The saddest book you've ever read . . .

[expatinscotland]

or didn't finish b/c it was just too depressing?

'White Oleander' by Janet Fitch

Since I Don't Have You by Louise Candlish - I picked it up thinking it would be a light-hearted holiday read not realising that the story centred around something so sad and yet it's one of the loveliest (if incredibly bittersweet) books I've ever read.

another vote for 'before i say goodbye'.

also, as name may suggest - in 'deathly hallows' where it becomes apparent that snape loved lily and pomised to look after her son and his patronus was a doe.

The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell, it was slow at first but by the middle you knew it wasnt going to end well and i was so throughout then absolutely sobbed at the climax. Very well written.

Another one for the Lovely Bones, I read that when DS was a few months old which was a big mistake!

Goodnight Mr Tom. I know it's a children's book, but I sobbed so loudly, I woke DH up, when I read it.

yy to His Dark Materials and Birdsong too.
Year Of Wonders
Juse the Obscure

I bawl my eyes out at Good Night Mr Tom every single time!

"I calls her Trudy..."
"Mr Tom! I want you, Mr Tom!"
"He called me Dad...he called me Dad."

I also remember crying uncontrollably at Go Toward the Light, written by Chris Oyler. Her son Ben was a hemophiliac who contracted the AIDS virus and died when he was 9. Heartbreaking.

Oh, and Dolores Claiborne. "Sometimes when I'm talkin to Serena and I hear her slur her words, I wonder if there's any escape for any of us from the pain and sorrow in our lives." :(

I know it's not awfully literally but in Jilly Cooper's Polo when Ricky France-Lynch kills his child in a drink driving accident gets me every time

Oh shit - just seen I wrote exact same thing in 2005

The Friday Night Knitting Club - do NOT read this on the train!!!

Anna Karenina-I've read it 3 times and it always moves me to tears.

The end of "His Dark Materials" really gets to DH too!
I really hated "Lord of the flies" felt upset for Ralph and piggie and just that not only had some one bothered to write something so unpleasant, but that we'd been made to read it.

Another vote for Time Travellers Wife...every time I picked it I howled!

Goodbye Mog...oh I'm not sure I can even attempt to read that...

The Road...argh very depressing, there is a film about the book...like how depressing is that going to be!

As someone who cries very easily at books ( I even managed a sob during Wolf Hall!) I tend to avoid anything too obviously sad! However......
If this is a Man--Primo Levy, absolutely brilliant
The diving bell and the butterfly
Half a yellow sun (the calabash image will stay with me forever, such a good book)
Also loved Small Island

Bridges of Madison Country too. I was bawling at Falling from Dimension Z.

I read a book by James Patterson that wasn't a thriller, I think it was called Letters to Timothy, or something like that. Its the only book I've ever cried at! Although I did shed a tear at the end of The Time Travellers Wife, and I didn't even think it was that good!

Definitely Goodnight Mr Tom - I have read it loads of times (as a kid and as an adult too) and cry every time. I also cry in Heidi though - when she goes back to see Grannie - but that's one of those too-happy-to-bear moments!

Michael Rosen's Sad Book - makes me cry anyhow...

The Running Foxes by Joyce Stranger. I read it aloud to my DD then 7 and the tears were streaming down her face at the bit where the terrier is dragging itself out of the badger hole to its master - and dies in his arms. DD didn't know why she was crying as it was the first time a book had had this effect on her! It is a pity that all these old books are out of print and publishers push the 'modern' and 'fashionable ones....

All quiet on the western front. I remember weeping buckets on a busy commuter train

I cry at quite a few books, read too many and get too invested in the characters I think. But the two book that stick out for me are both from my early teens. Z for Zachariah by Robert C O'Brien which freaked me out and oddly can't quite bring myself to read again even now, and Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume which does make me sob good and proper but it's about losing a parent when you're young which happened to me too......although it is an excellent book.

Ruth Picardie's "Before I Say Goodbye" had me in tears in the bookshop just by reading the blurb on the back! - bought it and cried buckets. Not dared read it now I have DD.

'Lovely Bones' was another that was so sad.

'I know why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou was a book that I read as a teenager and has stayed with me.

Oh and Time Travellers wife!

I'm sure someone has already said it, but The Mill on the Floss was so sad I didn't speak to George Eliot for years.

Year of Wonders

not even a great book, but the children died near the end and I was sobbing

Testament of Youth - Vera Brittain

My sister's keeper- by far the saddest for me as its the voice of a little girl who has to sacrifice and the ending rips your heart out unlike other books which are usually uplifting. This is too but in the 'I lost my life to save my family' way.
Lovely bones great too.
I also have suddenly developed an interest in child abuse books and have been reading The Kid, Ugly and It. Just can't get my head round it.