posted
I don't cry much from books, I don't think I ever have (although sometimes reading the Bible I will) but here's some that are particularly emotional
A Child Called It- saddest book I've ever read Lost Boys- the end where it talks about how the Fletchers not leaving because they were tied by the living and the dead. The Giving Tree- I've never read it- but when I was in the 3rd grade- a student in the grade above me died in a car wreck, and this was her favorite book- and they built a memorial for her in the library with a painting of the Giving Tree and books dedicated in her memory. So that makes me sad
Bridge to Terabithia- that didn't leave me sad at all. I was just like- oh, she's dead. Maybe if I read it now- I was in the 8th grade- right at the age I got excited over the climactic stuff.
Where the Red Fern Grows- this book, while its ending is horrible does not depress me at all. It actually makes me feel better- I don't see it as an ending about death- but rather I see the whole story about how love can come and bring joy to people's life that they would have never known- even if that love has an end. And the end where they find the Red Fern- that doesn't make me sad- it makes me feel like everything was worth it.
Posts: 30 | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Charlottes Web Clan of the Cave Bear Mammoth Hunters Children of the Mind The Pearl Of Mice and Men The Notebook Little Women Pink and Say Love You Forever
*some of these are childrens books.. but still made me cry
Posts: 295 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
SPOILER ALERT* For Robin Hobb's Fool's Errand
Call me a baby but I cried when Nighteyes died (leaky eyes, not heaving sobs). SO sad. The bonds of their friendship were so beautiful to me.
I have seen her books recommended many times on this website but apparently didn't pay attention to which to read first. I began with Tawney Man Trilogy, is that going to mess up the other series for me?
Posts: 697 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I remember finishing Where the Red Fern Grows on the bus in middle school and crying my eyes out. And I didn't care who saw me, because it was just so sad!
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
i read Where the Red Fern Grows for the first time in like the 6th grade and cried like nobodies business, then i read it a couple of months ago (i'm 23) and cried even harder. i'm such a wuss.
and A Light in the Forest, good god that is a sad book. at least it was 12 years ago when i read it.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Most if not all of these have already been mentioned: Anne of Green Gables, Anne's House of Dreams, Rilla of Ingleside, Mistress Pat, Emily of New Moon, Little WOmen, Diary of Anne Frank, Where the Red Fern Grows & Night.
Posts: 66 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Lost Boys Charlotte's Web A Ring of Endless Light The Acorn People A Child Called It With You and Without You
I got a little teary-eyed with all of these, but not much more than that. Only one book has ever had me really crying and that is The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom.
Posts: 340 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I agree with Bridge to Terabithia, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Giving Tree, and I'll Love You Forever, The Five People You Meet In Heaven, and Shadow of the Giant (first OSC book that made me cry).
Add these to the list: The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg The Faithful Elephants by Yukio Tsuchiya Mandy by Julie Andrews The Messenger by Lois Lowry (if you haven't read that trilogy, you are really missing out) Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe by Fannie Flagg Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts A Painted House by John Grisham Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison The Red Suit Diaries by Ed Butchart (sweet stories from a man who makes his living playing Santa Claus)
Posts: 1319 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by sweetbaboo: SPOILER ALERT* For Robin Hobb's Fool's Errand
Call me a baby but I cried when Nighteyes died (leaky eyes, not heaving sobs). SO sad. The bonds of their friendship were so beautiful to me.
I have seen her books recommended many times on this website but apparently didn't pay attention to which to read first. I began with Tawney Man Trilogy, is that going to mess up the other series for me?
Nighteyes' death is a lot sadder if you've read the other series. As is the Fool's departure at the end of the trilogy. I think reading Tawny Man won't mess you up as far as the Liveship Traders trilogy goes, but The Farseer trilogy is a little better if you read it first. You'll understand Tawny Man a lot better afterwards..
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
This is kind of embarrassing... but the one book that can always, without fail, make me cry -- I mean every time -- is 'Dark Lord of Derkholm' by Dianna Wynne Jones. It's a cheesy kids book with a happy ending, but -- well, every single time.
Also: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Where the Red Fern Grows, and Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. Among others.
Posts: 36 | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I like Dark Lord of Derkholm . I bought it from the privately owned bookstore that used to be here in town and read it in fourth grade. And then I read it again in sixth grade. And then again in eighth grade. I like it a lot.
posted
Thanks Little_Doctor, I think I will go back now to the other trilogies before moving onto the second Tawny Man book. That's what I wanted to know.
Sorry Icarus, I labeled it in hopes people would skip it!?
posted
The first book that made me cry was Go Toward the Light. I bawled my eyes out! It was amazing, I never knew a book could do that to me...
I'm not much of a cryer, so this didn't make me cry, but if I was...Rachel and Leah by OSC. I was so sad for Leah, and knowing what's ahead for her really didn't help.
Posts: 45 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by JLM: Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince when Dumbledore died.
