Books That Made Me Cry

I don't know about other people, but I actually love it when a book makes me cry.  Both for the element of the cathartic release of that I'm emotionally invested.  Often I'm crying at something sad, but sometimes I find the ending of a book I loved to be so poignant that it makes me cry even if it's happy!  In fact, if you look at my reviews of some my favorite books on Goodreads, it's not uncommon for them to include a statement along the lines of "I sobbed my way through the last chapter of this book."  All that being said, I am a famously easy crier.  My kids actually laugh at me because I cry so easily at movies and tv.

So, the following is not at all an exhaustive list of books that made me cry - just a look at a few of the most memorable cries.  Yes, they're all books that I loved (and many of them made my ten favorites lists the years that I read them).  But for the ones I list below, it wasn't just the book that was memorable but also specifically my emotional response to it!

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein - This book was a reasonably big best seller so you likely have heard of it already - the narrator is a dog, giving his (surprsingly perceptive) viewpoint on his life and the life of the humans around him.  I can still vividly remember reading this on my 10 year wedding anniversary trip to Mexico, sitting on the deck of our roomy by the private plunge pool and sobbing my eyes out.

A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron - Although I am very much a cat person, not a dog person, apparently I am a sucker for dog books because this book is also told from the perspective of a dog.  This one I read mostly on my commute to work, where I was crying so hard on both the Metro North train and the NYC subway that people probably thought something was wrong with me.

The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down by John Green - I may have cried at other John Green books, because he's just that good.  But I definitely remember crying at the ends of both of these books.  "The Fault in Our Stars" is a famous weepie about teenagers with cancer, and when I saw the movie version, I remember being glad I was wearing a cowl neck sweater so I could use the cowl to mop the tears of my neck.  "Turtles All the Way Down" I read last December, and while it was also a poignant book generally, it is an example of one of those books where it was just that end was so moving that I found myself crying as you get a glimpse of the adult life of the teenage protagonist.  Almost 6 months later, I'm still thinking about this wonderful quote from the end of the book:  “The problem with happy endings is that they're either not really happy, or not really endings, you know? In real life, some things get better and some things get worse. And then eventually you die.” It's sad but beautiful, and very true.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio - I cried at a few different points when reading this the first time, then cried again reading it out loud to Jonah 4 years later.  And of course I cried at the movie too!

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling - I cried so much at the end of this one!  What a great end to the series.  (I haven't seen the play yet, but I did cry reading the script of it.)

The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney - It actually took me a while to get into this book, but I found the end - another one of those endings where you get a little glimpse of the future lives of the characters - so moving that I remember crying through it.

The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes by Anna McPartlin - This book is about a young woman dying of cancer, of course I sobbed at it!

Castle of Water by Dane Huckelbridge; Maybe In Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid; Forever is the Worst Long Time by Camille Pagan; Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum -These were all on my 2017 ten favorites list and I cried at all of them.  Some for sad parts including deaths of characters, some for just generally being moving.  I told you I love books that make me cry!

***

As a fun bonus, here are some memorable Jen cries caused by artistic works besides books:

Movies:

Titanic - Dan and I had been dating for less than six months when we saw this movie.  I'm pretty sure he thought something was wrong with me as I sobbed my way through the end of this movie.  But we're still together more than 20 years later so I guess my excessive crying was not deemed an unacceptable character flaw!

Joy Luck Club - I probably cried at the book of this too.  But what I remember is leaving the movie theater after seeing it with my mom and sister, and all of our necks were soaking wet from all the tears we cried.

Pretty much every Pixar movie ever - Name a Pixar movie, and there is a pretty good chance I've cried at least a little at it:  Toy Story 3 (even Dan cried at that one!), Wall-E, Up, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Coco, Inside Out...  But not the Cars movies.  Those just don't pack the same emotional punch.

TV shows:

The series finale of Six Feet Under - I not only cried through the final episode of this series, I cried for at least an hour afterwards.  And any time I hear the song that played over the final minutes of the series, I start crying.

The "Red Wedding" episode of Game of Thrones - No spoilers, but this episode destroyed me and I also cried for probably an hour afterwards.  I'm definitely not the only one; there was actually a famous meme of sorts after this one aired of people posting videos of their friends crying and screaming watching this one.

Grey's Anatomy - I finally called it quits on this show a few years ago.  But Dan used to laugh at me because I ugly cried at pretty much every episode, whether it was just a sad story of the week about a random patient we never saw again, or one of the innumerable horrible tragedies that happened to the regular characters.

Theater:

Les Miserables:  I cried when I saw it on Broadway with my mom when I was in 8th grade.  I cried when I saw it again on Broadway with Dan for my 40th birthday.  When they made the movie adaptation, I used to cry every time they showed the *preview* for it at the movie theater.  And when we recently showed the movie version to the kids for the first time, Jonah was leaning on me at one point but then said he had to move because I was shaking so much from my heaving sobs during "I Dreamed a Dream."

Hamilton - Long before we saw it on Broadway, I cried multiple times just listening to the soundtrack for the first time (and then many times thereafter).  When we finally made it the Broadway show, everyone in my family made bets on how many times I was going to cry during the show.  I don't remember who won the bet but I remember that I actually exceeded all the bets, crying approximately 11 different times, not just at the sad parts!