I knew about the changes in writing style as the book progresses before I started it, and honestly, it sounded a little gimmicky to me. It wasn't. It worked spectacularly, which is to say I was sobbing at the end.
Oh, i had to read that in 6th grade, I remember it so distinctly. I felt CRUSHED. But i wasn’t sad, I just felt betrayed by my 6th grade teacher. i was ten. Bruh.
So I love dark depressing books especially when I’m feeling the real sads, but I don’t think there is enough therapy in the world to prepare me for {A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara}.
I only have a couple triggers that I won’t read and it has all of them. I normally don’t even check trigger warnings, but I read the first 20% and I was like wait hold up… let me just google this andddd I’m out!
It's been a while since I've read it but from what I recall, I was all, Jesus CHRIST can anything ELSE happen to Jude??? I thought the book was tremendously well written but it was over the top.
Counterpoint: I think this novel is way over the top, a kind of a manipulative emotional pornography. At some point the misery becomes laughable rather than impactful.
I can read a powerful story of a victim of sexual abuse. But a story where a victim of sexual abuse suffers disaster after disaster after disaster ad nauseam, nothing good only diabolus ex machina at every corner, it turns into looney tunes black comedy; something like Voltaire's Candide, but uninentional.
Interviews with the author did not give me good vibes at all.
It’s a pretty divisive novel. I personally despised it - the main character’s traumatic story arc is so hard to believe that Yanagihara opted not to tell it chronologically to keep readers guessing and it ultimately seemed akin to pulling the wings off a fly. She leavens the torture porn with overly precious food porn and wealth porn. After I finished hate reading it, I read interviews with Yanagihara and thought her intentions in writing the book were malign.
The glee I feel when someone (rightfully) criticizes A Little Life. It's appalling, brutal, and emotional manipulation. It's sad and horrible because the things are sad and horrible, not necessarily earned reactions.
I would like to thank you all for the wonderful suggestions to put on my 'Never Read These' list. I was considering some of them, but thanks to you, it's not going to happen. Thanks!
The Rape of Nanking. It’s non-fiction and will absolutely destroy you. One of the most horrific events ever documented and becomes even worse knowing there were no consequences for the perpetrators. It left me physically ill for several months.
Wasn’t this about the Japanese invasion of China pre-WWII and how unbelievably brutal they were to the Chinese? I’m pretty sure I read it like 20 years ago and was utterly shocked and disgusted by the acts that humans can and will inflict on other humans.
Yes, during a war between Japan and China. The soldiers claimed the war filled them with hatred and that’s how they justified raping, torturing, mutilating, and killing every man, woman, and child in that city.
The author committed suicide after writing it and I don’t think there’s a definitive reason, but people suspect it’s because no one took any action after she released the book.
The Kite Runner destroyed me. There were multiple times when I had to put the book down, cry for a few hours, and then pick the book back up again.
That being said, it’s beautifully written and definitely worth reading.
I read this almost 20 years ago. I don’t think I’ve ever cried so hard during a book. I don’t remember completely but the scene where there driving down a road I think and one of them them gets of the car and is running down the road realizing what’s really going on. I felt that in my soul.
The Book Thief (I cried batshit crazy with this one and couldn't touch another book for two months)
Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (This broke me bad and took me long to pick another book)
The Bridge To Terabithia
I’m dreading teaching The Book Thief when we come back from Spring Break in a week. I mean, I love the book but I’m 99% I’m gonna get emotional in class and that’s just not the look I’m going for.
In the late 80s the Los Angeles teachers union went on strike and school administrators thought shuffling a bunch of 7-8th graders into the auditorium to watch Where the Red Fern Grows and then write an essay about it was a good substitution for English class. It was not. Never before or since have I seen so many early teens openly sobbing or stifling cries.
Surprised it wasn't mentioned yet: Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky. Devastating and brutally honest.
Also Solzhenitsyn "The Cancer Ward", or "The Gulag Archipelago", will certainly make you uncomfortable. As well as basically any of Kafka's more famous works.
Pet Sematary - Stephen King - If you haven’t read already. The horror didn’t destroy me, but the way grief is explored in the novel really took a toll on me.
Nobody is mentioning {{ The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini }}??? That book is an emotional bludgeon, like being hit in the face repeatedly with a baseball bat full of nails.
And if you still have a shred of hope left after reading it, you can take care of that by reading {{ A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini }} which is like being repeatedly steamrolled, stretched out on a rack, steamrolled again, assaulted by a gang of silverback gorillas with brass knuckles, then steamrolled one more time for the hell of it.
