
The Most Recent Books That Made Me Cry in Public
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I come from a long line of cryers. The mom who cries at Lifetime movies and Hallmark commercials. The grandmother who cries at stories of adversity and at weddings.
Me? I’m just as sensitive. But I hate getting weepy around other people. I prefer to cry in private. In fact, there’s nothing more cathartic to me than wrapping myself in a blanket, popping in a movie my husband has no interest in watching, and having a good, cleansing cry.
But recently, I’ve been caught unawares by a string of heartbreaking books. I’ve found myself stuck in waiting rooms or in line at CVS, blindsided by a particularly upsetting scene, eyes tearing up despite myself.
If you’re looking for a book strong enough to break your heart, here are my recommendations. They’ve all broken through my barriers and caused me to break apart in public.
I didn’t expect to be hit so hard by a middle grade novel, but here we are. Woodson is a consistent maker of literary magic, and her latest is no different. The book focuses on six students who are placed in a special class together, and who are encouraged to spend every afternoon just talking to each other. Over the course of the year, these kids open up to each other about the most difficult and confounding parts of their lives, eventually becoming a safe harbor to each other.
Acevedo’s YA novel was like nothing else I’d ever read before, primarily because it was written as a journal filled with slam poetry. The protagonist is a young woman growing up in Harlem, trying to figure out her place in the world, and also struggling with a difficult home life. She reveals her deepest truths in her poetry notebook. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll let you figure out which scene made me gasp out loud and cry tears of sympathetic frustration. I am so stoked that Acevedo has another book on the way for 2019.
As soon as I read the first sentence of this book, I knew I had to own it. “The day my daughter was stillborn,” it starts, and I fell apart. This lyrical memoir is relentless in that it paints the picture of a troubled childhood followed by a troubled adulthood. It seems impossible that things will ever change for the author. I read the entire book in a state of mourning. But it is still that first page that makes me cry the most.