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.

Oh and a children's book called The Brothers Lionheart and The Silver Chair.

Peepo makes me wail 'A little baby just like you' waaaaaa

YY to Grapes of Wrath, a phenomenal read.

The Colour Purple

Eleanor Oliphant

Anything by Niall Williams

Jude the Obscure. Devastating. I actually think you can only read Hardy when you are young. I couldn’t read it now.

A lot of Dickens - the first chapters of David Copperfield - his poor, weak Mama and how alone he was

The Railway Children - happy sad but so very poignant.

Just ordered 6 of these on amazon 😂

I agree Binterested - read a lot of Hardy as a sixth former. Not sure i could now.

Just started reading Eleanor oliphant from these recommendations and really enjoying it so far!

It's a wonderful little book Sleep

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Loads of books have made me cry and cry over the years. These spring to mind:

Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The lost child of Philomena Lee - by Martin Sixsmith

The Last Act of Love: The Story of My Brother and His Sister - Cathy Rentzenbrink - devastating memoir written with humour

Dogger- Shirley Hughes

That was then This is now - SE Hinton

Yes to: A Thousand Splendid Suns & The Kite Runner

Also:
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Light Between the Oceans
The Fault in Our Stars
Wonder
Private Peaceful

Am I the only one who found A Little Life bloody awful?

I liked the prose, but I couldn't stand any of the characters and I couldn't give a hoot about any of them even by the end. A misery memoir.

The Road is one of my all-time favourites and always moves me.

@AloneLonelyLoner - no you're not alone in that. I hated it and called it misery lit, same as you, or was it misery porn, can't remember.
There are quite a few of us who hated it.

I liked The Road too.

Captain Corelli’s mandolin. So beautiful, so bittersweet.

A little life by Hanya Yanagihara. I couldn’t stop crying.

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende. About a forbidden relationship decades ago between a Japanese men and a Caucasian woman. DH is Asian and I’m Caucasian and this book is very precious to me.

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende. It’s been 20 years since I’ve read this one, still one of the most beautiful and hauting novels I have ever read.

War and turpentine by by Stefan Hertmans. This one is relatively unknown and such an overlooked gem. Truly one of the best books I have read in years. The love that the author describes between a rich man’s daughter who marries a poor painter in 19th century Belgium and then becomes a widow is very very beautiful. Their son, the author’s grandfather becomes a soldier in WWI and his experiences, also later in life are heartbreaking. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a good read during a cold winterday.

I hardly ever cry in books, but the two already mentioned that have got me are The Remains of the Day and One Day. To which I would add A Suitable Boy - such a quiet but heartbreaking depiction of lost love. More obscurely The Peacock Spring by Rumer Godden - one of my very favourite books, and such a sharp description of an awkward, spiky teenager finding and losing love.

Me before you. It gets me every time.

Cranford and Greyfriars Bobby.

Where rainbows end
Tully
The power of one

I've never cried reading a book. Definitely going to try some of these, could do with a good sob!

Oh Brothers Lionheart. I was about 9 when teacher read it in class. Stuck with me all these years. And a Dutch one - Het Hooge Nest. Filmrights bought by Carice van Houten.

Birds without Wings by Louis de Bernieres

A Suitable Boy made me cry in parts, as did Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy - the third one I think, where Lyra and Pan had to do a certain thing ....

Agree with A Little Life - it was so harrowing and heartbreaking, I almost couldn't carry on with it because of the depictions of the abuse the character suffered.

Me Before You - thought it would be a nice lighthearted read, but boy was I wrong! Cried myself to sleep after finishing that book!

Everything I Never Told You had me in absolute bits too, the way that grief affected everyone in the family differently really struck a chord with me.

I hardly ever cry when I read a book (maybe because I generally read too fast) but if I ever have to read a book aloud to a child I often well up. Sometimes it's the simplicity of the story, or the innocence of the emotions maybe, but a lot of them got me like that when my dc were small, quite unexpectedly on occasion. The Railway Children made me cry when I was reading it to a class of children once!

Tom's Midnight Garden. Took the DDs to see a theatre performance of this a few years ago. ALL the adults were in tears at the end and DD1 was saying very loudly 'why are you crying Mummy?'

Otherwise another vote for 'Never Let Me Go'.

Oh my gosh, I completely forgot about Tom's Midnight Garden. That one really got me. I was reading it to my daughter and had to keep stopping to breathe.