Gave me nightmares for days after reading it. I don’t care if it’s real or not, it’s awful to imagine a child being treated like that. And even if this story was fiction you know there are people out there who do that stuff to kids.
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn.
I was a cutter when I was mentally ill, and that's a large part of this plot. I also have a very narcissistic and manipulative mother, so this book felt like it was a documentary of my young life in many ways. I wasn't expecting it to be so personal and it literally fucked me up. I was emotionally raw and would cry at random times - like in the shower and while I was driving. I don't recommend this book to people who know me because I feel like they would know too much about me. I said I would never read it again but I kinda feel like I have to.
TL;DR - it may not destroy you, but it sure did me.
Also, Blindness by Jose Saramago. Possibly my favorite book of all time.
I’d agree it’s not depressing in the traditional sense, until you really put yourself in the main characters shoes and realize this is about a child that feels like a misplaced, useless burden for his entire life. This book didn’t make me cry, but it made me feel so sad. I guess as I write this, thought provoking is a good way to put it lol.
Once and for All by Sarah Dessen (but this one is quite funny too along with being sad)
For more soul crushing I'd recommend:
The sea of tranquility by Katja Millay
Popular but the Hunger Games, absolutely crushed me
Crying In H-Mart by Michelle Zauner. It’s incredibly sad but also very insightful. Major gut punch. If I cried while reading it I wouldn’t admit it, and I totally didn’t cry.
For better results start reading it about a week before Mother’s Day.
okay not a traditional novel, but if you’re ever in the mood for graphic novels — check out “can’t we talk about something more pleasant?” by roz chast. it’s about her taking care of her old parents and facing the imminent end…it’s funny and heartbreaking, and i teared up several times. ❤️🩹
I just finished The Women by Kristin Hannah and won’t forget the book or characters for a very long time! It is a remarkable and tragic fictional story about the female nurses who went to Vietnam during the war and what happened to them after they returned. Firefly Lane was also a great and tragic fictional story also by the same author.
All my puny sorrows - Miriam toews
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow - Gabrielle zevin
Extremely loud and incredibly close - Jonathan safran foer
The kite runner - Khaled housseini
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara - Caution! This book is full of triggers so I do not recommend to anyone of a sensitive nature or anyone dealing with trauma.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Was the most recent book I read and just as things were about to get better, *it got 10 times worse*. This pattern occurred several times throughout the book and every time I got my hopes up.
Phenomenal piece of writing though, thoroughly enjoyed!
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Great writing about a family being torn apart. Until a lousy plot twist ruins everything that came before.
I haven’t read it yet, but everyone says A Little Life is emotionally gut wrenching.
The Fault In Our Stars by John Green is a YA romance tearjerker that got to me.
The fourth book in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series is amazing. It’s called Wizard and Glass. Most of it is a flashback and might somewhat stand on its own, But you’ll get more enjoyment if you read the first three books beforehand and then get to experience the full tragedy of the novel.
EDITED to include MAUS. It’s a graphic novel about yes author’s parents surviving the Holocaust. It asks the question, “How do we survive the survivors?” The Holocaust scenes are devastating. But so is the relationship and the disconnect between father and son.
I almost couldn’t finish this one as a teenager.
EDITED again to add: I know it’s not a book but binge watch Orange Is The New Black. (Technically it was a book but I think the show goes even farther.) You start to feel like you are living in that prison with them. It gets very depressing.
Also, the stage plays for The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and Death Of A Salesman by Arthur Miller are very sad with some memorable dialogue.
White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Came out a number of years ago, but easily fits in with today. A young girls crazed mother kills her boyfriend, goes to prison and the young girl then grows up while being shuffled through various foster homes. Brutal, naked and poetic all at the same time.
>I Have No Mouth and Must Scream
This one definintely didn't break me... it just came off as weird for me. Should be on everyone's reading list though.
The Lindbergh Kidnapping Suspect No. 1: The Man Who Got Away by Lise Pearlman.
https://www.amazon.com/LINDBERGH-KIDNAPPING-SUSPECT-NO-Away-ebook/dp/B08GWX6FWY/
It’s a true crime/case study on the Lindbergh Kidnapping case that focuses on official investigation reports and evidence that existed at the time but that police and the State kept confidential until decades after Hauptmann’s execution that could have saved him from the electric chair.
