TGIF: Emotional Reading

People, it is Friday, which means it is almost the weekend, which means I can lock myself in my room and read City of Fallen Angels without being interrupted by things like needing to sleep and work.

But before the glorious weekend begins, Ginger over at G Reads has asked:

Do you get emotional when you read? Which books had you in tears?


I quite literally laughed out loud when Ginger sent the question to me because I had JUST posted my review of Gayle Forman's Where She Went, (enter my giveaway!) which I sobbed through. So, my answer is YES I get super emotional when I read. Probably too emotional. For some reason, books really get to me.

Anyway, I've made a list of notable books that have made me cry. I hope it makes you, um, not cry.

First Book I Remember Crying Through:  Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne.

I think I was actually around six when I read this, and I vividly remember taking my book, tears streaming down my face, and running to my mom's room so I could tell her about it. She just listened to me babble on about Christopher Robin and Pooh Bear, and bemoan the awful process of growing up (I'm SUCH a Peter Pan. Even to this day.), and then she made me hot chocolate. She is the best mom EVER. 

First Book to Make Me Cry in Class: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
There I was, sitting in my AP Lit class as a sophomore in high school in the first week of school. We had a surprise substitute, which meant we had a "reading day," but I was already caught up with where we were supposed to read to, so I read on, and got to a very sad part where a character I liked mucho was killed, and thus, I cried. Uncontrollably. I am not one of those people who is an attractive crier. I get all splotchy and my eyes basically swell shut and my nose somehow gets bigger. It is BAD. I was mortified.

First Book to Make Me Cry on an Airplane: Stop in the Name of Pants by Louise Rennison
So, this explanation is a bit weird because the Georgia Nicolson series is HYSTERICAL. But, there's a place in this book where a character thinks that his/her beloved pet is going to die. I'm very much a pet person, and it really got to me. So there I sat on an airplane, willing myself to not cry. It didn't work. The flight attendant tried to comfort me, and I had to tell her I was crying over an impending fictional pet death. Turns out that the pet doesn't even die.

First Book to Make Me Cry So Hard it Gave Me a Migraine: New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
I lost my ever-lovin' mind reading this. That whole part where you turn pages and only the names of months are listed = escalated tear spillage with each page. The whole adrenaline-junkie bit [you know, the one that is oh-so laughable in the movie?] made me bawl. And--OMG--when Alice comes to get Bella and take her to Italy because of her vision? Forget it. I know some of you are thinking, "This girl is emotionally unstable," and let me defend myself for a moment. I read this book DIRECTLY after a really, really tough break-up and I had been SO ANGRY with him and the whole situation that I hadn't let myself work through it. So New Moon was my catharsis.

Now that you have proof that I am a crazy lady with haywire emotions, I hope that you have a tear-free weekend full of joy and laughter and sunshine and rainbows and chocolate. TGIF!!