Books That Made Me Cry (Spoiler-Free) 

Hey bookworms! Are there any books that have pulled the emotion out of you until tears ran? Don't be shy and let me know them below.

Mike: "Definitely not doing a 'tear' list." Me: I thought that was the whole point!

Everybody likes to have their revisionist history of Harry Potter now” dude you are so right, and we all called ahead to get these and stood in line at midnight. Ps we all cried too!

Thank you for not being afraid to declare your HP fandom. It's almost like a rite of passage to say that you don't like the series if you want to be considered a "real" fantasy genre fan. I loved it too, && JK did what a lot of fantasy writers can't say. She finished her series. In a satisfying way imo too.

OMG!!! Where the Red Fern Grows had me SOBBING in 6th grade! My Dad was vacuuming the living room and I was at home reading ahead of my class and I just started sobbing and he had to stop Vacuuming to comfort me telling me it was just a book. I got to miss school when we were finally going to read that part in school because I couldn’t read it again... Rhythm of War is the most recent one to get me!

Bridge to Terabithia is the one that stands out the most that made me cry. Pretty sure my parents came to make sure I was ok I was sobbing so hard 😂

Maybe not a tier list, but surely this is a tear list?

“An' have rabbits. Go on, George! Tell about what we're gonna have in the garden and about the rabbits in the cages and about the rain in the winter and the stove, and how thick the cream is on the milk like you can hardly cut it. Tell about that, George.”

The first time I read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire I was absolutely heartbroken by *SPOILER ALERT* the death near the end of the book. Yes, it was a minor character but the fact that an innocent person would be killed like that, as if they were nothing, just got to me. It made me realize how evil Lord Voldemort was and what he was capable of.

Almost shed a tear when you just said the title of Where the Red Fern Grows

The most recent book that made me cry was A Memory of Light. The death of the character that you didn't love really got me. I had to stop reading for 2 days to go through the grieving process.

Didn't make me cry but THAT moment in Cujo really really made me sit in silence for a long while. Donna Trenton's realisation, and her heartbreak, is unbelievable. Stunning moment.

I got to say, the end of Watership Down got me.

Re: Reepicheep and Redwall. YES. Reepicheep is a fantastic character, possibly Lewis' best. What a great book that was.

After having a kid, anything with parents and kids can make me cry. The love of a parent is like no other.

where the red fern grows is a classic! I remember we read this in our grade 5 or 6 class. Even though it will crush you; it is one of the few fond memories I have of my childhood.

Two books that utterly crushed me so bittersweetly were Ship of Destiny and Fool's Fate by Robin Hobb. I cry from time to time while reading, but usually not like that. Only other thing I can think of were I was so completely destroyed was the ending of Six Feet Under

You don't know tears until you read Flowers for Algernon.

I had a very emotional journey with The Memory of Light. I was yelling at the book, screaming no then crying then smiling because I loved it so much. It is my favorite book of the series.

Reading the last book of WoT thru tears seems pretty standard to me. I do every time!

Tuesdays with Morrie, flowers for Algernon & book thief are the first ones that come to mind. I know there are others. Honestly, if I know beforehand that a book is going to rip out my heart, I usually avoid it. I find it hard enough to keep positive & upbeat as it is.

Bridge to Terabithia, was devastating when I read it as a kid. I just read it to my kids and I cried again.

You might be adding Deadhouse Gates to your list soon! For me, becoming a dad opened the floodgates. Ever since the firstborn arrived, I get sentimental.

The ending of Ruin by John Gwynne just made me put the book down grab my bottle of whiskey amd pour a drink. I had lost my great old dog that I grew up with about a year and a half ago. Reading that one scene in Ruin absolutely wrecked me.

The Art of Racing in the Rain made me ugly cry.

Oh man. Deathly Hallows gets me every time when you get to the part when he sees his parents and Sirius and asks them if it hurts to die. And the walk through the woods with him. Man... From that moment on, I'm just a puddle. Ditto on Lord of the Rings. Battle Ground from Jim Butcher did me in. I ugly cried for about an hour and felt like I'd suffered a personal loss for about a week after that. That scene in Changes also kills me every time. Yes!!! The Reepicheep scene was emotional and the Last Battle gets me to.

The first time I really cried enough to have to stop reading because I couldn't read the words anymore was at the end of Stephen King's It. Without spoiling, there is a character that dies quite close to the ending of the book, and in a certain way, and that really tore my heartstring. When I read The Neverending Story, I had seen the film and I was ready for quite the adventure in the land of Fantasia. My mother had told me that the book didn't end like the film, and that there was much more to it than I knew, so I was curious to see what would be going on after what was the end for me. I was a terribly insecure teenager, and I was the victim of bullying at the time. I remember reading about Bastian entering Fantasia and having his own adventure in this fantasy world. He was making all these terrible mistakes, and I was sure deepdown that if I went to Fantasia too, I would have done the same mistakes, maybe even worse. Close to the end of the book, Bastian realizes the terrible things he's done, and he tries very hard to learn from what he did, and to find his own way, but one of his mistake comes back to bite him in the behind, and he is lost with no hope of escape. But the book does have a happy ending, and I remember crying my eyes out seeing that, despite all he's done, despite his flaws, Bastian is still worthy of love and forgiveness. At that moment in my life, I needed to believed I could be loved for who I was. Books can do amazing things. Books are important.

