I think it’s happened to all readers with a heart: you’re reading in public, say a plane or train, and suddenly you find yourself in tears because of what’s happening in your book. I found myself in just this situation last week on a plane to Chicago.
I was reading a galley of Sorta Like a Rock Star and I was overtaken and just started crying, a little at first and then a little bit more. I had no tissues, napkins or anything to wipe my eyes or nose with, so I resorted to dabbing at my eyes with a spare scrunchie that was wound around a my wrist. Luckily, I had no seat mate, but I had a very concerned flight attendant who checked in with me, not once, but twice. Clearly she didn’t believe me about being so moved by a book, I just had to weep a little. Each time I waved her off. Finally, I just had to put the book away for fear I’d struck some main line of tears, and as much as I was enjoying the book, I didn’t want to cry all the way to Chicago.
I know I have customers come into the store very angry with me because they outright sobbed at the last thirty pages of The Book Thief while they were flying home from vacation. “Why didn’t you warn me?” Well, telling customers when they’re likely to sob during a book isn’t part of my job. Although, I will say, I have amended my handselling for The Book Thief to say, “If you have a heart, you will cry at the end of this book. Be mindful of that when you’re on a plane.”
I must say, even crying at home can cause concern. I was reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince outside on my deck and I was sobbing so hard at the death of Dumbledore, I could barely contain myself. I just wasn’t expecting him to be, you know, totally dead. I just sobbed. First my dogs came out to see if was I was okay. Then Elizabeth, who knew what I was reading, came out with a box of tissues.
Books should move us. A good book can give us the whole range of human emotion. The good thing for me is I’ve got Christopher Moore’s Fool to read at the beach during vacation, so hopefully people won’t be concerned for me, they’ll just think I’m a lunatic for laughing at every page.
People get mad about that? Seriously? I cry over books all the time. Any middle-school girl can tell you crying books are great.
Mostly of course you just tear up and it’s not noticeable, but the first time I read Bridge to Terebithia I was eating my lunch on the Riverwalk in San Antonio (not the main touristy part but the bit below my building, on the way to the library) and it hit me upside the head and I just started to bawl there in the bright sunlight with the crepe myrtle raining bright fuchsia petals down on me and the joggers and tourists going by…damn that’s a good book.
The end of Will Grayson, Will Grayson had me crying while walking down a Brooklyn street with my nose in the book (I usually don’t read and walk simultaneously because I can’t walk as fast as I want to and read as fast as I want to simultaneously, but the subway ride wasn’t long enough) not because it was sad, but because it was so bloody sweet. It’s ridiculous, unrealistic, and sappy… but I was crying too hard to mind.
While I also cried (on the train) at the end of Will Grayson, Will Grayson, my most recent bought of tears occured, quite unexepectedly 24-pages into The Hunger Games. Only 24 pages and I was already so moved by the vividly drawn characters that I sat weeping on my morning commuter train, drawing the attention of not a few stoic businessmen/women. But really, I’ve done this so often that I’m beyond caring. Everyone should be so lucky as to find a book that moves them to that degree.
I know exactly the part you mean in Hunger Games. That was what made me realize I needed to take that book home from work (I work in a bookstore). What a great story! Can’t wait for Mockingjay!!
I was on a plane flying back to Nashville from visiting my folks and had been saving ‘The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society’ until I flew back, so I could give it the attention it deserved. When I read about one character’s death towards the end of the book, I cried like a baby… My seatmate looked at me like I was crazy and kept asking me ‘You’re crying over a book? Seriously?’ What a nimrod!
One of the funniest stories I’ve heard about is from a friend who was reading the last HARRY POTTER as she sat beside a public pool.
When Harry’s little house elf friend was killed, she shouted in horror, “Dobby, no!”
The lifeguard was almost in the pool before he realized she wasn’t shouting about one of her kids drowning.
Happened to me in Borders while I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago. I was near the end of ‘Songs for the Missing’ by Stewart O’Nan and came to a point that felt like a punch in the gut, both for the characters and for me, emotionally. Tears started but luckily I was near the napkins in the cafe and could keep up without creating a scene. I was just glad I had not been finishing ‘The Art of Racing in the Rain’ which I was grateful to finish at home since it left me inconsolable for a good two hours afterward. Had that happened in public they may have mistaken my reaction for a breakdown.
