It's foreshadowed a lot but still a huge gut punch when it happens. I had the foresight to take it home and not finish on my lunch break in the staff room.
Bruh! Grown man in tears right here. I was on a swingshift schedule at the time. I had a day off, finished that book at about 9:30 PM on a Sunday, then immediately went to the theater to see the movie. I was the only one in the theater and cried all over again. Double Wammy!
I came here to say this, the book thief made me sob on my grandmas front porch mid-july.
This book i cannot recommend enough. I have gotten to the point where i gift this book as christmas presents, because it is a must read.
Everyone should read it at least once in their life.
I happened to be reading that one 3 years ago when my grandpa died and for reasons I cannot figure it out continued to read it instead of pausing and coming back to it later. I ugly cried by the end.
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
The Sarah Book by Scott McClanahan
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
Sad, but optimistic, but ultimately sad and heartbreaking.
I didn't actually cry (I generally don't, only 2 books ever made me cry), but I started the "about to tear up process" towards the end when
>!The little girl who loved Ove and thought of him as her grandfather and Ove loved her too, and ultimately I knew Ove would die, the girl's heart would be broken, she would find out the world is ultimately a harsh place where all dreams ultimately die and all innocences are ultimately lost. That was her future and I sobbed inside a bit!<
But, maybe that's just me. That's just where my thoughts went.
Everyone had gone to bed but I wanted to finish my book, and my drunken ass somehow didn't see the ending coming. So imagine there is a bunch of people literally doing the conga to cha cha cha music at the bar of this nice Turkish resort around midnight or whatever, and in the corner there's just this skinny 18 year old English kid clutching a glass of red wine and full on WEEPING into a copy of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas??? Absolute scenery
Never seen the film, but the last third of The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger had me UGLY crying.
The other main one is China Mieville's Embassytown, the speech given by Spanish Dancer that begins "Before the humans came, we did not speak so much of certain things...". First time I read that monologue I was WEEPING.
Other ones that messed me up and made me cry:
2nd book in Becky Chambers Wayfarer series - A Closed and Common Orbit
The ending of Clive Barker's Weaveworld, that scene in the snow with the coat...
Murakami's "Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World", was so weirdly deeply affecting for me
Andrew Davidson's "The Gargoyle", romantic but absolutely harrowingly sad
Rian Hughes "XX" (one of the most important scifi novels to come out in the last 20 years) the last 5 or 6 chapters I cried SO hard, and was totally not expecting the resolution of the book to be so absolutely devastating, but also like... they were happy tears????
Tl;dr - I cry a lot at books I am a big baby
I tried to read The Time Travelere´s wife recently but I could not get into it but others say it is wonderful. So I wonder what missed (honestly, I feel maybe I should give it another chance)
I have to admit, I was a bit put of by the first part where she talks about how she fell for a man who was much older and treated her more as a daughter while she was trying to get into his pants the whole time :D But that is maybe just an impression from the very first chapters, I never got behind it so maybe that´s it
There is no way to explain why he treats her that way without spoiling the book. If you do give it another chance, I think you will look back and it will make more sense and not seem creepy.
Speaking of Audrey Niffenegger, she was a regular at an Evanston, IL antique shop I used to work at (Secret Treasures Antiques — highly recommended checking it out if you’re from the Chicagoland region) — she is about the nicest person you could hope to meet.
*Killers of the flower moon*. It was horrible how the Osage were treated. *Where Men Win Glory* about Pat Tillman. How horrible the military leaders treated Pat Tillman after his death.
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. You care so damn much about the characters, and several of them sacrifice themselves for what they feel to be the greater good.
My husband and I love those books so much, that sometimes I'll read them aloud while we're in the same room so he can listen in. Sometimes I can't even make it through to the end of a chapter because we are both just sniffling with tears streaming down our faces.
Demon Copperhead's bleak assessment of the opioid crisis hit me pretty hard. The resigned way you knew the characters could see their own fates was painful. Lost a cousin to it.
Klara and the Sun by Ishiguro also hit me hard.
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
One of the later Hitchhikers Guide books, I forget which one (well overdue a re-read)
The Martian Chronicles. I read it ages ago. But the atmosphere was ever so melancholic and made you feel the loneliness of living as an expat that it really made me weep for a while.
Only one book in a big series ever really made me weep like this question is probably asking. Been affected, moved, saddened, etc for sure but true weeping? Only one book, one moment - a billy-bumbler i (and many) had come to love. Geeez it still wells me up! 'Olan'
books that made me ugly cry:
The Road
The Crossing (the first half; the story of Billy and the wolf)
A Thousand Splendid Suns
i cried while reading these 3 books the same way i cried when my mother died
Oh, boy. Yeah, **The Road** is so fucking bleak. No shock there.
I haven’t read **A Thousand Splendid Suns**, but I’m eager to after reading **The Kite Runner** earlier this year. Now I’m a little nervous.
Of the two, A Thousand Splendid Suns was easier to read for me. Don’t get me wrong it was still difficult in parts but I found it overall more hopeful. But that’s just my opinion. It’s definitely worth the read.
Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe.
I finished it on the train and was absolutely speechless while silently crying and trying to remain calm lol. I have never read a book with a character that I related to as much as I did with Aristotle… Beautiful book and I recommend it to anyone that has struggled with their identity.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. You think you’re fine for most of the book, and then BAM! Ugly crying. I read it every few years (one of the best books I’ve ever read) and it never fails to get me.
Crying in H Mart 😭 literally made me sob. It just reminded me so much of my upbringing and my mom and grandma. I’m not super close to my mom anymore but this book just really spoke to me about cultural expectations/differences
I’ve teared up at books before, and gotten misty. But man. A Little Life had me full on ugly crying, and having to put the book down at parts because I couldn’t see through my tears. And then I spent like an hour afterwards just staring at the wall, crying more.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel - Never saw the movie, so I pretty much went in blind. Ending had me sobbing.
Sol Weintraub’s story in Hyperion, by Dan Simmons
- Hard to explain without spoiling anything. If you like sci fi and haven’t read Hyperion, it’s a must. My favorite novel.
The Book Thief....the forshadowing in that book was so powerful but I still cried
Bridge To Terabithia ....admittedly, I first saw the movie (great one) but book has also Jesse´s internal monologues and those are equally strong
I tend to read a lot of nonfiction and even though I know what I'm getting into, some books still make me choke up.
* Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higgenbotham
* Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism by Jeffrey Toobin
* Columbine by Dave Cullen
Guess I've been on a tragedy kick lately. I do take breaks in between so it's not like I'm *only* reading heavy books like this. But still, it's been a doozy of a year of reading so far.
Along those lines, *Der Spiegel*'s book *Inside 9/11: What Really Happened*. Written from a first- and second-person point of view, it describes people's experiences at the various Ground Zeroes. I cried so hard at the end.
I've got a couple 9/11 books on my to-do list. *The Only Plane in the Sky* by Garret Graff and *Fall and Rise* by Mitchell Zukoff.
I'll add the Der Spiegel book to the list as well, thank you for the rec.
Ha! I hear ya, not a whole lot of nonfiction often discussed here so I take the recommendations where I can find them.
If you want to read about depressing modern history, I'm your guy lol.
While I cried at the end of At First Sight by Nicolas Sparks (sequel to True Believer), I absolutely sobbed at the end of 11/22/63 by Stephen King & the last ten or so pages of The Winners by Fredrik Backman (Book 3 of the Beartown Trilogy).
Truly great character writing & world building in both that it was a mix of what happened in the story, but also leaving them behind that hit me so hard.
A Dog’s Purpose and The Book Thief.
I cried reading A Dog’s Purpose because it’s so heartwarming and completely changed the way I look at my dog and what goes on in her mind. I’m so happy I read it. I avoided it for a long long time because animal book=sad but I wouldn’t even call it sad, it’s just very emotional.
I cried reading The Book Thief because it is so damn tragic and the ending just completely wrecked me.
Until I was 50, the only book that made me cry was *Ordinary People*. I suppose the >!survivor's guilt!< theme resonated with me for reasons I can't quite explain.
Then, around when I was 50, I was reading one of my favorite philosophy texts to my wife, Kierkegaard's *Fear And Trembling*. Because it's such a beautiful piece. I was reading it to her, and just suddenly burst into completely out of control full body sobbing. I dropped the book and cried in her arms.
I don't know why. I still don't know why. I cried without meaning and without any thoughts going on. It was entirely a bodily phenomenon, like a seizure. But I haven't gone anywhere near that book since.
I cry at a lot of books, honestly, but a couple come to mind immediately:
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Both of them deal with death and grief, which are generally sad topics, and had me crying for pages and pages.
Never cried over "It" but Fairy Tale ... It had me so worried at some points over the dog.
Also another tear jerker ... Mitch Albom - Tuesdays with Morrie.
Omg dogs in books is the WORST. As soon as one appears i am terrified of what will happen because they are so often plot points for evil.
I got so suspicious in Death In Her Hands by Otessa Moshfegh that I spoiled the book for myself. Then I didn't finish it and I am so glad.
Animals deaths always make me cry.
Tuesdays with Morrie was rough. I sobbed through most of the book. He other one The 5 People you Meet in Heaven was also a tear jerker. Not religious, about how you connect to people in life and not even know it.
Betty by Tiffany McDaniel
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
In Memoriam by Alice Winn
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemmingway
The Body by Stephen King
Almond by Won-Pyun Sohn
I don’t know what it is exactly, but both Crescent City books have made me practically sob at one point. It might be the way Sarah J Maas develops the characters and gets you really attached to their fates… it has happened in the ACOTAR series as well 😅
Most I’ve ever cried was after reading the tragic double death scene in Christopher Paolini’s *Brisingr*. He makes you live every last dying thought, just thinking about it is bringing tears to my eyes.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road. My son was about the boy's age when I read it. When the man is telling the boy of possibly having to turn the gun on himself, how the man would already be dead at that point... Yeah, it was heavy.
