Books that break your heart

[Moominfan]

Colson whitehead under ground railroad. He brought out another book knickel boys and I just can't bring myself to read it.

Room- I started it and just knew I'd be thoroughly depressed by this book so shelved it.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson - had only ever read one book by her before and didn't like it. This one came up on my book group list and my heart sank but it was brilliant and moving.

The Time Traveller's Wife - I realised part way through how it was going to end and I didn't want to carry on but couldn't put it down either.

I've just finished Bridge of Clay by the chap that wrote The Book Thief. Cried a fair bit over that too.

A Little Life for me too, so hard to read but one of the best books I have read in years.

Also the Nightingale, I am not a crier but I had tears streaming down my face at the end of that one. I was gripped from page 1 to the end.

Far from the madding crowd when the sheep are driven over the edge - this is personal though as it was my dads favourite book and he loved this bit. I read it aloud to him as he was dying so very poignant for me now (I hate hardy so my dad would find this amusing).

Green mile - ugly sobs

Harry Potter book 4 when Cedric is killed as it's so off hand (yeas I know this is tragic)

Beth dying in little women.

The end of Anne of The Island when she and Gilbert walk in the rain

The letter in persuasion because it's so romantic and full of longing

I’ll second Before I Say Goodbye by Ruth Picardie. It’s a collection of letters she sends to friends and family after her cancer diagnosis. From the outset you know what’s going to happen and as she gets more poorly, it’s so incredibly sad.

The Things They Carried
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
All Quiet on the Western Front

(clearly a theme here...)

Also I remember crying on and off for days after finishing The Secret History though I can’t quite remember why!

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain.
Cried buckets, DS2 called it my 'sad book'

Definitely Eleanor Oliphant. So moving.

The Netherworld by George Gissing. Poor Jane Snowdon, no safety net, let down by one and all.

L'Assomoir by Emile Zola. All the waste and degradation

The first time I read Goodbye Mog, totally unexpected as I'm usually a bit of a stone.
Some of the stories in the The Little Wooden Horse , By Ursula Moray Williams, I clearly remember reading about when he goes blind and having to shuffle away with tears in my eyes when I read it when I was about six or seven before my brothers saw me and would have tormented me.
The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson, so sad that she goes unnoticed and has to turn into foam. What a waste.

The first time I read Goodbye Mog

I've not even read it just the title alone was enough

The Green Mile

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - A very un-Stephen King Stephen King book.

My sister lives on the mantelpiece
Sobbing every time

A Little Life is the only book which genuinely moved me, and I read a LOT.

Absolutely harrowing but so beautiful at the same time.

The bluest eye Toni Morrison

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult, there was a twist that just made me sob!

Me before you - Jojo Moyes

All the light we cannot see - Anthony Doerr

Of Mice And Men.
The Book Thief.
Lord of the Flies.
The Fault In Our Stars.

Oh, and Goodbye Mog.

The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck; The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison; The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Kite runner made me weep
Ditto a little life

I find Brideshead Revisted quite intensely sad, not the deep trauma of the above but the mourning for youth always resonated with me.

One by Sarah Crossan, made me cry so much that I keep lending it to other people to make them cry too.

And since this is a parenting forum, Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson

Lots of these but also the ending of Atonement

Pawn In Frankincense. Most books by Dorothy Dunnett have a moment that stops your heart and you don't know when it's coming and it takes your mind a while to catch up with the text then...oh...

The fault in our stars

The memory book by Rowen Coleman and also We are all made of Stars by the same author.

The Nightingale
The Winter garden
Firefly Lane

A crack in Forever, this book made me bawl my eyes out years ago. I've googled the author a few, times since and haven't found another book by her.

Marley and Me. I couldn't even see the book I cried so much at the end.

Non fiction but The Right Stuff.

Oh yeah Goodbye Mog. I can't even look at the book let alone read it.