As for warnings, I see no reason to give them. I have never had someone come back to me and say ‘Had I known I wouldn’t have read that book…’
I think books that make you feel that strongly are the best books. As a writer, isn’t that what you want to do? Emerse your reader into the story…blurr the lines so much that they are a part of the book?
I took a copy of ALL THE NUMBERS on the most amazing “writing” trip I’ve ever been on. I brought this women’s fiction book with me to use as a break from all of the kid lit I would be studying on my trip. I read and cried on the plane. I cried at the airport between planes and each night before I went to bed I read and cried myself to sleep. I read this book two summers ago and I still feel just as strongly about it.
Good books take you into them…
I am glad there are other people out there who cry at books like I do. And I do read and walk. Our lives are enriched because we can live more than one life through books.
I once gushed to a friend about how Katherine Paterson’s “Bridge to Terebithia” had me crying my eyes out. “It was so good, and you love the characters so much.” I said. “Oh I would never read a book like that.” My friend said. “I only like happy books.”
I was so stunned that I couldn’t speak. Miss out on such a wonderful story just for fear of crying? No way!
I just sent this article to a girlfriend who told me she was just bawling on a plane reading Moloka’i by Alan Brennert. Bridge to Terebithia is a guarantee cry every time.
I’ve shed tears over many books with no regrets. A good book pulls you into the story and makes you feel a part of it; an old friend with whom you have shared many hours. When I read TRUMAN by David McCullough, I cried when he wrote about the death of Truman. My husband chuckled saying you knew how it would end.
I’ve cried at pretty much every book mentioned thus far (OMG, Dobby! I still grieve for you!) but I think my most serious crying jag for a book was Atonement. I was so attached to the characters and shocked by the denouement of the book that I cried through the last chapter and lay prostrate on my bed sobbing for half an hour after closing the book.
I love a good crying book. My Sister’s Keeper I was listen to on CD and I had to stop it because I was crying so hard. When a book can move you to tears that’s a good book. I cried through the first three chapters of A Time To Kill, I almost stopped reading, I was so emotional.
I’ve cried in public reading a book and laughed out loud that someone wants to know what’s funny. They never get that a book can do that to you. It makes me sad when someone doesn’t get it, because I know they don’t read books.
Of course now it’s my mission to get them to read the one I’m reading. 🙂
Reading everyone’s responds, I have to make a list of all these books, because I so do love a good book cry.
Luckily I was at home when I read Dumbledore’s death. But I was on the cross town bus when Cedric Diggory died, and I tried and tried not to sob, so I ended up making that tell-tale sucking noise. And I never really got the whole “beach read” category. Read what you want where you want, but do not read The Book Thief at the beach on a hot day. Tears and tears and more tears and sunscreen and sand… really bad combo.
A few of my childhood favourites have noticeably tear-stained pages, from constant re-reading and re-crying, e.g. Anne of Green Gables… there’s even a blood-stained page, due to an uncontrollable-sobbing-induced nosebleed.
Crying over a good book is so cathartic…
I’ve never read Bridge to Terebithia, but will have to pick it up now.
The first book that made me cry was Anne of Green Gables. I was eight or nine and reading at home. My mother and grandmother walked into the living room and asked me if I was having an allergy attack. I said, “No, Matthew just died.” I’m getting a little teary just thinking about it!
I’ll happily join the chorus of proud emoters who are not afraid to be moved by books and let it show!
Wow, as soon as I saw your heading, I thought of SORTA LIKE A ROCK STAR–no idea you were going to mention it! The first time I read the manuscript of that book, I was on the subway. Sobbing. Snot. Tears. Gross. But oh, so good. When I give it to people now, I warn them that it’s a tear jerker.
My friend has a great story about her sister reading a Kevin Henkes novel and crying on the T in Boston. At the next stop, all of a sudden her husband was next to her, all concerned. It turns out that he had coincidentally been in the next car, looked over and saw her crying, and went to comfort her, not knowing she was crying because of a book. So sweet.