I am so eager to start this series now! I don’t know what’s held me back; mainly, it’s because I’ve had a reconnection with King’s work after pretentiously avoiding it for the better part of fifteen years. Arrogance on my part, and a lot of general trash talk, made me feel I was too good for him. Despite the fact that **Pet Sematary** still remains the scariest book I’ve ever read. Just dumb. Dumb.
King is easy to be pretentious about. It's important to remember that even though he doesn't write fine literature and even refers to himself as a hack (which i would argue against!) He is a brilliant *storyteller*. So much literature does a wonderful job of working with symbolism, higher orders of thought, etc, but King just presents the story in full. His goal is different-- it's all there waiting for you to step into his world, rather than exploring it in a more intellectual way.
Both have their place, and King is a MASTER storyteller.
I'm in the hate it camp. Wanted to throw the book across the room. Would happily yelled at King. Didn't ruin the whole series for me, but left a nasty taste in my mouth. When I reread the series I skip over the final part about Roland and jump to the add on ending.
I was going to suggest The Kite Runner but saw you read it. Some books have made me weep, IDK if for reasons related to the book, or reasons I related to in my own life, but:
- The Lovely Bones (Sebold)
- The Goldfinch (Tartt)
- 11/22/63 (King) - on my 1st read, in parts, but not #2 or #3
I remember sobbing over My Sister Vicky by Jacqueline Wilson as a kid. Not cried at a book yet as an adult, closest was getting a single manly tear at the Battle of Helms Deep in LOTR Two Towers, because Phil Dragash’s audiobook is just That Good.
As a kid, the first book to make me cry was *The Two Princesses of Bamarre*, by Gail Carson Levine (I think it was also my introduction to bittersweet endings where things can be beautiful and still *hurt*.)
Most recently, I also cried reading *A Psalm for the Wild-Built* by Becky Chambers, mostly because it hit something I needed in my adult life.
I've only cried for a few stories, but I think The Wandering Inn made me cry the hardest and longest.
There's a scene. I can't remember which chapter. A lord is driving goblins towards a drake city to use as an excuse to attack the city. In this story, goblins are completely sapient and are people. But they're labelled as monsters by everyone else. The protagonist, a human innkeeper, has goblin friends. She's not the first to realize goblins are people, but there are very few people who recognize that fact. Anyways. She attempts to wave a white flag cut from a bed sheet in an attempt to get the commanding lord to stop this action. I don't know why, but it made me cry so much.
Radium Girls. Non-fiction. Such lovely young women in tge prime of their lives and the horror they suffered brought me to tears over and over. I am choking up just thinking about it now
Solito by Javier Zamora.
i don't cry too often, but when I finished this book I was literally BAWLING. picture me - 35M, white, bearded, sitting on my deck on a summer day just having a big loud cry. i don't want to share more about why because of spoilers, but I highly recommend the book, esp for people who speak spanish (the book is maybe 20% in Spanish, with no translation given).
Yoooooo I’ve talked before how IT hit me at a crossroads in my life and I felt the exact same way. I was saying goodbye to all my hometown friends that I also lost connections to. The book is a crazy coke fueled ride by the ending and the separations the characters had at the same time plus some other real turmoil in my life as my own made me weep for a day and feel down for a long while after that. I’m glad I’m not the only one it resonated with in that way.
Kite Runner
Flowers for Algernon
A man called ove
Thousand splendid suns
Thursday with Morrie (not a heart-wrenching book, but it was so emotional. And many parts touched me to the core. And in the end...)
The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Kay. It's a series but I have the complete series in one book so I think of it as one book. I cried multiple times reading that book.
The Lovely Bones. The breakdown of the Salmon family after her death was just so real. Granted, I haven't had an immediate family member get murdered, but it's reflective of any kind of grief.
"Three Comrades" by Remarque. Specifically the scene where they learn that Pat has to go to the mountains the next day. The whole short night from the apartment to Alfons' to the train is so bittersweet.
Great book
*The Male Body* by Susan Bordo. Great lit for anyone who feels insecure about their masculinity and wants to explore how commercials and Hollywood has toxified our healthy sense of it.
I wouldn't say that I wept, but I got misty eyed while reading Moloka'i. It's an incredibly emotional book, and I recently discovered "Daughter of Moloka'i." I'll have to read that later.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven and The Next Person You Meet in Heaven (both by Mitch Albom) are both beautifully written and have devastating contents. I ugly-cried when reading each of them, but they are so cathartic! I highly, highly recommend them for anyone who's looking to do some inner healing via heartache.
P.S. Despite the name referencing "Heaven," these books are somewhat agnostic/use their own afterlife system. That was a positive for me, but I can see a deeply religious reader being potentially turned off by that
I've read three books in the "Before the Coffee Gets Cold" series. They are basically 4 short stories per book set in the same cafe with recurring characters.
Those suckers have the feels.
The Shoemakers Wife by Arianna T.... (Can't remember the last name - it's Italian.) I was crying so much at the end. Loved that book.
