Most Depressing Book Ending.

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06ict381

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Aug 7, 2010
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A lot of really sad endings out there in some great books; 1984, Of Mice And Men, Animal Farm, His Dark Materials. (Darren Shan just pissed me off, it should be illegal to have that type of ending).
Doesn't leave me with much room to add many new titles so I'm going to go with one of my favourite series; The Ender's Game Series, specifically the Shadow Series afterwards.
They're great books for anyone who hasn't read them before and I highly recommend them, but most of them (not all, keep you hoping for a happy ending) seem to end in a "Yeah, we did what we needed to do but it's still a bit shit!" kind of way.
 

PayneTrayne

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Dec 17, 2009
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I found the ending to "The Moves Makes the Man" incredibly depressing.

The book is about Bix and Jerome. Bix is white, Jerome is black and it's set during segregation. They get together by playing sports and Jerome learns that Bix has some serious issues about lying and his mother who has shock therapy in an asylum. On their way to the shock therapy, the only person Bix loved beside his mother is racist and hates him for hanging with Jerome. When they meet Bix's mother, she doesn't recognize him. He pulls the biggest fake out and walks out the door right before she starts to scream his name and go into a frenzy.
 

Teh Ty

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Sep 10, 2008
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L: Change the world Horribly sad ending, and one of the better endings to a book I've read.
In the end, after L has saved the little girl and had never used to death note except for himself. After saving the day, L is back home and the girl is happy. She gets a baseball signed by the people of the the baseball team she told L about.
She says thanks to L.
It then goes to L, where he is playing chess with himself. He reflects a vision of watari to play chess with, and talks about him.
L is eating a chocolate bar, given to him by Mello, and has Lights broken watch.
L talks about how Light and he will wander the nothing together. L asks if watari is proud of him, and watari says yes, then announces the time, in which L dies.
 

Godhead

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May 25, 2009
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For a non book, School Days by far. It's just that fucked up.

But a book? I'm not able to remember the names but the short story about the two children, and the play house thing. (Can't find it through google, but I shall be searching when I wake up in the morning.)


Edit: Here's the link to the story, it's called The Veldt. http://www.veddma.com/veddma/Veldt.htm (Thanks a lot to Andifferous.)
 

FurinKazanNZ

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Dec 30, 2009
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The second book in the Soldiers Son series by Robin Hobb, don't remember the name.
The main character is (wrongly) accused of necrophilia and murder, and a mob comes to kill him, but his few friends know he is innocent. He is forced to use magic to make his friends and the mob believe the mob kills him, then goes and lives in a forest
 

_Cake_

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Apr 5, 2009
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The beginning middle and end of The Road where all depressing. There was no high point.
 

Ninjat_126

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Nov 19, 2010
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Oh yes, Flowers for Algernon. That was sad.

The worst part is that it was his mind that was failing, not his body. So he was unable to identify with his former self or his friends, and was almost a completely new person. But the worst part was that he initially knew what was going on at the start of the deterioration, only to gradually lose his intelligence and memory. He may have just gradually forgotten everything he did when he was intelligent.

If it was him gradually becoming paralyzed or something at the end, it would be sad. As it is, it's completely crushing.
 

Dfskelleton

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Apr 6, 2010
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I'm just going to throw this out there, and have probably been ninja'd.
Where the Red Fern Grows.
I had to read it for school, and all the girls (and a few of the boys, too) were crying. I almost cried, and seeing as how very little literature I read actually upsets me Then again, I mainly read Lovecraft, the Sherlock Holmes stories, and other classics mixed with Darren Shan (whose ending for the Cirque Du Freak series was kinda cheap and didn't really end the series in a satisfying way, something that I think he pulled off in the Demonata series quite well), so I guess I don't have a lot to compare. If only I had played TF2 when we read this, then I would've done this:
Great. Now I can't stop watching this video.
 

Lem0nade Inlay

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Apr 3, 2010
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ALX-00 said:
Lem0nade Inlay said:
Animal Farm

Brave New World.


Actually, especially Brave New World. That was a sad, disturbing, but amazing book.

Nothing is accomplished by the sad, pathetic main character. He gets what he wants, which is recognition (albeit slight). The "savage" who he goes out to rescue cannot cope with the modern society, and also is unable to cope with his love for one of the other main characters. He kills himself, brutally, at the end when he realises that one night when he was on a frenzy he beat the girl he loved half to death.

EDIT: 1984 didn't really make me as sad as these two. I don't know why, I guess it's because the main character at the end is (sort of) at peace.
I little note on BNW:

Not only did he brutally beat Lenina, almost killing her, he also participated in the soma induced orgy that had happened as a result of the exciting events. I wouldn't really say he brutally killed himself, as all he did was hang himself, but I will agree that the ending is pretty depressing, especially since nothing in the world is really changed and that the World State will continue to live on as it did.
Yeah good point.
I forgot about the whole orgy part. I sort of added brutally because beforehand he had been "purifying" (is that the term he uses? I forget) himself by induced vomiting and whipping himself. Which really disturbed me the first time I read it. A sad, sad book.
 

