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.

The Light Between Oceans is such a thoughtful novel with believable characters and the conscept heartbreaking. Very well written too.

Another vote for The Fault In Our Stars and also My Dear I Wanted To Tell You.

The Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend is also a very emotive story - I bawled at this book. It's a fantasy novel but feels very real in its setting.

The Wind Singer Trilogy by William Nicholson. Again, these are teenage fiction books but SO fabulous!! I remember weeping on holiday in France reading them.
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey is another wonderful story.

Annabel by Kathleen winter. An amazing book.

Oh my, am most negligent poster ever!! Am in NZ and in midst of school holidays so haven't had a chance to come back till now. Thanks for all the recommendations, am going to scour them now but you have also kindly jogged my memory on many books. I cried and cried and got SO cross in His Dark Materials, and Regeneration was wonderful.... Must now read the rest of the thread. And also craft straightjackets for 6,5 and 2 year olds so I get a chance to read in the next month.....

How could i have not thought of Big Brother. Shriver writes so well that even if you dont like the protagonists, you can't help but empathise with them. And so many new books to track down, I have never heard of JoJo Moyes or most of these books. Thats me sorted for a while!

Another vote for the previous suggestions of;
The Book Thief
A Fault in our Stars
Me before You

I have the memory of a goldfish but those books (along with the Life of Pi, but that's not a tearjerker) have stayed with me.
In fact just the thought of The Book Thief makes me want to cry.

A Hundred Pieces of Me by Lucy Dillon - published in February. I was lucky enough to read an advance copy. Wonderful book, it has hope, happiness, but not before many tears are shed.[The dog especially had me in floods!!] Highly recommended.

Time travellers wife. The film was awful but I adore the book

The last time they met, by Anita Shreve - beautifully written, totally unsentimental, had me in pieces when I first read it a few years ago and again recently. Just ignore the offputting soft-focus cover. And Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger, one of my favouritest books ever - heart-wrenching in places.
Another vote for The Time Traveller's Wife too!

Books that have made me cry

Tess of the d'Urbevilles - Thomas Hardy
The Photograph - Penelope Lively
The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene
Atonement - Ian McEwan
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Love Life - Ray Kluun (I defy you to read the ending with dry eyes)
Wild Swans - Jung Chang

Also agree with Maggie O'Farrell, Jojo Moyes, Khaled Hosseini and The Book Thief as mentioned above.

Haven't read all the submissions from others. Definitely recommend A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini. I wept buckets.

Another vote for Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance. Sob sob but amazing book.

I'm currently 2/3s through The Fault In Our Stars by John Green and have already gone through All the Feels! There is no way I'm going to make it to the end without dissolving!

Otherwise I sobbed at the end of One Day - but if you've seen the film or had the ending spoiled I don't think it would be quite so much of a sob-athon.

Well, I don't know if I would describe it as a tear jerker, but it took me totally by surprise how emotional I felt at the end of I Heard The Owl Call My Name. I cried a lot and really wasn't expecting to.

The Road, for its utter bleakness
The Poisonwood Bible
The Kite Runner or A Thousand Splendid Suns or And a The Mountains Echoed
The Other Hand
The Book Thief
Blindness by Saramago. Not a tear jerker as such, but bits of it had me in tears.
The Woman in Black had me in tears at the end too.

I can't believe I forgot His Dark Materials. I have never cried as much at the end of a book before or since!

Um, dare I say Sophie's Choice.

Right, I have beside me Me Before You, the hand that first held mine, The Other Hand and my old copy of Tess which thoroughly deserves a re-read. We are heading off into the wilds for a week - no TV, no phone, no internet connection. I can see myself wallowing in these books, children allowing. I shall take chocolate, tissues and restorative wine too. I have also ordered a few more that I couldn't get locally - this thread has been a gold mine. Thank you. I shall report back on my emotional state in a week. I am just finishing Musis and Silence which is raptuos - loving it.

OP I am very of your week in the wilds with those books! Enjoy!

I was just going to say Tess! Utterly tragic

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis - I cried buckets, but they were good tears, IYSWIM. I hate it when I feel manipulated into crying.

OP - your week in wilds sounds like heaven! Wine and great books, what more could anyone want? Agree Music and Silence is a wonderful book.

another vote for The Fault in Our Stars - a beautiful book and absolutely heartbreaking.

Chris Cleave - Gold. Sobbed, a lot, and recommended to my dbro, who is never emotional about books, and even he shed a tear or two.

The Sea Sisters - Lucy Clarke. Not sure if it counts as intelligent though!

Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks. Journey's End, R C Sherriff. Especially this year, centenary of WW1.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven - moving and thought provoking