Let us know in the comments which ones you agree with, or perhaps you can enlighten us on ones that we have missed!
Olivia Grey
Published in 2004 by Harper Collins, Cecelia Ahern's debut novel P.S. I love You became an international best-seller and one of the best-selling novels of the year. After receiving critical acclaim, the story was developed into a film in 2007, with actors Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler playing the title roles of Holly and Gerry respectively. The film, despite it's Americanization of the originally Irish setting Cecelia wrote in the book, also became loved by romantics worldwide. With this success, Hilary Swank won the award for Best International Actress at the 2008 People's Choice Irish Film and Television Awards for her portrayal of Holly.
In P.S. I Love You, Ahern addresses the terribly painful notion of losing your partner at an incredibly young age with grace and sincerity through her writing and her multidimensional characters. Providing a couple who loved each other unconditionally, describing them as not being able to stay mad at one another, Ahern is able to continue that relationship on even after Gerry's death. After losing him, Holly finds herself alone and unsure for the first time in years. With her 30th birthday just around the corner, she sees no way out of the black hole she is in without her other half. But Gerry had other plans, he was determined that Holly was not going to be alone.
By leaving her a bundle of notes, he comes back to her bit by bit. A story of true love and everlasting friendship, P.S. I Love You teaches you that life does go on, even after the unthinkable happens. As the year unfolds, Holly finds herself on a journey filled with every emotion imaginable, and Gerry is always there to help her along the way. Couple this with Holly's truly wonderfully humorous friends and lovable family, this book will take the reader through the taboo subject of losing your true love and the unimaginable process of trying to put your life back on track piece by piece.
Although some may deem the story slightly far-fetched whereas others may feel comforted by a story of love that surpasses the tragedy of death, there is no doubting that Cecelia Ahern's writing in this debut work is exceptional. An easy and enjoyable read, which has the reader full of emotion from the first page to the last. With her other books, such as Where Rainbows End and If You Could See Me. Now, Ahern has maintained her ability to wow the reader with her imaginative stories and believable characters, so if you enjoy P.S. I Love You you will definitely want to buy another Ahern books straight after finishing it.
A novel that will have the reader fully understanding Holly's pain, laughing along with her, and discovering new dimensions about themselves as Holly does, P.S. I Love You is amongst the greatest love stories on the bookshelf and is a famous tear-jerker in its own right, not only due to the success of the film which followed it.
Gemma Williams
My input for the tear jerkers is a bit of an odd one. If you’ve read the books, you’ll understand and agree with me; if not you’ll probably think I’m insane and don’t understand what a tear jerker is.
My favourite tear jerker to date isn’t exactly conventional, but it’s The Clockwork Princess, by Cassandra Clare. It’s the final book in her Infernal Devices series, the prequel to The Mortal Instruments.
This is a tear jerker mostly because of the ending. Everything is perfectly wrapped up and tied up with a beautiful bow to secure it. Regardless of what you think through the series, about certain couples, characters or plotline, you can’t possibly be disappointed by the end. This is the one time where I think an ending will suit everybody, and also have you reaching for those tissues.
It’s such a bitter sweet ending. Everyone wins, reader wise, and yet at the same time it is soul crushingly depressing, while being incredibly happy at the same time. I realise this makes no sense to those of you haven’t read it, but I can see those who have, nodding their heads, smiling along at these words, with a little sniffle escaping as they relive those glorious moments. It’s hard to know how to feel at the end except for satisfied, with those sweet tears running down your grinning cheeks; but then you feel guilty for smiling at the same time. It’s hard to know what to feel about this, but you will cry one way or the other.
It is an impressive and unexpected ending. Just keep those tissues nearby as you near the finale and get ready for the most confusing time of your life as you experience pretty much every emotion possible in the space of one chapter.
Laura W
As an avid reader, it was pretty much expected that I’d eventually come across a book that would make me cry. The first book that made me truly cry was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, as I am a huge fan of the series and this was the final book - everything was wrapped up, it was over. However, if I had to pick a book that, for me, is an absolute tear jerker, it would have to be War Horse.
The book revolves around a horse, Joey, who is sold by the father of his owner (who has drunk and gambled the mortgage money away), Albert, and becomes (hence the title) a war horse. The book deals with, in graphic detail, the trials and tribulations of Joey and his experiences during World War One.
War Horse is a tear jerker for me for several reasons. The first part that brought a tear to my eye was when Albert and Joey are separated - Albert’s father sells Joey to Captain Nicholls, as Ted (Albert’s father) has lost the mortgage money again and desperately needs to repay his debts. Albert pleads with Nicholls for Joey to be given back, thus definitely bringing a tear to my eye. Being an animal lover, reading in detail about the hardships that the horses had to go through bothered me - even though we all know that is what the animals had to go through. Towards the middle of the book, Albert enlists in the army and goes off to find Joey, leaving his family with no notice. I could never imagine leaving my family, but sometimes, we have to do what we have to do.