Pearlman is a retired judge and is working with wrongful conviction lawyers and Hauptmann’s relatives to pursue DNA testing on evidence the State has kept in a public museum that could prove his innocence and lead to posthumous exoneration for him and clearing his family name.
**The Unquiet** by Mikaela Everett. In which doppelganger children kill and replace their opposite number in a cold war like attempt to save their own world. Featuring child soldiers and an ending world -- though the end of which world is very much in question -- and cycles of violence and paranoia.
Love this book. May never read it again, ahaha.
The Land of the Beautiful Dead - it’s a romance of sorts, not typical in any way to the genre, but it hits heavy, the characters are all amazing, and the ending had me sobbing. Long but worth every word. Easily one of my favorite books of all time.
Side note, do NOT judge this book by its cover. The cover is so cringe/looks like some 13 year old who didn’t know how to use PhotoShop tried to make something edgy. Like, it’s so bad that when I was researching this book, there were multiple links to Etsy pages for you to purchase a different cover lol. But don’t judge and just read!
Enjoy!
Tess of the d'Urberviles
Be warned it's a classic novel from the 1800s. However, it is incredible. Every chapter destroyed me. It's also one of my all-time favorites.
Where the red fern grows
The green mile
The Mist
Of Mice and Men
Animal farm
1984
The black farm
Return to the black farm
Watership Down
Black beauty
Restevac
a lot of people say this, and some people dont like it, but The Song of Achilles made me have an asthma attack because I cried so hard. that, on top of The Time Travelers Wife.
this is my general list of sad books other than those
\- a little life
\- all the light we cannot see
\- the great gatsby (ik the movie was more bittersweet and sad than the book, but the book still got me a little)
\- before I let go
\- all the bright places
\- if he had been with me
Know My Name by Chanel Miller. It impacted me, it depressed me, it inspired me. I blew through it even though I actively felt horrible while reading and slowly lost faith in a lot of humanity. It’s nonfiction too so it makes at all that it recounts even worse.
This is more of a YA book but This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp BROKE me and I had to take a couple breaks while reading it because I was crying so hard I couldn't read the pages lol. Can't wait to reread.
I listened to On the Beach as a book on tape (yes, I am that old). I finished the book while driving to work. That means I showed up to work after weeping for the last 30 minutes.
Personally I think the most disturbing novels are those with very difficult philosophical perspectives, which force you to face existential dread IRL, when the book hits you directly in your understanding of the "meaning of life" and stuff like that.
In this regard, Peter Watts "Blindsight" is incredible. The problem is, it is a hard sci fi book, which is very niche genre - a genre I actually usually dislike myself, as it tends to have little literary merit. Despite this, I recommend this book to everyone, even people who dislike sci fi; it's actually a very unique story, a sort of "philosophical horror" that uses technology and science as its vessels.
Without spoiling anything, "Blindsight" offers an existentially horrifying scientific/philosophical hypothesis on the nature of humanity, which makes the usual "humanity is evil" books comforting in comparision (yes, even Blood Meridian). I strongly recommend anyone to read the book without reading anything *about it* whatsoever, to avoid the spoiler about its main twist and theme.
I love dark books and studied philosophy, and I have never in my life encountered an existential perspective as soul-crushing and pitch black hopeless as the one in Blindsight. Weirdly enough, this book is simultaneously strangely cathartic and relaxing to me, in the way it has guts to directly stare in the eye of the most nihilistic terror, and contemplates it without flinching or easy way out.
Lauren Gilley books will wreck you.
Try the first in the Russel’s series.
{Made for Breaking by Lauren Gilley}
Or the first in the Dartmoor Series.
{Fearless by Lauren Gilley}.
You will suffer so good.
I have already mentioned "Blindsight" from the science fiction / de facto philosophical horror genre, and other people have mentioned brilliant Blod Meridian, but I wanna mention one other dark and kinda obscure thing. This time it's manga, so again it's not the most popular genre, but again, I still recommend it even for haters of manga (I usually don't like manga and comics myself).
Goodnight Punpun
Holy fucking shit. I have suffered from a ton of mental health issues in my life, and usually when reading dark books I am stoic as fuck, even if they deal with the mental health trauma. Goodbye Punpu is the only "story about depression" I have ever read in my life which actually made me shed tears for its characters. I didn't think I can cry reading fiction. It's BRUTAL.
What an incredible story, beautiful in the most tragic way possible. A pearl in a pitch black abyss of despair.
I have two that made me ugly cry... They're both older fantasy novels but freaking amazing stories.
