Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Bookworm’s Fantasy! I hope you’re all doing well. Today I’m posting the sixth addition in my “top 5” series. In this series, I’ll be discussing my top 5 of whatever category I’ve set myself for that post (book-related, of course!) You can find my other posts in the series here. In this post, I’ll be focusing on my top 5 favourite endings (in no particular order), giving you some information about the book and sharing some critical quotes about the ending with you, hopefully encouraging you to read the book and discover the endings for yourself! I hope you all enjoy this series – please leave any comments or feedback below, I love hearing from you. So, here goes…
The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins.
Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She’s even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. ‘Jess and Jason’, she calls them. Their life – as she sees it – is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy.
And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough.
Now everything’s changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she’s only watched from afar.
Now they’ll see; she’s much more than just the girl on the train…
Pages: 416
Publisher: Black Swan
Release Date: May 2016
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Mystery, Suspense.
Average Goodreads rating: 3.89
Author’s other works: ‘Into The Water’ (2017).
The Ending!
My verdict:
‘The Girl On The Train’ features a shock ending which completely changes the direction of the novel. The events thus far all lead to the dramatic end scene, in which readerly expectations are totally subverted…
Critical quotes:
The Girl on the Train pulls off a thriller’s toughest trick: carefully assembling everything we think we know, until it reveals the one thing we didn’t see coming – Entertainment Weekly
Hawkins’s tale of love, regret, violence and forgetting is an engrossing psychological thriller with plenty of surprises. . . . The novel gets harder and harder to put down as the story screeches toward its unexpected ending – Minneapolis Star Tribune
No matter how well it’s written, a suspense novel can fall apart in the last pages, with an overly contrived or unbelievable ending. Here, The Girl on the Train shines, with its mystery resolved by a left-field plot twist that works, followed, surprisingly, by what you might call a happy ending – Newsday
I’m calling it now: The Girl on the Train is the next Gone Girl. Paula Hawkins’s highly anticipated debut novel is a dark, gripping thriller with the shocking ending you crave in a noir-ish mystery – Bustle
The surprise-packed narratives hurtle toward a stunning climax, horrifying as a train wreck and just as riveting – Publishers Weekly
Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land.
When Annie hands her mother over to the police she hopes for a new start in life – but can we ever escape our past?
‘NEW NAME. NEW FAMILY. SHINY. NEW. ME.’
Annie’s mother is a serial killer. The only way Annie can make it stop is to hand her in to the police.
With a new foster family and a new name – Milly – she hopes for a fresh start. Now, surely, she can be whoever she wants to be. But as her mother’s trial looms, the secrets of Milly’s past won’t let her sleep . . .
Because Milly’s mother is a serial killer. And blood is thicker than water…
Pages: 352
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: August 2017
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Mystery, Suspense.
Average Goodreads rating: 3.95
Author’s other works: None.
The Ending!
My verdict:
There’s a dramatic end scene in which Milly [the protagonist] must make an important choice. My eyes were glued to the page, and I was so shocked! A fantastic ending, in which the title ‘Good Me Bad Me’ really comes into play.
Critical quotes:
Dark, claustrophobic and thought-provoking, you’ll read this outstanding book holding your breath – Prima
Unsettling. Holds our attention from the opening page. There is so much to praise here – Guardian
Had me on the edge of my seat from the first page – Women & Home
Utterly compelling. Ali Land writes with such clarity and such imagination, you will fall into her world on the very first page and find yourself unable to leave – Joanna Cannon
Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson.
Following a brutal attack by her ex-boyfriend, Kate Priddy makes an uncharacteristically bold decision after her cousin, Corbin Dell, suggests a temporary apartment swap – and she moves from London to Boston.
But soon after her arrival Kate makes a shocking discovery: Corbin’s next-door neighbour, a young woman named Audrey Marshall, has been murdered. When the police begin asking questions about Corbin’s relationship with Audrey, and his neighbours come forward with their own suspicions, a shaken Kate has few answers, and many questions of her own.
Jetlagged and emotionally unstable, her imagination playing out her every fear, Kate can barely trust herself. so how can she trust any of the strangers she’s just met?
Pages: 352
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Release Date: January 2017
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Mystery, Suspense.
