Books That Made Me Cry

I’m not someone who cries easily at books – it takes a lot for me to shed a tear – so here are some books that had me very much in my feels.

A lot of these are the second or third books in series – I think this makes sense, as typically the longer the series, the more time we readers spend with the characters and the more attached we get. Hence, when something bad happens to them, it does tend to affect us more, as we’ve grown with these characters. But there are some standalones; the majority are fantasy, as per you’d expect from this blog, but we have one contemporary as well that I couldn’t not include.

Let’s start with the big one, shall we?

• Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices #3)

Historical / Steampunk fantasy

“Life is a book, and there are a thousand pages I have not read. I would read them together with you, as many as I can, before I die.”

I can’t count the amount of times I cried at this book (and I feel like I NEVER cry at books, despite being a hardcore bookworm). I also won’t detail all the times I cried because that would be a really long, spoiler-ridden review… I will say, that for the last 70 or so pages, I was balling my eyes out, and for about an hour after finishing, I lay curled up on the sofa, sobbing. Even now, the next day, I can’t think about that ending without wanting to lock myself in a darkened room and cry. Never has a book affected me so much. Never have I felt so strongly about a group of characters in all my life. It wasn’t necessarily happy/sad tears, I think I just had such a wealth of emotions upon finishing the trilogy (it is worth mentioning that I cried all too frequently at Clockwork Angel and Clockwork Prince too).

I love everything about this book so much. The plot is so strong, fast-paced, action-packed and addictive, but that’s not the main strength of the book. The strength is the characters. The cast of side characters are all incredibly (I especially loved Charlotte and Henry). And Will, Tessa and Jem – *sigh*. I HATE love triangles normally, but this… This is no mundane love triangle (get it?). All the characters love so fiercely and passionately, with everything they have and most importantly, they all just want each other to be happy.

‘He was Will, in all his perfect imperfection; Will, whose heart was as easy to break as it was carefully guarded; Will, who loved not wisely, but entirely and with everything he had.’

(Just typing that out I started crying again. I’m an emotional wreck)

Everything about this book is perfect and I cannot fangirl over it enough. I am definitely Team Will (I love you Will Herondale), but I also love Jem so much. Tessa is such a brilliant protagonist, not cliche and not your typical main character, as we find all too often in other YA works. (I’m also pretty convinced she’s just me in book form and Victorian).

If I was a stronger person, I would’ve reached straight for Clockwork Angel and started the series all over again, but I truly don’t have the emotional strength for that. I truly couldn’t recommend enough. Books like this just remind me why I love reading so much – it has the capacity to make you feel so much (this book should come with a health warning – that epilogue will break you). This trilogy makes you feel EVERYTHING. It deserves the world.

• Alchemised by SenLinYu

Dark fantasy

‘You’re like a rose in a graveyard.’

When Alchemised earlier this year, it was a bit like marmite in the book community – people either seemed to love it or hate it. As you can tell by its presence on this list, I’m firmly in the former camp. For those not in the know, Alchemised is the traditionally published version of a dramione (ship name of Draco and Hermione from HP) fan fiction called Manacled. When my friends saw my wrap-up over on Instagram, I got a few messages being like ‘who would have predicted that a Harry Potter fan fiction would be one of your top books of 2025?’ And honestly, I feel the same! So if you’re also a sceptic, let me convince you…

Disclaimer: I was not a dramione fan, and hadn’t even read Manacled before picking up Alchemised. You definitely don’t have to read the original iteration to enjoy this story. In fact, I recommend not to! That way everything is brand new.

Alchemised is a dark fantasy that delves into the terrible nature of war. Our main character, Helena, was a healer with the resistance, the Order of the Eternal Flame. When the Order falls and she finds herself in the hands of the corrupt new government, she experiences unimaginable horrors before falling into the hands of Kaine Ferron, the High Reeve – mass murderer, Undying and most feared member of the new government. 

The magic system is incredibly complex and intense and took me a while to get to grips with, but once I had, it just added to the intricacy and development of the world that SenLinYu has created. But what truly made this book exceptional was the characterisation. If you’re looking for loveable characters that you can root for, you’re in the wrong place. Ferron is indubitably a monster and Helena herself commits some truly heinous acts throughout the book. 

Something I loved about Alchemised was how neither side was depicted as definitively ‘good’ or ‘evil’. Nothing was black and white. Of course, you as the reader support the Order, who are fighting against oppression and the use of necromancy but even they commit war crimes in the name of victory. Additionally, the way Helena is treated by the Order is horrific, and shows how they exploited their own side, and how nobody in war is wholly innocent. I truly could dissect this novel for days and days. 

Do check trigger warnings, as this is a dark fantasy and features heavy themes. But if you’re looking for something that you can truly sink your teeth into (at just over 1000 pages, this book is a hefty one), something that prompts endless questions and theories, and of course, something that will make you SOB… boy do I have the perfect book for you. 

