What is the saddest book you’ve ever read?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Bright Hour

Yes! It was so beautiful written; funny and heartbreaking.

[Anonymous]

Saving this thread so that I never ever read these books LOL

[Anonymous]

1. The House of Mirth

2. Madame Bovary

3. SPOILER below




A classic book, I don’t remember the name, where a woman walks into the ocean on a beach to commit suicide at the end of the book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. The House of Mirth

2. Madame Bovary

3. SPOILER below




A classic book, I don’t remember the name, where a woman walks into the ocean on a beach to commit suicide at the end of the book.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. The House of Mirth

2. Madame Bovary

3. SPOILER below




A classic book, I don’t remember the name, where a woman walks into the ocean on a beach to commit suicide at the end of the book.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Yes! That’s it. Thanks! These classics were sad in that women’s lives could be so limited in the past.

[Anonymous]

I just started The Unwinding of the Miracle--she has you bawling by the second page--no joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bridge to Terabithia
Velveteen Rabbit

This. Cannot read it without bawling. My girls stare at me and wonder what is wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just started The Unwinding of the Miracle--she has you bawling by the second page--no joke.

Is this a religious book?

[Anonymous]

Atonement

[Anonymous]

When I finished The Lovely Bones, I said to my husband "I do not want any person I care about deeply to read that book -- it's just too sad." It haunted me for DAYS (there's a particular scene involving a dog that has me sobbing even as I'm typing).

Case Histories was the first book I read after my daughter's birth, and as I've posted in a thread a couple of months ago, I sobbed during that one in part because I recognized that I now read about children from a different perspective, one that I literally felt in my body (I say this as one who was childless bv choice for years and years, struggled with infertility, wrote a dissertation on fertility/cultural constructs of infertility -- in other words, I try to be really careful that I don't use a framework of 'being a parent changes everything', but at least in my case, there has been a visceral impact on how I approached some reading.)

I have vowed never again to read Old Yeller, ever, just as I have my daughter checking that website that warns you about any dog's death on any movie/TV show for me A LOT. Frankly, I've handled losing several family pets better than I can handle reading about it -- not sure why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My Sister’s Keeper

I threw that book across the room when I finished. I was so pissed.

I did the same thing! And I let it sit there for a long time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bridge to Terabithia
Velveteen Rabbit

This. Cannot read it without bawling. My girls stare at me and wonder what is wrong.

I am so glad I am not the only one! I love this book and have read it many times, but never without crying. I love that the minister who performed my dad’s funeral used it for the service - never told us that was his plan, but it was perfect.

[Anonymous]

Surprised not to The Good Soldier.

This is the saddest story I've ever heard.....

[Anonymous]

The memoir Education by Tara Westover. I guess it ends OK -- she gets out of an abusive home -- but jeez, it made me so sad to read about how abusive and willfully oblivious her family was, and then how she struggled with basic tasks as a young adult because she hadn't been taught anything.

[Anonymous]

I loved Never Let Me Go, also by Kazuo Ishiguro. Very sad.