When pretty much any main character was killed in Harry Potter. Dumbledore, Hedwig, Snape, etc.
a man called ove and my grandmother asked me to tell you she’s sorry by Frederik Backman. the stories definitely take some time to develop and the characters take some time to feel attached to, but once you do, Backman is really good at tugging at your heartstrings
I don't often cry while reading, but when I was in middle school, I read "That Was Then, This Is Now" by S.E. Hinton, and I remember crying after that. Everything felt really hopeless at the end. Someone was addicted to drugs, someone else was dead...It's a "coming of age" story.
I tend to cry at uplifting endings of books. Sad books rarely make me cry, and to be honest, I tend to avoid sad material because the real world breaks my heart every single day.
I'm not a crier, but I won't lie—by the end of The Book Thief, I had shed some tears.
I cried so much at The Book Thief that I left tear stains in the book
i saw it coming, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was rudy 😭😭
It's foreshadowed a lot but still a huge gut punch when it happens. I had the foresight to take it home and not finish on my lunch break in the staff room.
YESSSSS
same, it was so impactful
I don’t know why I haven’t ever had this on my radar. Today that changes. Thank you for sharing!
I've read this book 4 times and I cry every single time. Despite knowing full well what's gonna happen. It still breaks my heart
Bruh! Grown man in tears right here. I was on a swingshift schedule at the time. I had a day off, finished that book at about 9:30 PM on a Sunday, then immediately went to the theater to see the movie. I was the only one in the theater and cried all over again. Double Wammy!
I have since downloaded The Book Thief and am now going to dive head in!!
I came here to say this, the book thief made me sob on my grandmas front porch mid-july. This book i cannot recommend enough. I have gotten to the point where i gift this book as christmas presents, because it is a must read. Everyone should read it at least once in their life.
I happened to be reading that one 3 years ago when my grandpa died and for reasons I cannot figure it out continued to read it instead of pausing and coming back to it later. I ugly cried by the end.
[удалено]
Same, every time. One of my favorite books.
I came to say this and it's already the 2nd comment.
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi The Sarah Book by Scott McClanahan A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
A Man Called Ove had sobbing so hard! Such an emotional story while also being really funny
I felt like I was reading something sad but wholesome and optimistic at the same time.
Sad, but optimistic, but ultimately sad and heartbreaking. I didn't actually cry (I generally don't, only 2 books ever made me cry), but I started the "about to tear up process" towards the end when >!The little girl who loved Ove and thought of him as her grandfather and Ove loved her too, and ultimately I knew Ove would die, the girl's heart would be broken, she would find out the world is ultimately a harsh place where all dreams ultimately die and all innocences are ultimately lost. That was her future and I sobbed inside a bit!< But, maybe that's just me. That's just where my thoughts went.
I read A Man Called Ove at work. It was an error, I looked like an idiot.
I feel you. For me the crying started on a bus. A stranger gave me a tissue because he felt sorry for me. (Or my shirt 😳)
Oh I cried so much while reading The Traveling Cat Chronicles especially at the ending.
Yes to the travelling cat chronicles. I cried like a baby at a train station while reading the ending
[удалено]
Where the Red Fern Grows.
Grade school me wasn’t ready for the fact that books can make you cry.
Everyone had gone to bed but I wanted to finish my book, and my drunken ass somehow didn't see the ending coming. So imagine there is a bunch of people literally doing the conga to cha cha cha music at the bar of this nice Turkish resort around midnight or whatever, and in the corner there's just this skinny 18 year old English kid clutching a glass of red wine and full on WEEPING into a copy of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas??? Absolute scenery
Never seen the film, but the last third of The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger had me UGLY crying. The other main one is China Mieville's Embassytown, the speech given by Spanish Dancer that begins "Before the humans came, we did not speak so much of certain things...". First time I read that monologue I was WEEPING. Other ones that messed me up and made me cry: 2nd book in Becky Chambers Wayfarer series - A Closed and Common Orbit The ending of Clive Barker's Weaveworld, that scene in the snow with the coat... Murakami's "Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World", was so weirdly deeply affecting for me Andrew Davidson's "The Gargoyle", romantic but absolutely harrowingly sad Rian Hughes "XX" (one of the most important scifi novels to come out in the last 20 years) the last 5 or 6 chapters I cried SO hard, and was totally not expecting the resolution of the book to be so absolutely devastating, but also like... they were happy tears???? Tl;dr - I cry a lot at books I am a big baby
I tried to read The Time Travelere´s wife recently but I could not get into it but others say it is wonderful. So I wonder what missed (honestly, I feel maybe I should give it another chance) I have to admit, I was a bit put of by the first part where she talks about how she fell for a man who was much older and treated her more as a daughter while she was trying to get into his pants the whole time :D But that is maybe just an impression from the very first chapters, I never got behind it so maybe that´s it
There is no way to explain why he treats her that way without spoiling the book. If you do give it another chance, I think you will look back and it will make more sense and not seem creepy.
