# What's your favorite, best-written, thoroughly sad book?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-best-written-thoroughly-sad-book/364627>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [July 15, 2006, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-best-written-thoroughly-sad-book/364627 "2006-07-15T17:36:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![gfloyd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d2c977/32.png) [@gfloyd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gfloyd)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-best-written-thoroughly-sad-book/364627/61 "2006-08-01T19:38:35Z")

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For children’s books, Devils Arithmetic by Jane Yolen. About a modern girl who doesn’t understand at all what her grandparents went through in the camps during WWII finds herself in Poland in 1942. The plot is a little contrived, but I remember it was the first books that made me cry. My Antonia by Willa Cather was the second.

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**Author:** ![Gail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Gail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gail)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-best-written-thoroughly-sad-book/364627/62 "2006-08-01T22:51:04Z")

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Sharon Creech’s _Walk Two Moons_ is not only extremely sad…it’s well written. How often do you see intricate subplots in children’s literature. And, if you’re not paying extremely close attention, the end is quite a surprise.

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