Most Depressing Book Ending.

[the clockmaker]

An arsonists guide to writers homes in new england.

Spoiler

The main characters wife leaves him for his stalker. His father was having an affair. His father's mistress has framed him for several counts of arson and then immolates herself, framing him for that too. His mother burns his father to death and the main character is blamed for it. He spends the rest of his life in jail, knowing that everyone is happier without him and to cap it off, the only people who truely like him are using his influence to burn down even more houses.

Whenver I write something, I look at how it ends and so long as it isn't as soul crushing as that book, I continue.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Animal Farm.

Just........Damn...

That was nothing compared to the ending of 1984.

 

[Gahars]

1984.

The resistance was a sham. Big Brother isn't going anywhere. The protagonist, after being tortured, is a broken man and will be murdered by the government in the very near future. Human freedom is dead.

That's the depressing conclusion to beat all other depressing conclusions.

 

[Gahars]

Also, the Catcher in the Rye, for some reason. I don't even know why. I hate that book.

I thought the ending of Catcher was extremely happy. Holden is in a mental institution and I no longer have to read any more of his incessant whining.

A win-win in my eyes.

 

[06ict381]

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]

I found the ending to "The Moves Makes the Man" incredibly depressing.

Spoiler

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]

L: Change the world Horribly sad ending, and one of the better endings to a book I've read.

Spoiler

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]

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]

The second book in the Soldiers Son series by Robin Hobb, don't remember the name.

Spoiler

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

 

[Litchhunter]

Don't think any has said this yet, but Flowers for Algernon, such a sad book...

 

[_Cake_]

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

 

[Ninjat_126]

Oh yes, Flowers for Algernon. That was sad.

Spoiler: Major Spoilers

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]

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]

Animal Farm

Brave New World.


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

Spoiler

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:

Spoiler

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.

Spoiler

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]

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]

Animal Farm

Brave New World.


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

Spoiler

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:

Spoiler

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.

Spoiler

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]

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.

Spoiler

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

 

[TomLikesGuitar]

Of Mice and Men or Flowers for Algernon...

No man with a soul can make it through either of them without crying.

 

[escapistraptor]

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