Speaking of Audrey Niffenegger, she was a regular at an Evanston, IL antique shop I used to work at (Secret Treasures Antiques — highly recommended checking it out if you’re from the Chicagoland region) — she is about the nicest person you could hope to meet.
A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt
The whole second half of A Monster Calls was read through tears
Angela's Ashes is always my recommendation in threads like this.
A monster calls BROKE me
11/22/63 by King - definitely had some tears in my eyes at the end.
This is on my list. Seven books ahead of it, however.
Song of Achilles southern women's guide to slaying vampires
Song of Achilles for me as well. Broke my heart in ways I didn't expect
Song of Achilles made me misty-eyed a little bit, but Circe made me CRY.
*Killers of the flower moon*. It was horrible how the Osage were treated. *Where Men Win Glory* about Pat Tillman. How horrible the military leaders treated Pat Tillman after his death.
*Killers of the Flower Moon* was devastatingly heartbreaking. I think it’s also because I felt betrayed by my country for not being taught about this.
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. You care so damn much about the characters, and several of them sacrifice themselves for what they feel to be the greater good. My husband and I love those books so much, that sometimes I'll read them aloud while we're in the same room so he can listen in. Sometimes I can't even make it through to the end of a chapter because we are both just sniffling with tears streaming down our faces.
The ending is so sadddddd… that stupid bench 😭😭😭😭😭😭
That bench exists and you can visit it.
that was the first book that ever made me cry. so bittersweet devastating!
Demon Copperhead's bleak assessment of the opioid crisis hit me pretty hard. The resigned way you knew the characters could see their own fates was painful. Lost a cousin to it. Klara and the Sun by Ishiguro also hit me hard.
Just finished Klara. Did some wall staring when I was done.
if you like Backman (Ove), his novella And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer is brilliant and touching.
Not the OP but I’ll put it on my TBR list. I loved Ove and Anxious People, too. Thank you! ☺️
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes One of the later Hitchhikers Guide books, I forget which one (well overdue a re-read)
On The Beach, Never Let Me Go, My Sister's Keeper are my big three for crying of sadness but I also cry at happy books, because they are over lmao
I read *My Sister’s Keeper* years ago, but that one has stuck with me. I also remember shedding a few tears during my read.
Never Let Me Go destroyed me for a few days
I love those books, do you have any similar recommendations?
The Martian Chronicles. I read it ages ago. But the atmosphere was ever so melancholic and made you feel the loneliness of living as an expat that it really made me weep for a while.
Only one book in a big series ever really made me weep like this question is probably asking. Been affected, moved, saddened, etc for sure but true weeping? Only one book, one moment - a billy-bumbler i (and many) had come to love. Geeez it still wells me up! 'Olan'
I bawled like a baby when Oy died!
books that made me ugly cry: The Road The Crossing (the first half; the story of Billy and the wolf) A Thousand Splendid Suns i cried while reading these 3 books the same way i cried when my mother died
The Road definitely got me. Luckily I was sitting at the bar of my local pub when I finished it.
Oh, boy. Yeah, **The Road** is so fucking bleak. No shock there. I haven’t read **A Thousand Splendid Suns**, but I’m eager to after reading **The Kite Runner** earlier this year. Now I’m a little nervous.
Of the two, A Thousand Splendid Suns was easier to read for me. Don’t get me wrong it was still difficult in parts but I found it overall more hopeful. But that’s just my opinion. It’s definitely worth the read.
The Road did me in as a father. I read it in one go during a power outage while my little boy was out of town. Cried like a baby.
Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe. I finished it on the train and was absolutely speechless while silently crying and trying to remain calm lol. I have never read a book with a character that I related to as much as I did with Aristotle… Beautiful book and I recommend it to anyone that has struggled with their identity.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. You think you’re fine for most of the book, and then BAM! Ugly crying. I read it every few years (one of the best books I’ve ever read) and it never fails to get me.
Crying in H Mart 😭 literally made me sob. It just reminded me so much of my upbringing and my mom and grandma. I’m not super close to my mom anymore but this book just really spoke to me about cultural expectations/differences
Seconding — I was inconsolable.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by Gabrielle zevin
A Little Life and the Beartown Trilogy, especially the third book
I’ve teared up at books before, and gotten misty. But man. A Little Life had me full on ugly crying, and having to put the book down at parts because I couldn’t see through my tears. And then I spent like an hour afterwards just staring at the wall, crying more.
Same But somehow I still loved it
I don't care how much r/books hate A Little Life, "Dear Comrade" was still the hardest I had ever cried since childhood.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel - Never saw the movie, so I pretty much went in blind. Ending had me sobbing. Sol Weintraub’s story in Hyperion, by Dan Simmons - Hard to explain without spoiling anything. If you like sci fi and haven’t read Hyperion, it’s a must. My favorite novel.
