# What books have made you cry? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 20, 2008, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247 "2008-01-20T09:46:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![3acresandatruck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/e79b87/32.png) [@3acresandatruck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3acresandatruck)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/81 "2008-01-22T02:11:29Z")
When I was 10, I was reading my dad’s geology textbook and I found a pamphlet tucked into it. He had forgotten it was there. It had been given to all the men in his unit to prepare them; soon they would be involved in the liberation of a concentration camp. The text and photos were horrifying, but the photo I remember most was a pile of corpses larger than our house. He had to explain Nazi Germany to me that night; that our family would have been killed had we been there at that time; what it was like for him to see the dead and the survivors…men, women, children. ---
**Author:** ![Sublata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7cd45c/32.png) [@Sublata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublata)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/82 "2008-01-22T02:32:59Z")
I can’t remember ever crying over any book except _Look Homeward, Angel_ – but **that** gave me a freakin’ nervous breakdown; I was crying for a week. ---
**Author:** ![BlueKangaroo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3d9bf3/32.png) [@BlueKangaroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlueKangaroo)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/83 "2008-01-22T04:15:45Z")
I cried at _The Time Traveler’s Wife_ as well, but not at the same moment everyone else did. I cried at the actual culmination of that moment, and at the very end when Clare is old. Those were happy and sad tears all at once. I also cried at _Never Let Me Go_ by Kazuo Ishiguro. It’s a powerful and moving book, and I think a very good commentary on human nature or society. Mostly, it’s a wonderful story, but the commentary is there and mostly subtle. I cried so hard, and will never pick up the book again. It tied in at the time with a great deal that was going on with my life, and it became oddly personal. To this day, I can’t even think about it without struggling to hold in the tears. I don’t think that’s going to be a normal reaction, though I can’t imagine most people reading the last paragraph or so and not tearing up. I also cried at Harry Potter books six and seven. I can’t recall anything else off the top of my head, but there may be more. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/84 "2008-01-22T05:30:14Z")
[QUOTE=gallows fodder] Ooh, I’ll have to look for that book… [/QUOTE] You’re in for a treat! Not at all like his _Song of Ice and Fire_ series, but brilliant nevertheless. Search for the title _Fevre Dream_ on the SDMB, and I think you’ll see it’s been praised more than a few times. Another great GRRM book, if you haven’t read it yet: _Tuf Voyaging_. One of my all-time favorites. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/85 "2008-01-22T05:43:51Z")
[QUOTE=BlueKangaroo] I cried at _The Time Traveler’s Wife_ as well, but not at the same moment everyone else did. I cried at the actual culmination of that moment, and at the very end when Clare is old. Those were happy and sad tears all at once. [/QUOTE] Happy? Happy? What in the name of all that is joyful, was happy about that? Claire was living her whole life, by that point, for that one visit - the point of deliberately setting the scene for Henry to find every day of her life, for years! That was the single most depressing, devastating and disheartening scene in the whole book! ---
**Author:** ![Quint](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/76d3ee/32.png) [@Quint](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quint)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/86 "2008-01-22T05:49:29Z")
[QUOTE=3acresandatruck] When I was 10, I was reading my dad’s geology textbook and I found a pamphlet tucked into it. He had forgotten it was there. It had been given to all the men in his unit to prepare them; soon they would be involved in the liberation of a concentration camp. The text and photos were horrifying, but the photo I remember most was a pile of corpses larger than our house. He had to explain Nazi Germany to me that night; that our family would have been killed had we been there at that time; what it was like for him to see the dead and the survivors…men, women, children. [/QUOTE] Wow. Probably not what the OP was after, but what a devastating story. 10 is too young to face that kind of evil. ---
**Author:** ![Subterraneanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Subterraneanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subterraneanus)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/87 "2008-01-22T07:02:18Z")
_A River Runs Through It_ \*… Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.\* ---
**Author:** ![tesseract](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bb73d2/32.png) [@tesseract](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tesseract)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/88 "2008-01-22T08:20:00Z")
[QUOTE=olivesmarch4th] The last book that made me cry, did so just a few weeks ago. It is called [Maus: A Survivor’s Tale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus) and it would probably tear just about anyone’s shit up. If you have never read this book, I urge you to do so now. It is a memoir in graphic novel form, written by Art Spiegelman, that recounts his father’s experience as a Polish Jew at Auschwitz and the devastating impact the experience had on his family relationships. His mother also survived the camps and committed suicide about 18 years after being reunited with her husband. All of the Jews are depicted as mice, the Nazis as cats, the Poles as pigs, etc… everything has a satirical edge but the story retelling is simple, poignant, and heartbreaking. Oh, and it won a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992. They normally don’t do that for graphic novels, but this one was just so fucking good they realized they didn’t have a choice. I was up until 6am reading this book, and when I finished, I sat there for a few seconds trying to absorb the implications of what I had just read. Then I started sobbing, these loud, braying sobs that woke up my husband. When he asked what was wrong, I just replied, ‘‘I finished reading Maus.’’ He had just finished reading it himself and understood completely–he rolled over, and went back to sleep, leaving me to my grieving experience. I can’t really explain the book, it defies description. I’ve read a few books on the Holocaust, but none have affected me the way this one did. The story isn’t about Jews and Nazis, but about humanity. One gets the inexplicable feeling that everything that has ever happened throughout history has happened to all of us at once. [/QUOTE] Excellent description of Maus. I won’t add anything to it. You said it. Everyone should read it. ---
