My Heartstrings Come Undone

Scenes that STILL make us Ugly Cry

by: Zee the Terrible and Barbara Bones

Some of the Wenches are criers. We're not ashamed. Sometimes the feelings that build throughout a story spill over and we just can't contain them. We become so attached to our characters that when their hearts break, ours do, too. Some of us are not criers, and that's okay, too. (Even if we secretly wonder if they have no heart. ;) ) We have assembled a baker's dozen of scenes or events that ripped our hearts out and left us crying ugly tears. You know, the kind where you can't catch your breath, and there are fluids pouring from your eyes and your nose, and you hope to whatever God you believe in that no one walks in to find you completely losing your shit over fictional characters. These are the parts of books that make us certain that our favorite authors are sadists who enjoy our pain, but at the same time ensure that we aren't able to function properly in real life for a few days because we cannot stop thinking about this thing that happened that completely wrecked us.

Click through to read about the books still make us ugly cry. WARNING: Since these scenes killed us, they WILL be spoilery.

1. Definitely Dead (Southern Vampire Mysteries series) by Charlaine Harris

And suddenly I saw it all, knew what he was going to say, and I rose up on the hospital bed with a gasp, one hand to my chest because I felt my heart shattering. But Bill's voice went on, even though I shook my head violently. "She ordered me to return to my human home, to put myself in your way, to seduce you if I had to…" I couldn't breathe. No matter how my right hand pressed to my chest, I couldn't stop the decimation of my heart, the slide of the knife deeper into my flesh. {{snip}}
A homeless man stepped in front of me. "You got any change, sister?" he asked. "I'm down on my luck, too."
"Do I look like I have anything ?" I asked him, in a reasonable voice.
He looked as unnerved as the nurse had. He said, "Sorry," and backed away. I took a step after him. I screamed, "I HAVE NOTHING!" And then I said, in a perfectly calm voice, "See, I never had anything to start with."

I feel your pain, Sook.

{{snip}}I'd been blindsided with the most painful knowledge: the first man to ever say he loved me had never loved me at all.
His passion had been artificial.
His pursuit of me had been choreographed.

No matter how many times I have read the SVM books, and the countless times my heart has broken for Sookie (and I have wanted to wring someone's neck for screwing with her and hurting her, even if/when it was Eric), THIS has always stood out to me. This development in the story had such an effect on me as a reader (and Sookie fan). For a time there, Bill broke her... and I hated it. Her first love turned out to be more devastating than just disappointing. Instead of one day looking back fondly at it, or with an amused shake of the head, it will forever be etched in her memory as the time she was manipulated and seduced by an expert.... and she fell for it hook, line and sinker. I feel Sookie's pain each and every time I have read this. I cannot help but tear up when I read "I HAVE NOTHING!" Like I've said before, Sookie is the heroine I have always been able to relate most to, and I would feel the same way had it been me. That heartbreak, that desecration of something she considered special, that irreversible blow to her spirit... I felt it all. The tears were worth it though, seeing how she puts herself back together... and doesn't need anyone else to do it for her.

2. Darkfever (Fever series) by Karen Marie Moning

Missing Alina was worse than a terminal illness. At least when you were terminal you knew the pain was going to end eventually. But there was no light at the end of my tunnel. Grief was going to devour me, day into night, night into day, and although I might feel like I was dying from it, might even wish I was, I never would. I was going to have to walk around with a hole in my heart forever. I was going to hurt for my sister until the day I died. If you don't know what I mean or you think I'm being melodramatic, then you've never really loved anyone.

Driven by some awful darkness inside me, I dropped down onto the dirty cobblestones and slumped into the exact position in which my sister had been found. Unlike in the pictures, there was no blood splashing the stones and brick walls. Rain had washed away all signs of her struggle weeks ago. Here she'd taken her last breath. Here all of Alina Lane's hopes and dreams had died. "God, I miss you so much, Alina!" I felt every bit as brittle as I sounded, and once more the tears came. I swore it would be the last time I cried. And it would be, for quite some time.

