Wuthering Heights and Mill on the floss take the prize … devastating … Thomas Hardy in general, as well as George Elliott are brilliant but their books are often tragic ??
@Rohen yep, wuthering heights is my favorite book of all time, followed by far from the madding crowd by hardy and then Mill on the floss ! I don’t know how Bronte achieved this, but WH is more than a book. I have to say my other favorite books are my childhood novels, which luckily are less tragic.
WH was an astounding achievement…layer upon layer of strikingly engaging narrative, that, no matter how many times you have read it, never fails to take your imagination in cold steel grip and leave it gasping for air even after days since you turned the last page.
@Rohen yes Hardy, they are so frustratingly tragic, you just wanna just shout at his characters, especially at the mayor of Casterbridge and Tess … far from the madding crowd is somewhat of an exception … still, it’s heartbreaking, especially concerning Troy and Fanny … oh my. Middlemarch and Silas Marner etc are more uplifting than Mill, but somehow Mill touched me most. I also love EM Forster! Passage to India is sad too.
Tess Of the Durbervilles Is in my top 5 favorite books list… read it for college and it affected me pretty profoundly. One of the only books I underlined and marked passages because they were so beautiful and affecting.
Hardy severely criticized his times and general value-system of the contemporary society in his works. Not that other Victorian authors didn’t. However, most of his works fail to capture ‘hope’ side of the coin, being unforgiving in their finality. I guess that is where most of my disconnect with Hardy is…and that is where Dickens steps in (for me) as the more balanced story-teller. 🙂
@Rohen i heard that Hardy delivered a “stay put and you are good” message. Bathsheba and Gabriel Oaks are an exception though, they overcome hardship and adversity and rise in the world. Under the Greenwood Tree is more optimistic too. While many say the flirt at the end spoils a happy ending … but otherwise yes … he is merciless … I need my dosage of Anne of Green Gables or Little Women to be ok again after a Hardy book …
I always held the weird picture of that being more due to his being a peasant at heart, hence making not much of life beyond usual grazing area of man’s strife.
“Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.”
– Thomas Hardy, ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’
He comes across as a firm believer of life to be no blessing for a given. Instead, even if one was set out to elevate past one’s situation, such an endeavour would not be without alleviation of some unavoidable suffering.
Even his humor / optimism is marred by some level of underlying pessimistic (at times, I feel, too strong a word…but, then, not all that unjustified either) tone.
But his criticism, if one observes closely, is not so much directed on type of personality of individual character…rather about human life and social conditions in general. If one stripped his works of their characters and story and examined the commonality established as the framework within which operated, one discerns that he held a fixed view of the world…the view of a man who has made up his mind about the overall mechanics of the world and general behaviour of various cogs that born and die by its will, from which he hardly deviates.
Classier Come Home. Read it when I was about 12 and don’t remember anything except crying my eyes out! More recently, Me Before You brought a tear to my eye. And Falling by Jane Green.
I don’t know about the saddest but I usually cry at some point during almost every Nicholas Sparks book and most of Karen Kingsbury’s books. But I love them! My sisters keeper is the only one I can think of right now where I cried really hard!
I forgot the name ..but it was about an African girl who had gone through tragic past. And the family who saved her from bad people were killed by a guy. Oh. It was so sad. I forgot the name.
The Notebook, The Pact. I deliberately do not read books I think will be sad…. over the years they just affect me too much and I don’t think it’s healthy for me lol…. anything with animals, like Marley and Me or Art of Racing I just cannot do…. purposely have not read Fault in our Stars or Me Before You or anything by these authors because I don’t have the emotional hardiness.
Saddest thing about that book for me: my grandmother is/ was the child of Italian immigrants, grew up poor in a big family, she read it and enjoyed it, but talked about how true to life it was regarding poverty and death. She knew many families who lost babies and young children wgen she herself was a child. I’ve never been able to read it because of the impact it had on her.
Sarah’s Key continues to haunt me. The final Divergent book I cried for like 24 hours (only the first time I read it, and way before I saw the movies to cloud my love of these books)
Eric by Doris Lund. The story of a teenager with a life threatening illness who decides to live. I read it so many times when I was a young girl. Who knew I’d be living the story with my athlete son and a life threatening illness. Ours will be a happier story
The book about Dewey, the library cat nearly sucked me in. I quit about 1/4 of the way in bc I figured “all good things must come to an end.” No thanks.
The fault in our stars with its twist right at the end was really sad, that’s true … I don’t understand why he chose to end it like that given it’s a book for teenagers and some of them might fight cancer as well. I lost two friends to cancer and couldn’t quite finish the book … ? but without doubt it is a good book as all his books are …
Hard to say, Sophie’s Choice. I couldn’t finish Dead Wake. The details of the drownings and death were too awful. Gave it to my husband and he felt the same way. Unusual. And as English teacher and professor,we’ve read a lot. Loved Sophie’s Choice though.