No book this year affected me quite like Alchemised did. I felt like I was grieving in the days after finishing and sent me into the book hangover to end all book hangovers. Any book that makes you feel the depth of emotion I did is a damn good book in my opinion. Hence why it makes this list!

• Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang

Dark academia / Fantasy

‘Truth over delusion. Growth over comfort. God over all.’

Sciona Freynan has spent twenty years fuelled by a desire to do the impossible: to become the first female highmage. When she finally claws her way to the top, she is greeted by apathy and contempt by her fellow highmages – all deeply chauvinist men. To taunt her, she is assigned a janitor as a lab assistant – the cynical Thomil. Working with Thomil opens Sciona’s eyes to the reality of their society and when her work itself turns up a devastating truth, Sciona has to reckon with everything she had ever believed turning overnight into a falsehood. 

There is one particular scene that sticks in my memory from this book (if you’ve read it, I can almost guarantee you know what I’m talking about). It was written so incredibly well by M.L. Wang, so evocative and poignant, and brought a tear to my eye (I lie, it brought many, many tears). You feel Sciona’s pain so acutely it’s almost as if it’s your own, which is such a skill to have as a writer. 

This is everything that I usually expect from an RF Kuang novel (and am consistently disappointed when I fail to find it). It had the dark academia setting, an exclusive university in an industrial city, the fiercely ambitious (and socially awkward) female main character, and the deeper, insidious message that you can’t help but absorb as you read. If you enjoyed Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo or Vicious by V.E. Schwab, you’ll love this. Just trust me. 

The Sword of Kaigen is at the top of my priority TBR for 2026 after this masterpiece! I have such faith in M.L. Wang, even after this one book, that I just know I’m going to absolutely adore it.

• Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Literary fiction / Contemporary

‘It’s only a game. It only resolves tiny, insignificant things. Such as who gets validation. Who gets listened to. It allocates power and draws boundaries and turns some people into stars and others into spectators. That’s all.’What I had to say I picked Beartown up not expecting the masterpiece it is, wary of a novel centering around a sport I have no interest or knowledge of. How wrong I was. From its very first line I was enthralled and this is a new all-time favourite. 

Beartown follows a town in remote Sweden. Employment is waning, the weather is inhospitable and the morale is low. But Beartown can see a way out, a way to put their town on the map, and it’s through ice hockey. But when the star of the Junior Team commits a violent crime, everything the town has worked so hard for is thrown into turmoil. It quickly becomes a question of how far Beartown are willing to go to, what they are willing to sacrifice to win. 

As Backman dissects this complex, his writing is exquisite; I would include quotes but I’d be tempted to highlight the whole novel. This novel is truly one to savour. In just 450 pages, Backman tackles such a vast amount of issues that dominate every society, not just Beartown’s. Misogyny, toxic masculinity, homophobia, racism were all addressed in such sensitive and moving ways. 

My favourite thing about this book was its characters. I loved them, I hated them, sometimes both at the same time. I would die for Benjamin Ovich. The residents of Beartown each evoked such strong emotions within me, testament to Backman’s superb writing. I cried. I laughed. I felt euphoric joy and gut-wrenching pain. It was so full of misery and anger, and yet brimming with hope. Backman truly is a master at his craft and I will be reading the entirety of his backlist after this.

I couldn’t recommend highly enough and truly believe this is the sort of book everyone should read in their lifetime, regardless of gender, age, and whether you’re a sports fan or the opposite. It’s a book I’ve recommended to everyone in my life, and one I think humanity would benefit from us reading, as well as being just a damn good story.

• Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows #2)

YA fantasy

“Crows remember human faces. They remember the people who feed them, who are kind to them. And the people who wrong them too. They don’t forget. They tell each other who to look after and who to watch out for.”

Kaz Brekker and his crew of deadly outcasts have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn’t think they’d survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they’re right back to fighting for their lives. Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz’s cunning and test the team’s fragile loyalties.

Nobody who knows me will be at all surprised to see Crooked Kingdom, another source of teenage heartbreak, worm its way into this list. Second to Clockwork Princess, this is definitely the hardest I’ve sobbed at a book. I fell so hard for the Crows in Six of Crows, and Crooked Kingdom really ups the stakes and the angst. A gang of misfits and criminals banding together to pull off a daring heist is my favourite trope of all time, and it all began here. (Another book in this list actually has the same premise, so it’s evidently something I fall for every time).

As with Clockwork Princess, perhaps there’s an element of nostalgia here, but I really do think they’re just THAT good. Nobody’s doing it like YA fantasy authors in the mid-2010s. I don’t want to spoil too much, even thought it’s been over a decade, because it would do this book a disservice to even hint at anything plot-wise, but Crooked Kingdom takes up where Six of Crows left off, with the Crows in a perilous situation (when are they not?).