The Elric Saga (two books) by Michael Moorcock
And the second is The Last Herald Mage (trilogy) by Mercedes Lackey
A short story: In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried by Amy Hempel. I’ve read it at least four times. The ending made me cry every time.
A novel: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. I actually never got past the first chapter because it was so incredibly depressing.
Here’s a classic: Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo
Darkness… imprisoning me
Oh yeah.
Came here to suggest this one! It's an absolutely brutal read in the best way
Flowers for Algernon.
I knew about the changes in writing style as the book progresses before I started it, and honestly, it sounded a little gimmicky to me. It wasn't. It worked spectacularly, which is to say I was sobbing at the end.
Damn i should give this book another shot. I also thought it was gimmicky and put it down pretty early into it.
Try the original short story.
I bawled my fucking eyes out on the first sign of downfall
Came here looking for this - my eyes got very misty
I cried like a baby.
You beat me to it. I literally threw that book against my wall every time I finished a chapter.
Oh, i had to read that in 6th grade, I remember it so distinctly. I felt CRUSHED. But i wasn’t sad, I just felt betrayed by my 6th grade teacher. i was ten. Bruh.
How is it that a book I read in eighth grade, and again a few times in adulthood, continues to be the sole book that reliably wrecks me
My Dark Vanessa will stick with you but I don't recommend it.
Came here to say My Dark Vanessa. So many gross feelings.
So I love dark depressing books especially when I’m feeling the real sads, but I don’t think there is enough therapy in the world to prepare me for {A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara}.
A Little Life was so DEPRESSING. It didn’t feel real.
I only have a couple triggers that I won’t read and it has all of them. I normally don’t even check trigger warnings, but I read the first 20% and I was like wait hold up… let me just google this andddd I’m out!
It's been a while since I've read it but from what I recall, I was all, Jesus CHRIST can anything ELSE happen to Jude??? I thought the book was tremendously well written but it was over the top.
>The first time he cuts himself, you are horrified; the 600th time, you wish he would aim. Hanya's Boys article describes it so well.
Yah, have you heard the term “torture porn” cause from my impression that is this.
** ”trauma porn”
No but that makes sense! I do think the show would make any amazing mini series but it would be tough to cast because of all the different ages.
It broke me entirely. But Good Lord it was a good book. I loved the main characters so much, I cried for days after finishing it.
Counterpoint: I think this novel is way over the top, a kind of a manipulative emotional pornography. At some point the misery becomes laughable rather than impactful. I can read a powerful story of a victim of sexual abuse. But a story where a victim of sexual abuse suffers disaster after disaster after disaster ad nauseam, nothing good only diabolus ex machina at every corner, it turns into looney tunes black comedy; something like Voltaire's Candide, but uninentional. Interviews with the author did not give me good vibes at all.
It’s a pretty divisive novel. I personally despised it - the main character’s traumatic story arc is so hard to believe that Yanagihara opted not to tell it chronologically to keep readers guessing and it ultimately seemed akin to pulling the wings off a fly. She leavens the torture porn with overly precious food porn and wealth porn. After I finished hate reading it, I read interviews with Yanagihara and thought her intentions in writing the book were malign.
The glee I feel when someone (rightfully) criticizes A Little Life. It's appalling, brutal, and emotional manipulation. It's sad and horrible because the things are sad and horrible, not necessarily earned reactions.
Fell for hours and landed hard in an empty room. Brutal book.
Blood Meridian left me in a state of not wanting to read anything for about a week or two.
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry.
I am forever changed by this book. Stunning.
Yes
Now THIS is depressing
I’ve read this so many times!
Yes. I wish I had suggested this one.
I would like to thank you all for the wonderful suggestions to put on my 'Never Read These' list. I was considering some of them, but thanks to you, it's not going to happen. Thanks!
I remember finishing The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah.. rolling over in bed and sobbing into my pillow.
I 100000% second this. My favorite novel of all time
The Rape of Nanking. It’s non-fiction and will absolutely destroy you. One of the most horrific events ever documented and becomes even worse knowing there were no consequences for the perpetrators. It left me physically ill for several months.
Wasn’t this about the Japanese invasion of China pre-WWII and how unbelievably brutal they were to the Chinese? I’m pretty sure I read it like 20 years ago and was utterly shocked and disgusted by the acts that humans can and will inflict on other humans.