I was reading Catching Fire on the train and got to that one part (you know the one) and let loose a great, “GASP– NO! NO! THEY CAN’T!”
Also, never read The Knife of Never Letting Go on the train. I got to that one part (you know the one) and my eyes filled up and my mouth dropped open and my nose twisted and I looked like someone had just killed my– well, you know the part.
I also read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane on the train. I clearly have issues with this.
When I was in sixth grade, I very nearly finished reading Where the Red Fern Grows during quiet reading time in school. Fortunately, I instead got to the end of the book in the privacy of my bedroom where I could sob and sob without facing the stares of my classmates!
Yes, I sat in a bathtub with tears streaming unchecked down my face, neck, etc., while I read Sorta Like a Rock Star. It’s a very watery memory. My teen daughters reported weeping while reading it too, too. It’s a great book, totally cathartic. Though I cried like a rainy Monday, I ended up feeling very very happy by the end.
While visiting me in Berlin, a friend cried over the sixth Harry Potter at a museum. She doesn’t speak German, so she couldn’t explain to the guard why she was in tears. For some reason, this prompted the guard to tell her to keep a close watch on her purse–“no thieves, no crying.” More like no Dumbledore, lots of crying!
While books make me cry all the time (most notably Harry Potter, which are books I will reread over and over for the rest of my life), and I often don’t reread the saddest ones, this is my most memorable crying-from-reading experience: I was 15 and a freshman in high school, and I was reading River God, by Wilbur Smith, and got to the part maybe two-thirds of the way through the book where one of the heroes dies, and I hadn’t expected him to die — I thought he’d live till the end and live happily ever after with the queen, since the two of them had that til-the-ends-of-the-earth kind of love. Well I was reading under my desk in biology class and was able to hold in my tears until my free period, where I sat in the bathroom and cried, and 3 of my female classmates came in and were really worried that I’d had some kind of fight with a guy (I don’t know who they thought; I wasn’t even close to having a boyfriend). When they realized I was crying because of a book (I could hardly talk), they were all like oh, I’ve done that. But I don’t think their hearts were in it the way mine was. That’s still one of my all-time favorite books.
I had an audiobook of Walk Two Moons on in the car and perhaps because it was an audiobook I had not picked up on the clear clues in the text of what was to come at the end. The last chapters unspooled as I was waiting in the car line to pick up my then-kindergartner (who turns 16 tomorrow!) I tried to not cry but not only failed, began to blubber. I had to pull out of the line to collect myself before collecting my child.
When I’m selling an animal book, I tell people not to read the last chapter. They usually laugh, they know how all animal books end.
So… I’m supervising the printing of one of our picture books and there’s a lot of downtime, which I’m filling by reading The Notebook. And the tears are pouring down my face. I’m not even bothering to wipe them away. I’m practically sobbing and I look up to see 6 burly printer-guys, ink stains on their clothes and smudges on their hands, just standing in a semi-circle, watching me. One guy says, “If it’s so sad, stop reading.” Another chimes in, “Do you want a drink of water? You might dehydrate.” “No,” I thank them, “I’m fine,” and cry my way to the end of the book.
Terrific post — truly speaks to how reading can be a cathartic experience. As a children’s librarian and all around read-alouder, I have gotten choked up while reading picture books to kids (or to friends). It is impossible to read ‘Pink and Say’ without weeping, such a beautiful book. Also ‘A Prayer for Owen Meany’ one of my all-time favorites. And I also sobbed through the end of ‘Walk Two Moons’ while riding on a Greyhound bus.
It’s funny, this used to happen my grandma all the time when she read to me and I was mystified by it. Ah, experience…
The Botanic Garden scene in THE AMBER SPYGLASS — every time. First read the ARC while sick in bed and well remember sobbing so loudly I feared I would disturb the neighbors. Then a few years back I listened to the trilogy (fantastic full cast recording with Pullman narrating) while running and stopped and sat on a bench when it came up knowing I wouldn’t be able to run and sob at the same time. Another book I listened to that caught me was that “It is a far better thing I do” scene in A TALE OF TWO CITIES. I’d never read it (while I love Dickens I didn’t think I’d care about a story set during the French Revolution) and so it was very unexpected.
