I was really enjoying a new book, Kissing Games of the World by Sandi Kahn Shelton.  I knew the end was drawing nigh, but---c'mon!  In the next to the last page, male protagonist, who's been very screwed up throughout, has an epiphany.  The next paragraph---well, I really don't want to spoil it, but after investing several hours of reading, I wanted MORE!  I felt like Shelton looked at her page numbers, looked at the quota required by her contract, and said: "That's it.  Let's tie everything up in a couple of paragraphs."  I felt totally ripped off.   It was like being offered a chocolate bar and finding out it was sugar- and fat-free.  What's the point?

That's how I felt about my most recent read of The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. It builds you up through the whole book, then just drops you at the end, without answering many questions.

Laurie R. King, a writer I love, has a book like that, A Darker Place, which is so suspenseful, and builds to such a pitch--and then wham! it's over and resolved in like two pages, with no denouement or chance to see the characters resolve anything. It's a fabulous book, but the ending almost ruins it.

Stephen King often does that - I suspect he writes himself into a corner.