Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Top 10 Books That Made Me Cry

Another Tuesday, another top 10 list hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Last week it was books that make you scream and this week it's books that make you cry.  I don't think I'll make it to 10 because I like to think I'm tough but I'm such baby I am a step above crying at long distance phone commercials.  So with that in mind here are the top however-many-I-make-it-to books that make me cry.  (Keep in mind that most of the time if a book made me cry it was something at the end that did it.  So there will probably be spoilers.)

  1. Lamb by Christopher Moore. This is in my top 5 favorite books but the ending to it is so sad.  And it's not like I didn't know what was going to happen (spoiler: Josh gets crucified) but the book is so funny throughout the first half of it that the emotion in the second half of the book is surprising. 
  2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. I'm so glad I read the end of this book while I was at home instead of on the T because I'm pretty sure I would have caused a scene and then I would have had to make up some story about a severe allergic reaction or something to cover up the fact that a kids book made me cry.  Notable mentions in this category: Order of the Phoenix.  I didn't want to include multiple HP's on this list and I didn't bawl as much with this one, but that ending depressed me.  Especially after I'd gotten so attached.
  3. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. This is such a powerful, tragic story. It is so sad with only a very small silver lining.  The story is fiction but so many real women live the hell that Mariam and Laila go through.  The book was hard to read and I probably won't be re-reading this one, but I'm glad I read it the first time.
  4.  The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Morrison's work is so heavy but this was the first of her books I read and because of that it's the one that hits me the hardest.  Incestual child rape: fun for the whole family.  (I know that was awful and tasteless and I actually wrote it at first without realizing how bad it was but it also made me laugh out loud so it stays.  I have a 10 year old boys taste in humor.)
I tried to come up with more.  I even looked through my mostly-complete list of books I have and this is still all I could come up with.  I didn't want to go with books that made me just tear up a little bit; nothing I could explain away by saying I have dust in my eye.  If you decide to read any of these, fair warning. 

What books made you cry?

Update!: I realized I forgot The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and normally I'd just leave it off the list but since this book made me cry in public (dammit) I need to add it. Holocaust books will do that to you.