What book(s) made you cry? [View all]

I just read a column on this and neither of mine was mentioned so here they are. One is a YA by Tiffany D. Jackson entitled Monday's Not Coming. It has stuck with me hard and I may have to go back and read it again. It concerns two young teen girls who have been best friends forever. They're separated every summer when Claudia goes south to visit her grandmother, but they write letters. This particular summer, she doesn't get any back from her friend Monday, and when school starts, Monday doesn't show up. When she goes looking for her, she's stonewalled at every turn by Monday's mother and the authorities. The climax of the book is particularly horrifying and what happens after is even worse. Not exactly for the faint of heart. I cried my eyes out for both girls and the book has stuck with me since.

The other is probably little-known in this country and might be classified as a romance, but I'm not so sure--Song of Songs, by Beverley Hughesdon. I first discovered it years ago in our library in Tennessee and borrowed it several times. Then it disappeared. I finally bought my own copy through a used bookseller on Amazon. It concerns the gently brought up daughter of British nobility who comes of age just before WWI. She falls in love with an officer and becomes engaged just before the war. When war breaks out, she volunteers as a nurse. Much of the book is taken up with her horrific experiences there, and after the war, the transition of her and the survivors (her fiancé and one of her adored twin brothers are not among them), and her subsequent hasty marriage to a man many consider "beneath" her. For me, it bore some strong parallels to the TV show "China Beach", which I loved even though many episodes brought me to tears because I lost someone precious to me and other friends in Vietnam.

What are your tear-bringers?