With their vast scope and the unparalleled ability to bore into someone’s head, novels have perhaps the greatest potential for affecting us emotionally. As much as I love movies and television, novels have the ability to move me the most.
So which novel most affected you? And what was the part that did it?
As a kid I remember being deeply affected by classics like Johnny Tremain, The Bridge to Terebithia, My Brother Sam is Dead and Where the Red Fern Grows.
As an adult, well, I’m not actually much of a crier, but I was pretty moved by The Sky is Everywhere, The Secret Year, Atonement and, of course, The Book Thief.
What about you?
Art: Never Morning Wore To Evening But Some Heart Did Break by Walter Langley
Magdalena Munro says
Sacred Hunger (Barry Unsworth)….I've never felt such love for a character (Matthew Paris) and to have him taken from me was almost unbearable. I sobbed for hours. I think it won the Booker the year it was released.
Rick Daley says
My son just read My Brother Sam Is Dead and wrote a moving piece about the horrors of war for school.
I finished The Road on an airplane and was on the verge of tears at the end when *SPOILER ALERT!* the Man died. I held it together, but just barely.
Dave Barry's books have brought tears to my eyes, but of laughter, if that counts.
abc says
Where the Red Fern Grows had me bawling (Big Dan and Little Ann!) and of course Bridge to Terabithia. How unfair that seemed. The Book Theif! The Fault in Our Stars! All the usual suspects, I guess. Most recently I cried when I read Lois Lowry's Son. And if you want to read a heartbreaking children's picture book, I recommend The Big Ugly Monster and the Little Stone Rabbit.
Anne-Maree Gray says
Lots of books… reading aloud Harry Potter, the secret garden, The golden compass series to my children and crying. But the Heaven tree trilogy from Edith Pargeter made me sob… sob, people…
abc says
Oh–someone mentioned The Amber Spyglass! I was shattered. So beautiful, so painful. (so deep).
LSH says
The Green Mile – three tissues on the sob meter
jenna123 says
Where the Red Fern Grows and My Girl caused me to cry for hours as a kid. I don't know that I've ever really cried as an adult for a book.
Jodi Lamm says
For me it was The Red Tent. I have never cried so hard over a book. Ever. I had to stifle it as best I could for fear I'd wake my husband. The part that did it (spoiler alert, but if you know your Bible stories, you'll already be aware) was when Dinah woke to find her lover had been murdered by her family. I even knew it was coming and thought I'd prepared myself. Apparently not.
Angela @ HomegrownMom says
Many of the above, and also Little Women!
Mira says
Great question, Nathan.
I cry really easily. So, I tend to avoid really sad books, because I'll sob for days.
But I'll second those above regarding "Flowers For Algernon". Haunting. I can still picture the ending and feel heartbroken.
Add: I just read Angela's post above about Little Women. Oh absolutely. Beth!
Richard Cordiner says
the only one that's ever made me shed a tear is the line right at the end of "Test of the Twins." You need to have read all of the Dragonlance Chronicles and the Legends for it but the line "Look, Raist, bunnies!" is surprisingly emotional!
Bethany says
The Sparrow.
And I was prepared, because it's a frame story and you KNOW a whole bunch of people are going to die. But, man, the double death in the middle…
Rose says
The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Sun's – both mind blowing books. I didn't cry but was moved beyond belief.
Adie says
From childhood — and again as an adult when I read it to my children: Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene.
Regina Richards says
I'll Love You Forever, My Brother Stevie, Where the Red Fern Grows, and the short story There Will Come Soft Rains.
Alison says
The Fault in Our Stars made me sob for hours. I read it New Year's Eve day and didn't want to go out that evening because (SPOILER ALERT!) it felt like a family member had died.
Regina Richards says
Oh, yes, and I'm with Adie. Summer of My German Soldier. All these years later just hearing the title again makes me hurt inside.
Anonymous says
The Art of Racing in the Rain.
Lee Wardlaw says
The end of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials had me weeping, which was especially hard because I was reading it aloud to my son and husband (we read the entire series aloud) and had to keep stopping to compose myself. Took about three hours!
beatlesluv says
On Chesil Beach, Water for Elephants, and Girls of Riyadh made me cry profusely.
Marta says
A Fine Balance
Flowers for Algernon
Haley Whitehall says
As a kid Old Yeller made me cry the most. And then I suffered through the movie! Roll of Thunder Here Me Cry had me shaken up, too.
As an adult Flowers for Algernon and I have yet to make it through The Book Thief…
thewriteedge says
Definitely The Book Thief and also the Holocaust portions of Sarah's Key (the present-day portions didn't move me nearly as much.)
Elisabeth Grace Foley says
I've never been one to cry easily at books and movies…though the habit seems to be growing on me lately, oddly enough. The two that come to mind first are Mrs. Mike and Rilla of Ingleside.
(Incidentally, I've never dared to read Where the Red Fern Grows after having seen the movie once many years ago.)
Rosi says
I was reading Of Mice and Men aloud to a class of summer school students who never did much reding on their own. When George put his arms around Lenny and shot him, I completely lost it, sobbing like an idiot in front of my silent class. One of my students, Allen, a big, tough, smart kid, came up, gently took the book from my hands, and finished the reading. It was not the first time I'd read it. I'd probably read it forty times, but to this day I can't even think about that scene in the book without tearing up.
Jennifer R. Hubbard says
I appreciate the mention.
