Sad books recommendations?

Question

Can someone please recommend some sad books for me to read. Please include a little bit about them too :)

Answer 1

You should read The Time Traveler's Wife. It is sooo good, so interesting and compelling, but very sad. I won't tell you why, but you'll know halfway through the book. It's interesting because it is written first person, but from two perspectives, a husband and wife.

Answer 2

All the other recommendations here are good books and some are a little bit sad or depressing, but if you want to read a book that will make you sob until you puke, you have to read Marley and Me. Its about a man and his dog. The dog is a mess and the stuff he does is hysterical and you laugh outloud and then the ending is so so sad. I was reading the book in the hospital where I was sitting with a relative and I cried so hard, that I thought they might have to take me down to the ER. And I am not a cry-baby. I never cry even at funerals or sad movies. I just loved that book. Please read it if you have not already.

Answer 3

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. I SOBBED my eyes out at the end of the story. It's about a girl living in Australia who falls in love with a priest. Ends up having his child, etc etc. She lives a very sad life, having a husband that doesn't love her and whatnot. It's SO good and a classic. I loved it.

Also, the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. They're the most beautifully written, depressing books I've ever read. Basically a bunch of vampires that have been the living dead since before time. And they watch their human loves die, terrible things happen to them. They're wonderful. I'd recommend them to anyone, especially Interview With the Vampire and Blood and Gold. They're all amazing.

Answer 4

I liked the House of Sand and Fog - yes they made a movie out of it...and yes they butcherd the story - read the book, very depressing, very good.

Also, I read A Thousand Splendid Suns - very, very sad - very very good - I also hear the Kite Runner is good, both of these books by the same author, and yes, they've made a movie out of Kite Runner - I have no idea if that's any good.

Answer 5

"the Brothers K" by David James Duncan- "spans decades of loyalty, anger, regret and love in the lives of the Chance family. A father whose dreams of glory on the baseball field are shattered by a mill accident, a mother who clings to religion as a ward against the darkest hour of her past, four brothers who come of age during the sixties and who each choose their own way to deal with the world." I cried. I loaned it to friends. They cried.
"Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood-- a story of girl on girl cruelty -told by an adult female artist recalling a "friend" of her childhood. I adore Atwood and I think this is her finest writing.
"The Life of Pi" - Yan Martel Is it true or not? A boy survives being adrift with a tiger on a small boat on the sea. Very deep.

Answer 6

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hossieni. Its a sad tale of a friendship and betrayal in the land of Afghanistan.

Answer 7

The Silver Kiss. Don't remember the author, but it's about a young girl going through her awkward growing up years and emotional issues with her family (don't want to spoil all of it). She meets up with and befriends a vampire her "age" who is trying to find his own brother and is trying to redeem himself in the process, all the while attempting to help her through her own troubles. It's got an extremely sad ending. I cried.

Lois Duncan's "Locked in Time"-about a family who practiced dark arts to live forever but a new girl befriends the boy and gets dragged into his family's secrets. Really sad ending. A good mystery too.

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes-a girl was affected by the Nuclear Bomb dropped on Hiroshima. She undergoes so much treatment and illness yet tries to remain brave. Her friends at school and family try to adhere to the legend that making a 1000 paper cranes in time will allow her to live. Very sad and my favorite book from the school years.

A Taste of Blackberries-boyhood friends go picking blackberries, but one gets stung by a bee and didn't know he was allergic. Very tragic story and one of friendship.

For A Few Demons More, by Kim Harrison. Part of a series, but there's back story interspersed to keep you abreast of the plotline. Ending tore at my heart-we all begged the author to make it not so in future books, but alas, it wasn't meant to be for our favorite supporting character. Witch who hunts demons,etc., along with partners of vamps and werewolves, elves and pixies... a modern twist on these types of characters.

Answer 8

If you like sad literature, may I suggest Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. In its depiction of the thwarted aspirations of the ill-fated stonemason Jude Fawley, the stiflingly moralistic social conventions of Victorian England, and its unsparing critique of organized religion, it achieves a stark naturalism seldom equalled. Also, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess of the d'Urbervilles, both by Hardy, might also appeal to your desire for somber reflection. You will surely agree with Tess that we live in a "blighted world."

Answer 9

Lord of the Flies was sad.

It's about human nature when left to its own devices, without civil society or rules that govern behavior. It reveals our base carnality that has the potential and aptitude to destroy, to kill.

But mostly it's about a plane full of young boys, fleeing a nuclear war, that crashes on a desert island. The whole book is about how they cope on the island and what they end up doing to themselves and to eachother.

Answer 10

A Walk To Remember and The Notebook are both really sad because they are about love and loss. The link gives you more info than I can write about.