I felt that way about The Witches of Eastwick, as if John Updike suddenly thought, “I am so over this,” and quickly wound it up in a chapter or two.

Yes, exactly ! " I'm so over this." And that is not fair to the devoted reader who has agreed, by opening the book, to take the journey with the storyteller.

Then there is the author who tacks things on at the end of the story to make the page-count longer.

M.C. Beaton, I am looking at you! The last Agatha Raisin books were like that.

Bon, I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I have quite a few in Ann's category of being too long! Space by James Michener comes to mind. And several I've read in the last year or two just dragged on too long telling the story.

I do see your point about How the Light Gets In. After so long of weaving those background story lines they did wrap up pretty abruptly.

Donna

I felt that way after reading "All We Ever Wanted" by Emily Giffin. It began in such a promising way, only to peter out towards the end. I felt the author was tired of writing this novel and just wanted to get it done.

I also felt that way about Crawdads, and The Goldfinch. Rather felt as though the author was bored with the whole thing!

And yet with JK Rowling, I never felt like a book was rushed at the end.

I have felt that way with any number of books. Sometimes it is the author, but I privately suspect that from time to time it may actually be me who loses steam.

Do you remember the historical fiction books by Edward Rutherford? Usually he takes as his starting point a town or city and from the dim mists of the past builds up a story of two or three families and traces then down to the modern day.

I have enjoyed a couple of them but found as we got towards now he (and I) ran out of steam, or maybe it was just because they are SO long . . . and heavy . . . and my arms ached too much so I couldn't go on.

I think Sarum is the one I enjoyed the most telling the 'tale' of the old town on a hill that ran out of water and was rebuilt on flat land as Salisbury, known for its famous cathedral and the recent horrible poisonings by Russian agents.

The one I was least inspired by was The Forest set in the New Forest in S England and scene of a murder . . . it was set-up by the Normans as a Royal Hunting Forest with savage laws against the unfortunate peasants who lived within its confines.

I feel Rutherford lost his way through the trees here as his 'families' had lives of little interest . . . being a peasant back then couldn't have led to fun-filled days and great adventures. Just staying alive was hard work.

Speaking of interesting endings, I wonder when the sequel to The Jinni And The Golum will finally be released . ( if ever)

Vee, I think I read both of those books. Your descriptions sound very familiar!

Vee, I read his books and find that New York was the easiest to keep up with, no doubt because there aren't so many centuries to contend with. I've got bogged down in them, too; but I do like them.

We are currently listening to London by Rutherfurd and feel like it could be cut down by a third. We really enjoyed Paris and the two about Ireland (different names in the US and UK) but started The Forest and gave up not far in because it didn't grab us.

I really enjoyed Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, but felt the last chapter was a tacked-on afterthought.

This is slightly off topic.....as I was reading the reviews of a book on Amazon I started to wonder why they all seemed similar. So I selected one 'reviewer' and clicked on her name which brought up all the reviews she's entered. Strangely, there were about a dozen novels she'd reviewed in the space of two weeks in September. I suspect that these are professionals who enter a lot of five-star raves for certain books...are they hired by the authors ? It would not surprise me at all.

I agree with Astrokath about Year of Wonders. When I read it, I felt that the author had chopped off the ending of her novel and substituted the ending of an entirely different novel, one that by mere coincidence had characters with the same names.