I was in a hospital waiting room, reading the last 100 pages of The Book Thief while my friend was having an outpatient procedure. I had no idea what was coming (which is how good writing should always deliver bad news). As the tears poured, I dabbed at them with an old crumpled tissue that I thankfully found at the bottom of my purse. All I could think was: “These people will think someone has died.” (Which was true, but only in a fictional sort of way.) It took several minutes of telling myself “you can cry later” before I was fully composed. When I told my friend what had happened, she demanded that she get to read the book next. Which she did. And she cried, too, but in the comfort of her home because she at least HAD BEEN WARNED. 🙂
I cry at sad books on public transit all the time with no shame. Fortunately I live in NYC so no one takes any notice.
I met a guy on the plane to Indianapolis this weekend who was upset because Cormac McCarthy’s The Road was a downer. I couldn’t help butting into his conversation to say, “didn’t you know it was post-apocalyptic when you bought it?” His response, “I knew it was after the apocalypse, I didn’t know it was sad.” You were expecting maybe a lighthearted romp about the end of the world?
Though all snark aside, it sheds some interesting light on how people regard the death of billions at the beginning versus the death of one they’ve gotten to know at the end.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cried over a book on a plane (stuck without tissue), a commuter train, or eating lunch at work. Now I’ve learned from experience, and have actually put books aside while in a public place, and waited until I could get home for the last couple chapters. You can feel it in your bones when an emotional moment is going to hit–and there are times I’d prefer to have my cry in private!
I love a book that can twist me up and make me cry, or make me laugh. Tears and laughter are a compliment to the author, especially when the entire book is in one character’s pov. Francine River’s book The Scarlet Thread is a good example.
What about laughing when you read books in public? That will get you crazier looks than crying ever does!
The one that really got me was listening to the audio of “The Absolutely True diary of a Part-Time Indian” (and I had previously read it!). I was driving to a restaurant, with the windows down and started – loud, snuffling, snorty noises and some moans. I think the car full of teen guys next to me thought I was nuts. I tear up even thinking of it.
Unfortunately, it’s not just books that make me cry. Sometimes I cry when watching *commercials.* I haven’t yet learned to accept that this is just part of my personality. Usually people pretend not to notice…or maybe they really don’t notice.
Inspired by this, we did our own post in the UK with a focus on children’s books and got a number of comments: http://nosycrow.com/news/read-it-and-weep-what-books-make-you-cry, so thank you very much.
Have also started a bit of a twitter thing going (tweeting as NosyCrow) with hashtag #booksthatmakeuscry.
On the Amtrak from St. Louis to Chicago with my 9 year old grandson, finishing Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life (not sad, just wonderful!)and I teared up. Luke looked at me and said “Grandma, what’s wrong?” I said nothing, that I’d just finished a book. He then said “Was it that bad?” I answered “No, it was that GOOD!” LOL! I guess at 9 you just don’t realize sad/emotional isn’t always bad!
‘Where the Red Fern Grows’ and ‘Little House on the Prairie’–the early chapter where Pa tells Laura that their little old dog Jack will have to walk under the wagon all the way from Wisconsin to Kansas, and then the next morning, little Jack…
Both my daughter, now 26, and I have lasting memories of our tears on the nights we read those two books–I’m getting a lump in my throat right now just thinking of them again.
I had to be escorted out of my 5th grade English class for Bridge to Terabithia & my 7th grade English class for Where the Red Fern Grows because I couldn’t gain composure. Thanks, teachers.
I remember a customer called me to yell at me. I had sent her the audiobook of Losing Julia by Jonathan Hull, and she had to pull off onto the side of the road, because she started crying and couldn’t see to drive. She loved the book, but would’ve liked a little warning.
At work–reading Bridge to Terabithia for the first time. My boss came in to relieve me for lunch and I tried to tell her what a great book it was, only to break down in tears. Another problem that I face at work is describing some of my favorite picture books to customers and trying not to get choked up. (The Grannyman, by Judith Schachner comes to mind.)
