Your favourite sad fiction book

[Unbeleevable]

I was thinking about sad stories that have lingered with me and I wondered what other keen readers have enjoyed in a heart-wrenching kind of way. I’m thinking of the kind of books that are wistful, sad, and leave an imprint on your heart or soul.

I realised the story that has stuck with me my whole life is “The Lorax” by Dr Seuss. I remember my mum reading it to me from my big Dr Seuss illustrated story book, at my repeated requests I must have read it dozens of times.

What book has stuck with you, and made you think differently about the world?

I came on to say the same thing.

For me one that hit me the most was How to be happy by Eva woods, a very warm feel good book about a lady who befriends a very extroverted lady in a hospital. There’s one scene in it that caught me unaware, and I was nearly hysterical sobbing because of the image

The only book that has made me cry is The Water Of The Hills By Marcel Pagnol. It is utterly brilliant and unputdownable.

It can be also be bought as two separate books, Jean De Florette and Manon des Sources (Manon Of The Springs)

It had the most amazing scenery imaginable as well.

Goodnight Mr Tom was my favourite book from childhood, I must have read it a thousand times.

The maze runner had me sobbing but I can’t remember which one.

The Green Mile and My Sisters Keeper I could barely turn the pages I was crying so hard.

The Unbearable Lightness Of Being

Milan Kundera

I was not prepared for this book in any way! Needless to say I'll never forget it!

Ooh Fried green tomatoes by Fanny Flagg. Brilliant.

Shadow Baby by Margaret Forster has had me sobbing both times I read it and I still think about Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro now and I read it years ago.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro has really haunted me. Set in a near future in the US, it’s narrated by a female teenage robot ‘companion’ who’s sold to a young girl’s family as she needs her at the time due to an illness. When she recovers the robot begins a ‘slow fade’ that is so profound, beautiful and sad.

A Little Life

Goodnight Mr. Tom

Little Women / Good Wives : the first time I sobbed and sobbed at a book , aged 12.

I agree about the Maggie O’Farrel books and Thomas Hardy, all had an emotional impact on me though it’s many years since I read most of them. More recently two books by Chris Whittaker, We Begin at the End and All the Wicked Girls, both were heartbreaking. Also, The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah.

The Help

The Lovely Bones

Through a glass darkly by Jostein Gaarder. Finished it whilst on a plane and sobbed so hard the stranger next to me asked if I was OK.
The Little Princess, so emotional.
Little Women
The woman in the white kimono

Fantastic book. Really thought provoking and horribly sad.

Angela's Ashes
A Thousand Spendid Suns
Bridges of Madison County

As a child - The Selfish Giant, Oscar Wild
As an adult - The Green Mile, Stephen King

The Child in Time - Ian McEwan
The Collector - John Fowles

The Light Between Oceans- M.L Stedman

Never Let Me Go
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
My Sister's Keeper
The Blue Book of Nebo
The Song of Achilles

I love crying at a book 🤣

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Sunset Song. Lewis Grassic Gibbon
A Tale of Two Cities. Charles Dickens

Never let me go left me feeling very sad. Couldn't shake it off for ages.