10 Fiction Books to Make You Cry
If you’ve ever had a day with the mean reds, sometimes there’s nothing for it but to engineer a good cry. Books that make you cry can release some pretty intense, private catharsis.
What makes you cry is highly subjective. Some of us cry at a single tender sentence while remaining stoic at a Holocaust memoir. Others are immune to sentimentality but get really attached to animals in stories. FYI - none of these books revolve around pet death because I cannot in good conscience do that to you. For many of these books, I laughed one page and cried the next (which for me, personally, is my favorite reading experience).
Note: this post contains affiliate links, but I would never link to something I don’t recommend. You can read more of my policy here.
Content warning: many of these books discuss death and suicidal ideation, so please read with caution.
A Man Called Ove by Frederik Backman
Ove doesn’t understand the world today. He’s a carefully methodical man from another era, and the chaotic, messy 21st century confounds him. The boisterous family next door only confirms his inclination towards misanthropy…until they foil his carefully laid plans.
Why you’ll cry: Backman does an incredible job of humanizing grouchy Ove through his relationship to the young kids next door and his late wife.
CW: Racism, suicidal ideation
Starfish by Lisa Fipps
11-year-old Ellie is starting sixth grade without the help of her best friend. So she writes the “Fat Girl Code” - a list of rules to help her attract as little negative attention for her size as possible. When a Mexican family moves next door, Ellie is united in her other-ness with her new neighbor, and forms a fast friendship.
Why you’ll cry: Ellie’s relationship with her critical mother will hit a deep nerve with many readers.
CW: Medical abuse, fatphobia, racism
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Young, beautiful, promising Janie Crawford is eager to start her life and come into her own. Raised by her formerly-enslaved grandmother, Janie is hungry to see what life has to offer. Watching God follows Janie as she learns the true source of her power, and tests the boundaries of her inner strength.
Why you’ll cry: Watching Janie claw her way to happiness then lose it tragically will break you.
CW: Racism, sexual assault
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Nora Seed wakes up from a suicide attempt in a strange place. It’s a library containing every possible path her life could’ve taken. Desperate to escape from her bleak existence, Nora jumps at the chance to right her regrets.
Why you’ll cry: Nora’s despair and confusion is deeply relatable to anyone who’s suffered from depression.
CW: Suicidal ideation, domestic abuse
The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini
In 1970s Afghanistan, young Assef is comfortable with his place in the world as the son of an affluent man. But when Assef witnesses a tragedy against the son of his father’s servant, his best friend Hassan, the repercussions of his reaction will haunt him on his journey through adulthood and into 1990s California.
Why you’ll cry: It’s a beautiful portrait of a country most can only see as a war-torn hellscape, and Hassan is perhaps the most pure character ever written.
CW: Sexual assault, war, immigration trauma, racism, colorism
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
If you had the chance to travel back in time, would you? At a small cafe in Tokyo you can, but only under very specific circumstances. You can only travel in the cafe, visit with people who have or will be there, and you must return before the coffee gets cold.
Why you’ll cry: the stories of the patrons looking to travel are increasingly heartbreaking. What seems selfish on the surface is actually devastating desperation.
CW: Alzheimer’s
Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
In the story of the Iliad, Homer mentions a young man named Patroclus in passing as one of the great hero Achilles’s companions. In this beautifully realized romance, Miller speculates on the true nature of the relationship between Patroclus and Achilles (as well as the events of the Iliad) through Patroclus’s eyes.
Why you’ll cry: this story is a slow burn with a perfectly touching ending.
CW: War, Violence
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
At a newly-built UK retirement village, four retirees gather every Thursday to go through cold case files and try to solve them. It’s all theoretical, until a builder for the site turns up dead. Suddenly, the elderly Scooby-Doo-Esque group is thrust right into the middle of a real-life murder mystery.
Why you’ll cry: the searingly tender insights from people who society would prefer to forget.
CW: Murder, ageism
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
Straight-laced Dannie Kohan has her life planned to a T. She’s just made partner at her corporate law firm, and accepted a proposal from her perfect-on-paper boyfriend. But everything is turned upside down when she gets a glimpse of her life exactly 5 years in the future, and it’s absolutely nothing like what she planned for herself.
Why you’ll cry: this book is ultimately a treatise on the power of friendship. It’ll make you want to call your best friend IMMEDIATELY.
CW: Terminal Illness
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Sam Masur and Sadie Green form an unlikely friendship in a children’s hospital that will follow their tumultuous friendship (and eventual working relationship) over decades. Tomorrow is a treatise on work, creativity, and relationships of all kinds.
Why you’ll cry: Without giving anything away, it grapples with every nuance of the question of why bad things happen and why we react the way we do.
CW: Gun Violence, Sexism, Racism, Suicidal Ideation
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