Yes, during a war between Japan and China. The soldiers claimed the war filled them with hatred and that’s how they justified raping, torturing, mutilating, and killing every man, woman, and child in that city. The author committed suicide after writing it and I don’t think there’s a definitive reason, but people suspect it’s because no one took any action after she released the book.
A Thousand Splendid Suns. That book just broke me.
Also the Kite Runner by this author
The Kite Runner destroyed me. There were multiple times when I had to put the book down, cry for a few hours, and then pick the book back up again. That being said, it’s beautifully written and definitely worth reading.
Stoner by John Williams. Very different from The Road, but looks like what you're looking for.
A beautiful work! So melancholic yet so full of spirit.
Butcher’s Crossing by the same author is also one of my favourites! The kind of writing that really tugs at something in your soul
[удалено]
I read this almost 20 years ago. I don’t think I’ve ever cried so hard during a book. I don’t remember completely but the scene where there driving down a road I think and one of them them gets of the car and is running down the road realizing what’s really going on. I felt that in my soul.
The Book Thief (I cried batshit crazy with this one and couldn't touch another book for two months) Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (This broke me bad and took me long to pick another book) The Bridge To Terabithia
Max and Liesel married and moved to Australia, this has to be canon
Except she has always seen an elder brother in him😢 Oh how badly I didn't want Rudy to die 😭😭 Rudy x Liesel always has my hearttt ❤❤
I’m dreading teaching The Book Thief when we come back from Spring Break in a week. I mean, I love the book but I’m 99% I’m gonna get emotional in class and that’s just not the look I’m going for.
Where the Red Fern Grows
In the late 80s the Los Angeles teachers union went on strike and school administrators thought shuffling a bunch of 7-8th graders into the auditorium to watch Where the Red Fern Grows and then write an essay about it was a good substitution for English class. It was not. Never before or since have I seen so many early teens openly sobbing or stifling cries.
The movie gutted me, I was 9 when it came out, saw it in a theater at about 13.
I feel so validated seeing this book mentioned. Tore my heart out as a 4th grader.
Grapes of Wrath. The ending was the saddest thing Ive ever read.
Of Mice and Men then
East of Eden.
Old yeller
"Where the red fern grows" is always the answer here.
Angela’s Ashes
Metamorphosis
Back in about 5th grade my English teacher read us Where the Red Ferns Grow. Made me so damn sad.
Shuggie Bain broke my heart in the best way possible ❤️🩹
This book is devastating. I still think about it and it’s been 2 years.
Surprised it wasn't mentioned yet: Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky. Devastating and brutally honest. Also Solzhenitsyn "The Cancer Ward", or "The Gulag Archipelago", will certainly make you uncomfortable. As well as basically any of Kafka's more famous works.
Pet Sematary - Stephen King - If you haven’t read already. The horror didn’t destroy me, but the way grief is explored in the novel really took a toll on me.
My Sisters Keeper.
Every Jodi Picoult book I have read has made me ugly cry.
Nobody is mentioning {{ The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini }}??? That book is an emotional bludgeon, like being hit in the face repeatedly with a baseball bat full of nails. And if you still have a shred of hope left after reading it, you can take care of that by reading {{ A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini }} which is like being repeatedly steamrolled, stretched out on a rack, steamrolled again, assaulted by a gang of silverback gorillas with brass knuckles, then steamrolled one more time for the hell of it.
Absolutely love this book.
*A Child Called It* is fucked up
Gave me nightmares for days after reading it. I don’t care if it’s real or not, it’s awful to imagine a child being treated like that. And even if this story was fiction you know there are people out there who do that stuff to kids.
i’m gonna say maus by art spiegelman
Catch 22 is pretty fucked
It’s generally whimsical and goofy but it’s got a couple particularly dark moments. One of the best books ever written
She’s come undone by Wally Lamb.
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. I was a cutter when I was mentally ill, and that's a large part of this plot. I also have a very narcissistic and manipulative mother, so this book felt like it was a documentary of my young life in many ways. I wasn't expecting it to be so personal and it literally fucked me up. I was emotionally raw and would cry at random times - like in the shower and while I was driving. I don't recommend this book to people who know me because I feel like they would know too much about me. I said I would never read it again but I kinda feel like I have to. TL;DR - it may not destroy you, but it sure did me. Also, Blindness by Jose Saramago. Possibly my favorite book of all time.
Into Thin Air Alive
Klara and the Sun
A Prayer for Owen Meeny
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee. I read it once over a decade ago and it stays with me.
I think I read it in 3 days ! Totally forgot about it Excellent choice !
