What is #SixforSunday?
#SixforSunday was a little blog feature Steph @ A little but a lot started in June 2017 for herself. It’s a weekly blog post where you get to share 6 books which fill a certain prompt. Originally, #SixforSunday was a post Steph did that she never thought she would stick with! It was her place to share 6 bookish things under a given prompt. (If you want to see her first post, you can check it out here!) She started it thinking it would fizzle out and that she would run out of things to use as prompts: She never imagined that it would transform itself into something OTHER PEOPLE JOIN IN WITH every week. For further details of the rules and links to the prompts for this meme, please visit Steph’s blog here. (Don’t forget to follow and tag Steph alittlebutalot on Twitter and Instagram – @eenalol – if you join in! Also, I made this little banner for this prompt, using graphics from her blog. I hope Steph likes it!)
This week – February 28, 2021 – the topic is:
Books that made you cry (or almost cry, if you’re not Steph or me)!
So, without any further ado…
Lots of books have made me cry, but some made me cry more than others. I hope it is okay for me to include a non-fiction book in this list, because it just heartbreaking as well as breathtakingly beautiful!
6 – “I am, I am, I am: Seventeen Brushes with Death” by Maggie O’Farrell. Although O’Farrell makes me cry with almost all of her novels (and I have read them all), this is one of those books that makes me tear up just thinking about it, probably because this is non-fiction (yeah, I know)!
5 – “The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt” by Andrea Bobotis. When a debut novel makes you cry, you just know you’re going to want to read more of that author’s work! It also breaks my heart that so few people know of this novel, because it is so special and so beautiful (it was my #1 favorite book of 2019, so…).
4 – “A Man Called Ove” by Fredrik Backman. Again, Backman has made me cry many times with his books, but this was his first and it just got to me. By the way, his non-fiction memoir also got me teary eyed, but nowhere near O’Farrell’s, and I did laugh more than cry with that one.
3 – “The Women of the Copper Country” by Mary Doria Russell. Twice Russell made me cry with this book. Once when she quotes a song that always makes me cry (Bread and Roses – which was used as an anthem for the women’s suffrage movement, and later for the Gay Pride movement in the UK), and again at the end of the book… but I won’t say why, because… spoilers!
2 – “A Prayer for Owen Meany” by John Irving. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – this is Irving’s masterpiece, and the ending just had me totally in tears. I’ve gone off him since (after reading several of his subsequent books), but I can honestly say that after reading this novel, I don’t need to read any more Irving books!
1 – “The Music Shop” by Rachel Joyce. Joyce is another author that can make me cry with all her books. But when I read the ending to this one, I was in bed, and I started crying so hard that I woke my poor husband up! (By the way, today is his birthday, so… sorry about that darling, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you!)
The Chocolate Lady's Book Review Blog 
I’m not a big cryer when it comes to books, but I will get misty-eyed. I haven’t read any of these yet but A Man Called Ove is waiting on my shelf!
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I hope you get to it soon… It really is a lovely story.
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I sobbed my eyes out at Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott when the most dashing character died. I was crying so hard at dinner my father asked my mother if they should call the doctor. “No, she was just reading,” she replied.
I think Mary Doria Russell would be more acclaimed if she always wrote the same book but, instead, all her books are quite different from each other. About 17 years ago, I won a “visit” from her for my book group. We were deflated when the publisher told us she was going to phone in (now we’d just send her a Zoom link) and when she told us that 9 pm was awfully late for her. But once we got her warmed up, we had a nice visit/discussion.
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This was my first Russell book, so I didn’t know. I prefer writers who don’t stick to the same thing all the time.
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I was impressed to see your mention of “The Women of the Copper Country!” Up until about 5 years ago, I lived in the Calumet/Laurium area of Michigan. Copper is still such an overarching feature there. That was a very interesting (and beautiful!) place to live.
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I usually cry at least once a week at books – but then I cry at adverts and certain pieces of music too! Happy Birthday to hour hubby.
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Thanks. It is my husband who cries at everything – more than me!
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The Maggie O’Farrell is next on my reading list. Will let you know if it makes me cry (very few books do, though).
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Happy birthday to the hubs! I will do this prompt 🥳
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The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger left me with big, gulping, heaving sobs. A Prayer for Owen Meanie, made me cry too. I’ve been wanting to read something else by John Irving since, but nothing has come my way since.
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I hate to say it but Irving’s writing went WAY down hill after Owen Meany. But I really liked his books before that – Hotel New Hampshire, Cider House Rules, The World According to Garp. Mind you, two of his books after Owen Meany – The Fourth Hand and A Widow for One Year – weren’t too bad.
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I’ve been looking out for Hotel New Hampshire and Cider House Rules so am glad to hear they are worthwhile. I think I read another John Irving book that didn’t suit my taste, but can’t recall the title.
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The Judith Kratt book is amazing.
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And SO overlooked!
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I remember crying at the end of A Place For Us…such a poignant story of family and how our best intentions sometimes are not enough. I love those good cries but I don’t appreciate authors that write overly emotional stories and manipulate you to ugly cry and I tend to avoid them.
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