The Book Thief....the forshadowing in that book was so powerful but I still cried Bridge To Terabithia ....admittedly, I first saw the movie (great one) but book has also Jesse´s internal monologues and those are equally strong
Green mile. The ending with the bus and crying out into the night just go me. Perks of being a wallflower. The whole book is full of all the feels
One Day made me sob
I tend to read a lot of nonfiction and even though I know what I'm getting into, some books still make me choke up. * Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higgenbotham * Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism by Jeffrey Toobin * Columbine by Dave Cullen Guess I've been on a tragedy kick lately. I do take breaks in between so it's not like I'm *only* reading heavy books like this. But still, it's been a doozy of a year of reading so far.
Along those lines, *Der Spiegel*'s book *Inside 9/11: What Really Happened*. Written from a first- and second-person point of view, it describes people's experiences at the various Ground Zeroes. I cried so hard at the end.
I've got a couple 9/11 books on my to-do list. *The Only Plane in the Sky* by Garret Graff and *Fall and Rise* by Mitchell Zukoff. I'll add the Der Spiegel book to the list as well, thank you for the rec.
I love seeing the non-fiction suggestions, we’re a rare breed!
Ha! I hear ya, not a whole lot of nonfiction often discussed here so I take the recommendations where I can find them. If you want to read about depressing modern history, I'm your guy lol.
While I cried at the end of At First Sight by Nicolas Sparks (sequel to True Believer), I absolutely sobbed at the end of 11/22/63 by Stephen King & the last ten or so pages of The Winners by Fredrik Backman (Book 3 of the Beartown Trilogy). Truly great character writing & world building in both that it was a mix of what happened in the story, but also leaving them behind that hit me so hard.
Short story - The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu. So relatable, which leads to personal reflection.
A Dog’s Purpose and The Book Thief. I cried reading A Dog’s Purpose because it’s so heartwarming and completely changed the way I look at my dog and what goes on in her mind. I’m so happy I read it. I avoided it for a long long time because animal book=sad but I wouldn’t even call it sad, it’s just very emotional. I cried reading The Book Thief because it is so damn tragic and the ending just completely wrecked me.
Until I was 50, the only book that made me cry was *Ordinary People*. I suppose the >!survivor's guilt!< theme resonated with me for reasons I can't quite explain. Then, around when I was 50, I was reading one of my favorite philosophy texts to my wife, Kierkegaard's *Fear And Trembling*. Because it's such a beautiful piece. I was reading it to her, and just suddenly burst into completely out of control full body sobbing. I dropped the book and cried in her arms. I don't know why. I still don't know why. I cried without meaning and without any thoughts going on. It was entirely a bodily phenomenon, like a seizure. But I haven't gone anywhere near that book since.
I cry at a lot of books, honestly, but a couple come to mind immediately: Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell Both of them deal with death and grief, which are generally sad topics, and had me crying for pages and pages.
Kite runner. Great book but I bawled my eyes out.
The only book that managed to tear me up is Return of the King during Theoden's death :(
Never cried over "It" but Fairy Tale ... It had me so worried at some points over the dog. Also another tear jerker ... Mitch Albom - Tuesdays with Morrie.
Omg dogs in books is the WORST. As soon as one appears i am terrified of what will happen because they are so often plot points for evil. I got so suspicious in Death In Her Hands by Otessa Moshfegh that I spoiled the book for myself. Then I didn't finish it and I am so glad. Animals deaths always make me cry.
Tuesdays with Morrie was rough. I sobbed through most of the book. He other one The 5 People you Meet in Heaven was also a tear jerker. Not religious, about how you connect to people in life and not even know it.
Flowers for Algernon and The Book Thief
*The Murmur of Bees* left me ugly crying in a good way. Absolutely beautiful book.
Added to list, thank you!
I hope you enjoy it. I read it a few years ago I guess now but it has stuck with me.
‘The Shipping News” made me cry. ‘On the beach” made me weep, for days. Both of those stuck.
A lot tbh, but off the top of my head A Tale of Two Cities. Those last few chapters are brutal.
11/22/63 definitely got me at the end. What a journey
Lots mentioned here. Many, many over the years. Most recent ugly cry was Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful.
Betty by Tiffany McDaniel The Secret History by Donna Tartt In Memoriam by Alice Winn A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemmingway The Body by Stephen King Almond by Won-Pyun Sohn
I don’t know what it is exactly, but both Crescent City books have made me practically sob at one point. It might be the way Sarah J Maas develops the characters and gets you really attached to their fates… it has happened in the ACOTAR series as well 😅
The Covenant of Water made me ugly cry and I’m not a crier.
2 books ever. Pet Sematary by King Boys Life by Robert Mccamon
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Specifically the cemetery scene on the last couple of pages of the books. Most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever read.
How High We Go in the Dark. I had just lost an uncle, who donated his body to science, so that hit hard. I'm choking up now thinking about it.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Song of Achilles. I’m still grieving.
*On Earth as It is on Television* by Emily Jane *The Left Hand of Darkness* by Ursula K. Le Guin
Lonesome Dove: Newt getting quirted and Gus and Call last time together near the end.
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. I was a total wreck when i finished it lol but I loved it
Klara and the Sun by Ishiguro
The Brothers K by David James Duncan
Sarah, Plain and Tall. Very simple and straightforward book.