The death of each horse and how it was written, especially Topthorn (Joey’s war companion), quite upset me. To me, by the time Topthorn died, Joey had been separated from Albert, Captain Nicholls (who purchased Joey and had promised Albert that he’d take care of Joey) was killed in battle, and Joey had basically witnessed many of the kind humans had been killed or executed. Despite War Horse being considered a children’s book, it certainly doesn’t come across as being one. The ending of the story is beautiful, really, as Joey and Albert are reunited, as well as Albert and his family. The relationship between Albert and his father is repaired.
While War Horse ends well and happily, it is the beginning and middle content that really made me tear up the most. Never has a book made me truly cry, basically from beginning from end. While characters the reader cares about are lost, and relationships go through turmoil, Joey and Albert reunite, relationships are mended and the end brings a decent closure.
Charlotte Fraser
When thinking of books that have made me cry, there have been many. In fact, there is rarely a book that I read that has failed to make me at least tear-up. I would consider myself as a very emotional reader, and I tend to pick and read books that will make me bawl like a baby.
Choosing a book to put forward to this article was very easy. The book I have chosen is none other than John Green’s Debut novel (and masterpiece, in my opinion), Looking For Alaska.
As many of the Nerdfighters (John Green Fans) will know, his books are very emotional, and Looking For Alaska was no exception to this. This book was the first book that I read in 2014, and I was so engrossed with it, that I read it in about 12 hours.
Alaska is full of many happy moments as well as sad moments, and I found myself laughing and crying with happiness as well as crying with sadness. However, I was crying with sadness the majority of the time, and this was due to the huge plot twist directly in the centre of the story.
Without saying too much, a central character in the book leaves us, and when that moment hit, I felt betrayed, angry, emotional, inconsolable, and a little bit cheated, and in my experience, when an author can make you feel all of these emotions, you know that they have made it. I truly felt all of the emotions that the main character and the supporting characters were going through and felt like I was going through this experience with them. It was horribly bittersweet for the next half of the book. But honestly? I wouldn’t have had it play out any other way.
This novel really moved me, and had me crying for the majority of it. It moved me in ways that I don’t think a book has ever done before. The message and the themes in the novel were so raw and real, and (as a young reader) I had never truly read anything quite like Looking For Alaska before, and to tell you all the truth? I probably never will again.
John Green’s first novel really made a huge impact on me and reduced me to a sobbing mess, but I wouldn’t change a thing. If you havent picked up this book, I advise you to give it a read, you will cry, you will laugh, but you will not regret it!
Hayley Charlesworth
When I thought of tear-jerking books, I discovered that very few have actually jerked tears from me. There’s the obvious The Fault in Our Stars, or the Regeneration Trilogy which I have written about for this site previously. The ones that have stayed with me most are in fact not the ones that have made me cry, but those that are so devastating that I’ve been left feeling hollow inside. Very few have succeeded quite as well as Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.
Never Let Me Go is the story of a girl, Kathy H, and her fellow students at Hailsham Academy, Ruth and Tommy. While it would be remiss to give away the story, there’s a darkness to Hailsham, one that leads the children to be seen as less than human, less than worthy of a life. It is devastation upon devastation, as we read from Kathy’s perspective and see that yes, these children are human, they are capable of love and have true, honest feelings.
In one moment, Kathy and Tommy try to prove that they love each other, in the hope that it will prolong their lives a little while longer, and the fact that they have to justify their own existence is heartbreaking enough without the sucker-punch of an ending. Upon finishing Never Let Me Go, I felt not only overwhelmed for Kathy, Ruth and Tommy, but also horrified by my own humanity, because I couldn’t help but feel that the events of this book, were we living in a time that it was possible, would come to pass.
Agnieszka Ramian
First time matters the most, it paves the way to your heart through your most soft places. It imprints deep into your soul, growing the root for the fragile flower of sensitivity to bloom as you mature as a reader and as a person. I am not talking about sentimentality, trivial but touching love stories or moving events that appeal to us for numerous reasons and pull on our heartstrings.
It’s about something more instinctive, something that had been awoken through the pure experience of reading when we were much younger than this and the world was still a riddle to us and little explored or consumed.
Whether it’s a movie or a book I have this conditioned over many years reaction… human-animal relation and the plot focused around animals in general will always make me burst into tears. Especially because there is always some challenging and painful turn of events involved.
I remember having this kid book illustrated on every page with beautiful paintings. The UK readers surely must know that 1877 classic well enough. Said from the horse’s point of view, it presented his idyllic and carefree childhood in the countryside, being part from his mother to start the journey into adolescence, maturing, years of hard work, experiencing abuse and cruelty, making friends, losing friends, shifting from owner to owner, getting old.
As I kid I thought it was all about trials and tribulations, “poor little horse” was the wording. Only afterwards I learnt the purpose of the book was to acknowledge the fate of horses in England, who were having their tails cut short with a bone, forced to walk with their heads unnaturally held up straight and high, bitten with horsewhips and made to pull overloaded stagecoaches.
At the end of the book a heart-warming relief comes when old friends accidentally meet. Black Beauty’s final owner becomes a man that used to care for him as a teenage boy. My heart melts every time I go back to magic pages of this timeless story of one horse’s life journey.