What Books Have Made You Cry?
On a long flight recently, I read Jessica Stanley’s Consider Yourself Kissed in one sitting. Without giving too much away, the book opens in 2022 with a woman leaving a man, then goes back to 2013 and slowly works forward. But the story is so richly detailed and engrossing that by the time I got back to 2022, I’d completely forgotten what I learned in the first few pages. Cue the tears in seat 14A. If you’re also in the mood for a moving read, I asked four women to share the books that brought them to tears…
Sanaë Lemoine, novelist and cookbook writer
Are you a big crier?
I went through a divorce not too long ago, so I was crying almost every day in private and public. But in general, I don’t cry a lot and books almost never make me cry. So, it’s pretty special when it happens.
Sanaë’s bookshelf
Do you remember the first book that made you cry?
In college, I read Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion in the same week. It was my sophomore year, and my boyfriend had just broken up with me. The books were assigned reading for two different classes, and I read them on the floor of my room, sobbing. They’re about grief and loss, and although my heartbreak felt very small in comparison, they provided the exact comfort I needed.
Are there any books you’ve read recently that made you cry?
A few weeks ago, I cried on the subway as I finished Dinaw Mengetsu’s exceptional novel Someone Like Us. There’s a layering and circularity that compounds over time, as memories and conversations weave together — it feels magical. Then there’s the dialogue, unadorned yet brimming with feeling.
Also, Small Rain by Garth Greenwell — which takes place mostly in a hospital over the course of a week, as the narrator has a near-death medical emergency. What surprised me, then moved me to tears, was the love story between the narrator and his partner. How specific and universal their love was. It was fragile, tender, and resilient.
Katie Sturino, Megababe founder and novelist
Do you cry a lot?
I’m a huge crier in day-to-day life, so you can only imagine how much I am affected by books. My mom and I read All the Devils Are Here by Louise Penny out loud last summer, and we had to have my husband John take over during one part because neither of us could get the words out.
Katie’s nightstand
What books have made you cry lately?
I am an audiobook person, and wow, Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President by E. Jean Carroll [about sexual abuse and defamation by Trump] was hard to listen to. I listen to my books when I’m walking outside, but I highly recommend this book even if it means crying in public!
Then a few weeks ago, I cried reading my own book, Sunny Side Up. During my book launch event in Boston, I read a paragraph about how many of us are rewriting our stories, even though we thought that we’d be at the ending by now. Is it weird to cry at your own work? I hope not. I felt like it was something a lot of people could relate to, and I was proud of myself for writing it.
Jamia Wilson, author and executive editor at Random House
Are you a big crier?
I feel deeply, and I’ll ugly-cry if a story hits a nerve. Recently, I shed tears of joy while rereading Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou. Tucked inside, I found a beautiful note from my late mother, Freda, written in 1995. In it, she expressed her love and appreciation for the woman I was becoming at 15. The book, a well-worn edition that lost its cover long ago in one of many moves, remains one of my most cherished possessions.
Jamia’s well-worn copy
What’s another book that made you cry?
I remember reading bell hooks’s Wounds of Passion on a bus ride from Siena to Rome during my semester abroad in 2000. I cried throughout the entire journey, highlighting passages, dog-earing pages, and turning up my Discman to the Stealing Beauty soundtrack. There was something those wise pages that told me this book would be a lifelong guide, one I would return to through reckonings, celebrations, revelations, and hard truths. I’ve since reread it at least 20 times, and I cry every single time.
What’s the latest book that brought out tears?
There’s No Turning Back by Alba de Céspedes. Set in fascist Italy during World War II, the story draws from her own experiences to show the quiet strength and difficult choices of ordinary women resisting oppression, reminding us how courage in everyday acts is essential in the fight against authoritarianism. This hopeful but defiant book’s deep historical roots and its urgent call to keep fighting for justice and freedom felt deeply relevant to the struggles we face today.
Alisha Ramos, creator of Downtime newsletter
Are you a big crier?
Generally, I’m a fairly stoic person.
So, has a book ever made you cry?
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner is one. It’s a beautifully raw memoir that recounts the author’s experience caring for her mother after a cancer diagnosis. I vividly remember a scene where her mother cries out from the next room, ‘Apeoyo, apeoyo’ (‘It hurts, it hurts’). It moved me to tears, especially as I thought about my own mother, who is Korean.
What’s the last book that made you cry?
