Intelligent tearjerker - any recommendations?

[Paddingtonblue]

I need to read a "tearjerker" of my choice for bookclub. I would rather pull all my hair out than read a Jodi Piccoult or similar, but can anyone make any recommendations? I just read Life after Life and adored it.

I don't cry easily at books but there is a scene in Earth and Heaven by Sue Gee that reduced me to tears. It's a thoughtful, intelligent novel .. I guess you could call it a tearjerker at a stretch.

Thanks Coo. I am the same. Have you read The Colour by Rose Tremain? It is fabulous and like your book has one scene that just has me weeping. Have just ordered Earth and Heaven. Cheers.

It takes quite an extraordinarily good novel to make me cry. There were three that I can think of that I read last year which did do that - The Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman, The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin, and Big Brother by Lionel Shriver.

I cried at The Camomile Lawn last time I read it. Though I don't know how much that fits the 'intelligent' brief. DH says that when it was televised in the 80s, everyone called it The Camomile Porn.

Yes, OP, I'm a Rose Tremain fan. Also love Music and Silence and Restoration, which I'm planning to reread soon before moving on to Merivel. Looking forward to that.

Let me know how you get on with Sue Gee. I think she's a much under-rated writer. Her first and last books are unremarkable but her mid-career stuff - like The Mysteries of Glass and The Hours of the Night - is very good.

Time travellers wife?

Possession by AS Byatt? It's quite long for a book club book, but definitely intelligent. I liked TheLight Between Oceans too - brought a lump to my throat, although it was a bit predictable.

The Book Thief.

And YY to Sue Gee. Goodness only knows shy she isn't better known.

have you read any Thomas Hardy - the Major of Casterbridge made me sob. Jude the obscure is also very sad.

I wept (wept!) on the Tube when i came to the end of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities.

Also howled reading The Girl You Left Behind by JoJo Moyes.

Wonder by RJ Palacio rendered me a weepy puddle. A beautiful gem of a book IMO.

How much crying is required for a tearjerker? The end of That Lady gets me every time.

although they are officially 'children's books', the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman all make me cry at various points.

Grapes of Wrath?

Jonathan Coe - The Rain Before It Falls.

See if you can find the english translation of La Storia by Elsa Morante. A magnificent novel set in Rome during ww2. And I agree with Duchess, only extraordinarily good novel really make you cry.

stat totally agree (his Dark Materials books got me totally!! Was so disappointed they made that rubbish film!!)

But I'm still so angry about the film of Alex Garlands 'The Beach'!!! That book was awesome, the film totally wrong!!!!!!

Terry Goodkind 'wizards first rule' books got me aswell x

I cried like a small baby at the end of Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy. To the point that even though it is one of my favourite books (well, technically a series but you have to read them together) and I've read it several time since, I've never finished it again...

Me Before You by JoJo Moyes.

Utterly heartbreaking.

Another vote for Me before you. It's v sad tho..

Just read Fractured. That made me cry too.

Of mice and men.

A fine balance by Rohinton mistry. Had a Proper sobbing snotty breakdown when that finished. Sadly I was on a train.

Ooh I was on a train when reading A Thousand Splendid Suns. I was properly sobbing at one point; not my finest hour!

On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks. The last few pages especially (but obviously you need to read the whole book first ). Welling up just thinking about it!

Or - I haven't quite finished it yet, but the first few chapters of Donna Tartt's latest, The Goldfinch, are incredible. I almost couldn't carry on as it was so emotionally charged (PM me if you want to know the general topic concerned as I don't want to inadvertently post a spoiler on here!).

Or - A Take of Two Cities by Dickens (sorry, I don't think you've said if it has to be a modern novel or not?). I burst into huge sobs the first time I read it, when the very famous line appears ...