire!! The ending MADE that book for me! So hard not to cry. This is a great list!
It did for me too! Oh I know. Thanks 🙂
SJM definitely knows how to end a book. It’s always so hard to wait for the next release.
I’m intrigued by My Sister’s Keeper. I’ve never read anything by Jodi Picoult but I think I’m going to start with this one.
Yes she definitely does! Oh you should, My Sister’s Keeper is amazing 🙂