Books that make you cry - do you like them?

I do love books that make me cry, but I have to point out that I am much more likely to cry at a happy ending than a sad one. There's something about triumphing over adversity that just turns on a tap for me. And I like it because it gives me an excuse to express all my very British repressed emotions.

First, I have to point out that Titanic, etc., books that break your heart in the end, are NOT romances, they're love stories.

Love stories end tragically. Romances end happily. The HEA (or happily right NOW) is what defines a romance.

So if you don't like to have your heart broken in the end, stick with romances.

I don't mind a romance that makes me cry on the way to the end. And mostly I prefer books where the characters I've grown attached to are alive at the end.

But I suppose there's something to be said, once in a while, for a book that makes you bawl like a baby at the end. I used to read Robin Hood to my students, and it was always a demonstration in the power of a book, because when I'd get to the part at the end about Robin dying in Little John's arms, I'd be all choked up, and my voice would be breaking, and some of the kids would be tearing over, along with ME, and I'd close the book, and someone would usually say...wow.

There was power in that moment, power the kids could feel.

That said, in general, I prefer my uplifting endings. It's how I'm programed. <G>

Susan G.

A book which can make me cry despite my big grumpy cynicism and my fear of being terminally uncool is a damn good book.

Crying over something touching is fine, but I go out of my way to avoid stories that end sadly.

As I wrote my second book, I'd send the completed chapters to my Dad and a friend of mine. It seems that, in a few places, I made them both cry.

I don't mind books that make me cry, it means that the characters have engaged me to the extent that I care what happens to them.

Peh. I'm apparently one of those weird people who don't consider crying entertaining. Don't like dramas on television or in movies or in books. Give me shoot-em-up action, intense life and death or comedy every time (books or movies.)

I don't mind books that make me cry but I hate feeling manipulated.

I haven't read The Notebook but I loathed the movie. It was like an annoying puppy that kept jumping up an down begging, "love me! love me!" whilst holding a Hallmark card signed with Xs and Os in its mouth.

I don't mind crying about a book--then I know that I actually care about the characters and their story.

Then again I'm a rather emotional person to begin with. Anyway, I like a good tragic story now and then, but I like my happy endings better.