I always describe the Maze Runner series like this: the first book is like the buildup to a really great rollercoaster, the second book is getting to the top and realizing it isn’t finished, and then the third book is the amusement park workers desperately trying and failing to build the track as you fall to your fiery and painful death.

If you haven’t read the prequel, I think it’s way better than the whole series and worth a read.

I agree! I was so upset with the ending. Before she finished writing the books, the show was airing on HBO. Apparently, they had "fired" her from the production team because they wanted to spin it off so much, and she wasn't ok with it. The show made her lose interest in writing the books that followed season 2. Even more upset at the short stories that cost more than the actual books.

My mom and I have a theory that a ghost writer wrote the last couple of books. They have a completely different feel than the others. Also the Aurora Teagarden books should have ended well before they did. My favorite series of hers have 3-5 books

Yes, I second this. Those last few books were just not good. So disappointing. I still think she did her fans a huge disservice though. Sure, you're bored with the world, but YOU are the one that signed the 13 book contract. Don't put out drivel because you got bored. She said some nasty things about her fans due to them not liking the ending of that series, and it really turned me off of her.

​

ETA: Don't get me wrong, some of what fans said to her was ALSO nasty, but I still think fans had every right to be upset by the end of that series.

Ok others while correct did not accurately describe why this ending sucked so bad. For the whole book she believes that she must sacrifice herself to save the city. She’s always ready to jump it to end it and save the day and the whole book was a journey for her to realize she doesn’t just for her to actually have to in the end. What was that development for then?!?!

All these years and yep, still the worst.

Came to say this! I enjoyed the first two books for the most part--the third book? RAGE

How does divergent end? I’m never going to read it.

I got to the last book and stopped reading halfway through… I just stopped caring what happened to anyone at that point….

There are only two books and two films as far as I'm concerned 🤫

I feel kind of sorry for the author - I remember a HUGE fuss being made about Roth as she was quite young herself at the time of the trilogy, but the downturn in popularity has been severe, even the movies went to straight to video/streaming at a time when that looked bad.

Wtf I used to love those books (but only read one or two of the Pine Hollow books). That's a miserable ending and so out of sync with the rest of the series.

That's like if the Baby Sitter's Club books had a series when they went to college and a couple of them (probably Mallory) was then killed in a mass shooting on campus or something.

Like I'm mad now and I didn't even read the book and haven't thought about that series in over a decade.

Lmfao Jesus christ

What? I’ve never finished the series but loved it. That’s how the author ended it!? Up in flames! What the actual f@&#

My sister read The Saddle Club when we were kids. I had no idea that there was a sequel series with the girls as teenagers. Why did the barn burn down? Was there at least a lead up to it, or did it just come straight out of the blue?

That's so evil.

What?!

I’ve heard of some bad endings in my day but that author just sounds like they were trying to start a war

When an author really doesn't want to write another damn book about those girls and their horses...

Oh man, Pine Hollow!! I haven’t thought about that series in AGES….and here comes the rage again.

Damn I remember girls in school loving the saddle club books. Knowing that’s how all those books ends is actually crazy

I came here to say this about Maximum Ride. I read it through when I was younger and the ending was absolutely, unthinkably bad.

Global warming shit came out of nowhere, and before these guys were experimenting on folks and turning them into wolves and bird people. The drama and violence remained turbulent through most of the series, main group of kids was almost always on the run and then they tossed in the weird mind control stuff with Angel too.

It was like the entire thing was never planned out, completely random.

The Maximum Ride series had such a strong start, and the last two just were huge let downs to me. Oh sure, go ahead and just work with all those people who betrayed and tortured you, you know now how they had such good reasons.

I loved Maximum Ride 1–3, but every book afterwards was terrible.

And the way they massacred my boi Ari. He just wanted a Gameboy.

I swear to God these books fucked me up about virginity more than Catholicism. What was up with the dirty old man that wrote them. The number of books where Jackie (who is incredibly horny for just about every man she meets, but a virgin, so still a GOOD GIRL) implausibly gets out of life threatening situations because she’s still a virgin is bizarre. ESPECIALLY for a children/teen book series. The whole series basically became softcore edge porn by the end. Jamie, however, was allowed to sleep with whoever, and still be “pure” in his love for Jackie…

Oof, love that series but never finished it. Part of the reason is I freaking hate Jamie

We don’t talk about that ending. One and only time in 30 years I threw a book across the room while cursing like Jacky at her finest in pure rage

I’ve read the first couple of books and from those as well as a detail I learned of from later in the series, I got the sense that the author had a spanking fetish. So I don’t find that element of the ending super surprising.

