Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

Favourite books with a sad ending?

66 replies

fifteenmillionmerits · 09/06/2021 11:39

Mine are:
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Z for Zachariah by Robert C O'Brien
The Green Mile by Stephen King
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D Taylor

OP posts:
pickingdaisies · 10/06/2021 12:56

Half a world away. Had to explain to DH why I was sitting there bawling.
And Time Travellers Wife.

Rainbowqueeen · 10/06/2021 12:49

@TheWindOnTheMoon agree, I sobbed the entire second half.

So I second The light between oceans

Andante57 · 10/06/2021 12:45

Frogcorset hmmm……Charlotte and Lambert. Well unless she falls out of love with him like Scarlett O’Hara did with Ashley after Melanie died she she might entrap him by saying either marry me and I’ll pay all your debts including those to Christopher Dysart, or I’ll continue to persecute you, lay bare your dishonesty and have you in court for debt after which you’ll be cancelled by everyone.
Or, she might just continue to persecute him.

I hope Christopher Dysart didn’t marry Miss Hope Drummond as he may have been a bit wet but in those days he was still a catch, and she was a complete pill.

25 years later the Protestant orphan may have her revenge ….

Re a dramatisation, exactly as you said, in the one they made some years ago they failed to make Charlotte at all grotesque - in fact she was quite attractive - so much of the point was lost.
.
So nice to find another Real Charlotte fan!

StellaOlivetti · 10/06/2021 08:09

A God in Ruins. I cried a LOT.

Frogcorset · 10/06/2021 08:05

@Andante57

Frogcorset I would love to know what happened to all the characters after the fatal fall from the horse.
Yes, would Charlotte have finally snagged Lambert? (Highly unlikely. But imagine that honeymoon...) Would Miss Hope-Drummond have snagged Christopher Dysart? Would Charlotte wrangle her way into significant money and status as the Dysarts decline? Would the Protestant orphan finally rebel over her treatment?

I wish someone would make a tv dramatisation — the old one with Jeananne Crowley and Patrick Bergen is a bit antique — but I suspect Charlotte is too grotesque to be appealing as a protagonist for adapters.

Andante57 · 10/06/2021 07:38

Frogcorset I would love to know what happened to all the characters after the fatal fall from the horse.

Frogcorset · 10/06/2021 06:44

@Andante57

The Real Charlotte by Somerville & Ross.
I adore The Real Charlotte. I feel I have a Charlotte Mullen side...

Charlotte Bronte’s Villette.

Andante57 · 09/06/2021 21:36

Is the ending of The Goldfinch sad or ambiguous?

Viviennemary · 09/06/2021 20:39

Green Darkness. Anya Seton. Unbearaby sad ending.

CliftonGreenYork · 09/06/2021 19:29

Atonement

CrepuscularCritter · 09/06/2021 19:27

I'm re-reading Lord of the Flies this week and yes to the gut-wtenching sadness of that quote at the end. Also Donna Tartt's The Secret History and the secrets that bind them all in gentle hopelessness. Plus Richard Adams and Girl in a Swing.

Acrasia · 09/06/2021 19:23

Betty by Tiffany McDaniel absolutely broke me, but oh my goodness I haven’t felt so much love for a book as that.

TheWindOnTheMoon · 09/06/2021 19:21

The Light Between Oceans. So sad.

Cardboardeaux · 09/06/2021 14:24

The Song of Achilles (it wasn't me crying on the train reading the end, it was you!)

Agreed re The Go Between

The end of Lord of the Flies always gets me ("Ralph wept at the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy").

Germinal

CandyLeBonBon · 09/06/2021 14:16

The time traveller's wife

Doyouwantanothercuppa · 09/06/2021 14:15

The Beekeeper of Aleppo. Just so real and tragic.

Original poster
fifteenmillionmerits · 09/06/2021 14:13

Sunnidayz - Makes me so annoyed when people damage books. I keep considering getting the Kindle app as my paperbacks will end up dog-eared eventually, but then again I love the feeling of a real book as well.

OP posts:
Andante57 · 09/06/2021 14:13

TheTurn - yes, definitely The Go Between.
Brilliant book.

PurpleDaisies · 09/06/2021 14:09

Another vote for “The Time Traveller’s Wife”. A brilliant book.

TheTurn0fTheScrew · 09/06/2021 14:07

The Go Between by LP Hartley
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

Andante57 · 09/06/2021 14:06

The Real Charlotte by Somerville & Ross.

Guardsman18 · 09/06/2021 14:04

The Reader Bernhard Shlink (whoever he may be) . Makes me well up just thinking about it

OlivesTree · 09/06/2021 14:02

Time Traveller’ Wife again. So beautiful and so sad.

maras2 · 09/06/2021 13:57

Madame Bovary by Flaubert.

MrsRussell · 09/06/2021 13:55

@Snugglepumpkin

Assassins Fate by Robin Hobb. You really need to read the other 15 books in the series first though.

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay.

ANY Guy Gavriel Kay really @Snugglepumpkin.

The bit at the end of the Fionavar Tapestry - "Only each other, at the last..." oh goodness I'm getting snivelly just thinking about it.
And Tanith Lee's "The Silver Metal Lover" - my bestie bought me that for my birthday and oh my god I cried. He was mortified, poor bugger.