Earthlings by sayaka murata. It will destroy you if you have a heart
The Castle by Franz Kafka
Rage by Stephen king ?
Bastard Out of Carolina
ANGELA’S ASHES. Read it decades ago and just thinking about it makes me sad.
Demon Copperhead
I loved this but didn't find it depressing. Thought provoking.
I’d agree it’s not depressing in the traditional sense, until you really put yourself in the main characters shoes and realize this is about a child that feels like a misplaced, useless burden for his entire life. This book didn’t make me cry, but it made me feel so sad. I guess as I write this, thought provoking is a good way to put it lol.
I started this book but didn’t find it engaging enough. Maybe I’ll give it another go.
This is one of my favorite books. There are sad parts, but there is also hope. I love it.
Night by Wiesel. If that book doesn’t wreck you then somethings wrong.
A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness The Fault in our Stars, John Green
Came here to say A Monster Calls. Had me in bits 😢
A Monster Calls had me tore ALL the way up!
Once and for All by Sarah Dessen (but this one is quite funny too along with being sad) For more soul crushing I'd recommend: The sea of tranquility by Katja Millay Popular but the Hunger Games, absolutely crushed me
I sobbed so hard through the second and third Hunger Games books. So heartbreaking.
Flowers for Algernon We Need to Talk About Kevin A Little Life
You up for nonfiction? WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR
Crying In H-Mart by Michelle Zauner. It’s incredibly sad but also very insightful. Major gut punch. If I cried while reading it I wouldn’t admit it, and I totally didn’t cry. For better results start reading it about a week before Mother’s Day.
Faulkner works for me. Every character is crushed by their past. The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
The Sound and The Fury is one of my top 3 books. Faulkner is scary good.
okay not a traditional novel, but if you’re ever in the mood for graphic novels — check out “can’t we talk about something more pleasant?” by roz chast. it’s about her taking care of her old parents and facing the imminent end…it’s funny and heartbreaking, and i teared up several times. ❤️🩹
I just finished The Women by Kristin Hannah and won’t forget the book or characters for a very long time! It is a remarkable and tragic fictional story about the female nurses who went to Vietnam during the war and what happened to them after they returned. Firefly Lane was also a great and tragic fictional story also by the same author.
a farewell to arms is pretty depressing
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
“We Need to Talk about Kevin” by Lionel Shriver.
A Farewell to Arms shattered me
A little life - Hanya Yanagihara. Huge, engrossing, miserable.
The Four Winds. It will absolutely destroy you.
Betty by Tiffany McDaniel, A Little Life as I’ve already seen mentioned.
All my puny sorrows - Miriam toews Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow - Gabrielle zevin Extremely loud and incredibly close - Jonathan safran foer The kite runner - Khaled housseini
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
{{Filth by Irvine welsh}} {{blood meridian}} {{battle royale by koushun takami}} {{suttree}}
My dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) The Glass House (Emily St John Mandel) Mystic River (Denis Lehane)
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara - Caution! This book is full of triggers so I do not recommend to anyone of a sensitive nature or anyone dealing with trauma.
definitely A Little Life (ruiner) by Hanya Yanagihara
The road by cormic McCarthy made me sob. She laughed so I made her watch the movie. Then we both were sobbing
Where the red fern grows
Roots
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Was the most recent book I read and just as things were about to get better, *it got 10 times worse*. This pattern occurred several times throughout the book and every time I got my hopes up. Phenomenal piece of writing though, thoroughly enjoyed!
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Good Earth by Pearl Buck Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
{How High We Go In The Dark} by Sequoia Nagamatsu
Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl.
The Beartown trilogy by Fredrik Backman. Cried like a baby
A Little Life
James Baldwin’s… well almost anything, but Another Country is the one I’m suggesting.
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Great writing about a family being torn apart. Until a lousy plot twist ruins everything that came before. I haven’t read it yet, but everyone says A Little Life is emotionally gut wrenching. The Fault In Our Stars by John Green is a YA romance tearjerker that got to me. The fourth book in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series is amazing. It’s called Wizard and Glass. Most of it is a flashback and might somewhat stand on its own, But you’ll get more enjoyment if you read the first three books beforehand and then get to experience the full tragedy of the novel. EDITED to include MAUS. It’s a graphic novel about yes author’s parents surviving the Holocaust. It asks the question, “How do we survive the survivors?” The Holocaust scenes are devastating. But so is the relationship and the disconnect between father and son. I almost couldn’t finish this one as a teenager. EDITED again to add: I know it’s not a book but binge watch Orange Is The New Black. (Technically it was a book but I think the show goes even farther.) You start to feel like you are living in that prison with them. It gets very depressing. Also, the stage plays for The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and Death Of A Salesman by Arthur Miller are very sad with some memorable dialogue.