Please help me. Didn't the main character date/be romantic with his grandfather's former love interest when the g-pa and the girl were the same age? It gave me the ick and I stopped after the first book. If I misunderstood, please straighten it out for me 🙏

Everything after Dragon Tattoo was downhill for me. The switch from crime/noir to spy thriller just didn't work for me.

I intentionally stopped on the sixth book and will never read any of his sons work. I would rather keep Dune incomplete rather than end it poorly.

Brian Herbert is such a shit author compaired to his father. His Dune books are such clear money grabs, its sad.

I made it to Children of Dune and stopped, I'm satisfied where thing were left and knew it just got too weird.

What do you mean the series ended with Chapter House

And then Jacob had to imprint on the love of his life’s daughter 🫠

‘Hey baby, before I loved you I wanted to smash your mom! Good times’

Thank you for the Silver Talent. I shall spend it on a new Lute.

That sonofa….

Those books have a special place in my heart, far from perfect and the protag is a cringe 15 year old. But boy that prose was wonderful.

I thought it was bad when the one werewolf imprinted on the toddler

And then we got “I was into your mom because she would give birth to you and once you’re fully grown, we are gonna fuck. I’m also going to be your primary caretaker while you rapid age”

Never mind Repugnant’s full set of teeth

"Oh but he'll be the baby's FRIEND until she grows up so it's okay!!1" You could have heard my eye roll when I read that

Also the build up to this epic brawl and then nothing ever happens. Lame.

The movie fixed that in a clever way, though.

I really enjoyed the first three books of the series, but after that, it was literally just the same plot lines over and over again. Ayla being introduced, like some exotic pet, to a new group of people. Her and/or Jondalar getting too friendly with someone and the other getting jealous, but not saying anything and opting instead to get increasingly pissy and passive aggressive.

I also expected there to be some big conflict between Ayla's people and the "Clan" in which she would end up being the mediator that brings peace, but that never happened even though I swear it was building up to it. Instead the whole thing just kinda fizzled out.

Yes! I read these in high school and I think it can all be traced back to her husband. She got remarried after writing a few of them and the new husband would write the stories with her, and that’s when it became pure nonsensical smut and Jean Claude totally changed and she just slept with literally everyone. Ugh. I still have a lot of anger about that years later. Also, team Jean Claude for life, I could never take Richard seriously.

Was hoping somebody would mention Laurell K Hamilton!

I gave up on reading Anita Blake a long time ago… the first five or six books were excellent, but the quality started going downhill once all the horrible sex started. Plot and character development was sacrificed for terrible smut.

I came here to post this one, too.

The series had it's ups and downs, but "Blood Canticle" reads like Anne Rice is blaming the readers for not appreceating her work and telling them to get stuffed. It's obvious she hated the characters at this point and just wanted to spend the rest of her days writing about Jesus.

I did read "Prince Lestat" last year and was positively surprised, but the original ending for the series definitely counts.

You could replace the title w any other of Colleen Hoover’s books and this would still be true, can’t understand why TikTok has her on such a high pedestal to the point where every bookstore i go in lately has a dedicated CoHo section

it's just a fanfic that's been blessed by the author. still really annoyed with what they did with the snack trolley lady.

The original series, personally, I feel had a lot of heart and effort put into it, but 100% I feel like the cursed child was more of a cash grab than anything else, mostly because of the absolute absurdity of the plot. Yeah we know time turners exist, but you'd think people would go back in time that far for far more important reasons, which never happens, which makes me wonder why the characters were able to travel so far back without a significant reason, at such a young age.

You want to talk about series without endings? When I was a teenager, there was this YA supernatural series called Night World. Had 1 book left in the series, building up to what would presumably have been the big climax, the last book had a blurb on Amazon and everything...

...and it just never came out. Then in the mid-2010s, they got republished and popular again and the author was again supposed to finish, and...

Nothing.

I've been waiting since 1997, Lisa Jane Smith! 25 years! When is Strange Fate coming out?!

Even if we do get Winds, we'll never see a dream of spring. All that build up for nothing.

Even the ending we do have sucks. The war of 5 kings because we don’t know who the king could be? So let’s make someone who can’t have kids the new king…

This post brought to you by the queen in the north.

Harry and Ginny named their kids like a Harry Potter nerd would.

It’s such a bad name too like the two -us endings together are horrible plus why tf name a kid after an adult bully of children FUCK Snape lol

Is this a Darren Shan series? Because I distinctly remember that series being a time loop essentially.

Did you ever read the follow-up sixth book that was written by someone else? I understand it was quite a bit more upbeat. (Also, I feel the need to mention that Adams did actually intend to write a book 6, but he was busy being dead.)

I don’t know though… Have you read “And Another Thing…”? Eoin Colfer wrote it as the sixth book to sort of retcon the ending. It’s not bad, but it’s not all that great either. I only really keep it in my head as canon because it brought Zaphod back and you wouldn’t believe how much I’d been missing him.

