Collider has compiled a ranking of the 10 bleakest endings in literary history, spotlighting novels that reject happy or hopeful resolutions in favour of devastating, honest conclusions. The list celebrates works that stay with readers precisely because they refuse comforting closure, arguing that such bleakness can still be great writing when it feels true to the story being told.

The countdown includes Hanya Yanagihara's "A Little Life" (2015), whose traumatised protagonist Jude loses his partner and takes his own life; Stephen King's "Pet Sematary" (1983), which closes with a grief-stricken father attempting to resurrect his dead wife despite the horrors he has already witnessed; and Andy Weir's "A Short Stay in Hell" (2009), a novella set in an infinite library-hell where a man searches eternally for a book describing his own life. The full article continues through further entries, though only these top three are covered in the extract provided.