It honestly doesn't' take much to make me cry. I grow very attached to characters very quickly, so as soon as anyone of any importance die in a book I'm usually reduced to tears. I'm talking about the good guys and girls obviously, I'm not too bothered if a villian get their comeuppance.

Books that made me cry include The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I felt like I really knew Lily Melissa Owens while reading this book and when the truth about what happened when her mother died was revealed I was blubbering away.

Books with animals also have a way of getting me all emotional, but the one that made me break down and cry the most was The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. It is written in such a beautiful way that there is no way of not getting swept up in all the emotions.

There is one author who is able to consistently make my cry and that is Khaled Hosseini. His book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, which follows on The Kite Runner, is just one of the saddest things that I have ever read. I kept going on through all the tears in the hopes of a somewhat happy ending, but the book just left me emotionally devastated. It is a really, really good book, but I had to step back and take a break after reading it because it affected me so much.

Quite a few books have made me cry and most of them were not even sad at all. Instead, the tears stemmed from the fact that they were the last book in a series that I have grown so attached to that the characters felt like they were friends and family. I probably spend too much time reading, but it takes me a while to "get over" the end of a series and there have been times in the past where I was down in the dumps for days after being forced to say goodbye to a couple of favorites. Some people are able to binge read books like they binge watch television shows, but for me it has always been more personal and letting go has always been a little harder. If it is just one standalone novel, then I'm still fine, but as soon as it becomes a trilogy or more and characters become more fleshed out, I know that I'm in for some emotional turmoil when it all inevitably ends. So far the biggest "winners" when it came to making me cry like a baby has been The Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins, the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling, the Infernal Devices books by Cassandra Clare and a couple of others. As for actual "sad" standalone books, I would have to say that A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, The boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne and Room by Emma Donoghue affected me the deepest.

Good to see a recommendation here for One Hundred Years of Solitude. I've put off reading this book for so long because a lot of reviews I've seen complained about it being confusing and difficult to read. One of the biggest complaints that I have seen is that many of the characters have the same name, which is honestly not something that bothered me in the least. All you have to do is pay attention and you'll have no trouble following the story at all. You don't even have to follow all of the symbolical stuff that is going on the enjoy the book. I would even go as far as saying that people should read the book the first time while enjoying the story and then they can go back and read it again later to discover all the deeper meanings that they may have missed.

I sobbed when I read the finally book in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. Under normal circumstances the scene that had me openly weeping in a crowded bus would not have been that sad, but the fact that the author himself was dying and knowing that I was reading his final book ever just drove me to tears. Whether intended or not, it felt like the way in which this character faced death (no spoilers about who or how) echod the way in which Terry Pratchett dealt with his own battle with Alzheimer's disease. I have all 41 of his books in my collection and practically grew up with his stories, so the realization that The Shepherd's Crown would be the last one ever was just the saddest thing ever for me.

My Sister's Keeper, Angela's Ashes, The Fault in Our Stars, The Lovely Bones, The Shack, these are all the usual answers I get when I ask people this exact same question. However, I have read all of them and many others and not one of them have ever managed to make me shed a tear. I'll concede that I did feel a little melancholic after reading a few of the books, but I never got to experience "ugly crying" or whatever it is that most other readers describe. I even tried reading the Fred Gipson classic, Old Yeller, but the tears just would not come. Then my sister recommended the Harry Potter books to me, which I have been avoiding because as far as I was concerned they were aimed at children and not teenagers. By the time that I reached Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I didn't want the series to end, but end it did and I finally found myself crying until it felt like my chest hurt. I'm not saying my experience will be the same for everyone, but sometimes it is the most unexpected tales that can touch us the deepest I guess.