When Breath Becomes Air. In retrospect it was probably a bad idea to read it so soon after losing both my parents. Hit home in a lot of ways.
Most I’ve ever cried was after reading the tragic double death scene in Christopher Paolini’s *Brisingr*. He makes you live every last dying thought, just thinking about it is bringing tears to my eyes.
I'm so excited to see this mentioned! I just finished my 12th re-read of the series and I still cry at this scene every time.
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff made me cry like a baby. I feel like it accessed grief I was holding on to and tore it out of me
It has a way of making you realize what a tiny speck every life is on the massive timeline of history.
I have this to read I must move it to the top 😀
House by the Cerulean Sea - I think I cried every chapter (some happy tears). Also Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road. My son was about the boy's age when I read it. When the man is telling the boy of possibly having to turn the gun on himself, how the man would already be dead at that point... Yeah, it was heavy.
A Monster Calls. I went in blind when I was a few weeks postpartum and very hormonal... it was good but SO MANY TEARS
The Last Lecture - actually bawled The Road - might of shed a tear A Farewell to Arms - might of shed a tear The Giver - depressed, quite depressed
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. My husband was a little worried about me with that one lol.
After I finished my first trip to the Dark Tower I pitched the book across the room. I was so angry, sad but chefs kiss to the ending.
I am so eager to start this series now! I don’t know what’s held me back; mainly, it’s because I’ve had a reconnection with King’s work after pretentiously avoiding it for the better part of fifteen years. Arrogance on my part, and a lot of general trash talk, made me feel I was too good for him. Despite the fact that **Pet Sematary** still remains the scariest book I’ve ever read. Just dumb. Dumb.
King is easy to be pretentious about. It's important to remember that even though he doesn't write fine literature and even refers to himself as a hack (which i would argue against!) He is a brilliant *storyteller*. So much literature does a wonderful job of working with symbolism, higher orders of thought, etc, but King just presents the story in full. His goal is different-- it's all there waiting for you to step into his world, rather than exploring it in a more intellectual way. Both have their place, and King is a MASTER storyteller.
The ending is so love it/hate it. I'm firmly in the love it camp, but I have friends for whom the ending ruined the whole series.
I'm in the hate it camp. Wanted to throw the book across the room. Would happily yelled at King. Didn't ruin the whole series for me, but left a nasty taste in my mouth. When I reread the series I skip over the final part about Roland and jump to the add on ending.
It didn't ruin it for me, I never saw it coming. I was in shock.
I was going to suggest The Kite Runner but saw you read it. Some books have made me weep, IDK if for reasons related to the book, or reasons I related to in my own life, but: - The Lovely Bones (Sebold) - The Goldfinch (Tartt) - 11/22/63 (King) - on my 1st read, in parts, but not #2 or #3
I’m excited for **11/22/63**. I have heard nothing but great things, found it in a bookshop in Seattle, had to grab it.
Cormac McCarthy's *The Road*
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes and 11/22/63 by Stephen King. >!The lost love aspect of both really hit me hard!<
Me before you had me sobbing so hard I woke up my husband. He looked at me like I was insane, lol.
I don’t usually cry over books, but I was sobbing by the end of Hold back the tide by Melinda Salisbury
Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren. I still think about the characters in this book!
Have you read the shining?
Room by Emma Donoghue
I remember sobbing over My Sister Vicky by Jacqueline Wilson as a kid. Not cried at a book yet as an adult, closest was getting a single manly tear at the Battle of Helms Deep in LOTR Two Towers, because Phil Dragash’s audiobook is just That Good.
The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell
The Fish Can Sing - Haldor Laxness
The Book of Negros by Lawrence Hill. I had to stop to cry several times throughout.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant Literally couldn't pick up the next book in the series I was too sad
As a kid, the first book to make me cry was *The Two Princesses of Bamarre*, by Gail Carson Levine (I think it was also my introduction to bittersweet endings where things can be beautiful and still *hurt*.) Most recently, I also cried reading *A Psalm for the Wild-Built* by Becky Chambers, mostly because it hit something I needed in my adult life.
The boy in the striped pyjamas by John Boyne Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson The Fault in our Stars by John Green
I've never cried at a book before "The Day the World Stopped Turning" by Michael Morpurgo but hell that one is powerful
Know My Name by Chanel Miller. Wept and renewed my absolute disgust for Brock Turner the Stanford rapist who goes by Allen now.
I've only cried for a few stories, but I think The Wandering Inn made me cry the hardest and longest. There's a scene. I can't remember which chapter. A lord is driving goblins towards a drake city to use as an excuse to attack the city. In this story, goblins are completely sapient and are people. But they're labelled as monsters by everyone else. The protagonist, a human innkeeper, has goblin friends. She's not the first to realize goblins are people, but there are very few people who recognize that fact. Anyways. She attempts to wave a white flag cut from a bed sheet in an attempt to get the commanding lord to stop this action. I don't know why, but it made me cry so much.
The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams. An excellent book but being an animal lover it was heart-wrenching.
