What is the saddest book you've ever read?

[ffxfriek]

i forgot what its caled but its about 2 bloodhounds that get killed by a mountain lion and a fern something grows...brings tears to my eyes

 

[stompy]

I guess I'll go with Brave New World.

Same, with Nineteen Eighty-Four coming in at second. Both novels show the reader that it's too late, but Brave New World is worse, since the populous doesn't realise the dystopia they live in.

 

[hypothetical fact]

Lockie Loenard, Legend - The book about the teenager who gets bone marrow cancer in his knee after surfing all his life, the book made me sad when I realised that he would spend the entire novel moaning.

 

[jdog345]

Night-Elie Wiesel.

Or Anne Frank's diary. It wasn't sad until the end. It ends so abruptly, and what is sad is that you know why.

 

[Varchld]

I really don't read much, but Death of a Salesman got me a bit depressed when I was younger.

 

[Noamuth]

Animal Farm.

The ending both creeped me out and made me sad.

 

[latenightapplepie]

Forever war was incredibly bleak at one part. It literally represented the end of the universe for the character in a sense, the end of....humanity.

Wow, I'm really glad you didn't ruin it for me because I'm reading it at this very moment. So far so good though.

On topic: I'll agree with the people who said The Amber Spyglass. Even though I didn't really get emotional at all, I can see how people would. In fact I may not have even enjoyed that book at all really....

Also - Hamlet (yeah, a play not a book, but shuddup!)

 

[Dramatic Flare]

A Game of Thrones.

Oh, ever get that feeling that if you were in the fiction world in question you would kill a character outright and damn the consequences?

Spoiler: I had that moment in this book.

I wanted to do that to Peter (petyr?). Fucking bastard. After Ned died though I was used to it for the rest of series, as much of a ***** move it was usually. I have to agree with my old English teacher though- he's the only one who's knocking off his main characters in the same, intelligent way that he does. Though Stephen King did it tolerably well in the Dark Tower series.

EDIT: Sandman Series by Neil Gaiman. It was very sad, but at the same time after reading it was kinda the only ending that made sense. Still sad though.

 

[Jimmyjames]

Didn't any of you read "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" or "Old Yeller"?

Or "Where a Red Fern Grows"?

Damn, those were some bummer books.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Forever war was incredibly bleak at one part. It literally represented the end of the universe for the character in a sense, the end of....humanity.

Wow, I'm really glad you didn't ruin it for me because I'm reading it at this very moment. So far so good though.

You'll know it when you find it. Trust me.

Good book, isn't it? I always liked it because it pisses in the face of starship troopers and all that war-glorifying, 'die-for-your-country' bullshit, and, unlike Starship Troopers, is written by someone who's actually seen combat.

 

[Dread_Reaper]

I dunno but galaxy in flames almost made me cry. (part of the Horus Heresy)

These books are drastically underrated. More than just circle-jerk sci-fi, these are actual compelling stories with memorable protagonists. the most tragic part about this series is when you compare the Imperium in the time of the Emperor, where reason and prosperity ruled, and mankind was bringing an age of enlightenment to the galaxy, to current 40K, wherein life is shit and humans are slowly being ground out of existence in the 10,000 year war of attrition. To see them have so much and lose it all is actually quite depressing.

Night by Elie Wiesel is the story of the author's experience as a Holocaust victim. In it, he deals with not only the oppression that he suffers, but also his urges to stop trying to protect his old father, in order to better ensure his own survival. It really gives an insight into how desperation can twist the minds of good people and make them do horrible things.

This book is so horrible that it almost defies convention. I can honestly say I didn't become emotional during this book, partially because I was originally forced to read it as a school project, but mostly because the sheer unbridled level of misery was often too powerful to really immerse myself in, as though my subconscious couldn't comprehend human suffering of that magnitude.

*sigh* The Giving Tree.

This one always gets me, because before I began a jaded sullen misanthrope who gleefully distributes nothing but scorn for those who deign to ask favors from me I was an overly generous person and those I cared about most sucked the blood from my veins, which I stupidly allowed because I loved them. Fortunately, time has at least made me wiser.

I am adding a new book to this list that I haven't seen mentioned yet: Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. The boy's dog and best friend sacrifices itself to save his life, and his other dog dies of loneliness, dragging its starved body to the grave of the other dog before dying. The boy buries his two best friends in the same grave. SAD.

I hate sad books, and now I'm depressed.

-Dread_Reaper

P.S.

Good book, isn't it? I always liked it because it pisses in the face of starship troopers and all that war-glorifying, 'die-for-your-country' bullshit, and, unlike Starship Troopers, is written by someone who's actually seen combat.

Wow, you clearly missed the entire point of Starship Troopers there champ. Robert A. Heinlein's book is a satire of precisely that kind of gung-ho jingoism. The narrative is packed with propaganda, but if you read slightly deeper into the story you realize that its meant to be ironic, because ultimately the war if a futile effort that accomplished nothing, in spite of all the bright-eyed young warriors becoming heroes to be eventually blasted to bits.

Of course you could be referencing the Starship Troopers movie, and meaning no disrespect to the film, is considerably less deep than the original source material, and indeed often ignores it completely. If you are referencing the book, you are wrong.

 

[Logan Keller]

The dictionary.

 

[Eleuthera]

On the beach

 

[fedpayne]

Either "A Child Called 'IT'" or "The Shipping News"

Spoiler

it is just a tale of a mans horridly destructive life, involving, but not limited to, his two daughters being sold (at around ages 8 and 11 I think) into child pornography and prostitution.

Edited for spoiler tags I forgot.

The Shipping News? Not a sad book, fool! Sure, sad if you read only the first act, but it's about a man coming to terms with his life through humorous little incidents in Newfoundland. I love that book. And it is uplifting.

One Hundred Years of Solitude. I can only say one thing; read it.

Not sad. Hauntingly beautiful, but tragi-comic, and not sad, I don't think.

The Grapes of Wrath kind of got me sad a bit, I guess. Otherwise, from the ones I can see from here, Invisible Man, Lolita, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. What else? Prayer for Owen Meany.

Ugh, at a stretch, Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Marquez can be sad)

Spoiler

We know the main character dies from the start, but you think he won't by the end of the book. It's all just a stupid mistake! Not fair!

, Life of Pi

Spoiler

when Richard Parker goes into the forest and it makes Pi cry...

.

Everyone read more books! They're fantastic!

 

[BioBeast]

Flowers For Algernon, A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Kite Runner, and A Brother's Journey (written by the brother of Dave Pelzer, the child called "It") were all pretty sad.

The Amber Spyglass made me tear up a little at the end.

Edit: The Book Thief also got me fairly emotional.

 

[Graustein]

Small Gods and Goodnight Mr. Tom. Both have made me cry, and I'm not talking about a damp face here. Oh, and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

 

[Frizzle]

Odd Thomas.
I felt so bad for him.

 

[jonmcnamara]

i forgot what its caled but its about 2 bloodhounds that get killed by a mountain lion and a fern something grows...brings tears to my eyes

Where the red fern grows. And its quiet a good one.

 

[Labyrinth]

Sophie's Choice brought me to tears, as did The Rape Of Nanking.

Spoiler

In Sophie's Choice, she is forced to choose which of her children will go to the gas chambers at Birkenau and which will go to the labour camp at Auschwitz. And the Rape Of Nanking description can be found in the Literature thread. So awful.

In terms of just out rightly awful, reading the first chapter of the third Twilight book.. Ugh. Worst thing is knowing that people ACTUALLY LIKE THAT SHIT. OH GOD.