Books that make you cry

[Scimitarsandstars]

I just finished Earth and Heaven by Sue Gee. I first tried to read it about 12 years ago but gave up as I was finding it too upsetting.

I picked it up again a few days ago as I love her writing and this book is so beautifully written. Once again, I was in floods of tears , although this time, I have finished it. I don't remember another book that has made me cry so much. I don't regret reading it though. It is so thoughtful and moving, and so evocative about the post WW1 period (although I am slightly doubtful about the ending).

So I am wondering, has anyone else read a book recently that's made you sob? And did it put you off reading it?

Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton - a novel by Alan Paton, set in 1940s South Africa, that explores the social and racial injustices of the time. The novel portrays the disintegration of tribal life, the impact of urbanization on individuals and families, and the deep-seated racial tensions that would later solidify into apartheid. I've read many times across the years, and cry every single time. It hasn't put me off reading it though!

Ooh I have not come across that. I love books that expand my knowledge - will check it out.

Yes! I love this book too. Also A Dry White Season is very good. Harrowing though.

This is not an obvious tearjerker but, many decades ago, in my early twenties I read Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game, and was surprised to find it made me cry.

I took it home and lent it to my father. The following morning I discovered he had sat up all night with it - and he said it had made him cry, too.

Cried at Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, especially at the earlier parts.

Sobbed a little at the end of Any Human Heart

Always cry at the end of The Silver Chair - tears of relief/happiness.

Cried at The Brothers Lionheart

The last book of Frederik Backman’s Beartown trilogy. OMG 😭😭😭😭

eta and Hamnet had me proper ugly, gasping for air, sobbing.

Hamnet.
The end of Noughts and Crosses.
Several times during Goodnight Mr Tom, when I re-read it as an adult, after I'd had my own children - so much of that story went over my head when I was a kid.

Snotty sobbed at The Green Mile. Had no idea how it would end.

(Then snotty sobbed even harder at it at the cinema 🙄)

These days, I don't like sad books as I feel life can be tough so I typically avoid sad books or films. However, The Hearts Invisible Furies is the best book I have read in a long time. It's sad enough to make you cry but it's also hilarious and uplifting. I would really recommend it.

I agree in many ways - but Earth and Heaven felt worth it, it created such a rich, long gone world.

Oh yes Hamnet - I had forgotten how utterly devastating it is. Read it in the early days of the pandemic which just added to the sadness.

Dickens kills me - the scene in David Copperfield, where he sees his mother for the last time, or that bit in Bleak House where Joe cleans the grave of a drug addict who was kind to him, because that’s all he can do (I’m welling up as I type). And don’t get me started on Joe in Great Expectations. He is all that is good in the human race. As for A Christmas Carol, I can’t even watch the flippin muppet version because I cry like a child.

I also find Thomas Hardy quite upsetting. The helplessness of Tess is awful, especially that scene where she cuts her hair in the hope that men will leave her alone.

Oh, and that scene in Brideshead Revisited where Cordelia describes the likely death of Sebastian. It’s so beautifully done that it brings tears to my eyes.

I love Sue Gee's books. The Mysteries of Glass and The Hours of the Night are really good by her.
They are very poignant-I don't think they made me cry though.

Siri Hudstvedt 'What I loved' is beautiful but it has a part that literally left me feeling like I'd been punched in the gut and sobbing... it's over 20 years since I first read it and it still is the book I think of whenever anyone mentions an emotional reaction to a book.

Freya North Turning Point. Read it many years when the kids were little. It was the first holiday when the children could go in the pool without an adult, so I could read a book all the way through.
I cried dirty tears at the end of the story.

I'm not a chick lit person generally but this was great.

The opening of The Child in Time by Ian McEwan. Simply devastating.

Paul Gallico - Small Miracle, The Snow Goose, Flowers for Mrs Harris*, Love I’d Seven Dolls.

All tear jerkers.

*The film was rubbish. I know MN wisdom was it was great. But it just wasn’t. It missed all the subtleties of the book.

I'm a tough nut to crack - the only book that's made me cry is Hamnet. I'll be looking at some of the recommendations on here, I do enjoy a cathartic cry.

'A thousand splendid suns' by Khalid Hossaini had me covered in mascara on the train.

A thousand splendid suns had me crying more than once.

I read this over 20 years ago and adored it. It’s sat on my shelf untouched since then. Maybe I should read it again

The mill on the floss. Don't read it if you need cheering up....

Good night Mr Tom for me - cried at it as a child, cried at it as an adult, cry during the TV adaptation.

Gets me every time

i read Captain Corelli’s Mandolin on holiday in Kefalonia. I was absolutely devastated by it as the island was thd most beautiful place I’d ever seen but the book describes absolute horrors from the Nazi occupation.

Very predictable, but Jude the Obscure and The Kite Runner both had me in floods for quite a while.

I just sobbed through In Memoriam by Alice Winn(I love a WW1 novel)
A Little Life by Hanya Yanahihara - wept on and off
Small Island by Andrea Levy -ending got me big time, full sobs
The Women by Kristin Hannah and The Things They Carried by Tom O’Brien (both Vietnam)

so many more, I like my books emotionally destructive.