The final season of His Dark Materials comes out this December and the trailer has dropped. The thing is, I’m not sure I can take it. The conclusion of series, told in the final pages of The Amber Spyglass, wrecked me. I listened to the last chapters in the parking lot of my local grocery store. I sat there for 45 minutes because I had to know how it turned out. I’m sure my fellow shoppers were worried for me–I was sobbing as though I’d just had the worse news of my life.
That book–and The Time Traveler’s Wife–are books I think of with love and sorrow. They broke my heart in a way that allows me to love them even as thinking about their stories makes my heart clench. And the truth is I avoid heartbreak. Copious tear inducing art has to be extraordinary for me to cherish it.
What books are like that for you? What novels have destroyed you in a way that you love?
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. Pretty heartbreaking ending.
The Storied Life of A. J. Fiery by Gabrielle Zevin
The ending made me want to throw my Kindle, so it broke something.
That’s Fikry not Fiery
Sounds like a bad book? I feel this way about My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. But I hate that book because of its shitty ending.
When will I learn not to judge a book by its cover?
The Lovely Bones. Not the ending so much, but somewhere in the middle I was sobbing.
I had to lie on the floor for an hour to recover from The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.
I so hear you.
This is such a beautiful book about friendship, love, and the power of words.
The Shining Company by Rosemary Sutcliff took me a long time to recover from. She’s such an amazing writer. The Eagle of the Ninth was just about as emotional for me.
All Quiet on the Western Front gutted me, too. It has the same lyrical writing as Sutcliff’s books. Both have deceptively beautiful writing even as they cut your heart out.
When people ask why bother to read fiction since it’s just made up stories, besides throwing up a little in my mouth in reaction I tell them that sometimes fiction presents a deeper and more complete picture of the world than nonfiction. All Quiet on the Western Front tells far more about what it was like to be a soldier in the Great War than any nonfiction book full of facts and figures, battles and troop movements. The fear, the hunger, the boredom, the moments of bravery are all captured so vividly and poignantly. While the book is fiction it’s also completely true.
Man do I agree!
Perfectly put!
So many people think All Quiet is “simply” a book about war, but it’s actually the most moving anti-war book ever written. It humanizes war, and when you humanize it, you really can’t ever glorify it again.
I just looked up R. Sutcliff on my cloud library and both books you mentioned are there as audio. Will definitely give them a trial, the subject / time in history is right up my alley – thank you for giving me this new-to-me author.
Rosemary Sutcliff is one of my very favorite authors. The Lantern Bearers was deeply sad and I still think about it often.
Wallace Breem’s Eagle in the Snow is also a book that I will never forget and so, so sad.
Oh, yes! The Lantern Bearers is wonderful! I found out about Sutcliff when one of her books was assigned as a read-aloud in the curriculum I was using to teach my kids. We were hooked and went on to read several more by her. It was a great way to teach history!
Thrown Off the Ice by Taylor Fitzpatrick
Seconded. Beautiful, but heart-breaking.
Every time I read “Here be Dragons” by Sharon Penman I cry toward the end, but they are (somewhat) happy tears because for all that Joanna and Llewellyn go through, there love spans the ages.
There is a fabulously researched and lyrically told biography of Mary Queen of Scotts by Stefan Zweig – alas in German – that makes you cry for the wasted life she lead due to circumstances and for all you know the ending, it is devastating when the book gets to that chapter.
We Speak no Treason by Rose Hawley Jarman about Richard III was even more intense, as a medieval historical about real people. Amazing book.
SKP’s “The Sunne in Splendour” is my favorite RIII book.
Here Be Dragons remains at the top of my most memorable reads lists too!
I’ve read I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven several times, and every time it makes me cry. The characters learn about themselves and their place in the world, both natural and man made, and the setting (rural British Columbia) is as much a character as the people. I fell a bit in love with the young vicar as we follow his journey and comes to love his post and the people he meets there.
My mother used to give that book to those who’d lost a loved one. She felt its depiction of the connection between living and dying was so lovely.
THE FIRE FLOWER by Edith Layton. It’s set just after the Great Fire of London. Out of necessity, the heroine becomes a wealthy man’s mistress. He treats her with relative kindness, but for much of the book he is in love with the woman who now lives in his childhood home (the book is full of characters whose fortunes rose or fell when Oliver Cromwell died and the monarchy was restored with Charles II). The heroine is written in such an empathetic way—and the difficult life she has to live—makes me cry every time I read it. Layton was best known for her Regency romances, but I think THE FIRE FLOWER (although not technically a romance) is her best work.
Does it not have an HEA?
Not exactly. In a way similar to THROWN OFF THE ICE, only at the end do you see that the last part of the book (up until the ending) was the HEA.
I didn’t read TofI but I think I get what you mean.
One of my favorite Edith Layton books.
Such great stories but incredibly emotional too.
Thrown Off the Ice by Taylor Fitzpatrick
Annie’s Song by Catherine Anderson
Archer’s Voice by Mia Sheridan
The Sword of Kaigen: A Theonite War Story by M. L. Wang
Me Before You by Jojo Moynes – I cried entire box of tissues and was a member of the bad decisions book club as I read it In one sitting. I could barely open my eyes the next day.
I always think the point of that book is to break your heart. It’s not my favorite for that very reason.
The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan, a novel about the 1798 rising, and Eleni by Nicholas Gage, nonfiction about the search for what happened to his mother. I was reading both of them at the same time and I kept having to stop because I could see what was coming. Definitely gut wrenching.
The Year of the French was such a beautifully written book that I did not mind that it broke my heart. It is one of my keepers that I pull out every few years to reread and cry again. Other ones are At the Gates of the Alamo by Stephen Harrigan and Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. I guess I must love to cry because I can’t throw or give these books away.
I also love books that make me laugh. A subject for a future column?
All the Light You Cannot See by Anthony Doerr broke my heart not once but twice. I imagine everyone here knows the story, so I won’t give a synopsis other than to say that it follows a French girl and a German boy through the years of WWII. Usually I hate books that break my heart, but this was so beautifully written and utterly empathetic and rich that it is one of my all time favorites.
So many books have made me cry over the years, including Little Women, Harry Potter, The Nightingale, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Me Before You and All Quiet on the Western Front. I cannot name them all, but my heart remembers them, and I am a better person for having read them.
AtLYCNS devastated me. I thought the ending with the sister was so powerful. Doerr’s work offers such hope for us flawed humans.
Harry Potter is the best. I listened to all the books during the COVID years and cried again and again.
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell absolutely crushed me. I had tears streaming down my cheeks for the majority of the read. My review sums it up.
I adore that book.