The Most Heartbreaking Novels Ever Written
Voting Rules
Vote up any good, very sad tearjerker books that make you cry.
This list is about the most heartbreaking novels ever written; it answers the question, “What are the saddest books of all time?” If you’ve ever read one of these tear-jerkers, you know that these sad stories will tug on your heart strings in a way that no other novel can. The best sad stories like this will warm even the coldest of hearts! We’ve all felt the pain of loss, the agony of heartbreak and the joy of falling in love: we all relate to sad stories. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter provides us with a sense of empathy for an underdog, a woman that is forced to wear her sins on her sleeve for the world to see. Natalie Babbit’s Tuck Everlasting pulls on that secret place deep down in each of us that longs for love to never end, but teaches us that what seems like a blessing to us now may be a curse in the future. Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha shows us how life can be in another part of the world, moving us from our self-centered perspectives about life into a compassion for those less fortunate. These stories mold us into who we are and show us where we came from. Most importantly, these novels teach us that we’re not as different as we may think.
Ranked by
- 1John Steinbeck
- First Published: 1937
- Subjects: California, Drama
- Genres (Book): Novella
- Original Language: English Language
Of Mice and Men is a novella written by Nobel Prize–winning author John Steinbeck. Published in 1937, it tells the story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers, who ...more - 2Markus Zusak
- First Published: 2006-03
- Subjects: Storytelling, Death, History, Germany
- Genres (Book): Historical fiction, Fiction, Young adult literature, Novel
- Original Language: English Language, German Language
The Book Thief is a novel by Australian author Markus Zusak. First published in 2005, the book has won numerous awards and was listed on The New York Times Best Seller list for over 230 weeks. - 3Wilson Rawls
- First Published: 1961
- Subjects: Literature, Linguistics, Adolescence, Classics, Adventure
- Genres (Book): Children's literature, Fiction
- Original Language: English Language
Where the Red Fern Grows is a 1961 children's novel by Wilson Rawls about a boy who buys and trains two Redbone Coonhound hunting dogs. - 4Daniel Keyes
- First Published: 1959
- Subjects: Literary, American science fiction, Mental retardation, Young adult, Surgery
- Genres (Book): Speculative fiction, Children's literature, Fiction, Novel, Science Fiction
- Original Language: English Language
Flowers for Algernon is a science fiction short story and subsequent novel written by Daniel Keyes. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of ...more - 5Fred Gipson
- First Published: 1956
- Subjects: Texas, Literature, Classics, Animal, Literary criticism
- Genres (Book): Children's literature, Fiction
Old Yeller is a 1956 children's novel written by Fred Gipson and illustrated by Carl Burger, which received a retroactive Newbery Honor in 1969. The title is taken from the name of the yellow dog who ...more - 6Harper Lee
- First Published: 1960-07-11
- Subjects: Monarch, Literary, Literature, Classics, Drama
- Genres (Book): Fiction
- Original Language: English Language
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was immediately successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature. The plot and ...more