So many, especially all the Holocaust books I’ve read, but for a specific title, I’ll go with the latest sad book I’ve read, which is This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp.
I don’t know if this counts, but there definitely was a point in Emma by Helen Hollick that made me cry. The massacre of the Danes. Absolutely heartbreaking. There’s a tie between Passchendaele and All Quiet on the Western Front that made me cry fully.
Hardy is among the most depressing authors and I read that Jude the Obscure and Tess are on top of many most depressing lists … I feel the same, but love him as an author nevertheless.
@Misha yes, I need my fix of childhood books after Hardy, something like Anne of green gables, the little lord, the secret garden … far from the madding crowd is my second favorite book of all time, but oh my Fanny ? Mr Boldwood, Troy ?… still Batsheba and Gabriel ❤️❤️❤️ have read it a hundred times …
I too have my set of childhood books that I pick up after reading something depressing … For that matter if anything gets me down I pick up an Enid Blyton … Or even a comic for that matter ???
The Best Of Me by Nicholas Sparks. Reminded me of my first love. Actually, ALOT of it was how we felt and all. And then I finished the book on the anniversary of my mom’s passing… so it was alot of tears..
Two books come to my mind: ‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara and ‘We Are Not Ourselves’ by Matthew Thomas.
I am reading A Little Life currently. Beautifully written…?
Wuthering Heights and Mill on the floss take the prize … devastating … Thomas Hardy in general, as well as George Elliott are brilliant but their books are often tragic ??
Both are among my all time favorites ?
@Rohen yep, wuthering heights is my favorite book of all time, followed by far from the madding crowd by hardy and then Mill on the floss ! I don’t know how Bronte achieved this, but WH is more than a book. I have to say my other favorite books are my childhood novels, which luckily are less tragic.
Wuthering heights!! Ahh 🙁
Wuthering Heights gives me the heebidabajeebies every time I read it. ?
WH was an astounding achievement…layer upon layer of strikingly engaging narrative, that, no matter how many times you have read it, never fails to take your imagination in cold steel grip and leave it gasping for air even after days since you turned the last page.
@Rohen what are heebida … ? what cool word
? Ah, that’s a more intense version of goosebumps, involves cold shivers and other such strong response of body and mind to stimuli.
I love Hardy even though his works are more depressing than sad. George Eliot…another one of my favorites.
@Rohen love it
@Rohen yes Hardy, they are so frustratingly tragic, you just wanna just shout at his characters, especially at the mayor of Casterbridge and Tess … far from the madding crowd is somewhat of an exception … still, it’s heartbreaking, especially concerning Troy and Fanny … oh my. Middlemarch and Silas Marner etc are more uplifting than Mill, but somehow Mill touched me most. I also love EM Forster! Passage to India is sad too.
Tess Of the Durbervilles
Is in my top 5 favorite books list… read it for college and it affected me pretty profoundly. One of the only books I underlined and marked passages because they were so beautiful and affecting.
@Renee yes but what an ending ?
Hardy severely criticized his times and general value-system of the contemporary society in his works. Not that other Victorian authors didn’t. However, most of his works fail to capture ‘hope’ side of the coin, being unforgiving in their finality. I guess that is where most of my disconnect with Hardy is…and that is where Dickens steps in (for me) as the more balanced story-teller. 🙂
@Rohen i heard that Hardy delivered a “stay put and you are good” message. Bathsheba and Gabriel Oaks are an exception though, they overcome hardship and adversity and rise in the world. Under the Greenwood Tree is more optimistic too. While many say the flirt at the end spoils a happy ending … but otherwise yes … he is merciless … I need my dosage of Anne of Green Gables or Little Women to be ok again after a Hardy book …
Ah, an astute observation Kristen …
I always held the weird picture of that being more due to his being a peasant at heart, hence making not much of life beyond usual grazing area of man’s strife.
“Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.”
– Thomas Hardy, ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’
He comes across as a firm believer of life to be no blessing for a given. Instead, even if one was set out to elevate past one’s situation, such an endeavour would not be without alleviation of some unavoidable suffering.
Even his humor / optimism is marred by some level of underlying pessimistic (at times, I feel, too strong a word…but, then, not all that unjustified either) tone.
But his criticism, if one observes closely, is not so much directed on type of personality of individual character…rather about human life and social conditions in general. If one stripped his works of their characters and story and examined the commonality established as the framework within which operated, one discerns that he held a fixed view of the world…the view of a man who has made up his mind about the overall mechanics of the world and general behaviour of various cogs that born and die by its will, from which he hardly deviates.
Mine is The Moon Daughter by Zohreh Ghahremani
A Farewell to Arms
Uncle toms cabin
The Fault In Our Stars. :'(
Fan fiction ??