Purple Shrimp

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Oct 7, 2008
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That Guy Who Phails said:
IBlackKiteI said:
I just finished reading Nineteen Eighty Four
You should read Animal Farm. [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Animal-Farm-Fairy-George-Orwell/dp/0141036133/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292629620&sr=1-1]

It was written by the same guy, and its just as good as 1984, if not better.

It's one of those storys were it's impossible to root for the bad guys.
I think I'm the only person I know who hated Animal Farm :(
 

Azrael the Cat

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Dec 13, 2008
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Lem0nade Inlay said:
ALX-00 said:
Lem0nade Inlay said:
Animal Farm

Brave New World.


Actually, especially Brave New World. That was a sad, disturbing, but amazing book.

Nothing is accomplished by the sad, pathetic main character. He gets what he wants, which is recognition (albeit slight). The "savage" who he goes out to rescue cannot cope with the modern society, and also is unable to cope with his love for one of the other main characters. He kills himself, brutally, at the end when he realises that one night when he was on a frenzy he beat the girl he loved half to death.

EDIT: 1984 didn't really make me as sad as these two. I don't know why, I guess it's because the main character at the end is (sort of) at peace.
I little note on BNW:

Not only did he brutally beat Lenina, almost killing her, he also participated in the soma induced orgy that had happened as a result of the exciting events. I wouldn't really say he brutally killed himself, as all he did was hang himself, but I will agree that the ending is pretty depressing, especially since nothing in the world is really changed and that the World State will continue to live on as it did.
Yeah good point.
I forgot about the whole orgy part. I sort of added brutally because beforehand he had been "purifying" (is that the term he uses? I forget) himself by induced vomiting and whipping himself. Which really disturbed me the first time I read it. A sad, sad book.
There is a small upside though. At the end, where the character (I think it's the 2nd main character, the one that's been made just slightly too smart) is offered a luxury island in return for his silence, and instead demands exile to the most snowy desolate location they can send him to - just a complete ideological middle finger up at the world state and the idea that they can bribe him into giving up his free will in return for happiness.
 

GrandmastahT

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Nov 27, 2009
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How no one has mentioned the end of "Mostly Harmless" in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series is beyond me. A comedy book series ending on that note is THE biggest kick in the balls.

The earth is destroyed an infinite number of times after Arthur Dent loses pretty much everything. Just darkness remains.
 

escapistraptor

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Dec 1, 2009
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That Guy Who Phails said:
Animal Farm.

Just........Damn...
This. Gave me chills for 2 days when

<spoiler= spoiler> the pigs walked out in human clothing. The fact that my copy had an illustration on it on the page adjacent to the big reveal, so it was literally like I turned the page and read the surprise while I saw it
 
May 5, 2010
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"Heart of Darkness". Most depressing book of all time. Incidentally, "Apocalypse Now", based on the book, is the most depressing movie of all time.
 

Andifferous

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Dec 12, 2010
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lax4life said:
But a book? I'm not able to remember the names but the short story about the two children, and the play house thing. (Can't find it through google, but I shall be searching when I wake up in the morning.)
Are you by chance referring to the Ray Bradbury short story "The Veltd"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Veldt
That was a pretty disturbing little story there, but then so was a lot of the rest of the book. (The illustrated Man)

Hmm, sort of a confusing, frustrating ending, "The Iron Throne" (I forget the author's name)It was a fairly run of the mill fantasy story, warrior rising to king as he tries to rid the world of a monstrous villain, the usual stuff one would expect. But then came the end of the book.
Its the big climactic battle with the good army and bad army, lots of fighting, and naturally the hero and big bad search one another out, and the two go into battle one on one.
The fight is basically over before it begins. This evil overlord type just decimates the hero, and then kills him. In about the space of half a page. No joke. The hero barely has time to make it a slightly less effective victory as he destroys his magic powers before the villain can take them, but he still wins the battle. All that buildup for a sudden kick in the gut. There was one more chapter of wrap-up, but it was mostly depressing stuff about this villain being just as evil as advertised, and the one elf character depressed about it centuries later.

Yeah.
 

SovietSecrets

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Nov 16, 2008
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Don't know if its been said, but 1984 was pretty depressing.

Winston losing all emotion and everything of value to be replaced with Big Brother and then realizing that with him being turned over, there is no more humanity left. All thats left is the Party and what it stands for. No more thought and no more freedom. Everything is gone.
 

Jazzyjazz2323

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Jan 19, 2010
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The ending of Armour of Contempt A Gaunt's Ghost novel made me fucking cry.I actually hated Dan Abnett for that ending
SPOILER WARNING


Reading the end and having caff die who was one of my favorite characters just tore me up inside.
 

DPutna17

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Nov 18, 2009
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Of Mice and Men. I just finished reading that in English class. We have no happy books this year. Grade 11 is even known as the depressing year in B.C
 

Aur0ra145

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May 22, 2009
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Well, let's see. I'm a bit sympathetic with all characters,

The Hostage
All Quiet on the Western Front
Great Gatsby
War and Remembrance
Blood and Thunder
Ethan Frome
Moby Dick
A Jew's Journey
Skin
Ordinary Men
Caine Mutiny