Robin Hobb! Definitely should come with a warning for trauma, you're not there yet but all I can say I brace yourself and then keep bracing yourself! 😭

Thank you for this wonderful video Mike! I cried my eyes out reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Little Women and the Kite Runner. And recently, the red wedding in A Song of Ice and Fire series made me very very emotional.

Flowers For Algernon. The end had me waterfalling from my eyes.

Dude! Haha, Where the Red Fern Grows made me cry my eyes out lol!! Also, 11/22/63 got me as well. Btw, nice Dune shirt and great video!

Where the Red Fern Grows was what I immediately thought when I saw your video title. I'm the same age as you and I read it in middle school as well. It's actually probably the first book I've ever read where I took it seriously and enjoyed. I have a copy on my bookshelf still....great book.

When I was a kid I read ‘Where The Red Fern Grows’. I sobbed in the ending! I read it as an adult - still sobbed! Recommended it to my best friend’s dad - he sobbed at the end! Best boy and his dog(s) story ever!

Great video!!! I have also read most of these and I can confirm - tears will be shed!!

The only book that ever made me cry was The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman because of the ending!

Read Where the Red Fern Grows in grade 7 too and I always read ahead for school and it destroyed me but at least I was able to hold it together a little more in class. Flowers for Algernon was another required read for school that made me cry. Robin Hobb has got me multiple times (even more often now upon rereading), John Gwynne rung the tears out several times too, Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames. HP and Deathly Hallows I think I started crying when Hedwig died and didn't stop the whole book through. End of an era is right. Lots of books have made me cry tbh.

"The burial was quick for the body was much smaller than the heart it held." That scene in Dark Tower 7 is the only thing in a book to ever make me legitimately cry.

I have two that I can remember, the first was "Bridge to Terabithia". I had read it for elementary school the year my best friend moved away, while alive she was lost to me. The second was actually today at work Dresden Files "White Night" at the soul gaze. I had read it both before and after becoming a parent and nothing, but parenthood plus Marsters masterful delivery hit me so hard after a recent less serious owie moment that a coworker stopped me to ask if something was wrong.

Pet Semetary broke my heart! The book that just continuously made me sob on my commute to work (I had to stop bringing it) was Beartown by Frederick Bachman. I cried from start to finish. My flatmate at the time wanted to know what was so touching about it so I tried to give her a non-spoiler description and couldn't even get through it without tearing up again.

Where the red fern grows is one of my favorite books of all time. Reread it a couple years ago. Glad to see you recommend it.

We read Where the Red Ferm Grows in second grade and it tore me apart

Hi Mike! Love your channel. For me, The Road had me crying while at work. I was listening to it on Audible. That ending...ugh! So many tears.

Robert McCammon has that ability, to hit you in the feels, and I say that about most of his work. But his top two: Boys Life and Swan Song. **Mike, I've been a fan of the channel long enough to get a sense for what you would like, and not like. And I'm telling ya, you would tear through both of those books and they will hit you like they've hit most people.

Yes, Where the Red Fern Grows 😭 But, Watership Down was the FIRST time I cried because of a book. No one warned me about how invested one could become with words. I was 9. To this day I cry at every re-read. I was also fortunate enough to have read the book before the 1978 animated film. So I wasn't shocked or traumatized by the graphic or heavy scenes. My parents were though. 😬😅 None of the adaptations ever pulled my heartstrings like the book.

PET SEMATARY!!! YES!!! I told my wife before I watched that he must have Pet Sematary on here. Sure enough you did. I just had my son when I read this & the tears didn't stop. You are the best Mike, never miss a video. Thank You!

Something about the way Robin Hobb writes characters and relationships is so real and everything is extremely impactful. You’re guaranteed to cry in each of her main trilogies. She’s brilliant.

The ending of his dark materials almost made me cry

You are currently my favorite book reviewer. Thank you for doing what you do, sir.

Man oh man....Where the Red Fern Grows, I cannot agree more. That one is heart wrenching.

Where the red fern grows, cried so hard, heartbreaking.

There's so many books on here that I agree with. I was just nodding my head, like yep. The one book I would add to that list, and it pretty much covers something in every category is Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. A goddamn masterpiece at pulling at your heart strings, and in some cases, tearing them out completely

The Pillars of the Earth got me like seven times.