I can't believe nobody's mentioned CHARLOTTE'S WEB yet–it's hard for me to get through the ending even now, a couple of decades after I first read it.
And most recently, Jo Knowles's SEE YOU AT HARRY'S.
Caroline Starr Rose says
A MONSTER CALLS.
Weirdly enough, the book that made me sob is a non-fiction book called THE BOOK WHISPERER. It's a reading teacher's manifesto on student choice in the classroom. Reading it made me miss my classroom, yes, but even more so, I was heartened to see someone truly living the book life alongside her students.
Rebekka. says
Sophies World made me really, really sad, I cried in the whole end of the book. Then problaby Deathly Hallows: many, many things got me there. Everything was just sad and heartbreaking and moving and touching. The latest book that i cried over was the ending of Delirium – really sad.
Brenda Pierson says
I'll be the weird one who bawls my eyes out at fantasy novels. After you've spent years with these characters, when tragedy hits it's devastating.
Immortalis by R.A. Salvatore. Also The Ghost King
Changes by Jim Butcher
The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
Linjen Pichardo Neogi says
Paula from Issabel Allende. It's not a book that just made me weep, it's that book that left me crying for days. It transformed me to a pretty morbid person on those days at least.
Am I crazy to say that I love it nonetheless?
Linjen Pichardo Neogi says
Sorry. Typo: Isabel Allende.
Rebekka. says
Sophies World really, really made me cry. It has the most biggest and saddest plot-twist ever seen and the whole book and ending itself is beautiful and moving. The other is Sophie's World really, really made me cry. It has the most biggest and saddest plot-twist ever seen and the whole book and ending itself is beautiful and moving. The other is Deathly Hallows, which just got me, at so many points. It was sad, it was good, and touching and painful and happy all at ónce, and all the deaths and pain and misery and the ending and bahhh. T_T dead. The most recent book I have cried over was Delirium. Many times through I was sad and scared over the world and life Lena and every other had to life, without love. I'm actually not really a crying person, but sometimes books like Harry Potter and Sophie's World just gets me.
S.P. Bowers says
I'm a goober and cry fairly easily. Even if I don't like the book! Bridge To Terebithia hits me hard, as does The Book Thief. Someone mentioned A Monster Calls and I'll second that. It's a beautiful and poignant book.
Creighton Dent says
The Collector by John Fowles
Ellen Appleby Keim says
Sophie's Choice by William Styron. Holocaust books get me anyway, but that one did me in. Thank God I read it before I saw the movie, because as good as the movie is, the book was so much better (in my opinion).
Karin says
A Fine Balance. Finished it on a plane. Bad idea. I was sobbing into a snotty cocktail napkin. I would put the book down and try and look normal, and then plunge in for more anguish and more tears and more snot. Poor guy sitting next to me.
Collette says
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. And I still can get choked up just thinking about the end of The Incredible Journey when Bodger shows up, limping over the crest of the hill.
Sophia says
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, and it was totally unexpected, too!
Chris Bailey says
LIttle Bee, A Dog's Way Home, Pillars of the Earth, Cold Mountain–and a bunch of the others already mentioned.
Gemma Hawdon says
The Book Thief – definitely! If I was just a few decades younger I would have to elope with Rudy Steiner.
Pamala Knight says
Hmmm…I remember sobbing first at Burrich and Fitzchivalry's reunion and then Burrich's death scene in Robin Hobb's FOOL's FATE from the Tawny Man trilogy–the final story of the Farseer's.
Saille says
The Grey King by Susan Cooper made me sob. I remember reading part of it to my mom and being utterly unable to grasp why she didn't collapse in response.
Backfence says
Outlander
Into the Wilderness (series by Sara Donati) – particularly the final book, The Endless Forest
The Breakdown Lane by Jacquelyn Mitchard
War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk
and, oddly, Anna Quindlen's latest: Lots of Candles; Plenty of Cake had me tearing up on numerous occasions – I guess I could really relate to her sentiments
Gretchen says
Nathan, have you read The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion? I started reading it at school when everyone, teachers included, was supposed to read for a 30 minute period a day. I kept bawling and my students were freaking out, so I had to read that on only at home.
Terri-ann Varga says
Hiroshima by John Hersey makes me cry every time https://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-John-Hersey/dp/0679721037
Jenna St. Hilaire says
Brenda Pierson, I'm with you on the tragedy in fantasy. I choked up thoroughly over a certain scene in the last Wheel of Time book recently.
I'm the reverse of you, Nathan; didn't cry much as a kid, but stuff gets me all the time now. Brideshead Revisited was a recent bawler. And The Little Prince, which I'd never read before. I read The Giver for the first time last year, and that meltdown was epic.
I'm scared spitless to read The Fault in Our Stars.
Anonymous says
Plainsong and Eventide, both by Kent Haruf. I cried in my soup. Read Plainsong first, some of the characters are in both.
wonderwoman5432 says
Without fail, Erich Segal's Love Story gets me each time I read it. It's either when Jenny dies or when Oliver cries in his father's arms.
Landra says
As a child, The Giver.
As an adult, Half-Blood Prince, Deathly Hallows, and Tempting the Bride (some powerful parallels and emotional situations).
I don't cry often, but usually favorite characters dying or children being harmed immediately gets the tears rolling.
Kim Bowman Author says
Where the Red Fern Grows, of course. As well as Old Yeller. And The Kite Runner. And I also cried over Her Fearful Symmetry.