Karen Marie Moning had me from the very first chapter of Darkfever. She had me emotionally invested in Mac's plans for revenge from the beginning. Reading Mac's total and utter anguish at Alina's death made ME feel that loss. Made me cry many, many times. Openly. Not very prettily. I felt like I understood so completely the torment of losing a beloved sister, the agony of never seeing her smile again or talk to her about boys, clothes and other frivolous things. For me, there is nothing that would have put me in Mac's corner more than her insatiable need to avenge her sister, the rage that drove her, that never let her give up... even at her weakest. Throughout the series, I have always felt that Alina has been present... in Mac's mind. Always smiled down at her, always given her that extra push. And always, I have deeply felt Mac's love for her sister. Maybe because I feel the same way about mine. But whatever the reason, I grieved with Mac. 

3. Shadowfever (Fever series) by Karen Marie Moning

"....The man with the spear in his back doesn’t move. My heart is full of holes.He gave his life for me. Barrons gave his life for me. My self-serving, arrogant, constant jackass was the constant rock beneath my feet, willing to die so I could live. Why the hell would he do that? How do I live with that?  

{{snip}} After a long moment, I roll him over. If there was any doubt in my mind that he was dead, it vanishes. His eyes are open. They are empty. Jericho Barrons is no longer there. I open my senses to the world around me. I can’t feel him at all. I am on this cliff, alone. I've never been so alone. {{snip}} I try everything I can think of to bring him back to life. What wouldn’t I do for him? Nothing is too disgusting, too barbaric. This is Barrons. I want him whole again. Once he said: Get inside me, see how deep you can go. With my hands on his spleen, I think, Here I am. Too little, too late. I use my newfound proficiency in Voice and command him to rise. He told me once that student and teacher develop immunity to each other. I’m almost relieved. I was afraid Voice might raise a zombie, reanimated but not truly revived. I prop his mouth open with a stick, slit my wrist, and drip blood into it. I have to slice deep to get a few drops and keep slicing because I keep healing. It only makes him bloodier. I search my sidhe-seer place for magic to heal him."

I had tears of disbelief in my eyes when Dreamfever ended; when I started Shadowfever and read the above, those tears ran down my face. I just could not believe it. Wouldn't believe it. I was sobbing uncontrollably by the time I got to her trying to patch him up, trying to put his insides back together, feeding him her blood... anything to bring him back from nothingness. It was too much. It suddenly felt like there was a Barrons-shaped hole in the world that nothing would ever be able to fill, or even make smaller. That vital, dynamic, electrifying presence was gone... and how would we (or Mac) ever go on? Would the world ever be more than a former shadow of itself without him in it? Would we? Ms. Moning put her readers through the wringer with this one... I'm still not sure I've completely recovered. I remember sitting there, frozen, holding the book and staring blankly at the page while hopelessly repeating "No no no no no no no no no...." in my head. And that raw emotion, that agony I felt at her pointless efforts to somehow revive him — I can still feel the intensity of that misery. Jericho Barrons was gone... and we were all alone in our despair with Mac. Tormented by the useless, cold tears of our grief and the husk of a man who had been so vigorously alive mere seconds before. That compelling, almost aggressive spark of existence gone... extinguished by Mac's own hand. It was too much to bear. And holding those tears at bay was as useless as trying to pretend we didn't care.  

4. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

It came to her then more bitterly than ever that Beth was slowly drifting away from her, and her arms instinctively tightened their hold upon the dearest treasure she possessed. 

Here, cherished like a household saint in its shrine, sat Beth, tranquil and busy as ever; for nothing would change the sweet, unselfish nature, and even while preparing to leave life, she tried to make it happier for those who should remain behind. 

...those who loved her best were forced to see the thin hands stretched out to them beseechingly, to hear the bitter cry,  "Help me, help me!" and to feel that there was no help. 

As Beth had hoped, the ‘tide went out easily’, and in the dark before dawn, on the bosom where she had drawn her first breath; she quietly drew her last, with no farewell but one loving look, one little sigh.