I think I only teared up the first time I read the book, and that was at the funeral (and even then it may have been because Harry "broke up" with Ginny...). Every subsequent time reading the book, I've not even gotten misty. It's the story-type, ya know? It's just... expected. It'd be like crying when Obi-Wan dies.
I cry when faithful pets die. And when my own faithful pet dies, I'll be inconsolable for weeks. Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Naughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman(not to tears but lets just say i was almost there in numerous places) Harry Potter and The half Blood Prince(not out of sadness i was just so goddam angry at Snape!!!) The Amber Spyglass had me bawling like a baby.
Posts: 243 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
So, I was looking for something to read last week, and noticed To Kill a Mockingbird hiding on my shelf between the single volume Hitchhikers series and the dictionary. I hadn't read it since it was required reading in high school and decided to give it another go.
I loved it. I definitely did not understand or appreciate even a portion of the novel the first read through. I almost wish that they wouldn't assign good books as required reading in school, so that I would have an opportunity to actually appreciate them earlier.
Bu the reason I posted in this thread is because I cried harder during this book than I have ever cried from a book, movie or any media. (SPOILERS, if for some reason you haven't read this book yet) At the end of the chapter where Scout, Jem and Dill save Atticus at the jail house, I was racked with sobs. There was snot in my mustache and my beard was soaked with tears. I don't know if I've ever cried this hard for any reason. And I'm not even sure why I reacted so strongly.
It started when Scout was watching Jem and Atticus face off with arms crossed. I just smiled and felt my eyes glistening. Then when Scout starts talking for no reason, and her thought process was so innocent, and she looks around and all of the men have their mouths dropped open. Then she's talking Mr. Cunningham and he finally breaks out of the mob mentality and talks to her... Man, I was gone by this point. Then she goes back to her dad and brother and I was sobbing. And the icing on the cake: when Dill asked if he could carry Atticus's chair. I think I actually said out loud, "Oh Dill.." and smiled through my tears. Then I just put the book down and sobbed for five minutes. Really, it struck a cord with me, but I'm not sure which cord, it was a little surprising.
Anyways, that was a very significant moment for me, as I've never reacted that way to anything, as far as I know. And that's not the type of thing I feel comfortable telling my friends about. Yet another reason I'm glad Hatrack is here.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I cried durring To Kill A Mockingbird, and The HP Order of the Phenoix and HP Half blood Prince. There are a few others, I just won't list them
Posts: 58 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
There's one book that makes me cry no matter what and no matter where I am, and strangely enough it's the very ending paragraph of the book that does it to me. So that if I ever feel the need to be reduced into an emotionally wrecked puddle I just walk onto my bookshelf, flip open the last page of that book, and read that last paragraph.
First is a book called Tanguy by a French/Spanish writer called Michel del Castillo. (I have no idea what this book is called in English but mayhap you'll recognize it from the description...) It was written in the 50's when the author was in his late 20's and it's semi-autobiographical even if all the actual characters in it are fictional, though some of them do have real life counterparts (and the writer himself was never sent to a German concentration camp, only to a French interment camp).
The book details the life of a boy called Tanguy who is born to a communist mother in the midst of the Spanish civil war. The boy's father identifies the mother and the boy to the fascists, and so they escape to France, and from that on the boy is basically escaping from one place to another all his life. (The book starts at the Spanish civil war and ends somewhere in the early 50's.) He ends up on a Nazi concentration camp by a cruel change (he's gotten separated from his mother a few months previously) and is enlisted there as a political prisoner at age 10 or so. This is perhaps the most famous part of the book, as he befriends a German jazz pianist there, another political prisoner, and with the realistic portrayal of the brutality of concentration camps. After the war the authorities don't really know what to do with Tanguy as no one really knows where his parents or indeed any relatives are, and so he gets sent back to Spain onto an orphanage managed by Jesuit monks who treat their boys almost as brutally as the Nazis treated their prisoners.
Anyway, it goes on after that too, basically cataloging every ill a child/adolescent could have fallen prey to in the 30's/40's Europe. What makes me cry about the book, however, and especially about that last paragraph, is not the brutality of Tanguy's circumstances but the terrible hope he keeps throughout that one day things are going to turn better. Due the course of the book as things turn all the more horrible and horrible it's the kindness of the people who wouldn't really have to be kind that touches the most - such as a Frenchwoman that takes care of Tanguy at the interment camp, a Jewish boy who is nice to him on the way to the concentration camp, the aforementioned jazz pianist, a Catholic priest who tries to nurture him back to shape after all the horror he's experienced, an 80-year old grandma who kind of falls in love with him, a boy with whom he escapes from the Jesuits... Despite all the horror Tanguy is, in the end, a book that makes you believe in good people.
I'm really bothered now that I can't seem to locate an English version of this book... maybe it just was never published in English. Here's some info on it in French, and here's the author's biography.