Sorrow & Bliss by Meg Mason, a book about mental health (among other things). It felt so real and helped me feel seen during a dark time. I both laughed and cried.
What books have made you cry? Where were you? I’m an easy crier, but it turns out people are more prone to cry on planes.
P.S. More favorite books, and five things I noticed at a NYC bookstore.
(Top bookcase photo by Alpha Smoot from Joanna’s first Brooklyn apartment. Photo of Sanaë by Julia Robbs for Cup of Jo. Photos of Katie and Jamia by Christine Han for Cup of Jo. Sorrow & Bliss photo from Instagram. Other photos provided by the subjects.)
Comments
113 commentsCold Mountain By Charles Frazier. Not the movie! I read it years ago. Just thinking about can make me get teary eyed. I thi k I wil need to read it again. It’s a good time for a cry.
Just finished Still Life by Sarah Winman and sobbed to the point of waking my partner about 75% in. The book was beautiful and I wish I could read little bits of it always.
Patrick Ryan’s BUCKEYE which is out next Tuesday is unbelievably well-written and a beautiful portrayal of two American families and the effects one major secret has on all of them from WWII-Vietnam. I wept 3/4 of the way through as he wrote about a father and his son. And what’s fun/interesting is that my pals who read an early copy ALSO cried but from other sections!
A Million Things by Emily Spurr, about a10 year old girl and her dog trying to keep it together after her mum disappears.
I was looking for a book to listen to while road tripping from Connecticut to Iowa City last week and based on the recommendation of this post, I decided to give Small Rain a chance. My god, I am not sure I have ever read (or in this case listened (side note: the author narrates it and does a fantastic job)) to a book that is so beautifully written. The book is mundane and extraordinary at the same time and captures so precisely what is often so difficult to accurately represent about how complex life is. I am a past ICU nurse and I find nearly every book I read/piece of media I consume about medical events to feel inaccurate, no matter how well researched they are, because it is hard to authentically capture the underlying weight and emotional complexity of severe illness (if you’ve been blessed to never have to deal with the ICU/severe illness it is hard to fully grasp the experience and if you have it is often difficult to face it again to mine for artistic expression). The author wrote this book following a similar event in his own life and it is abundantly clear because every line of this book hits spot on to the intense emotions of serious illness (the invasive boringness of hospitalization, the loss of dignity, the quiet moments of kindness and gentle care between strangers—the ONLY detail I need to call out as incorrect is that a needle does NOT stay in your arm with an IV (just the flexible catheter) as the narrator claims (though I have cared for many patients who shared this misconception so I do not fault the narrator)). The strangest twist of this whole story though is I picked up this book on a whim because I like emotionally rich books that are not maudlin but did not realize it is actually set IN Iowa City. As the narrator described where he lives in Iowa City (not a large town) it became obvious that he lives very close to where I am now living. Sure enough upon arriving, I discovered the author is indeed my neighbor, which was a twist I was not expecting in the story of my life. Now, as I settle into my new life here (with my first “grown up” job after a long road of schooling), I have found the discussions of the twists and turns of life and finding joy in a non-perfect world, and finding oneself unexpectedly building a long term future in Iowa City, all the more profound. Anyway, I am certain the universe directed me to this post at this specific moment in my life for a reason but thank you for the recommendation, it has enriched this already fertile time in my intellectual/developmental growth tremendously! And I 100% endorse the recommendation for Small Rain (whether or not you are planning a road trip to Iowa City)!
I cried THROUGHOUT My Friends by Frederick Backman!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is a gorgeous heartbreaker of a story. Miller’s prose is just gorgeous.
I have never ever cried reading a novel until I read No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. Its generally humourous (and a great read overall) until a specific part broke me
Winter Stolstice by Rosamunde Pilcher
I LOVE Winter Solstice! And Rosamunde Pilcher!!
Please look after mom by Shin Kyung Sook. Such a sobering read about the invisibility of motherhood and personal sacrifice. I sobbed reading this in public.
The poetry in Mosabs Abu Tohas book moves you to tears. It make you want to move there and run away from there at the same time. It’s like mint tea, roses and warm bread It reads like the sea, melodious and Up and So FAR DOWN Pulling you and throwing you Away
I write middle grade and thus read a lot of it, too, and somehow it hits me so much harder than adult fiction! I think it’s the raw vulnerability of childhood in the pages. Kate DiCamillo’s “Louisiana’s Way Home” made me cry when I read it and could also make me cry just thinking about it! And I’m currently reading middle grade book released this year called The Secret of Honeycake–it’s historical fiction, set in 1930, about a girl named Hurricane who lost her mom to tuberculosis and thus lost her wild childhood by the ocean as she moves in with a stuffy rich aunt in the city. Around the third chapter it felt like my heart cracked open and it’s remained that way every chapter since!