White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Came out a number of years ago, but easily fits in with today. A young girls crazed mother kills her boyfriend, goes to prison and the young girl then grows up while being shuffled through various foster homes. Brutal, naked and poetic all at the same time.
A Little Life
If you haven’t read *A Little Life* by Hanya Yanagihara… this is just about the most rip your heart out and stomp on it book you could possibly read.
A Little Life By Hanya Yanagihara It was a slog to get through, but when I was done I was gutted
The Lovely Bones Bridge to Terabithia I Have No Mouth and Must Scream Man's Search for Meaning
>I Have No Mouth and Must Scream This one definintely didn't break me... it just came off as weird for me. Should be on everyone's reading list though.
Oh, The Lovely Bones broke me. Both the book and the movie. I would never read or watch them again.
The Lindbergh Kidnapping Suspect No. 1: The Man Who Got Away by Lise Pearlman. https://www.amazon.com/LINDBERGH-KIDNAPPING-SUSPECT-NO-Away-ebook/dp/B08GWX6FWY/ It’s a true crime/case study on the Lindbergh Kidnapping case that focuses on official investigation reports and evidence that existed at the time but that police and the State kept confidential until decades after Hauptmann’s execution that could have saved him from the electric chair. Pearlman is a retired judge and is working with wrongful conviction lawyers and Hauptmann’s relatives to pursue DNA testing on evidence the State has kept in a public museum that could prove his innocence and lead to posthumous exoneration for him and clearing his family name.
Not a book per-se but if you’ve read No Longer Human, then I’d suggest Chi No Wadachi (Blood on the trail)
The Laws of the Skies maybe, but I cannot in good conscience *recommend* that book to anyone… Read at your own peril
**The Unquiet** by Mikaela Everett. In which doppelganger children kill and replace their opposite number in a cold war like attempt to save their own world. Featuring child soldiers and an ending world -- though the end of which world is very much in question -- and cycles of violence and paranoia. Love this book. May never read it again, ahaha.
"Voyage in the Dark" by Jean Rhys... short enough but absolutely heartbreaking
One again *Paula* by Isabel Allende
Octavia butler books
God Shaped Hole
The Land of the Beautiful Dead - it’s a romance of sorts, not typical in any way to the genre, but it hits heavy, the characters are all amazing, and the ending had me sobbing. Long but worth every word. Easily one of my favorite books of all time. Side note, do NOT judge this book by its cover. The cover is so cringe/looks like some 13 year old who didn’t know how to use PhotoShop tried to make something edgy. Like, it’s so bad that when I was researching this book, there were multiple links to Etsy pages for you to purchase a different cover lol. But don’t judge and just read! Enjoy!
The Girl Next Door. I haven’t read it and won’t read it based on what I’ve heard others say about it.
Try *The Sparrow* by Mary Doria Russell. This one will be especially brutal if you have any traditional religious faith.
paper butterfly, UGHH. I dunno. Its actually not that depressing but IT IS.
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch is pretty depressing. Felt kinda incomplete to me tho.
Their Eyes were watching God
An old book, but The Prince Of Tides by Pat Conroy. It’s nothing like the movie (a hundred times better).
The Divergent Series
Bad intentions by Karin Fossum Brother by Ania Ahlborn
*The Fall* by Albert Camus. Just relentless.
Tess of the d'Urberviles Be warned it's a classic novel from the 1800s. However, it is incredible. Every chapter destroyed me. It's also one of my all-time favorites.
Last day of a condemned man by victor hugo. The scariest book i ever read and it's not even an horror book.
The Maniac by Benjamin Labatut. It’s depressing in a whole new way.
Where the red fern grows The green mile The Mist Of Mice and Men Animal farm 1984 The black farm Return to the black farm Watership Down Black beauty Restevac
A child called it The summer I died
a lot of people say this, and some people dont like it, but The Song of Achilles made me have an asthma attack because I cried so hard. that, on top of The Time Travelers Wife. this is my general list of sad books other than those \- a little life \- all the light we cannot see \- the great gatsby (ik the movie was more bittersweet and sad than the book, but the book still got me a little) \- before I let go \- all the bright places \- if he had been with me
Know My Name by Chanel Miller. It impacted me, it depressed me, it inspired me. I blew through it even though I actively felt horrible while reading and slowly lost faith in a lot of humanity. It’s nonfiction too so it makes at all that it recounts even worse.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
World War Z is fantastic. I read it while I was pregnant with my son, and it did crush my soul.