Reading The Knife of Never Letting Go at home, upon reaching a certain part I startled my husband by sobbing uncontrollably on the couch. He’s not much of a fiction reader, so I don’t think he really understood, but at least he didn’t laugh.
I’m usually pretty strong when it comes to crying about scenes in books. Although, several of Kristan Higgins’s (author of “Catch of the Day” and “Fools Rush In”) books would give me a lump in my throat that wouldn’t subside until I read a joke, and even then it was hard. One book that I read in eighth grade as a school assignment (we would read it in class and take turns reading it aloud) was “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes. If I hadn’t been in class, I would’ve been crying so much. If you look up “Flowers for Algernon” on Amazon it’ll also list a bunch of classics like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men”.
Good audiobooks are my weakness. For me a fine audio experience is often more immediate than the printed word because I do hear every word. If I have print in my hand I sometimes gulp entire paragraphs and rush ahead. Years ago I came out of the dark. It was late at night. I was headed south in my ’95 maroon Subaru Legacy sedan along the Maine turnpike and the Gardiner toll booth was just ahead. I was about to exit. I’d been a long time on the road and still had another hour or so until I was home. Unfortunately I had just learned that Frank Doel had died and would no longer write letters to Helen Hanff from 84 Charing Cross Road. The kind woman in the toll booth asked if she could help. I held up the audiobook case while tears streamed down my face and said I was fine and moved ahead out of the glare of the toll booth’s lights and back into the night.
While waiting for my bus home from work, I read the last part of Elijah of Buxton–and oh, I wept. It’s a wonderful book.
Growing up I used to cry over books so much that I had to take them into the bathroom to finish them so my big brother wouldn’t make fun of me.
And I always choke up when I am handselling Miss Rumphius!
Robert Munsch’s “Love You Forever.” I was fortunate enough to see him a couple of years back at a local library. He told this story, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the building.
The first book that made me cry in my adult life was THE THINGS THEY CARRIED. And I straight-up sobbed. On a plane. I was *that* person. And you know what? I’d do it again. Totally worth it.
The first time I cried at a book was when Laura Ingalls’ dog, Jack, died. I couldn’t move on in the book for several days. I remember my mother telling me that it was ok to cry at books and I’ve been unabashed at showing emotions ever since.
My elementary school students love to tease me about crying during Edward Tulane.
I won’t go into how hard a sobbed during the last Harry Potter…
This has been the case for the last week while I read “Leaving the World” by Douglas Kennedy. I am in tears reading this tail of woe. I am almost finish I have been putting it off bc it was just too sad.
I haven’t read Bridge to Terabithia – I cried buckets over the film, but at least it was in the comfort of my own home. The last time I cried over a book on a train was… yesterday, when I got teary-eyed over Lily’s bid for independence in Rachel Brimble’s The Arrival of Lily Curtis. I did the same with Imogen Howson’s Fire and Shadow, as an e-book which I read on the train. I must look very odd sitting there all misty-eyed over my mini-laptop. I’ve also cried over radio short stories while sitting in traffic, and I did wonder whether anyone looking would have assumed I was driving home from a funeral or walking out on a fight with a loved one!
I bawled my eyes out at the end of reading Bridge to Terabithia! I didn’t read it until college, and was actually reading the last pages in my banned books classroom!
Wow! The power of the word!
I now have another booklist, many titles long. Thanks for a great read!
I love you all for sharing this trait with me!
A few years ago I was sitting in the waiting room at my mechanic’s while my car was being worked on, reading Julia’s Kitchen by Brenda Ferber, with tears streaming down my face. I’m sure the other customers thought something terrible was wrong with my car!
I wonder if anyone else has cried over Sara Pennypacker’s Clementine? I sobbed big gut-wrenching sobs when the poor kid couldn’t figure out how to clean her room (she piled all her junk together and spritzed it with Fantastick and couldn’t figure out why it didn’t make the room clean), and she thought she was a failure and that her parents wouldn’t want her anymore. I made actual noise, I was crying so hard.
I also tend to tear up when reading animal picture books. I shared How to Heal a Broken Wing by Bob Graham in a workshop for teachers, and got all choked up trying to read it to them.