This is an odd take but I just finished Michael Lewis’s “Who Is Government”, a series of essays about civil servants and many of them made me cry, especially the last one about a woman at the FDA who saved the life of a child with a rare disease that I just read this morning but the one about the Archives which admittedly had lower stakes also put a lump in my throat. It is tragic that our civil servants have been not just fired but villified by this administration–they’re smart and talented and hard-working and deserve our respect and gratitude not scorn.
As a longtime civil servant, this made me teary. It’s such difficult and thankless work, I’m so grateful that someone is seeing it.
Just when I thought I couldn’t love fellow Milwaukeean Katie Sturino more, it turns out she’s an Inspector Gamache fan!
I just finished Maris Kreizman’s “I want to burn this place down” and as a fellow child free type 1 diabetic I’ve never felt so seen. I sobbed through the first essay because she legitimately said word for word some of the same things I’ve said to my husband about the realities of living with such an unpredictable disease. (I made my parents read it too) And her closing chapter about being child free while also not super motivated to climb a career ladder – chef’s friggin kiss. Bookended tears.
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
Thank you for normalizing crying! It’s a deeply human experience that has been undermined for a long time. Let’s make it powerful!
The Man I Love 3 part books series by Suanne Laqueur. I’m not a crier. but I cried. same as Tully by Paulina Simons, The Women by Kristin Hannah.
Not a book. This morning this Bulwark video had me in tears. Andry Hernández Romero was released from that god awful prison in El Salvador. Andry is a saint among saints. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ySsBj3OOg0
Demon Coppherhead was such a heartbreaking and moving story. One of my favorites.
Far and away he best book I’ve ever read. The way Barbara Kingsolver crafts each sentence… and then thousands of them. She is a master of her craft.
+1000 for Demon Copperhead, one of the best books I’ve ever read
Human Acts by Han Kang. It’s a hyper specific, intimate, lyrical rendering of the Gwangju Uprising in May of 1980, and the impacts on the survivors 5, 10, 20, and 30 years later. It didn’t just make me cry, it literally gave me nightmares. But it was also deeply inspiring, and gave me a different understanding of how and why millions of people poured into the streets of Seoul to stop a military coup last December. Can’t recommend it enough, but brace yourself.
I love Han Kang’s writing! She wrote an incredible (also disturbing) short story that appeared in The New Yorker a few months ago, I highly recommend it.
I cry a lot on movies, but not so often while reading. But there are exceptions… Book that always makes me cry, even on public I cannot stop it: ps. I love you (also, book is better than the movie!). Book that recently made me cry so hard I was afraid I was going to wake up my boyfriend: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
Yes! It was such a moving story and I finished the book awash in tears. Loved it.
Stealing Beauty soundtrack!! A favorite forever.
1. Peace Like A River – Lefi Enger 2. A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving 3. The Lacuna – Barbara Kingsolver 4. East of Eden – John Steinbeck And the list goes on and on, but I can remember when Charlotte’s Web broke my heart and I think that was the first book that ever made me cry. Children’s books in the 80s were really traumatic for some reason, and so many of them made me cry! Bridge to Terabithia, naturally.
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanthi. I sobbed on a plane reading this book.
Solito by Javier Zamora. This is a real migrant story told from the perspective of the writer who was 9 when he makes the journey to reunite with his mom and dad. I read this last year in the comfort of my home. As a mother, I cried reading this important story…my tears came from despair and sadness, anger and rage, gratitude and love. The kindness of strangers.
I thought Sturino’s novel was ghost-written? She’s been pretty up front about this. No hate to her choice, but if we’re featuring writers here I’d like to hear from creatives and artists.
So many. Most recently, “Wedding People” by Alison Espach & Undrowned by Alexis Pauline Gumbs.
Pachinko! There were so many beautiful, tender, heartfelt passages and I ugly sobbed through the ending on a flight home to Chicago from Phoenix.
Pachinko is a magnum opus. Absolutely spectacular.