“If you’re worried that you’re dead inside...” 😂😂

Dresden files. Specifically the Christmas Eve short story when Harry opens his present.

IT definitely did for me. That ending was so heart breaking and it makes you appreciate your own losers club.

**SPOILERS FOR RHYTHM OF WAR** Rhythm of War, the Kaladin and Tien scene had me trying to read through tears

The conversation between Syl and Kaladin in TWoK right before they go back to the anvil. where syl remembers what kind of Spren she is. I'm tearing up thinking about it.

“I come in the name of Eddie Dean, he of New York!” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Ooohhhh I forgot about Where the Red Fern Grows...😭😭😭. I had to read that in like 3rd grade and then the teacher showed us the movie. I was TRAUMATIZED.

Deathly Hallows got me good back then too. I remember going to the midnight release at Barnes & Noble with two of my friends for that one. Dobby's death made me cry. Snape's death made me ugly cry. Ditto for Battle Ground. I had to put the book DOWN both times because I was ugly crying so much. And yes! Where The Red Fern Grows! I read that in either 5th or 6th grade. So much ugly crying. Return of the King got me too, the Gray Havens. 😭 The last book that did that to me was the last book in the An Ember in the Ashes series by Sabaa Tahir. Yes it's YA, though I think it reads more adult but that's me. There's a part near the end of the final book that hit really hard. Loved this list. Hope you are doing well with awful weather.

Fun video man haha Memory of Light def hit me as well

I agree with the parent related grief. There was a small passage in Deadhouse Gates, with a mother holding her dying child, waiting for her child to die. I broke down. It was such a small part but so impactful.

Reepicheep IS the best. I didn't tear up at his departure because he was going to the Aslan's Country. If anything, I was jealous, but it was an excited/happy jealous.

Too many to mention...but speaking of Twilight...Bella's depression and emptiness in New Moon had me sobbing.

I cried with Words of Radiance: . . . . . . . . . . "Honor is dead, but I'll see what I can do"

I totally agree with what you said about IT! I first read it in 2018, and I just burst into tears as soon as I noticed what was going to happen

When Harry begs (the first option) in Changes I could not even breathe. Many other scenes, but that one shocked tears out of me. I listened to this book and Marsters voice breaks on the "please" OUCH! I woke up during the night after finishing it and found I had cried in my sleep that has never happened to me before or since. Battle Ground was almost as bad for me but Changes just stuck a knife in me. I cry pretty easily while reading it's a great release when real life won't let you, or you won't let yourself (just blame the book lol). My hardest cry in HP was Dobby! I'm not ashamed to admit my kids, whom I was reading to, comforted me after it.

The last heart wrenching moment I remember is from Assasins Quest. It was pure anger and pure loss combined. I'm still not over it and I stopped reading Realm of Elderlings after that.

Battleground...just wow. There have been a number of times in Dresden, mainly when Harry is talking about some dad shit to Molly or Maggie or even himself and it was misty, but Battleground was a new level. It was so much of an emotional gut-punch that I had to put the book down and couldn't read it for a couple days afterward. Not to sound too masochistic but I'm maybe 20% into Malice of the Faithful and the Fallen, but can't wait to get through and have Gwynne get me right in the feels. I have a sense that Corban might be involved, but maybe not, I'm very very far away from Ruin at this point. Lastly, completely agree on becoming a parent and having emotional responses in place where a 25 year old version of myself would laugh at me now. Something just changes inside when kids arrive. Keep up the good work and hopefully you and the rest of the family are safe with the winter storm hitting TX.

I was never really a big book guy growing up. A few years ago I was flying to Boston and decided to grab Dark Matter while we were delayed. Held my attention but lost track of it after my plane ride home. Started it back up that summer when I would sit by my apartment complex pool. Holy shit. Tears. So many tears. Throughout the whole book. It moved me so much that I’m now a big book guy. Dark matter and 11 22 63 we’re definitely my two biggest cries. My next three big cries would be The shining, doctor sleep, and the dead zone. I never expected jack Torrance to make me ugly cry but wow. The ending of both books hit me hard. Great video Mike as always

My kids were worried about me when I finished A Memory of Light because I was crying so hard! It was very much because I was going to miss the characters!

Great video. I loved the connection you made between The Road and The Last of Us video game.

I think the only book that made me cry was the ending for "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro

The only book I can really remember crying over was the last book of the Realm of the Elderlings. I came very close to ugly crying over that one.

The ending of Flowers for Algernon hit me hard :'(

Just got myself a copy of Where the Red Fern Grows because I'm a masochist clearly. Also that red wedding scene in the Clash of Swords.. good lord!! I finished that scene on my way home from work and when I walked out of the train it was raining, I didn't even bother with an umbrella walking home so that nobody could tell I was in tears, crying my eyes out.