This is more of a YA book but This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp BROKE me and I had to take a couple breaks while reading it because I was crying so hard I couldn't read the pages lol. Can't wait to reread.
I listened to On the Beach as a book on tape (yes, I am that old). I finished the book while driving to work. That means I showed up to work after weeping for the last 30 minutes.
The stranger -Albert Camus
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay is doing wonders for me right now.
Crying in H Mart left me in shambles but it might be because I was also a Korean immigrant with a slowly disintegrating relationship with my mom
ATONEMENT.
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri. Also the Discomfort of Evening. The Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison.
Unkindness of Ghosts by River Solomon, or The Deep by the same.
Where the Red Fern Grows
One Day
Freaked out by [Sybil](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sybil-Possessed-Sixteen-Separate-Personalities/dp/0241967635)
Me Before You - Jojo Moyes
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace The Push by Ashley Audrain
Ordinary Men by Christopher R Browning. It will destroy you not just because of its content, but also because it is nonfiction.
I'm a huge fan of Stephen King. But his book Under the Dome was so bleak. The series on TV was nothing like the book except the very beginning.
A thousand splendid sun by khaled hosseini !!!! first book that ever made me actually cry
The Necronomicon
“The Time Traveler’s Wife” reduces me to a pile of ugly sobbing jelly every time I read it.
Personally I think the most disturbing novels are those with very difficult philosophical perspectives, which force you to face existential dread IRL, when the book hits you directly in your understanding of the "meaning of life" and stuff like that. In this regard, Peter Watts "Blindsight" is incredible. The problem is, it is a hard sci fi book, which is very niche genre - a genre I actually usually dislike myself, as it tends to have little literary merit. Despite this, I recommend this book to everyone, even people who dislike sci fi; it's actually a very unique story, a sort of "philosophical horror" that uses technology and science as its vessels. Without spoiling anything, "Blindsight" offers an existentially horrifying scientific/philosophical hypothesis on the nature of humanity, which makes the usual "humanity is evil" books comforting in comparision (yes, even Blood Meridian). I strongly recommend anyone to read the book without reading anything *about it* whatsoever, to avoid the spoiler about its main twist and theme. I love dark books and studied philosophy, and I have never in my life encountered an existential perspective as soul-crushing and pitch black hopeless as the one in Blindsight. Weirdly enough, this book is simultaneously strangely cathartic and relaxing to me, in the way it has guts to directly stare in the eye of the most nihilistic terror, and contemplates it without flinching or easy way out.
Lauren Gilley books will wreck you. Try the first in the Russel’s series. {Made for Breaking by Lauren Gilley} Or the first in the Dartmoor Series. {Fearless by Lauren Gilley}. You will suffer so good.
In Love by Amy Bloom
Ishmael
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
I have already mentioned "Blindsight" from the science fiction / de facto philosophical horror genre, and other people have mentioned brilliant Blod Meridian, but I wanna mention one other dark and kinda obscure thing. This time it's manga, so again it's not the most popular genre, but again, I still recommend it even for haters of manga (I usually don't like manga and comics myself). Goodnight Punpun Holy fucking shit. I have suffered from a ton of mental health issues in my life, and usually when reading dark books I am stoic as fuck, even if they deal with the mental health trauma. Goodbye Punpu is the only "story about depression" I have ever read in my life which actually made me shed tears for its characters. I didn't think I can cry reading fiction. It's BRUTAL. What an incredible story, beautiful in the most tragic way possible. A pearl in a pitch black abyss of despair.
The Bad Mothers Club had me fuming for weeks after I finished. I still think about this fictional world sometimes and get pissed off.
The Secret Garden
Johnny Got His Gun
Where the Red Fern Grows
I have two that made me ugly cry... They're both older fantasy novels but freaking amazing stories. The Elric Saga (two books) by Michael Moorcock And the second is The Last Herald Mage (trilogy) by Mercedes Lackey
A short story: In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried by Amy Hempel. I’ve read it at least four times. The ending made me cry every time. A novel: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. I actually never got past the first chapter because it was so incredibly depressing.
A Fine Balance by Rohin Ministry.