Ah, Little Women. One of the first books I read that put me on an emotional roller coaster. From Jo cutting her hair for money, to Teddy pouring his heart out to her and her saying she wished she could (feel the same way about him), I cried many times during my teens thanks to this book. But the part that kills me, even today, is Beth's short journey to death. Sweet, pure, selfless Beth. An angel if there ever was one. With everything else going on in the story, this has always stood out to me. Her quiet acceptance, everyone's helplessness in the face of this inevitability... it breaks my heart. But along with the tears of sorrow I wept, I also wept at the love of family I came across in this book. True, unconditional love. That Beth died in the arms of her mother, surrounded by her beloved sisters... it seemed an almost perfect end to her tragically short life. It was the first time I realized in my youth just how cruel death could be... and how unexpected. And to this day, it still has the same effect on me.

5. At Grave's End (Night Huntress series) by Jeaniene Frost

As if in slow motion, I raised the cell phone in my hand. I’d been clutching it for the past several hours waiting for his call. Nerveless fingers punched in those ten numbers, and then I waited again for that metallic buzzing that served as a ring. {{snip}} My heartbeat was so loud, I almost couldn’t hear the phone as it rang. One…two…three…four… God, please. I’ll do anything, please. Let him be all right. Let him be all right. Five…six…seven… He has to answer, he has to! Eight…nine…ten… There was a click and then background noise. I didn’t wait for more, but screamed his name. "Is this the widow?" 

{{snip}} I was alone in the room with the box. It took me over twenty minutes before I had the courage to open it, and then I bit back a cry. Pressed into the lining of the box’s lid were pictures. {{snip}} I put it down and then noticed the writing on the back. "I took this one morning. You looked so lovely I couldn’t resist. It makes me smile even now to imagine you blushing as you see it." A strangled noise emerged from my throat at his familiar, elegant scrawl. I couldn’t do this. It hurt so much I started to breathe in ragged, irregular gasps. There was a folded note lying on top of whatever other items were in this box, with the words My Beloved Wife written on it. 

Instantly the letters blurred, because my eyes welled with tears that almost burned to get out. Something in me knew if I read what was in that note, my delicate emotional control would disintegrate and I’d go insane. I shut the box and slid it under the bed.

This was one of the moments in the series my heart went out to Cat. Completely. I didn't see it coming... and when I read "Is this the widow?" my heart sank into my stomach. Annette's scream of anguish undid me, and the antique wooden box had me reaching for more tissues. I totally understood why she could not bring herself to open the note that said "My Beloved Wife." I can only imagine the beautiful, sincere, heartfelt, eloquent things he would have said in it, but it would have made it more real... that he was gone. And all that was left of him was a beautiful box that contained some pictures and a loving note.... that's it. No more beautiful Bones to smile at her and call her Kitten, to tease her and make her blush, to make earth-shattering love to her. Just that note. It was hard to deal with. And a moment of complete despair as a reader. Like Cat, we had lost the man we were all completely and utterly in love with. And nothing could make the pain go away. 

6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

"No - no - no!" someone was shouting. "No! Fred! No!" And Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face.

              ...............................

 "After all this time?" "Always." said Snape.

Okay, Harry Potter. I'm not ashamed to admit, that even at my (advanced) age, I adore these books. I love them. I re-read them all the time. And I have more ugly cries in this series than anything I've read in years. I've been reading them since I was a teen. And as the series progressed, it had more emotional depth than anything I had read in a while. I cried when Sirius died, I cried (hard) when Dumbledore died, but if I had to pick which book made me bawl like a baby from start to finish... it was the last one. It was tough choosing just one part, so I picked the aftermath of the battle at Hogwarts, and the chapter right after... when Harry finds out the truth about Snape, and Snape's eternal love for Lilly Potter..... God... just writing that gave me goosebumps. I was absolutely destroyed when Fred died, I cried like a baby, I couldn't believe she had killed off Fred... FRED! What was George to do now? What were WE supposed to do!? Tonks's and Remus's deaths were tragic, especially considering their newborn son. Dobby dying after rescuing Harry was heartbreaking (and something I still consider unnecessary). Snape's death upset me to no end... that no one knew until after he died just what a hero he was, what he sacrificed, all for the love of a woman who could never love him back... it killed me. The pain I felt on his behalf is like an open wound... it still hurts when I think about it. When I think of any of it.

7. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

When I was eleven years old, I had never owned a dog. And I didn’t know that the words on a page could rip my heart out, and make me cry until it hurt. But my sixth-grade English teacher chose this book, and she, along with Wilson Rawls, taught me the power of words. The power to make me relate to characters with whom I had nothing in common, to empathize with a kind of loss that I didn’t understand. That book made me cry then, but just a little. After all, I didn’t really understand what Billy was going through.

Fifteen years later, I had owned my first dog for a year when I decided to read aloud, to my fifth-grade class, the first book ever to make me cry. It didn’t even cross my mind that I might get to a point in the book where I wouldn’t be able to go on. But I did, and I could see on my students’ faces a mixture of horror that their teacher actually cried, and a desperate attempt to not break down themselves. The description of events is absolutely heart-wrenching. Even more so, for me when I love my dog like a member of my family. If you are a dog lover, or even an animal lover, I defy you to read this book and finish with dry eyes. I can’t even look up quotes without crying. Like this one:

“After the last shovel of dirt was patted in place, I sat down and let my mind drift back through the years. I thought of the old K. C. Baking Powder can, and the first time I saw my pups in the box at the depot. I thought of the fifty dollars, the nickels and dimes, and the fishermen and blackberry patches.

I looked at his grave and, with tears in my eyes, I voiced these words: "You were worth it, old friend, and a thousand times over.”

8. Hard Bitten and Drink Deep (Chicagoland Vampires series) by Chloe Neill

I started the Chicagoland Vampires series with the understanding that at some point something really bad was going to happen. I was pretty sure someone was going to die, and that it was going to be an important character that I would like. But I never thought that it would be Ethan. By the end of Hard Bitten, he had done all he could to atone for breaking Merit’s heart, and she had finally forgiven him and accepted that he, that they, were a risk worth taking. And almost immediately, we lost Ethan.

My immediate reaction, much like Merit’s, was shock. It wasn’t possible. C’mon it was Ethan. But as Cadogan went through the motions of mourning their fallen Master, I realized that it was not only possible, it was fact. And I began crying like someone I actually knew had died. My husband was actually worried about me…until I told him I was crying over a fictional character. But I was devastated, and I ugly cried all the next day, through the end of Hard Bitten and into Drink Deep. Every time that Merit dreamed of Ethan, every time that someone talked about him to Merit, my tears began anew. And this line from Drink Deep still wrecks me. Every time.

“There are nights when he seems more absent than others.” The grief in his voice brought immediate tears to my eyes. I looked away to keep them from falling, but didn’t disagree with the heart-clenching sentiment. “There are nights when the world is completely askew because he’s gone,” I agreed.

9. Dreamfever (Fever series) by Karen Marie Moning

As I mentioned in my Mac & Barrons’s Love Story post, I didn’t get that it was a love story the first time I read the Fever series. So I won’t claim to have ugly cried the first time I read the Priy-ya scenes in Dreamfever. However, on successive readings, those two chapters destroyed me. And I cry more and more each time I read the series, knowing, noticing clues, that he was falling for her so much sooner than Mac was willing to admit.

The last time I read Dreamfever, I actually thought about what Barrons must have been feeling during that time. It must have been awful for him…well the feelings part; the activity was probably amazing. But knowing that if he didn’t succeed she would never be the woman he thought she was, and if he did succeed she would hate him, blame him, and accuse him of being the same kind of monster that had put her in that state. When he said to her, “one day you will wonder if it’s possible to hate me more,” he knew exactly what she would do when she returned to herself. But he brought her back anyway. Because he wanted Mac, not a shell of the woman she was. When he asks her about her prom, knowing what that one question could mean to her, I sob. Every time.

Later when I am drifting like a balloon, in that happy, free place that is the twilight sky before dreams, I hear him take a deep breath as if he is about to speak.

He releases it.
Curses.
Takes another breath but says nothing again.
He grunts and punches his pillow. He is divided, this strange man, as if he both wants to speak and wants not to.
Finally he says tightly, “What did you wear to your senior prom, Mac?”

{{snip}}

He touches my face.

There is something different in his touch. It feels like he’s saying good-bye, and I know a moment of panic. But my dream sky darkens and sleep’s moon fills the horizon.
“Don’t leave me.” I thrash in the sheets.
“I’m not, Mac.”
I know I am dreaming then, because dreams are home to the absurd and what he says next is beyond absurd.

