Fancy a Cry?: Books with the Saddest Endings

Books just about guaranteed to leave you in tears.
Updated October 2, 2022
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The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro
Paper Book
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER * From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, here is "an intricate and dazzling novel" (The New York Times) about the perfect butler and his fading, insular world in post-World War II England.   This is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly...
Atonement
Ian McEwan
Paper Book
In this rich novel by the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel "Amsterdam, " a young girl unwittingly tells a tale that turns her family upside down. Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class, "Atonement" is at its center a profound--and...
The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestselling novel beloved by millions of readers the world over. "A vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people [of Afghanistan] have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence--forces that continue to threaten them even today...
A Little Life
Hanya Yanagihara
Paper Book
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST SHORT-LISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE Brace yourself for the most astonishing, challenging, upsetting, and profoundly moving book in many a season. An epic about love and friendship in the twenty-first century that goes into some of the...
Where the Red Fern Grows
Wilson Rawls
Paper Book
Read the beloved classic that captures the powerful bond between man and man's best friend. This edition also includes a special note to readers from Newbery Medal winner and Printz Honor winner Clare Vanderpool. Billy has long dreamt of owning not one, but two, dogs. So when...
The Fault in Our Stars
John Green
Paper Book
Bestselling author John Green returns with an eagerly anticipated and emotional novel about sickness and health, life and death. Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs. for now. Two years post-miracle,...
Eleanor and Park
Rainbow Rowell
Paper Book
#1 New York Times Best Seller! "Eleanor & Park reminded me not just what it's like to be young and in love with a girl, but also what it's like to be young and in love with a book."-John Green, The New York Times Book Review Bono met his...
Me Before You
Jojo Moyes
Paper Book
USA Today's top 100 books to read while stuck at home social distancing  From the New York Times bestselling author of The Giver of Stars, discover the love story that captured over 20 million hearts in Me Before You,...
The Time Traveler's Wife
Audrey Niffenegger
Paper Book
A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair...
The Road
Cormac McCarthy
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately,...
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck
Paper Book
A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression, in a deluxe centennial edition   Over seventy-five years since its first publication, Steinbeck's tale of commitment, loneliness, hope, and loss remains one of America's most widely read and taught...
Flowers for Algernon
Daniel Keyes
Paper Book
 Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the powerful, classic story about a man who receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.   Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually...
The End of the Affair
Graham Greene
Paper Book
"A story has no beginning or end- arbitrarily one chooses a moment of experience from which to look ahead..." "This is a record of hate far more than of love," writes Maurice Bendrix in the opening passages of The End of the Affair, and it is a strange hate indeed...
Marley & Me
John Grogan
Paper Book
The heartwarming and unforgettable story of a family and the wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life. Now with photos and new material. Is it possible for humans to discover the key to happiness through a bigger-than-life, bad-boy dog? Just ask the Grogans. ...
Crying in H Mart: A Memoir
Michelle Zauner
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American--"in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself" (NPR). * CELEBRATING...
The Color Purple
Alice Walker
Paper Book
A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick Winner of the Pulitzer Prize * Winner of the National Book Award   Published to unprecedented acclaim,The Color Purple established Alice Walker as a major voice in...
Bridge to Terabithia
Katherine Paterson
Paper Book
This beloved Newbery Medal-winning novel by bestselling author Katherine Paterson is a modern classic of friendship and loss. Jess Aarons has been practicing all summer so he can be the fastest runner in the fifth grade. And he almost is, until the new girl in school, Leslie Burke,...
Sarah's Key
Tatiana de Rosnay
Paper Book
Now a major motion picture! From beloved international sensation and #1 New York Times bestselling author Tatiana de Rosnay come's her celebrated novel Sarah's Key. Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by...
My Sister's Keeper
Jodi Picoult
Paper Book
"">New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult tells the story of a girl who decides to sue her parents for the rights to her own body in this riveting story that tackles a controversial subject with grace and explores what it means to be a good person.
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak
Paper Book
The extraordinary #1 New York Times bestseller that is now a major motion picture, Markus Zusak's unforgettable story is about the ability of books to feed the soul. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier...

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