**Author:** ![BlueKangaroo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3d9bf3/32.png) [@BlueKangaroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlueKangaroo)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/89 "2008-01-22T15:01:16Z")
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki] Happy? Happy? What in the name of all that is joyful, was happy about that? Claire was living her whole life, by that point, for that one visit - the point of deliberately setting the scene for Henry to find every day of her life, for years! That was the single most depressing, devastating and disheartening scene in the whole book! [/QUOTE] I didn’t get that sense, no. Simply that, wow, she did get to interact with him one more time after he died. Death in the real world is the end, and there was joy in being able to be beyond that, if only briefly. Yes, it was sad and heart-wrenching, but I didn’t feel it said what she’d done with her life up to then. It was a gamut of emotions, for a variety of reasons. Simple as that. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/90 "2008-01-22T15:34:07Z")
Most recently, the eponymous story in Eisner’s graphic novel _A Contract With God_: [A Contract with God - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Contract_with_God) Particularly where the central character, an orthodox Jew, rages against - and repudiates - God following the pointless death of his adopted daughter, and turns away from humanity. One of the saddest things I’ve ever read. And, allegedly, written following the death of the author’s daughter from cancer ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/91 "2008-01-22T16:17:39Z")
[QUOTE=NicePete] The end of _Charlotte’s Web_ always gets me. [/QUOTE] I was reading it aloud to my kids, and the lump in my throat finally reduced my voice to a whisper. I said, “No one was with her when she died.” and then I put my face in my hands and bawled. **Darth Sensitive** , my daughter finished Flowers For Algernon yesterday. I went into her room and she was just sobbing. ---
**Author:** ![Pixilated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/aeb1de/32.png) [@Pixilated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixilated)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/92 "2008-01-22T16:32:39Z")
[QUOTE=Lucky 13] Come on, am I the only one here who cried when Johnny Cade died in _The Outsiders_? “Stay gold, Ponyboy…” [/QUOTE] This is the first one that came to my mind, as well! Others: What Dreams May Come Little Women Sense & Sensibility Joy Luck Club The Bell Jar ---
**Author:** ![Missy2U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@Missy2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Missy2U)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/93 "2008-01-22T18:11:51Z")
Last night, I finished rereading [The Twelfth Card](http://www.jefferydeaver.com/Novels_/TwelfthCard/twelfthcard.html) and by the end I was crying - the final few pages just got to me. ---
**Author:** ![ArrMatey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrmatey/32/3522_2.png) [@ArrMatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArrMatey)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/94 "2008-01-22T20:29:39Z")
_The Kite Runner_. Spoiler tags due to the release of the movie. When the young boy slashes his wrists in the bathroom after being told he’ll have to go back to the orphanage. When I got to that part, or rather, the few lines before it, I knew exactly what was about to be described, and I honestly wanted to tear myself away from the book and not read that next part… But I had to. I read it, and I almost screamed. Then I wept. ---
**Author:** ![NicePete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee7513/32.png) [@NicePete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NicePete)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/95 "2008-01-22T20:55:59Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle] I was reading it aloud to my kids, and the lump in my throat finally reduced my voice to a whisper. I said, “No one was with her when she died.” and then I put my face in my hands and bawled. [/QUOTE] Yeah, that pretty much describes the sequence of events when I read it to my girls. ---
**Author:** ![Pixilated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/aeb1de/32.png) [@Pixilated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixilated)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/96 "2008-01-22T21:07:50Z")
I forgot to mention: The 10 Greatest Gifts I Give My Children and agh! I cannot remember the Title! kids book - has little boy sitting on bathroom floor unrolling a bunch of toilet paper! help? name? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/97 "2008-01-22T22:13:57Z")
When I was young, a long time ago, [My Friend the Dog.](http://www.amazon.com/Friend-Dog-Albert-Payson-Terhune/dp/0891903658) And - Not a book, but I read it in the most recent of Barry’s collections. [On Hallowed Ground, by Dave Barry.](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/746690/posts) Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![schnuckiputzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@schnuckiputzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schnuckiputzi)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/98 "2008-01-22T22:56:47Z")
Another vote for _A Prayer for Owen Meany_, and _Odd Thomas,_ by Dean Koontz. I bawled at the ending. Oh, and hi, there. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/99 "2008-01-22T23:05:31Z")
[QUOTE=schnuckiputzi] Oh, and hi, there. [/QUOTE] Welcome! Your very first post, and you’re a member already? I hope you enjoy your time with us. Don’t worry about those people setting up an aquarium and animal stall in front of your building. Just part of your welcome party. ---
**Author:** ![Ro\_Carter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7feea3/32.png) [@Ro\_Carter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ro_Carter)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2008, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247/100 "2008-01-22T23:20:17Z")
The only book I consistently cry at, every single time (an still re-read the book. Most times, if I cry during a book I avoid it) is _A Christmas Carol_. I love that book. I also teared up a little during _The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down_, out of sheer frustrated rage. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. For some reason, I don’t think I’ve ever cried during an actual HP book (some fanfics, yes, but the books, no). I suspect most of this has to do with wanting to smack Harry for being a moody brat. I cry much easier during movies, which is a little embarrassing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-made-you-cry/434247.md?page=6)