“You’re leaving me, Rainbow Girl.”

10. Destined for an Early Grave (Night Huntress series) by Jeaniene Frost

Bones is, hands down, my favorite fictional hero, and Bones and Cat rank in my top three favorite couples. I’ve loved them since book one, and as much as I adore Bones on his own, I think they are so much more together. They are the couple I measure all other couples by. So when awful things happen to them, individually or together, it devastates me, and the break-up in the fourth book leaves me bawling whenever I read it. By this point, I had already cried tears of despair through the end of the first and the beginning of the second book, tears of joy when Cat took Bones’s hand in front of a few hundred witnesses at Ian’s "party", and again when Bones presented Cat with her red diamond, and tears of mourning when it seemed that Bones was lost to Cat. But I never expected him to leave her voluntarily, and that destroyed me right along with Cat.

I could feel Bones’s pain and frustration when Cat returned to him after retrieving her memories from Gregor, and when he listed all of the ways he had been patient with her as she grew to accept her place in his world. I flinched along with her as he vented his frustrations with words and cringed when he destroyed the piano. But I never expected him to actually leave. With tears already streaming down my face, this ensured that I’d be reduced to wracking sobs whenever I read this book:

“Wait! God, let’s talk about this. We can work it out, I swear. Y-you can’t just go!”

I was sputtering in anguish, tears spilling down my cheeks. They blinded me, but I felt his hand as he reached out and softly touched my face.

“Kitten.” His voice was thick with something I couldn’t name. “This is the part…where you don’t have a choice.”

The door slamming behind him knocked me off my feet.

11. Dead Reckoning (Southern Vampire Mysteries series) by Charlaine Harris

It took a long time and many, MANY pages for Sookie Stackhouse and Eric Northman to officially become a couple. They have an amazing connection that we all saw, if not from the beginning, nearly so. That connection grew and then became something amazing to see when Eric and Sookie were connected not only by love, but by a unique Blood Bond as well. Eric knew that this could happen, but didn’t tell Sookie, making her resent that connection, even while Eric relished it. I found the bond fascinating, and I saw how important it was to Eric, not just for Sookie’s protection, but because he wanted to be connected to her in whatever way possible. He has been very patient as she has steadfastly maintained her independence, rejecting his attempts to draw the two of them closer to one another.

I knew that Sookie was impulsive at times, that she resented the connection that the Blood Bond gave her to Eric, even while she knew how important it was to him. But when Amelia told Sookie that she had found a way to sever the bond, I never imagined that Sookie would act so rashly, not allowing herself to think about what she was doing, just going through it as quickly as possible, like ripping off a band-aid to get the pain over with without delay. I knew what it would mean to Eric, even if Sookie refused to acknowledge that she wasn’t the only one sharing that connection. And when she “lost Eric” my floodgates opened.

Feeling a little ridiculous and a lot scared, but sure that I needed to do this, I snipped the red yarn.

And I lost Eric.
He wasn’t there.
Amelia rolled up the cut yarn and handed to to me. To my surprise, she was smiling, looking fierce and triumphant. I took the length of yarn automatically from her hand, all my senses stretching out to seek Eric. Nothing.
I felt a rush of panic. It wasn’t entirely pure: There was some relief mixed in, which I had expected. And there was grief. As soon as I was sure he was okay, that he hadn’t been hurt, I knew I would relax and feel the full measure of the success of the spell.
In the house, my phone rang, and I sprinted for the back door.
“Are you there?” he said. “Are you there, are you all right?”
“Eric,” I said, my breath coming out in a great ripping sigh. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re all right! You are, aren’t you?”
“What have you done?”

12. Unholy Magic (Downside Ghosts series) by Stacia Kane

Chess, the heroine of Downside Ghosts, is probably the saddest, most frustrating character I have ever read. As I discussed in my post about why you should be reading these, if you haven't fallen in love with them already, I just want to fix Chess and make her life easier, happier, better. And because of this I cried for Chess a lot. No, really, a lot. But one scene that undoes me every time comes at the end of the second book. Chess has pretty much sabotaged one of the two best things to ever happen to her, but Terrible saves her life anyway, despite the anger and hurt he has inside himself.

