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Reader Confession # 1

Reading-01f

 

I cry during books. True story. I cry while writing my own books. I cry while revising them. I cry while reading them. I cry during other people’s books–even the ones I’m reading for the seventy-billionth time. Books make me cry.

I really cry when characters get their feelings hurt or when they’re going through something horrible.  It’s hard being a crying reader. I can’t seem to stop it. Books make me feel exposed. Books allow me to experience everything–everything I might not have to/or get to go through in the real world.

Books are powerful.

I remember the first time I sobbed my brain out during a book was with Message in a Bottle. (You got me once, Sparks! Never again.) So, I don’t read sad books because everything I said above…is during books with happily-ever-afters. Sad books make me cry and leave me depressed and weepy for days because, unlike real life, you can’t resolve a sad book ending–it stays sad forever.

The first novella in How to Bring Your Love Life Back from the Dead makes me bawl so I’d only revise it at night. If you’ve read it, this is the part that triggers the waterworks and makes me sob and sob and sob:

 

Standing in front of the door, Daniel got his key out, but he stopped with it in the keyhole. “I need to tell you something, Lauren.”

She’d been at his side, joking about walking him to his door, but at this, her heart sank, and she took a few steps back. “You know, there are no conversations starting with those words that are good news.” No, this had happened before. She got all excited about a guy—to the point that he seemed almost superhuman in her eyes, and then he proved without a doubt, he was most definitely human. Never to this degree of course, but that should have told her the end would be a harder fall. 

 

That part makes me cry my eyes out. With happily-ever-after books, though, I also feel a stronger intensity of emotion when it’s resolved and things work out–when they overcome moments like the one above. I love happy books that make me cry–even though I hate crying.

What books make you cry or do you not cry while reading?

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10 Responses so far.

  1. Sarah says:

    I’m definitely a crying reader. Just like you. I can’t handle sad books either, with the exception of one trilogy.

  2. Melody May says:

    Yep, I’m a crier. If the heroine is toss aside because the hero is being an idiot, yes I’ll cry. One of the authors that tares me up is Brenda Joyce. I’ve read about four of her books and ended up with water works. So, yes I will cry.

  3. James Yee says:

    Okay I’m man enough to admit I do tear up and even cry a little in books. Is it my fault my imagination is a direct connection to my heart?

    Now the thing is, I don’t really read many love novels so you might be surprised that I can tear up during the Sci-Fi War novels that I read. Most notably the Honor Harrington Novels by David Weber. Hell if I re-read the ones where everyone thinks she’s dead and then finally works her way back I cry every bloody time.

    IN a manly way of course.

    • I see this as a sign that reading is just THAT powerful. If the emotions of the characters are that transferable…that’s good writing. Also, I’m sure it was very manly.

  4. I cry when reading and writing too. Characters dying will usually get me, but the worst is when one is so strong because they have to be for someone else, or to survive. I’ve been reading the Hunger Games trilogy and it makes me bawl, for both those reasons, haha.

  5. YES. I am such a book crier. I cry at the sad stuff, I cry at the touching happy stuff, I cry at the really satisfying stuff. I cry and I’m not ashamed of it! 🙂

    I mostly avoid sad books, but just because I prefer happy endings. There are very few sad endings I can deal with. My favorite quote that sums up my feelings on this is from L.M. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon trilogy: “I shall always end my books happily. I don’t care if it’s ‘true to life’ or not; it’s true to life as it should be, and that’s a better truth than the other.”

    Also, when a book is sad and really makes me cry, sometimes even when it does have a happy/hopeful ending, and that feeling carries over into my life I call it a book hangover.

    • That’s a fantastic quote.

      Even emotional books sometimes leave me feeling hungover like that even when they end happy. Books are amazing like that. We get in so deep that it affects our real life. I love and hate it. On the days when I’m dragging around and just want a hug and chocolate because of something that happened in a book, it feels pretty silly. Luckily, there are days when a book fixes things that it doesn’t actually touch–the bad days that a book makes bearable. I love books. I’m a total addict.

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