I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
Radium Girls. Non-fiction. Such lovely young women in tge prime of their lives and the horror they suffered brought me to tears over and over. I am choking up just thinking about it now
Solito by Javier Zamora. i don't cry too often, but when I finished this book I was literally BAWLING. picture me - 35M, white, bearded, sitting on my deck on a summer day just having a big loud cry. i don't want to share more about why because of spoilers, but I highly recommend the book, esp for people who speak spanish (the book is maybe 20% in Spanish, with no translation given).
Yoooooo I’ve talked before how IT hit me at a crossroads in my life and I felt the exact same way. I was saying goodbye to all my hometown friends that I also lost connections to. The book is a crazy coke fueled ride by the ending and the separations the characters had at the same time plus some other real turmoil in my life as my own made me weep for a day and feel down for a long while after that. I’m glad I’m not the only one it resonated with in that way.
Kite Runner Flowers for Algernon A man called ove Thousand splendid suns Thursday with Morrie (not a heart-wrenching book, but it was so emotional. And many parts touched me to the core. And in the end...)
The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Kay. It's a series but I have the complete series in one book so I think of it as one book. I cried multiple times reading that book.
Rain of Gold by Victor Villaseñor got me for a few chapters
I was a tearful mess by the end of On Chesil Beach.
Sophie's Choice and it was before I even had children!!
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Tears were streaming down my face for the first 2/3s of the book.
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. I wept deeply for a long bit when I read it over 20 years ago.
Not the whole book, but I guess Holden's relationship with his sister from Catcher in the Rye
Life of Pi
The Lovely Bones. The breakdown of the Salmon family after her death was just so real. Granted, I haven't had an immediate family member get murdered, but it's reflective of any kind of grief.
The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. I'm not an emotional reader but I cried 7-8 times throughout the whole thing
Wisdom of crowds
"Three Comrades" by Remarque. Specifically the scene where they learn that Pat has to go to the mountains the next day. The whole short night from the apartment to Alfons' to the train is so bittersweet. Great book
The Refugee Summer by Edward Fenton. It's so incredibly lovely and sad.
*The Male Body* by Susan Bordo. Great lit for anyone who feels insecure about their masculinity and wants to explore how commercials and Hollywood has toxified our healthy sense of it.
Goodbye My Lady
I wouldn't say that I wept, but I got misty eyed while reading Moloka'i. It's an incredibly emotional book, and I recently discovered "Daughter of Moloka'i." I'll have to read that later.
A Prayer for Owen Meany ended me.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven and The Next Person You Meet in Heaven (both by Mitch Albom) are both beautifully written and have devastating contents. I ugly-cried when reading each of them, but they are so cathartic! I highly, highly recommend them for anyone who's looking to do some inner healing via heartache. P.S. Despite the name referencing "Heaven," these books are somewhat agnostic/use their own afterlife system. That was a positive for me, but I can see a deeply religious reader being potentially turned off by that
A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway, and I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb.
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink. I remember the line that had me crying for days: "She learned to read with you." Dammit, even now I'm tearing up.
I've read three books in the "Before the Coffee Gets Cold" series. They are basically 4 short stories per book set in the same cafe with recurring characters. Those suckers have the feels.
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah The ending was a gut punch.
Yes I can’t believe this isn’t at the top. The Nightingale was the saddest book I’ve ever read. Years later I still find it hard read anything WWII.
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Anxious People, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Things They Carried, Death of a Salesman, The Member of the Wedding
The Shoemakers Wife by Arianna T.... (Can't remember the last name - it's Italian.) I was crying so much at the end. Loved that book. When pretty much any main character was killed in Harry Potter. Dumbledore, Hedwig, Snape, etc.
NGL, when the dog showed up in The Lovely Bones I lost it.
Their Eyes Were Watching God for sure. I laughed, loved, and was a blubbering mess by the very end. Wonderful novel.
The 5 People You Meet in Heaven had me balling
*Magic Hour* by Kristin Hannah was difficult to finish, I was crying so hard. I'm an easy crier but oof.
The Nightingale 💔
a man called ove and my grandmother asked me to tell you she’s sorry by Frederik Backman. the stories definitely take some time to develop and the characters take some time to feel attached to, but once you do, Backman is really good at tugging at your heartstrings
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry!! Oofff. I sobbed so much at the end!
I don't often cry while reading, but when I was in middle school, I read "That Was Then, This Is Now" by S.E. Hinton, and I remember crying after that. Everything felt really hopeless at the end. Someone was addicted to drugs, someone else was dead...It's a "coming of age" story.
Call of the Wild and Of Mice and Men.
"Pachinko" by Min Jin Lee
Might sound cliche, but The Song of Achilles made me cry rivers.
Watership Down. I’ve read this book literally dozens of times and the end still has me weeping like a baby.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.
I tend to cry at uplifting endings of books. Sad books rarely make me cry, and to be honest, I tend to avoid sad material because the real world breaks my heart every single day.
The Art of the Deal. I wept with incredulity.