• The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn #3)

Epic fantasy

“Faith means that it doesn’t matter what happens. You can trust that somebody is watching. Trust that somebody will make it all right.”

The Mistborn trilogy is one of my all time favourite fantasies. I read it a little over two years ago, and in all frankness, I still don’t quite know how to move on from this. I don’t think I have; I still think about the characters and the events of this book every day.

It’s true what they say about the Sanderlanche. The end of this book was insane – everything from the direction of the plot to the decisions our characters made. I was shook to my core, and even reminiscing now has me astounded once again at Sanderson’s absolute genius in wrapping everything up. Mistborn is That Girl of epic fantasy. Speaking of that ending, it did indeed make me sob. Leaving characters we’d been rooting for for thousands of pages, especially when we’d seen them grow so much throughout the course of the three epic books, is always going to be sad. Sanderson does a masterful job of sticking the ending, so a general sense of mourning that the series had to come to an end persists – I truly would read about Vin for ever and ever. There’s also the fact that the ending is very sad, and that’s all I’ll say on that matter.

Damn, writing this is really making me crave a reread. Is it too soon to have my heart broken again?

• Our Infinite Fates by Laura Steven

YA fantasy romance

‘They’ve loved each other in a thousand lifetimes. They’ve killed each other in every one.’

Two soulmates, destined to find each other in every lifetime. Two immortals, doomed to love one another and kill one another over and over. 

I had the immense privilege (and excruciating torture) of reading this as an ARC. Privilege because this was quite frankly a masterpiece, and torture because I had to wait until February for everyone else to read and bask in Steven’s heartbreaking writing. 

Evelyn and Arden’s relationship transcends time, gender, social norms, and it is written so beautifully. It toes the line perfectly between awesomely fantastical and heartbreakingly real. Not only is the writing exquisite and the characters deep, but the plot is also insane. A central mystery runs through the entire narrative, a thread woven throughout – one that you can probably guess if you read the synopsis. Why? Why are they doomed to love and kill each other. The tension of this had my eyes GLUED to the screen of my Kindle long into the night. 

At the heart of it though, it’s an achingly beautiful love story, spanning millennia. Steven writes little vignettes of Evelyn and Arden’s encounters in different periods in history. From El Salvador in the 2000s to the ancient Siberian wilderness, from the trenches of WW1 to the Ottoman Empire in 1472, Steven doesn’t just gravitate toward the heavily popularised ages. 

If you’re a fan of This Is How You Lose the Time War or The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, please try this! (P.S. Did I mention it was inspired by Taylor Swift’s exile? If that doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will.)

• The Everlasting by Alix E Harrow

Historical fantasy romance

‘If I serve anything, let it be that. If I die for anything, let it be you.’

A lady knight and a bespectacled scholar. 

When a historical scholar unearths an ancient book about the legend of Sir Una Everlasting, whose sainthood built a nation, he steps into a time loop that spans millennia. (Think Joan of Arc meets Arthurian knights). 

Owen Mallory has been fascinated by Una since he was a boy. Her story follows him from the yew tree in his childhood home to a bloody war to academia. There are many conflicting accounts of Una’s life, none firsthand and each confounding the other. Was she an invincible knight, or a pawn in a monarch’s games? A figment of legend or merely a mortal woman?

There were several lines that I reread over and again, photographing them to remember them. It was unexpectedly humorous in places. There were so many sardonic, dry one-liners and incredibly creative similes and metaphors – a personal favourite of mine was ‘he looked like an escapee from a painting of a fox hunt’. 

The writing was so poetic. Only a few pages in, my jaw had dropped and I immediately knew this was going to be unlike anything I had ever read. An epic tale of life and everything life entails; love, grief, ambition, power, parenthood and history. 

If you were a fan of Our Infinite Fates (mentioned earlier in this list), and especially the reincarnation aspect of that story, you will LOVE this. I have already ordered everything in Alix E. Harrow’s backlist – that’s how much I loved this. 

Books are such a vessel for human emotion, and there is nothing more human than a story moving you to tears (or really any other emotion). Some of these hold such fond memories for me – an odd thing to say, when I’m talking about bawling my eyes out. But remembering how wrapped up I felt at thirteen at the events of Clockwork Princess, how books like that and Crooked Kingdom fed my love of reading and stories, is truly special. Thinking about how that love of reading has continued and thrived, a large thread of my life, into me creating this blog. Okay, I’ll wrap this up before it gets too soppy, but what I want to say is that what seems like a trivial hobby has brought me so much joy over the years – something I probably don’t need to tell you, as the likelihood is that if you’re reading this blog, you’re also a huge bookworm.

On that note, let me know in the comments which books have made you cry – or any other medium, really. I’m always on the lookout for the next devastating fantasy that will leave me staring at the wall and not knowing what to do with myself, or the next contemporary that will break my heart (I’m looking at you Fredrik Backman…).