Clementine? Clementine RULES! I adore that book. The Talented Clementine (sequel), in which Clementine is not quite sure what (if anything) her talent is, is also wonderful. In answer to your question, yes that book makes me cry. Lots do. MANY dozens of readings later, David McPhail’s The Teddy Bear still catches me too. 🙂
Years ago, I was reading A DAY NO PIGS WOULD DIE on the Long Island Rail Road when I began sobbing at the death of the father. My daughter (age 8) and son (age 6) quietly got out of their seats and found other places to sit. They did not want to be seen in my company. After I finished crying, I went to them and said, “Just wait. One day you’ll read that book and you’ll cry too.” And sure enough two years later I found my daughter weeping in her bedroom with a copy of the book in her hands. And then another two years later, I caught my son weeping with that book too. I think the three of us will remember that book forever.
Oh my gracious,
This happens to me frequently. Whether I am reading children’s books or a well-written novel. If I am moved, I find my tears cannot be contained. I am in the world of whatever I am reading and books can be really moving sometimes.
Robert Munsch’s “Love You Forever.” My kids wouldn’t let me read it to them because I cried so much!
I usually stop reading if I am in public and feel tears coming on. I want to be able to fully experience and feel my emotions without the distracting fear of what people around me might think! I think the last book where I truly cried – not just teared up – was The Book Thief. I was expecting some sadness, but tears were literally pouring down my face. I hid in my daughters’ bedroom in the corner with some tissues so I wouldn’t be interrupted as I read to the end. 🙂
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Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A LITTLE PRINCESS was the book I went to over and over as a child when I felt like I needed a good cry. I’d curl up in a big chair or the top of a tree with an apple and tissues and it just felt so good. I was always lost in that book. When I was a teenager in 1971, Julie Andrews Edwards wrote a book called MANDY. It was about a 10 year old orphan who dreams of having her own little house with a garden. She lives in an orphanage with 30 other little girls, but sneaks away to an abandoned cottage that she has stumbled upon. You know, that description right there is enough to make you cry!! Last is a picture book by Jenny Wagner: JOHN BROWN, ROSE, AND THE MIDNIGHT CAT. Rose’s dog becomes jealous and feels left out (tissue) when Rose starts feeding a stray cat. Rose even scolds John Brown (tissue) when he sabotages the cat’s milk bowl.
WOW! I LOVE GREAT BOOKS!
Though I’ve read the trilogy at least 5 times now, I always sob my eyes out through the last third of the last book in the Fionavar Tapestry (by Guy Gavriel Kay). I know what’s coming and it gets me every time. Those books were absolutely life-changing for me and I definitely read them alone in my house, preferably hours before I have to see anyone again!
I bawled like a baby at The Book Thief, and also at Samsara Dog (by Helen Manos; illus. by Julie Vivas), a wonderful Kane-Miller picture book about a dog that gets reincarnated several times, moving through many different lives. He starts off as a street cur, unloved and unloving, and ultimately becomes a dog that learns finally to love someone more than himself–in this case, a special boy in his life. When the dog passes away after that life, his soul has fulfilled its mission. The book could have been written sentimentally, or with a cloying sweetness, but instead is simple and very moving. My sales rep made me read it at NEIBA at the booth, and I was horrified to find myself sobbing. In public. In front of my work colleagues. Darn you, Doug Cochrane! I love that book.
Oh my goodness, I can’t tell you how many times I have sobbed uncontrollably in public while reading books. That’s the danger of doing a lot of reading on subways, in parks… I finished THE BOOK THIEF while at a laundromat and cried through the whole wash cycle. Frankly, I’m surprised they ever let me back in after that.
Another one that really got me was THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE, which I finished while on a plane that was taking off. I was sobbing, and couldn’t get up to get tissues because the seatbelt sign was on. It was mighty awkward for the guy sitting next to me. LOVE THAT DOG is another one that totally made me weep in the middle of a room full of people. I didn’t see that one coming, either – the ending packs a real punch!
The converse, of course, is books that make me laugh hysterically in public. Anything by David Sedaris or John Green would be at the top of that list.
I was reading a galley of Sorta Like a Rock Star and I was overtaken and just started crying, a little at first and then a little bit more.