Flowers for Algernon and One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest are real tearjerkers also Charles Dickens Tale of the Haunted Man

I almost cried last night when Tactus begs forgiveness of Darrow, before Lorn kills him 🙄. It was so sad. He made mistakes and realized it, wanting to go back in time and stay with Darrow and what he viewed as his real family. But his biological family and upbringing molded him into an opportunist. It hit even harder when you realize later that he in fact did not sell the violin that Darrow gifted him. He was practicing, to play a song for Darrow. Probably the most I felt so far in the series, besides for Eos death in the beginning. So far at least

Your background shelves looks like a BAM store man haha thanks for the great video!

I'm with you on Where the Red Fern Grows. Also, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Dobby), Duma Key, Bag of Bones, and what happens to main characters in The Dark Tower. There are others, but I can't think of them right now.

I cried once in Wheel of time and because it a relatively rare thing, it was very memorable for me. It was the moment where Rand meets his father again after becoming zen Rand, full of regret and shame. It was very poignant and I'll never forget it.

You are of course 100% accurate when you talk about Pet Semetary my brain hurt from all the crying when I re-read it as a father of two year old. Fiction rarely makes me cry but non-fiction especially history of War and stories about children living and suffering in war-time, it breaks me.

Pet Sematary got me too. I still think about that book often. Another event book that bad me cry FOUR times is A Little Life by Hanya Yanagahara.

A lot of books/series have their tear-jerker moments but because you're there with the reading right now, I will tell you which book makes me cry THE MOST. The end of Deadhouse Gates. Even the Hood damned epilogue. I get choked up just thinking about it. I usually listen to the audiobook for that entire arc because the narrator is amazing. And somehow, I am always walking or on a bus or somewhere public where I have to cry quietly when I actually want to bawl my eyes out.

About the ending of 11.22.63 and not thinking King had it in him. In this case, maybe he hadn't. I'm not sure, but I think i remember an interview where King said that he had a different ending in mind, but after reading an early draft, one of his sons suggested another ending, and that's what's in the book.

One of the biggest for me was Merry and Pippin on the battlefield in Return of the King.... trying to be incredibly vague but, "the eagles are coming"

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I’m probably never going to reread it (it’s way too much for my heart to handle), but it was absolutely masterful. And incomparably sad.

Mine is DT4 Wizard and Glass. You know it's coming. But it's still so sad. I was about the same age as Roland was in the book. Absolutely gut wrenching.

A book that made me cry so hard was the dead poet society 😭 The ending killed me

Love the T-shirt!

I the certain shallan chapter at the end of RoW I had tears in eyes. Loved that moment

A few books over the years have made me tear up for sure but when I read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak in elementary school I actually sobbed😭

Someone brilliant (and absolutely savage) suggested that I go outside my usual wheelhouse and read Flowers for Algernon. That book will absolutely break you no matter how macho and tough you may consider yourself.

I don't recall the Harry Potter books making me cry, but I do recall sitting in the theater for Prisoner of Azkaban and there's a scene where Albus is trying to comfort him about the loss of Sirius when he says this: "But know this; the ones that love us never really leave us." and I just lost it. I had recently lost a family member and apparently I was saving it all for that moment in time. As for fantasy books that made me cry, the end of N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy had me tearing up unexpectedly. It was just the culmination of so much emotion. Also, same for Lord of the Rings. There's just this sense of profound loss. I don't care that the journey is over, I want to stay with these characters forever. I want to watch the hobbits all get old and fat and happy. I'm not willing to admit it's over. Maybe that's why I have such a hard time finishing series. Hummmmm...

Where the Red Fern Grows is . . . yeah. I was getting misty when you started talking about it, because I started thinking about it. Charlotte's Web is another one. Animal books, are heart wrenching. Yes the end of Harry Potter was emotional because I knew this was it. The end of LOTR, gets you every time. The end of Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz, that is a sad, emotional ending.

The end of The Final Empire when Vin is reading the letter from Kelsier. I still tear up.

Most recently? The new Five Nights At Freddy's book. Went in expecting yet another killer robot/horror set of stories, but one of the stories (The Real Jake if you're curious) hit me hard as a parent, and I was just damned near bawling by the end of that story. Even if you aren't interested in the series (I get it, it's kinda corny at this point), I highly recommend checking that one story out.

I feel like I'm the only one to say this but the ending of Mistborn wrecked me.

I havent read ASOIAF but when I saw the Red Wedding episode I called in sick to work the following day because I just couldnt function. One of the best scenes in television history especially for those like myself who had NO CLUE it was coming. Man, I wish I had read the series before watching it.

All I could think of through your video was Where the Red Fern Grows. I remember laying in bed finishing that book and bawling. I bought it again as an adult, and have read it and listened to the audio book multiple times crying every time. Plus watched the movie multiple times. Why do I torture myself? LOL By far one of my favorite books though.