Books that make you cry

[lilyevans]

I love books, but only two have ever made me cry - A little princess , and Harry potter and the deathly hallows. Feel like having a good weep, what do you recommend?

Perfect - Rachel Joyce

84 Charing cross road

The short story "the happy prince" by Oscar Wilde. Dreadfully sad and uplifting all at once. There's a bit in sunset song (scottish novel believed by exam boards) which is good for a wep too

After You'd Gone wrung me out.

Captain Corelli and Birdsong made me cry plenty.

I can't read things with badness happening to children - bad enough reading the actual bloody news. Managed Lovely Bones pre-DC but no way now. No. Way.

The death of Boxer in Animal Farm
When the Butler realises his life has been a lie and he missed out on his chance of love in The Remains of the Day

Despite the fact that I've read it so many times, I'm always ambushed by AL Kennedy's So I Am Glad, which manages to make the maddest premise (Cyrano de Bergerac inexplicably reappears in a house share in 1990s Glasgow) heartbreaking.

Fall on your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald.

Not a comforting weep, more of a sucker punch to the guts kind of cry.

Goodbye Mog by Judith Kerr (well it brings a tear to my eye)

The Nether World by George Gissing
L'Assomoir by Emile Zola
20,000 Streets under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton

I cry at the drop of a hat but the bits that would have me crying now if all I did was turn to that page without reading anything else first are:

Beth dying in Good Wives - on the bosom where she breathed her first etc.
Joy dying in Anne's House of Dreams, 'At sunset the little soul that had come with the dawning went away, leaving heartbreak behind it.'
When Charlie comes back and sees that Sam has crossed over and is a man now (Death and Life of Charlie St Cloud)
Bizarrely, the execution in John Grisham's The Chamber. I remember reading that on the tube and just bawling.
And of course Goodbye Mog. 'And she flies up and up and up into the sun.'

Of course I'm snivelling to myself now.

A Fine Balance byRohinton Mistry is a quite a heartbreaker. I didn't see the end coming, it knocked me for six.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

"Daddy, my daddy" of course, dd is used to me welling up. We have just finished His Dark Materials and there were lots of sobs from us both. When Lee dies particularly .

Goodbye Mog and Mog and Bunny.
I keep looking at The Road, it's waiting for me, but I haven't been brave enough.
We are just about to start The Order of the Phoenix, dd loves Sirius - so that will be a sobfest.

I have got much worse as I have got older! Beth in Good Wives...

Neil Gaimon's the Ocean at the End of the Road, when I finally 'got' the allegory.

Pretty much any Danielle Steele books. What's wrong with me?!

Not a book but a poem: Timothy Winters, by Charles Causley. I could barely read it to my children for sobbing.

I refuse to read Boy in the Striped Pajamas or the Kite Runner, really don't think I could cope.

Also the end of the Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. I could see the ending that was coming, but the main character, Lyra, couldn't, and when she finally realises fhe choice she has to make, I felt heartbroken for her.

And how could I forget Jude the Obscure.

His Dark Materials is one of my favourite books, there are lots of sobbing moments, but the end, poor Lyra ...

The Kite Runner, I wasn't fussed by, I thought it was a bit contrived. I daren't read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas!

Yy The Happy Prince. They used to have an animation on every Christmas, but the story is even worse.

Definitely the last few chapters of His Dark Materials. No child should have to bear those things... Not even in fiction.

I keep meaning to read A.S.Byatt's wonderful "Virgin in the Garden" series in the correct order as I bought the four books at different times. One episode you can only appreciate by reading it again is the new mother's babbling speech to her tiny child, all of which just means "I love you". I won't spoil it for you, but it's shocking and based on the author's own experience of loss.

Atonement, and embarrassingly, Mrs Chippys last Expedition which is about a cat on the ill fated Scott expedition to Antarctica, I howl and howl...

As others have said, After you'd Gone.

But a book I read a while ago still makes me well up when I think of it, My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece. A beautifully written young adult book about a young boy living in the shadow of his dead sister. I gave the book to my mum after and she openly wept whilst on a flight!