Other books... well, the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, of course. And H. C. Andersen's original Ugly Duckling. In fact my Mum used to read the latter one aloud to me when I was a child, and then I'd start crying uncontrollably and this'd upset her too and then she'd start hugging me like there was no tomorrow. And then obviously I'd ask her to read it to me the following day too so she'd get all upset and motherly and protective and hug me again. The things children will do for a hug. (I'm not the only one, either, we were just recently discussing this with some of my friends and there were at least two others who'd loved Ugly Duckling as children for the same reason.)
Posts: 247 | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
So many, and so many that have already been mentioned. Ender's Shadow gets me when Bean whispers the line about Absalom.
Most recently, re-reading Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher. That was yesterday. I LOVE that book.
We have a sustained silent reading time at school, & teachers & kids read at the same time. I haven't actually put down a book and sobbed, but more than once I've had tears rolling down my face while I read. I'm also always laughing out loud. Kids always want to know what I'm reading.
Colony by Anne Rivers Siddons had me putting the book down to cry BOTH times I read it.
Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Lost Boys - I cired in frustration and despair....guess I was looking for a happier ending
Pastwatch-made me cry in hope
Lovelock- cried at the end and have been crying ever since waiting for the sequel....making my hubby cry cause he has to listen to my whining
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
For the Love of a Donkey (a child's book from Germany about a little girl who has no family, and refuses to leave her donkey behind when she is offered placement in a child's home in Switzerland, so they walk across Germany 1945-1946.)
Posts: 15 | Registered: Apr 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
The Time Traveler's Wife always makes me cry, also. The first time I read it, I was crying desperately for most of the latter half of the book. I've chilled out a little since then, but I still burst into tears every time I read the scene where Henry meets Alba for the first time.
Posts: 910 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't recall exactly when it is, but the part in Ender's Shadow where Bean puts together that it's not a game and will have to carry that knowledge secretly.
Bridge to Terabithia
Goblet of Fire: Any part related to Cedric. Especially the interaction between Harry and Cedric's parents later on.
Eomer coming across Eowyn's body and running anguished back into battle believing her to be dead.
I'm not apt to cry, but basically anything with young death, parents burying their children, or siblings losing siblings. Those are my triggers.
Posts: 81 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Not being a very emotional person, there is one specific scene in a book that has made my eyes water twice. The second time around I knew there was no real reason to be sad and still couldn't stop the tears from appearing. The scene in question is out of Feist's A Darkness At Sethanon where Jimmy kneels at the side of his friend prince Arutha, who has just been shot by an assassin. I can't really explain why that particular scene has such an impact on me, but must have something to do with the singular friendship between the two characters.
Posts: 993 | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged |
I defy anyone to read that book and not be bawling by the end. Just thinking of the line "for you, a thousand times over..." makes me tear up.
Posts: 194 | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Kelly, I just read your post on The Sparrow. What an amazing book. Have you read the sequel? I think it's called Children of God.
Posts: 99 | Registered: Aug 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by landybraine: Kelly, I just read your post on The Sparrow. What an amazing book. Have you read the sequel? I think it's called Children of God.
No, I haven't had a chance to read the sequel yet, but I definitely plan on it.
I don't know if this is going to happen or how true it is, but I read somewhere that Warner Bros has purchased rights to The Sparrow with Brad Pitt as Sandoz (groan).
Posts: 104 | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas Harry Potter (bk5, bk6 & bk7) JK Rowling
Posts: 4 | Registered: Sep 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Tonight I was watching the movie version of Anne of Green Gables, and despite the travesty that they made of Anne and Gilbert's relationship-- to make it more dramatic, I suppose-- I still cried over Matthew. I always do.
But many, many, many books make me cry. I remember that I was reading the latest Harry Potter book a couple of months ago while my skeptical roommate was sitting at his computer playing a video game. Abruptly, he turned around and said, "Are you crying?"
Posts: 1751 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I cried for Fili and Kili at the end of The Hobbit the first time I read it (or, more accurately, had it read to me).
The book that brought me closest to tears in recent memory was The Road by Cormic McCarthy. It's probably the most harrowing story I've ever read.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by His Savageness: The Kite Runner
I defy anyone to read that book and not be bawling by the end. Just thinking of the line "for you, a thousand times over..." makes me tear up.
OMG I just read that! It didn't make me cry, but it was still cool to hear that someone else has read it...because I LOVED it!
Posts: 930 | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged |
It took me about a year to start reading Song of Susannah (The sixth book in Steven King's Dark Tower series) because what happens to Susannah reminded me so strongly of what happens to Caska in Berserk that I really didn't want to go through it all again.
Of course, it turns out that I was mistaken. The similarities are still there, and strongly, but the way King handles the story makes it much more bearable than I expected.
Bridge to Teribithia
Posts: 247 | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
I just read an article about the Afghan boy who played the main character in the movie version of The Kite Runner. It seems his family was not aware of the rape scene, and they are afraid that he will not be accepted by the Afghan people if they see the scene. They say it won't be possible to explain what it means to act the part in the movie, so they want the scene cut out.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Grumble]](graemlins/grumble.gif)
![[Blushing]](graemlins/blushing.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Cry]](graemlins/cry.gif)