I recently re-read SONG OF SOLOMON (Toni Morrison) and wept at the scene where Pilate walks into her daughter Hagar’s funeral and begs for mercy. I had somehow forgotten than scene and it all just came back to me.
As I write there are already 499 comments but if even one person sees this and then picks up Pax by Sara Pennypacker it will be worth it! The book is geared toward 8-12 year olds but don’t let that fool you. The story is so beautiful and I ugly sobbed so hard at the end I got out of bed so as not to wake my partner.
From one Al(l)ison to another, I wanted to let you know that I’ve checked out Pax based on your comment! I think middle grade books are some of the most moving. If you haven’t already, Wishtree and Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s books may appeal to you too!
My kids LOVED this book (which I have completely forgotten about as they are both teens now) yet I have never read it. Going to search for it now on our bookshelf to read – thank you!
Yes to middle grade books!! I haven’t read Pax (yet) but I did recently read Odder by Katherine Applegate and cried multiple times as I read it out loud to my daughter!
Honestly, it’s weirdly comforting to know we all got emotionally obliterated by “Where the Red Fern Grows,” in elementary school.
My fourth grade teacher read this one aloud to our class and when she read the ending she was walking up and down between our desks, the book in one hand and a box of tissues to pass out in the other!
“The Fault In Our Stars”. Bought it at a grocery store while alone and traveling for work ten years ago. Started reading it over dinner. Stayed up until 3 finishing it and crying inconsolably. Felt like a major before / after moment in my internal life.
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. I cry at almost every book I read because of who I am as a person, but the Great Alone will destroy you. Obviously, I loved it.
The Great Alone destroyed me too. Leni and her mom had me crying for who I am as a mother to my daughter, and for how my mother mothers me as her daughter.
This book flew under the radar but I remember telling people it was the best book I read that year.
Firstly, I wanted to say I’m so sorry for your divorce, Sanae! I hope you are in a better place now and can see new ways to move on. I started following you after Jo posted your weekly outfits which I loved so much. Regarding books that made me cry, Kazuo Ishiguro is such a wonderful writer. I first read A pale view of hills and it stayed with me over 20 years, I’m thinking of this book a few times a year and try to re-read it at least once a year. And then I read Never let me go and I started crying from the first paragraph. It has never happened before or since.
He is brilliant! Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day are my favorite works of his, but I’m still going through all of his books!
I just read Frindle to my 8 & 11 yo boys. I hadn’t read it before and was NOT expecting to weep at the end (happy, nostalgia tears as they do a flash-forward, nothing devastating.) But I’m glad my boys see me get swept up in emotions like that from a book. It’s happened in some picture books, too – The Girl and the Bicycle is wordless, but narrating it in my own way for my son’s kindergarten class during a read-along, I was moved to tears by the kindness in the story. I warned the students that it made me cry happy tears and that’s why I wanted to share it.
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. Sobbed several times throughout. I was mostly in my bedroom reading it before bedtime. Question, where can I get the “Hundreds of Books Under My Skin” wall hang? XO
Rayo and honey! they make amazing pennants: https://rayoandhoney.com/collections/pennants
I was lucky enough to copyedit Consider Yourself Kissed! I’ve been raving about it ever since. Even better, I live a few minutes from where the book takes place (it’s very tightly tethered to a few streets around London Fields in east London), so it was almost as though I could walk through the story as I was working on it. It’s a special book.
I love books so tethered to place, as you say. A list of books like that would be wonderful.
Beartown by Frederick Bachman made me sob multiple times. The entire series is so captivating. I particularly was touched by his portrayal of Benji. As a queer person, I felt so connected to Benji that I would often sob when things happened to him in the book because I felt them like they were happening to me. I have never felt so connected to a character in my life.
Christy by Catherine Marshall. First read when I was a young teenager decades ago. I rarely reread books but have reread this one enough times to be into my second copy. And I don’t usually don’t cry but sure do with this one.
Rob Delaney’s “A Heart That Works” Paul Kalanthi’s “When Breath Becomes Air”
Normal People by Sally Rooney
The first book I read for class for 10yr olds I prepared by reading beforehand so I got any drama in the right place. I was so glad I did as I was in pieces reading Michael Morpugo’s “War Horse” and my voice still cracked in front of the class! I recently watched the play and I was still a mess. After this I always make sure I am ahead of the children “A Monster Calls” got me too.
