And I mean that in a good way. I’m looking for written, book-length fiction which so drew you into the point of view of the protagonist(s) that once you could hardly make yourself stop reading–and once you finished, you felt drained, weak, and oddly happy.
I added the first qualifier just to make you think a little. But if you can’t recall the very first time that happened, it’s okay.
Having made that concession, I’ll start with my own first. It was actually a pair of Madeleine L’Engle novels: The Arm of the Starfish and A Ring of Endless Light. I’m counting them together because I found them both in the summer of '85 and I don’t recall which I read first. I do know that I checked them out from the library around the same time; I’d read L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time a few years before and wanted more of her. In fact, neither of the first two books is very like Time; they’re more realistic. But the stories of Adam Eddington (the protagonist of the former and a supporting character in the latter) and Vicky Austin (narrator of the latter) completely engrossed me: partly, I think now, because my grandfather had just died. Ring is about Vicky’s last summer with her grandfather before his death, and while it’s not necessary to have read Starfish to understand what’s going on in the other book, the experience is somewhat richer if you have.
Lord of the Flies. Eighth grade book for English class. Got it in 2nd period, started reading between classes, didn’t stop reading until I finished it lat that night. Although I can’t say I’d use “happy” to describe my feelings. Amazed, rocked, stunned, a little sick to my stomach.
I don’t mean happy with the way the story turned out; I mean happy (or perhaps grateful or awed) to have read the story. Both of my nominees are seriously depressing: particularly Ring, if you think about it in terms of A Wrinkle in Time, and especially in terms of Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew. If I’d read Meet the Austins first I’d have been less surprised, I suppose.
And as I think on it, I must have read Ring before Starfish.
Ender’s Game, in elementary school. Say what you will of OSC’s politics (and I could say plenty in the Pit), the man can write. It was impossible not to sympathize with Ender’s suffering - both the bullying and his bone-deep horror at the genuinely horrible things that he’d done. The ending of the novel, with its suggestion that he might genuinely find some peace, moved me pretty deeply.
I also quite liked Speaker for the Dead, though it was a little bit over my head when I came across it the first time. I did find Ender’s “breakup” with Jane quite distressing, though. Poor Jane. (I won’t say “poor Ender”, though - dude should have known better than to shut off his earpiece. Jane would disagree with me - but she’s nicer than I am.)
I’m also going to cheat and use a trilogy, because it’s one story spread over three books, and I read all three in a row because I just couldn’t stop. The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey, aka Magic’s Promise, Magic’s Pawn and Magic’s Price.
I know a lot of people are harsh on the Valdemar books because of the magical white horsey goofiness, but I love them. And, magical white horsies aside, there’s some pretty dark stuff in there, and Vanyel (the hero of this trilogy) isn’t a Mary Sue, he’s actually got real faults. Hell, he starts out an insufferable, spoiled entitled brat, and he never fully shakes his habit of emotionally locking out everyone who loves him.
I think this was the first series I read where the hero really couldn’t save the day or himself when faced with someone more powerful than he was, and I was fairly rocked by that. There’s an epilogue which kept me from slitting my wrists, but yeah, “emotionally exhausted” is a good description.
It was also the first book I ever read with a gay hero, and I found that pretty awesome as a preteen.
I was still in grade school when I came across Elie Wiesel 's Night, which was only a hundred pages long - I read it in one sitting, and I found it utterly emotionally devistating.
From the wiki article:
Edit: I missed the notion that this experience was supposed to make you happy …
It hardly matters anyway, but I don’t call that instance cheating. Those three by Lackey are like Lord of the Rings; the division between books is arbitrary and more about keeping the published volumes from being unwieldy than anything else.
The earliest one I can remember is The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare, though I don’t remember much about it now except that I had a reaction similar to what the OP describes—I read it in childhood, and there’s been a lot of books under the bridge since then. Hmm, maybe I ought to re-read it one of these days.
Oh dear yes. I was a teenager, and until then, I’d had no experience (reading or otherwise) anywhere close to the pain and despair and courage of that book.
Much later, Harriett Arnow’s The Dollmaker had almost the same effect. It’s my favorite book of all time but man, it’s not a happy read.
Maybe The Book of the Dun Cow, which I started reading (as a fairly young kid) thinking it was a cute animal story. It was more epic and tragic and deep than I could have imagined.
Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story. I read it when I was 12, and it was the first book I ever put off reading so that I wouldn’t finish it too soon. Bastian’s journey from wimpy little boy to tyrannical monster to penitent, happy little boy was a doozy.
BTW, if you’ve never read it, it’s called the Neverending Story because every so often the narration will take you off on a tangent and then cut short with, “But that is another story that will be told another time.” It’s a wonderful invitation for kids to exercise their imaginations and dream up the ways those tangents could be carried out to fullness.
I don’t really know the answer. I’m just posting to say I think I fall a little more in love with Skald every time I open his threads. (which is not every time he posts. I do have a life outside this message board you know). There was a 16 year old boy out there reading A Ring of Endless Light when I was? (I here assume Skald and I are the same age, I think I noticed that once.)
Come to think of it, I can go back much further than that. In about 1956, when I was a child, I read one of my sister’s books. She was into animal stories, and this one was called Lad, A Dog, written in 1919 by Albert Terhune, possibly the best writer of dog stories in history. In the end the dog dies, of course. I remember sitting there weeping copious nine-year old tears, and my mother trying to comfort me. It’s a powerful memory of my mother, as she was not prone to motherly gestures.
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco. Long, intricate, and–at times–a chore to get through, but the overall story was gripping and it ended with a furious pace. I read it in my late teens and absolutely had the emotions in the OP when I finished it.
Another one was To Kill a Mockingbird. I was older when I first read it and generally knew the plot, but reading it was a revelation.
