What are the most emotionally devastating books?
We found 974 book recommendations
What do readers say about A Little Life?
raw and brutal a life changer unflinching and intense over the top dramaA stunning "portrait of the enduring grace of friendship" (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century.
A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
A MAN BOOKER PRIZE ... More details on A Little Life
THE ELEVENTH APARTMENT had only one closet, but it did have a sliding glass door that opened onto a small balcony, from which he could see a man sitting across the way, outdoors in only a T-shirt and ...
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What do readers say about The Kite Runner?
armchair cultural tourism clear and poetic richness of cultural detail friendship and redemptionThe #1 New York Times bestselling novel that introduced Khaled Hosseini to millions of readers the world over.
"A vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people [of Afghanistan] have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violenc... More details on The Kite Runner
I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the fro...
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What do readers say about The Road?
propulsive and never meanders sparse and stark bleak and grim plain and poeticNATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
The searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive.
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. I... More details on The Road
When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone be...
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What do readers say about The Book Thief?
prose like poetry repressed freedom and true empathy a girl growing up in nazi germany a heartwarming taleIt's 1939 in Molching, Germany, and horror is everywhere. Nazi rule has divided the nation into those who are brutalized and those who are merely oppressed. Hunger, fear, and isolation reign. There are stories here, and who better to tell them than D... More details on The Book Thief
When the coughing stopped, there was nothing but the nothingness of life moving on with a shuffle, or a near-silent twitch. A suddenness found its way onto his lips then, which were a corroded brown c...
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What do readers say about The Song of Achilles?
breathtakingly beautiful authentic-sounding prose a retelling homericGreece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. Despite their differences, Achilles befriends the shamed prince, and as they grow into young men skilled in the... More details on The Song of Achilles
MY FATHER WAS A KING AND THE SON OF KINGS. HE was a short man, as most of us were, and built like a bull, all shoulders. He married my mother when she was fourteen and sworn by the priestess to be fru...
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What do readers say about A Thousand Splendid Suns?
beautiful, beautiful book sobering fiction cleanly written moving and bittersweetTHE RICHARD & JUDY NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER
'A suspenseful epic' Daily Telegraph
'A triumph' Financial Times
'Heartbreaking' Mail on Sunday... More details on A Thousand Splendid Suns
It happened on a Thursday. It must have, because Mariam remembered that she had been restless and preoccupied that day, the way she was only on Thursdays, the day when Jalil visited her at the kolba. ...
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What do readers say about The Nightingale?
heartbreaking and genuine tedious and immature very well plotted cliche bordering on melodramaticA #1 New York Times bestseller, Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year, and soon to be a major motion picture, this unforgettable novel of love and strength in the face of war has enthralled a generation.
With courage, grace, and powerful insight... More details on The Nightingale
If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are. Today’s young people want to know everything about everyone. The...
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What do readers say about Never Let Me Go?
interesting and enjoyable elegiac yet life-celebrating subtle and gentle light and entertaining styleFrom the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The Remains of the Day comes a devastating novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss.
As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an excl... More details on Never Let Me Go
My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. That sounds long enough, I know, but actually they want me to go on for another eight months, until the e...
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What do readers say about A Monster Calls?
stories tell the truth the monster was real grief, loss, and fear his worst nightmareThe monster in Conor’s backyard is not the one he’s been expecting — the one from the nightmare he’s had every night since his mother started her treatments. This monster is ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and... More details on A Monster Calls
He’d had a nightmare. Well, not a nightmare. The nightmare. The one he’d been having a lot lately. The one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming. The one with the hands slipping from his gr...
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What do readers say about Where the Red Fern Grows?
really well written historical fiction great book of companionship and friendship boys'bookWhen Billy's much-beloved prize dogs are killed in a tragic fight with a mountain lion, he finds solace in old legends.... More details on Where the Red Fern Grows
WHEN I LEFT MY OFFICE THAT BEAUTIFUL SPRING DAY, I HAD no idea what was in store for me. To begin with, everything was too perfect for anything unusual to happen. It was one of those days when a man f...
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