Top Ten Tuesday (4)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the Broke and the Bookish where a new top ten list is posted each week. This week is: Top Ten Book Endings That Left Me With My Mouth Hanging Open (because of the cliffhanger or because it the ending was MINDBLOWING, etc. Be careful with spoilers on this one! :P)

1. The Haunted by Jessica Verday
This ended with a massive cliffhanger, one of those total game changer ones that you know the majority of the next book will be spent explaining. It was a huge shock but surprisingly it worked as an ending. I couldn't imagine the book ending any other way.

2. Undone by Rachel Caine
This was one of those books I couldn't wait to read and it was a great read, at least up until the point I realised I was running out of pages but not out of story. This book doesn't really have an ending, it just stops ready for the next book to continue. I'm waiting for the rest of the series to be released so I can read them through as a set.

3. Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs
At the end of this book, the lead character Mercy ends up under the control of the "bad guy". It's a pretty horrific scene, more emotionally than actual gore, but I was shocked that the author went there. It's caused a massive shift in Mercy and changed her into a different person.

4. Seize the Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Away from the main romance storyline between Tabitha and Valerius there's a whole other storyline about Nick Gautier, one of my favourite characters in the Dark Hunter world. The ending of this book changes him completely, to the point where a new series has been created to tell his story. I sat there reading with my mouth hanging wide open, and then grabbed for the next book as soon as I was done.

5. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
I'm guessing this could make quite a lot of lists today. I had read some spoilers before I started reading, but the Clary/Jace thing was still an OMG moment. I'm glad I had the next two before I read this one, otherwise I may not have continued.

6. Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden
This whole series is incredible, but he has this way of making every thing seem fine in a totally believable way and then BAM! out of nowhere comes something that totally destroys the sense of calm. It's like that here - I'm reading through the last few pages expecting the book to end on a high, and then he changes everything.

7. City of Souls by Vicki Pettersson
This book ends with a great action packed scene that culminates in a massive cliffhanger. I just sat there for a few minutes after finishing like 'huh?' It's the fourth book in a series of six and introduces a whole new world so the ending works well, but was still a shock.

8. The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
This book has an amazing ending that I wasn't expecting. I had to go and check the author's website afterwards as I thought it was a trilogy but now I know it's more of a trio of companion books - same world, different characters. But that last part of Mary's journey - wow!

9. The Harrowing by Alexandra Sokoloff
I read this book in one sitting, without getting up at all, purely because it scared the pants off me. Late at night is not the smartest time to start a horror novel, especially one written by a screenwriter, but hindsight is always 20/20. The ending is awesome, a brilliant culmination of the tension built throughout the book.

10. The Night World by L. J. Smith
Not a book this time, but a series. The first nine books have been available for over a decade, but the final book hasn't been finished and doesn't even have a release date. I'm cheating a bit here but the books had been building to a final battle (which was supposed to be fought before the new millennium started!) and now the whole series is just left hanging, waiting for the author to finish Strange Fate.