The way I used to be. The fault in our stars. If I stay.
The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway. ??
Classier Come Home. Read it when I was about 12 and don’t remember anything except crying my eyes out! More recently, Me Before You brought a tear to my eye. And Falling by Jane Green.
Is that supposed to be Lassie Come Home?
Lol, yes, it is ???
@Angela you made my day!?
My sister’s keeper
Yes! So good though!
The Art of Racing in the Rain
Beware of Pity (original title literally translated as The Heart’s Impatience) by Stefan Zweig
The sorrows of young werther by goethe
You like German speaking authors … nice, I am German
I’m german too 🙂
Two books by Erich Segal which was Love Story and Man, Woman, and Child. P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern
I’ve deliberately stopped reading when a book gets sad. I fight depression and I can’t risk sadness.
Same here but I cannot stop reading
me too. Can’t put myself through that deliberately. It affects me too much.
@Kristen me too!?
A Child Called It 🙁
Between Shades of Grey
I just ordered that…I hope it’s good!
Joanna, I loved that story so much!
A Child Called It, Marley and Me, and P. S. I Love You
Curtain
I don’t know about the saddest but I usually cry at some point during almost every Nicholas Sparks book and most of Karen Kingsbury’s books. But I love them! My sisters keeper is the only one I can think of right now where I cried really hard!
Jojo Moyes, Me Before You… I was a wreck. And so, so angry. How dare she do that! One Day was the same. I felt cheated. Many tears were shed.
The only sparks book I can read again is the longest ride … also bc I love art
@Pinar , is One Day by Jojo Moyes or someone else?
@Amber David Nicholls
Black beauty
A Walk To Rember by Nicholas Sparks.
The Radium Girls
This was heartbreaking!
Yes, but angry too.
I forgot the name ..but it was about an African girl who had gone through tragic past. And the family who saved her from bad people were killed by a guy. Oh. It was so sad. I forgot the name.
I will try to get the book title. 🙂
Child called it and most of the following ones. ???
Marley and me
The Notebook, The Pact. I deliberately do not read books I think will be sad…. over the years they just affect me too much and I don’t think it’s healthy for me lol…. anything with animals, like Marley and Me or Art of Racing I just cannot do…. purposely have not read Fault in our Stars or Me Before You or anything by these authors because I don’t have the emotional hardiness.
Angela’s Ashes.
Saddest thing about that book for me: my grandmother is/ was the child of Italian immigrants, grew up poor in a big family, she read it and enjoyed it, but talked about how true to life it was regarding poverty and death. She knew many families who lost babies and young children wgen she herself was a child. I’ve never been able to read it because of the impact it had on her.
My response too. I tried twice, but couldn’t read it. It’s my sister’s favorite.
Couldn’t do it. I knew l should but l couldn’t.
Peter’s Lullaby by Jeanne Fowler and a Child Called It by Dave Pelzer. Both about abuse and just so devastatingly sad.
A Tale of Two Cities
On the Beach and Angela’s Ashes
The Matchmaker by Elin Hilderbrand, I cried at the ending.
The Nightengale
Sarah’s Key continues to haunt me. The final Divergent book I cried for like 24 hours (only the first time I read it, and way before I saw the movies to cloud my love of these books)
The Book Thief
Eric by Doris Lund. The story of a teenager with a life threatening illness who decides to live. I read it so many times when I was a young girl. Who knew I’d be living the story with my athlete son and a life threatening illness. Ours will be a happier story
Darn Nicholas Sparks anything
The book about Dewey, the library cat nearly sucked me in. I quit about 1/4 of the way in bc I figured “all good things must come to an end.” No thanks.
Private peaceful. That book really messed me up for a while.
A Dog’s Purpose…
Me before you
The lovely bones and behind closed doors
The Lovely Bones traumatized me a bit. ?
Sarah’s key
:’)
The Nightingale
We need to talk about Kevin. This made my bubble for weeks! ?
Yes this was heartbreaking
anything where a pet dies
Like “Old Yeller” My husband is still traumatized. For me it was Bambi. How dare they tell little children their mother can die.I’m still angry.
Boy with the striped pajamas
The ending tore me up.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
The Horse Whisperer
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Broke my heart.
Animal Farm. It made me burst into tears ?
I assumed u were made of stone ??
Omg! How did you get that idea? ?
A fine balance, such a sad book with a sad ending.
The charm bracelet, and the hope chest
A Man called Ove. I had a waterfall running down my face.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness It hit close to home for me.
Probably The Education Of Dixie Dupree by Donna Everhart.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.
A Child Called it and Beneath A Scarlet Sky.
Suzanne’s Diary For Nicholas.
Yes!
Yep, the ugly cry!
@Joanna yes!!