What is truly miraculous about this is that Chess immediately returns the favor, without thought, and knowing that the consequences of her actions could be her own execution. But she does what she has to and saves him anyway, finally acknowledging aloud that, "I can't lose him. That's what I can't do." After the dust settles and Chess has time to think about the situation, she finds some hope, which is what this girl desperately needs. And I sobbed along with her when she realized what their actions truly meant.

But she'd be dead now if it weren't for him. When it came down to it, no matter how angry he was, no matter how badly she'd hurt him, he'd used his own body as a shield. Sacrificed himself for her.
And she'd done the same in return. That had to mean something, right? That no matter how it might feel, their story wasn't over.
And right now, that was enough. What she would do about Lex she didn't know. What the consequences of that sigil on Terrible's chest might be, she didn't know. Hell, there were lots of things she didn't know; she never had.
But right now she knew Terrible had died to save her. Some part of him, no matter how small, still cared about her at least as much as the rest of him still wanted her. And she still wanted him, more than she'd ever thought she could want anyone, and she wasn't scared.
So that was a pretty good start.

13. Outlander (Outlander series) by Diana Gabaldon

by Kathi Alexandra Malcontent MacKenzie Fraser

“The … it’s all linked for me now. I canna think of you, Claire, even of kissing you or touching your hand, without feeling the fear and the pain and the sickness come back. I lie here feeling that I will die without your touch, but when you touch me, I feel as though I will vomit with shame and loathing of myself. I canna even see you now without…” His forehead rested on knotted fists, knuckles dug hard into his eye-sockets. The tendons of his neck were sharply etched with strain, and his voice came half-muffled. “Claire, I want you to leave me. Go back to Scotland, to Craigh na Dun. Go back to your place, to your … husband.” He looked up again with desperate bravery, and spoke very simply. “I will love you as long as I live, but I cannot be your husband any longer. And I will not be less to you.” His face began to break apart. “Claire, I want you so badly that my bones shake in my body, but God help me, I am afraid to touch you!” I started to go to him, but he stopped me with a sudden motion of his hand. He was half doubled up, face contorted with internal struggle, and his voice was strangled and breathless. 

“Claire … please go. I’m going to be verra sick, and I don’t want you to see it.” Please.” 

The thought came to me that perhaps Jamie would be better off dead; he had said he wanted to die. I was morally sure that if I left him as he wished, he would be dead soon, whether from the aftereffects of torture and illness, from hanging, or in some battle. And I was in no doubt that he knew it as well. Ought I to do as he said? Damned if I will, I said to myself. Damned if I will, I said fiercely.

I am not a book crier. I’m more of a movie and music crier. But Outlander and only Outlander made a book crier out of me. In the first book, Jamie is brutalized at the hands of a sadist. Though much of the violence occurs off page, these scenes were absolute torment to read. After Claire risks life and limb to rescue him, I took a giant step back to recover from my own emotional trauma, thinking the worst was over. But Jamie believes that his moral and spiritual essence, that core deep within that makes him who he is, has been violated and destroyed. He is utterly devastated and feels that he has no value as a human being, and then the really tough part begins for the reader. He confesses to Claire the depth of the depravities visited upon him and begs her to let him die in order to regain some measure of peace. But she summons extraordinary strength and courage to reach deeply into his psyche and pull him back to her, to literally save his soul. Jamie’s utter desolation and despair absolutely gutted me, and these scenes will be forever seared into my brain. I was inconsolable; I cried so hard, for so long, that I was unable to continue reading through the tears for hours, despite a mountain of tissues. Because my own heart hurt so badly that I thought it would shrivel and die along with Jamie’s, and Claire rescued mine along with his.

And this was only the beginning of my tears. I was ugly crying again and again in the next book and the one after that. This was such a unique experience for me that I'd like to continue my discussion of Outlander ugly cries in a future post, after I've had time to restock my supply of tissues.


What about you, Saucy Readers?? Do you agree with us about these scenes? Are there other scenes that made you ugly cry?? Let us know in the comments!