Average Goodreads rating: 3.74
Author’s other works: ‘The Girl With A Clock For A Heart’ (2014), ‘The Kind Worth Killing’ (2015), ‘All The Beautiful Lies’ (2018).
The Ending!
My verdict:
The final scene is explosive and dramatic, and I couldn’t have wished for anything more! I’m really happy with the direction that the novel took, and the ending was very satisfying for me.
Critical quotes:
Peter Swanson s third thriller cracks to life in the opening pages. His characters are engaging, and the reader is treated to multiple points of view… The payoff for the reader is an excellent whodunit with a magical appeal for the mystery thriller lover – Seattle Book Review
It has movie adaptation written all over it. It has an alluring location, a fragile yet resilient protagonist and a thoroughly Hitchcockian storyline, replete with the requisite false starts and plot twists. High tension, lightning-fast pacing and psychological drama in spades – BookPage
Most readers won’t anticipate the Hitchcockian twists and turns in this standout suspense tale – Washington Post
Peter Swanson tells the engaging story of a woman battling severe anxiety who decides to radically change her life – and the horrifying results that follow – St. Louis Post Dispatch
I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh.
A tragic accident. It all happened so quickly. She couldn’t have prevented it. Could she?
In a split second, Jenna Gray’s world descends into a nightmare. Her only hope of moving on is to walk away from everything she knows to start afresh. Desperate to escape, Jenna moves to a remote cottage on the Welsh coast, but she is haunted by her fears, her grief and her memories of a cruel November night that changed her life forever.
Slowly, Jenna begins to glimpse the potential for happiness in her future. But her past is about to catch up with her, and the consequences will be devastating . . .
Pages: 384
Publisher: Sphere
Release Date: May 2015
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Mystery, Suspense.
Average Goodreads rating: 4.08
Author’s other works: ‘I See You’ (2017) and ‘Let Me Lie’ (2018).
The Ending!
My verdict:
I was very happy with the ending. Eventually the pieces of the puzzle all fit together, and the tension reaches an almighty climax, in the most bizarre and shocking way. The ending was conclusive and satisfactory.
Critical quotes:
Tense and fast-paced with a heart-hammering shock of an ending – Good Housekeeping
Jaw-dropping…the kind of book that sticks in the reader’s mind well after the final sentence – Kirkus Reviews
I could not put it down. It’s hard to believe I Let You Go is a first novel. The pacing, plotting and twists put it up there with the finest thrillers – Jojo Moyes
Addictive…one thrill after another – Samantha Hayes
THE FEAR by C.L. Taylor.
Sometimes your first love won’t let you go…
When Lou Wandsworth ran away to France with her teacher Mike Hughes, she thought he was the love of her life. But Mike wasn’t what he seemed and he left her life in pieces.
Now 32, Lou discovers that he is involved with teenager Chloe Meadows. Determined to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself, she returns home to confront him for the damage he’s caused.
But Mike is a predator of the worst kind, and as Lou tries to bring him to justice, it’s clear that she could once again become his prey…
Pages: 416
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: March 2018
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Mystery, Suspense.
Average Goodreads rating: 4.11
Author’s other works: ‘THE ACCIDENT’ (2014), ‘THE LIE’ (2015), ‘THE MISSING’ (2016), ‘THE ESCAPE’ (2017) and ‘THE TREATMENT’ (2017).
The Ending!
My verdict:
There’s a dramatic scene close to the end of the book that is jam-packed full of action and danger. My eyes were glued to the page during this entire scene – I simply couldn’t tear them away! The ending made me feel so many emotions, and provoked me to think deeply about morality – which only the best Psychological Thrillers achieve, in my opinion.
Critical quotes:
A total corker! Twisted, unbearably tense and a shock ending – C.J. Tudor
A terrifying glimpse into a dark subject. This brilliant book stayed with me long after I finished the last page – Cass Green
A highly original and timely tale that kept me utterly enthralled and entertained from beginning to end – Liz Nugent
When you finish a book and your lungs hurt because you’ve FORGOTTEN TO BREATHE – Miranda Dickinson
Dark and disturbing. This is a book I will remember for a long time – Rachel Abbott
Happy reading 🙂
I haven’t heard about Good Me Bad me in a while I forgot how much I wanted to read that till right now.
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I hope you manage to read it soon!
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