Besides sm arabic books i would say the color purple by Alice Walker well it is sad but at end things get better
Before I Die
The Time Traveler,s Wife
Fault in our Stars John green
A Walk to Remember
the book thief and the lovely bones..
Wuthering Heights
Me before you.
Anne Frank’s Diary
Message in a Bottle
The Bridges of Madison County
All the dog books, I read as a kid. Yes, I gave them up.
The Bridges of Madison County
Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas
My sisters keeper
The Road
Where the Red Fern Grows.
Tale of Two Cities
The deep end of the ocean, a walk to remember, Marley and me, The horse whisperer, my sisters keeper
When Breath becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi.
Giesha
Recently? ‘The Travelling Cat Chronicles’ by Hiro Arikawa, it was so sad ?
Angela’s Ashes
Fault in Our Stars
Anne Frank
A Dogs Purpose
Me Before You
Oh ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ broke my heart x
The fault in our stars with its twist right at the end was really sad, that’s true … I don’t understand why he chose to end it like that given it’s a book for teenagers and some of them might fight cancer as well. I lost two friends to cancer and couldn’t quite finish the book … ? but without doubt it is a good book as all his books are …
The fault in our stars and there was this book i read as a kid about a squirrel family tjat i cried everytime
A fine Balance, not a happy ending
Oh yeah I burst into tears because I didn’t see it coming.
The fault in our stars
I’ve read many, but the one that has stuck with me from childhood is Where the Red Fern Grows.
Me too. I remember it distinctly as the first book that made me cry.
@Amber Yes!!!
I ugly cried every time I read it and I must have gone through 3 copies with my siblings!
Same. I’ve read it several times as an adult with my kiddos, ugly cry every time.
Benjamin Button
Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas
The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde
Forest Gump
Kite Runner
Fear and Trembling
Hard to say, Sophie’s Choice. I couldn’t finish Dead Wake. The details of the drownings and death were too awful. Gave it to my husband and he felt the same way. Unusual. And as English teacher and professor,we’ve read a lot. Loved Sophie’s Choice though.
Portrait of a Lady, Jenny Gerhardt by Dreiser.
American Pastoral by Philip Roth.
Yes, the conclusion … what she saw … ?
Cruel and Beautiful by A.M hargrove. Love that book
A Little Life
Wit. I saw it a month after my mother died. I cried through the entire play.
So many, especially all the Holocaust books I’ve read, but for a specific title, I’ll go with the latest sad book I’ve read, which is This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp.
I just remember Norwegian Wood by Murakami ??…
sophie’s choice; boy in striped pajamas
The Mayor of Casterbridge.
Last exit to Brooklyn.
The Thorn Birds
I saw the TV series … ?
I read the book but I never saw the series.
@Briana my granny watched it and I saw it as a kid, many things I didn’t understand but the heartbreak I did understand
And, The house of mirth.
The Art of Racing in the Rain
The Green Mile by Stephen King?
Sophie’s choice
The Kite Runner..
a child called it
That book literally ??
My sisters keeper
The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks
I don’t know if this counts, but there definitely was a point in Emma by Helen Hollick that made me cry. The massacre of the Danes. Absolutely heartbreaking. There’s a tie between Passchendaele and All Quiet on the Western Front that made me cry fully.
Of Mice and Men. ?
Five Chimneys
Tess of the d’ubervilles
Hardy is among the most depressing authors and I read that Jude the Obscure and Tess are on top of many most depressing lists … I feel the same, but love him as an author nevertheless.
I was equally depressed reading his trumpet major ….. His books leave you feeling so disheartened
@Misha yes, I need my fix of childhood books after Hardy, something like Anne of green gables, the little lord, the secret garden … far from the madding crowd is my second favorite book of all time, but oh my Fanny ? Mr Boldwood, Troy ?… still Batsheba and Gabriel ❤️❤️❤️ have read it a hundred times …
I too have my set of childhood books that I pick up after reading something depressing … For that matter if anything gets me down I pick up an Enid Blyton … Or even a comic for that matter ???
Thomas Hardy was not a happy guy.
@Misha the famous five were my heroes
Lol ..No he wasn’t
Famous five and the five find outers … Still love reading them
??
Wilbur Smith elephant song
Danielle Steele’s Malice
Too many but I would say Sophie’s Choice and Let Us Talk About Kevin
Typo We Need to Talk About Kevin
The Best Of Me by Nicholas Sparks. Reminded me of my first love. Actually, ALOT of it was how we felt and all. And then I finished the book on the anniversary of my mom’s passing… so it was alot of tears..
Bridge to terabithia and The stranger in the mirror.
Night by Elie Wiesel and Anne Frank’s diary
I need to put so many of these on my Want to Read list! Thanks everyone!
grapes of wrath and the worst hard times.
Grapes of Wrath and The Worst Hard Times
Me before You