Just read Going Home. Ugly cried hard at the end. It was a beautiful book. Also: The Art of Racing in the Rain. God the ending. It destroys dog lovers (in a good, sweet way, no animal-abuse way).
I read The Art of Racing in the Rain on my honeymoon, away from my beloved dog. I was devastated for days, but with a luckily supportive husband. 17 years later i’m tearing up just thinking about that book. Also, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime really broke my heart wide open.
A Little Life. I sobbed multiple times. That book is so heartbreaking.
I just finished it, many tears later.
Came to the comments looking for this one. First time I’d ever cried reading a book. I think I even sobbed a little.
Oh my gosh, me too! I felt like the book should have come with multiple trigger warnings and I’m not sure I’d recommend it, but at the same time it made me think and has stayed with me for a long time.
I’m reading this now and it is so so so good. i’ve cried a dozen times (and have also had to skip some difficult parts).
I love reading and I love crying even more! This is apex posting! If anyone loves reading and crying AND little women, then you should pick up Hello Beautiful
I wept at that book, too! It was so beautiful.
The saddest book I ever read was “Home Before Morning” by the late Lynda Van Devanter, who wrote about her tour of duty as a U.S. Army nurse in Viet Nam and its aftermath. I started crying halfway through and didn’t stop.
A Little Life. I don’t think I’ve ever been so physically and emotionally affected by a novel before. I read it about six years ago and passages continue to stay with me.
i recently finished My Friends by Fredrik Blackman && i cried many many times for the tender hearted characters and the memories that sprung to mind of a few incredible summers with my own group of misfit friends
My daughter is 12 and has always been a big reader but not a big crier. But this year she discovered the exquisite pain and joy of a book moving her to tears. It was The Sun and The Star by Rick Riordan and she sobbed, made a playlist of “sad songs to make me cry” to listen to, and then started reading it again immediately so she could have that catharsis again. I told her “you are truly a reader now!”
My favorite thing about these comments is going through them and seeing people mention books that I read and didn’t like, along with books I read and loved, and thinking about how we are all so different yet also the same. So maybe the most recent thing I’ve read that made me teary is… this comments section??
❤️
The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. *Sob*
a warning for future readers: these comments are teeming with spoilers!
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion is the book that made cry and cry, and then cry just thinking about it again.
Oh my god yes. I went to see a play version of this — the entire small audience was sobbing together watching one woman on stage. It was a gorgeous experience. Love that book so much.
The Road, Cormac McCarthy – openly cried on a flight at the ending. And: The Kissing Hand. Picture book that tore my guts out when my son was tiny. Just thinking about the cover makes me tear up. I’m reading Wild Dark Shore now, probably won’t make it out without a few tears.
I thought The Road was so beautifully written, but I also wish I had never ever read it. It haunts me, years later. I am also reading Wild Dark Shore now, and I feel like by the end we will all be in a puddle of tears. It’s gorgeous writing though isn’t it?
What helped me shed “The Road” is learning how the majority of people actually respond during and after cataclysmic events. His book describes a deep fear of what could be, but what never has been and will never be for our species.
Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri; a memoir of moving to the U.S. from Iran. Somehow both playful and tragic! East of Eden by Steinbeck. One of my new favorites.
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanthi. (Jo’s Brother in law). It’s so honest.
yes! such a stunning book. I’m re-reading now!
Oh my typos! *it was a running joke that I had the “doom and gloom” subject.
Not a book, but I used to read the essay Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell to my 7th graders every year. (If you’re a bleeding-heart animal lover like me, spare yourself!) I used to love and dread teaching that lesson because I couldn’t get through it without bawling. It became a known lesson on my team, and I would have to warn the other teachers that day because all the kids would come out of my class crying, too (which actually happened multiple times a year.) It was a running joke was I had the “doom and gloom” subject. But, if you want to teach kids lessons about humanity, history and the human experience, social studies is your secret weapon! I loved it.
Thank you for being a teacher willing to share emotions like this! Especially in 7th grade, when showing vulnerability can really strike a nerve.
I remember reading Still Alice on a tropical vacation with just my huband and sobbing on one of the world’s most beautiful beaches.
That book moved me also. A friend of mine put it into my hands years ago. It’s not something I would have picked for myself based on the description, so I was always so glad she did that. I still think about it, maybe 15 years later, or longer.