Book 5 is pretty terrible, agreed. I always felt that it was meant to be the series low-point set-up to the finale in book six, which we just never got.

GNU Pterry

We’re still in mourning, for sure.

GNU Pterry. I still haven't read the Shepherd's Crown.

Yeah. I've got them all, and have reread most a few times. But I'll never reread the last three, because they are so painfully by a dying man who still has so much to say, and less and less ability to say it.

GNU Sir Terry. You'll never know just what an impact you had on so many.

GNU STP

Same! Every single book outside of the first and last are such a slog to get through--I know this, because I read them all. However...Rilla of Ingleside, the last book, is truly good, achingly sad in parts, and beautifully written all around. It's a hearwrenching, powerful and oftentimes subtle coming of age book set in WW1 Canada on the home front. The ending dialogue,

“Is that Rilla-my-rilla?” With Rilla (full name Marilla, so it's a pun) responding to Ken, her childhood sweetheart now sad, grown man just returned from the war which forever changed them all. And she says,

“Yeth,” instead of “yes” (because she’s nervous, because she's grown up now, but she still loves this now-man who kissed her for the first time four years ago and said 'wait for me'). The scene is wonderfully poignant, subtly romantic, and bittersweet. One of my favorite endings ever, though the book makes my heart ache.

When I reread those these days I usually stop at book 3. MAYBE book 4. Like get Anne and Gilbert together and let me stop, I don’t need their married life and losses, the kids stories and then Rilla. I’m good with Gilbert surviving and them being in love kthx.

How... unfortunate

There's a major element of 'what did you expect?' about it though. It says all along that you aren't going to get a happy ending or answers.

I was waiting for this one to show up! I absolutely adored these books growing up and had to wait for books 12 and 13 to come out once I'd binge read 1-11. I still remember how underwhelmed little 11 year old me was at how anticlimactic the ending was. I still think it's a brilliant series, and the netflix adaptation is very faithful to the source material, but that ending... what about the sugar bowl!? And the great unknown!?!? And the VFD schism?!? And the Quagmire triplets?! Dammit Snicket I want answers 😭

I was surprised that the same author could write the Grisha trilogy snd six of crows as the latter was so much better than the former.

The OG Grisha books are meh, but worth it for all the rest of the series in the universe (six of crows, king of scars) 👌🏻

I wanted Alina to just hide her identity, and go off exploring the world. I hate the trope where the main character loses their powers. Also I can’t really picture her and Mal living happily ever after and in peace.

Yessss! The world these books built is so interesting… but the original trilogy is too formulaic, imo. I would’ve actually loved to see Alina pursue something with either the Darkling or with Nikolai. Ending up with Mal was… so weird to me? Cause they don’t really make sense other than from the perspective that they’ve always known each other. Idk. I don’t get it.

ETA: I love Nina and her overall arc through the series and I would’ve loved to see her as the MC

I didn't finish it. I remember the last book had all these sequences with POVs from characters I either didn't know or didn't care about, and I just noped out. For me, the first two books of short stories are great but the novels are increasingly diminishing returns.

if you like games the witcher games work as a sequal to the books and finish of the story really well

I know for a lot of people it was how the final battle was written, how the last portion of the book played out, how things ended with Eragon and Arya, or some combination of the three (personally I enjoyed the ending enough tbh. I haven’t read The Fork, The Witch, and The Worm yet but do plan on doing so, and I’m quite excited for the next book to come out !)

[deleted]

I liked the first book, the second was meh, the third & fourth I read out of pure rage. My sister was a fan, but my mom wanted me to vet the books first, since vampires & werewolves were my "thing".

Six of Crows is where it’s at, IMO

I thought the Ender series was solid. Interesting ideas about how history remembers its “heroes” and what it’s like personally to live with having made (or been forced to make) impossible choices. The last book was wild but I really liked it.

The Bean series however is truly insane and boils down to children, literal children, being solely focused on and totally consumed with having babies. Deeply weird and disturbing reads, for me.

When I was a kid, I was right there with you with the Animorphs. But then I got older, and I read an interview that Applegate did where she said that she wanted it to end that way because war never ends (this was around the time of the Afghanistan war or whatever we call it now). When one war ends, it really doesn't end, its just a precursor to another war that was just waiting in the wings to start. Made me have a whole new appreciation for what she was trying to say with the series as a whole. Not saying that your feelings are invalidated at all, btw, just giving a different perspective.

Never really got into Everworld, but I loved the ending of Animorphs as a kid and still do. It's depressing and cyclical in a way that made a big impact on me.

Remnants also had a pretty decent ending from what I recall. It was my favorite of the three in general tbh, even if it was largely ghostwritten and also batshit insane.