Books that make you cry...

[redheadmama]

I don't usually cry over a book but I just finished reading The Grapes of Wrath. That has to be the saddest book I've ever read. I didn't cry at the end of Where the Red Fern Grows, but I know a lot of people who did. Are there any other tear-jerker books out there that anyone would recommend?

[NYCVeg]

Ha! When I saw the title of this thread, the FIRST book I thought of was Where the Red Fern Grows.

I've cried over a LOT of books--pretty much anything where an animal dies (Watership Down, which is generally crushing all around, Island of the Blue Dolphins, you name it; I cried just yesterday over Philip Pullman's The Shadow in the North--a dog again).

What else?...Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated. To Kill a Mockingbird. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (but not the sixth one, oddly). Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass (last of the Dark Materials trilogy). The Lord of the Rings, probably, although I can't remember for sure. I must have cried at the end of the Diary of Anne Frank. Oh, Little Women. Big time.

Honestly, there are dozens more. They're just hard to think of off the top of my head. For some reason, the children's/young adult books stick out more, even if I read them as an adult. I'll post more if I can remember.

[owensmom]

Ditto the Amber Spyglass. I sobbed for pages on end.

Recently - The Kite Runner.

Hmmm, A Prayer for Owen Meany.

[bricorssk]

Ok, it was sort of a cheesy book but the Notebook made me cry.

[nonnymoose]

Where the Red Fern Grows was my first thought, too.

I'll have to think on this one.

[Quindin]

The last book that made me cry was "The Pianist"

[Jster]

One of the saddest most hard books I've ever dealt with was The Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card. It's based on a short story he wrote earlier, which I think i read first, and actually boycotted his books for a long time just because I'd gotton SOOOO sad after it.

It's actually a really disturbing book to read as a mother, because it involves a string of missing children...but if you want to bawl your eyes out, and put bruises on your heart, there ya go...

[nolajen]

I just finished "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson, which made me sniffle several times. It is lovely - a letter from an older dying father to his young son whom he won't get to watch grow up. Beautifully written.

I'd love to read "Where the Red Fern Grows" again. I LOVED that book as a child. Still think of it every time I'm in the woods with my dogs...

[KiwiZ]

Well count me in with the other mamas who bawled over "Where the Red Fern Grows" LOL

"Tuesdays with Morrie" comes to mind. Even though Morrie taught Mitch about living to the fullest and was filled with such wisdom, I cried because they weren't afraid to show each other how they felt and so glad they got that wonderful opportunity. This will sound dumb, but I thought the book was fiction at first! So when I found out it was true and saw a pic of Morrie, I wept also because it was so wonderful that it was true

[bendmom]

Anna Kerenina, everytime. I'm just a sucker for those first four months of chemical attraction. As a mother I put my self in her shoes to give your children up for that attraction or true love and then realize you made a mistake.
Also the poems by Olena Kalytiak Davis in Her Soul Out Of Nothing. It reminds me to much of home.
The wierd one is that I didn't cry the first time I read Memoirs of a Giesha, didn't in the movie, but when I went back to read it again, the ending got me because I could put a face to her lover.

[bklynmom04]

just finished "war and rememberance" by herman wouk and practically sobbed myself to sleep. holy cow.

Originally Posted by NYCVeg

Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass (last of the Dark Materials trilogy).

:

[AppleCrisp]

Originally Posted by redheadmama

I don't usually cry over a book but I just finished reading The Grapes of Wrath. That has to be the saddest book I've ever read. I didn't cry at the end of Where the Red Fern Grows, but I know a lot of people who did. Are there any other tear-jerker books out there that anyone would recommend?

Steinbeck gets me too - the first time I read Of Mice and Men I cried and cried.

[fanniefarkle]

I haven't re-read this book for a number of years, but the water works usually came on at the end of Love Story.

[Skim]

Recently -

nonfiction: A Language Older Than Words by Derrick jensen. I can't recommend this book to enough people. Warning: deals with western culture, living things, childhood molestation, and other phenomenon we know and hate that keep us sick and kill other living things. I've read it twice and I cried less the second time, but it's still sad and powerful.

fiction: some of the short stories by Ursula LeGuin in Four Ways to Forgiveness.

Now I guess I gotta get that Red Fern book....

[Phoenix_Rising]

Bridge to Terabithea (sp?) - from middle school days but I remember bawling my eyes out.
The five people you meet in heaven

[Daffodil]

A Dog of Flanders
Possibly the most tear-jerking book ever written. The entire text is available online in various places, for anyone who might be interested. Just google the title.

[pfamilygal]

Where the Red Fern Grows and Bridge to Terebithia were my all time favorite tear-jerkers, even as a child. And Old Yeller and Savage Sam. I just read My Sister's Keeper and cried for about an hour and a half.

[Shenjall]

"A prayer for owen meany" does it to me every time I read the book. And I've read it many, many times. It doesnt matter how many times I've read it, theres something about the story, the character, I get so attached I hate when I finish. I feel like I've lost my best friend.

So, I just bawl at the story and mope for days afterward 'cause I'm done the book.

[Traci mom23boys]

Oh Man, am I a cryer...especially for a good book...

The Red Tent
The Secret Life of Bees
Poisonwood Bible
Gone With The Wind
The Outlander Series
Bitter Grounds
One Thousand White Women

I could go on and on, all are great reads too.

Blessings,
Traci
Mom to 3 intact, homebirthed boys ages 15.9,13,10.5

[dillonandmarasmom]

Les Miserables...I read it ovver a summer once and cried several times.
The Old Man and the Sea...the movie makes me cry so badly I sob!

Ditto Red Fern, also There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom (read this to my 5th-6th graders and THEY cried!). I recommend this as a read aloud to anyone who has young adolescents. It is very good.