I finished reading Good Material by Dolly Alderton last night, which Google recommended I read as two months ago things ended unexpectedly with the person I thought was going to be my partner for life. Most of the book was too on the nose with my feelings, but somehow the last 40 pages are what got me most! I felt SO SEEN. Wow. I love nothing more than being so affected by a book.
Rob Delaney’s A Heart that Works – I listened to the audiobook and alternatively laughed and cried (big tear sobs). It’s about his young son’s fight with brain cancer, and it’s gut-wrenching. Sad but worth it!
I’m not sure why but I decided to read this book days after giving birth. I wept so many types of tears reading this book during the middle of the night feedings. It’s gut wrenching and beautiful and it left a big, big mark.
I read this during my baby girl’s naps and my heart exploded
There, there by Tommy Orange had me sobbing on the train ride to work years ago. And echoing other with A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. My mom tells the story of her reading the Bridge of Madison County while I was a kid at soccer practice. She was teary eyed picking me up – and told the fellow soccer moms why she was crying – and they all consoled her! And offered to give me a ride home. I love this memory of a group of women sharing a love for a book.
🩷
Book posts always make me marvel that CoJ is an impressive community of readers with eclectic tastes. I appreciate the many good recommendations that open new reading pathways for me. (Just this morning I put five books that were new to me on hold at my library.) And when I reply to a commenter about a book we’ve both read or suggest another similar one and that person responds to me, it feels as if we’ve had a mini book group discussion. These connections make my day. .
The first book I can remember making me cry was Little Women. I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t had the joy of reading it yet, but if you know, you know. I second Crying in H Mart which I read after my Dad’s passing from cancer. It hurt but I felt so understood at the same time. More recently I teared up at the following quotation from Hisham Matar’s A Month in Siena, which describes his thoughts as he lies in the grass next to his wife: “I felt grateful for knowing her for so long, for sharing my waking and sleeping hours with her for nearly half of my life, for being loved for myself and able to love her for herself. It’s the sort of gratitude one can never express. It certainly can never be spoken and possibly not even written.” I hope to one day have that sort of love in a romantic relationship, though I am very grateful to receive it from family and friends ❤️
Little Women was also the first book that made me cry. I only get teary eyed during rereads as an adult though. Anne of Green Gables however– big ugly crying EVERY TIME!
Loved A Month in Siena. My Friends by same author (fiction) is great too if you haven’t read it!
I often avoid books that I know are going to be super sad. I find I read them with one eye closed? If that makes sense? I don’t let myself get too emotionally invested or dig deep or fully get lost in the story. Each revelation is met with trepidation. I think it’s because I feel books deeply; sad books feel like they are trying to manipulate my emotions in a way that doesn’t feel healthy. However, I can understand the cathartic release that a sad story can provide. Personally, I like to experience that through music. Give me a sad song to drive and cry to and I’ll arrive feeling SO much better. I imagine the same feeling is achieved through books for some. Maybe we could do a future post with sad song reccos? Make a playlist to get all lost in our feelings.
love this idea, Kiki!
Kiki, I love your idea (and I feel the same). Thank you :)
Ditto this idea!
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller gutted me — the prose is sparse but deeply emotional. Also The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. I read this book in one sitting on a long bus ride and had to stifle my sobs.
Lonesome Dove, one of my all time favorite books, has me with the water moccasin scene and then at the end. Friendships between old crotchety men can somehow be so touching.
I love that book so much. The lost love and the ending got to me.
This is my absolute FAVORITE book in the world! I laughed, I sobbed, I was enchanted. I never thought I’d be obsessed with a cowboy book, but here we are. I recommend it to everyone.
Such a wonderful book. I think I must do a re-read soon.
No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. It starts in this sort of zany internet stream of consciousness, and then halfway through it shifts and centers on in-person things with so much meaning and beauty that I sob.
I’ve been looking for a comment that mentions this book! This is the last book I remember really crying hard at. Was not expecting that in a Patricia Lockwood book, but there you go!
I have no idea how many times I have read Anne of Green Gables but every single time I sob uncontrollably when Matthew dies. He loved Anne so much. As a child I always wanted to be an orphan and be adopted by Matthew and Marilla, partly so I could be loved like this.
Agree so much Kay. It’s so heartbreaking and so well written.
OMG, yes!! Every single time. If you ever want to listen to a deep dive on Matthew or any other AoGG character, come check out my podcast with my bestie in which we dissect all the Anne books in great detail. It’s Kindred Spirits Book Club anywhere you listen to podcasts!