Top Ten Tuesday #30

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish 

This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic: Top 10 Books That Will Make You Cry. I can't guarantee that there's 10 books in my list, as it takes quite a bit to make me cry. But here are my picks:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

It's got a very bittersweet ending and just has a lot of sad and beautiful moments. But the end . . . oh my gosh, the end.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

Whereas The Book Thief at least ends with some hope, this just ends on bitter. There is no sweet. My sister cries even less during books than me, and this got her teary eyed.

The Winter Pony by Iain Lawrence

This is a story about Sir Scott's failed expedition to the Arctic - told from a pony's point of view. Spoiler: none of Scott's ponies survived the trip. I really liked this book, but it's also really, really depressing.

The House of Hades by Rick Riordan

This challenge didn't say that the book had to make you cry in a good way. Don't get me wrong - I liked this book. And I also hated it, for reasons I cannot divulge without giving away spoilers. I had good-crying moments and bad-crying moments. There was a lot of crying.

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

This isn't a major tear-jerker, but it did have me red-eyed a couple of times. It's just such a brutal topic, the systematic destruction of the Baltic nations at the hands of Stalin.

Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

A true story about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, this a brutal and extremely emotional read. Mostly brutal. Very interesting, but brutal. I had definitely had tissues on hand.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Another WWII novel! I really, really liked the end, but it was also sad. Another bittersweet read; not as depressing as The Book Thief or The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. But still, it gets the emotions going.

In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters

This is more of a supernatural mystery, and I didn't cry that much during the majority of it. But the Author's descriptions of the Spanish flu and the wounded soldiers coming back from WWI were very grim, and the ending was very serious and very sad.

Stay Where You Are & Then Leave by John Boyne

Another WWI novel, where the descriptions of shellshocked soldiers really impacted me emotionally. Maybe I was just in an emotional state when I read this. The majority of the book isn't cry-worthy, and the ending is not nearly as depressing as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. But the shellshock - it was hard to read about.