Books that actually emotionally moved you?

Discussion in 'Discussion of Published Works' started by Fifth Business, Feb 28, 2012.

  1. Mallory

    Mallory Contributor Contributor

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    I love 1984. There's one passage in it that really sticks out for me. I'm not sure if "emotionally moving" is the right way to describe it, but Winston's voice is so raw and blunt in a way that's sad without being sappy. The passage is:



    Short/choppy sentences create a sad, lost or desperate tone when used in the right way, and I think Orwell does it PERFECTLY here.
     
  2. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    I actually saw the film adaptation a few years ago. I still haven't gotten a chance to read the book yet.

    One of the first books that really moved me was The Bridge to Terabithia, which I read a long, long time ago.
     
  3. Tashanel

    Tashanel Member

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    Wow! ME TOO! even in film adaptation I really cry! the writer really know how to put in real social life reality(I mean we always had a friend that we will spend a lot than our family. If you are spend a lot of time outside while working, studying, and anything).
     
  4. HarryBard

    HarryBard New Member

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    Isaac Asimov's books like The Foundation series and many of his other books.

    I was so sad when Giskard died, R.I.P!
    However I was amazingly happy as he made Daneel the most exciting character by transferring his telepathic abilites to Daneel.
     
  5. .Ouroboros.

    .Ouroboros. New Member

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    Well... ^^; There's so many works of Literature that I love. But my all-time favourite poem is T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. Every time I read this poem I am struck by the beauty and desolation, the anarchy laced with sharp images! It moves me when I read it, some of the especially powerful images just renew my love of words eery time.

    "I will show you fear in a handful of dust" <- my favourite line.
     
  6. VM80

    VM80 Contributor Contributor

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    Going to have to go with 1984 as well. I was dumb-struck when I came to the end.

    East of Eden is another.

    I don't read so much new stuff, but The other side of the bridge by Mary Lawson and The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton had some moving stuff in there.
     
  7. hopelessromantic

    hopelessromantic New Member

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    the giver.
    that one was definitely hard to read. also i read it when i was about 10 years old. i never did read the first couple chapters. i had to skip over them or i never would have read it at all past the fifth page. i would read about a page and fall asleep of boredom. but once i skipped into where things actual are going on then it was very good.

    the fever series. by karen moning.
    its a 4 or 5 book series i think. i've read them all twice now. i really love all the characters and the story. i got sucked into it. when i read the second to last book i cried for several days after i finished it. had thought it was the last book. i was exstatic when i later found the real last book.

    clan of the cavebear series. by jean auel.
    again, i got sucked in. i love nature and animals and this book and the main character really caught me.
     
  8. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    The Divine Comedy is a book that has strange effects on me. I love it. It make me really happy, and moves me like no other. In honestly though, most really good books move me, especially philosophical and science books.
     
  9. Kestrel

    Kestrel New Member

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    Gates of Fire - Steven Pressfield, thrilling, humbling, devastating
    Under an English Heaven - Robert Radcliffe - heartbreaking
    The Book Thief, more heartbreak!
    Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurty, a true journey
    Achilles: a novel - Elizabeth Cook, astonishing, unlike anything else I've read
    Doc - Mary Doria Russell, by the time I finished this, I would have given anything to have simply met Mr Holliday. A stunning portrayal.
     
  10. Soulfighter-123

    Soulfighter-123 New Member

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    I very much enjoyed Birdsong, by Sebastian Faulks. He portrayed World War One using powerfully emotive language and techniques. The novel has compared what life was like before the war began, and what it was like during the war. It gives an insight to how the soldiers' lives changed during the war, and how they had no choice but to overcome the death of other soldier's. Faulks has used explicit descriptions and imagery to get his point across, and I absolutely loved it. I never really paid attention to War novels until I came across this book (courtesy of my school for basing our A-Level coursework on it) and comprehensively studied it.
     
  11. Josh.M

    Josh.M New Member

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    For whom the bell tolls, the way Hemingway writes is genius.
     
  12. ms7628

    ms7628 New Member

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    I'm another 1984 and The Book Thief fan. Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, while a young adult novel, really resonated with me. Along those same lines, Fahrenheit 451 gets me every time I read it and Walter Dean Myer's Fallen Angels makes me sad. I also remember having a serious connection with The Awakening by Kate Chopin and The Great Gatsby.
     
  13. Henning

    Henning New Member

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    For me it was a French book called J'aurais Preferer Vivre by Thierry Cohen. It's due to be translated this year and I'd definitely recommend that you guys watch out for it. The name means I Would Rather Have Lived.
     
  14. funkybassmannick

    funkybassmannick New Member

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    I recently read "The Fault in our Stars" by John Green, and the last 4th of the book had me in tears! I kept reading it on the train and felt really embarrassed, but it's chicago and, on the trains, anything goes.
     
  15. Herachrist

    Herachrist New Member

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    Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

    Gorgeous prose and a stunning range of emotions. Literally, I laughed out loud during certain parts, I was furious while reading other sections, and by the mid-point, when the absolute genius of the book became apparent and I realized what was going on, I was moved to tears. Not out of sadness, but out of awe. As in, How is this humanly possible?

    The book is brilliant, moving, beautiful, shocking, terrifying, hilarious, wondrous, difficult, joyous and insane. But most of all it's human.

    I could never do justice to Cloud Atlas by describing it. All I can say is, give it a shot.
     
  16. grayshade

    grayshade New Member

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    Still Alice by Lisa Genova

    I know plenty of books that have evoked a lot of emotions, but I wanted to give mention to a less widely known book.
    From the description, you know what to expect. However, as you get to know the main character and then witness how everything begins to change, you can't help but feel horrible that there's no way for her to fight this. She begins to lose herself and all you can do is sit and watch(read). Really upsetting, but not in a way that makes the book bad. Well, I guess it depends on what endings you prefer. :(
     
  17. sam80

    sam80 New Member

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    As an adult 'The Bookthief' one of my ultimate favourite reads. The way it explores the human condition, makes the reader ask (well it did me) what would you do in that situation, how would you behave. Cried many times all through it.

    As a child, 'Blitz Cat' by Robert Westall when I was around twelve, just captured my imagination in such a huge way and made me really happy, well in the end anyway.

    The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom, not one of my absolute favourites, but made me thin about how small actions or decisions can have effects you dont see.
     
  18. JHockey

    JHockey New Member

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    One Flew over the cuckoos nest was a good one.
    The Idiot by Dostoyevsky, can't help but feel for him as an innocently motivated person in a world full of people trying to exploit that.
    The Stand, Stephen King, has some great characters in it can't help but sympathise with them.
     
  19. Carlin

    Carlin New Member

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    Here are some that come to mind for me:

    Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski
    The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
    Great Expectations by Dickens
    Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

    They all got to my emotions through different pathways. Dickens did it with characters, Bukowski with honesty, Dostoyevsky with human truths.
     
  20. thecoopertempleclause

    thecoopertempleclause New Member

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    Dubliners by James Joyce. Some of those stories pack an emotional wallop, especially "A Painful Case" and "The Dead."
     
  21. phyrlord

    phyrlord New Member

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    I have been reading pretty steadily for the last couple years after not caring about it in my teenage years. I still have a lot to get under my belt but I have really gravitated to wards Stephen King and really love his work.

    One of my first SK novels was Insomnia. I still think about the main character years later sometimes and the stuff he went through, Miss you Ralph. It still holds as one my favorite books of his.
     
  22. Luna13

    Luna13 Active Member

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    Reading books, I have gotten choked up. I have gotten teary.

    But not until reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak did I ever actually cry.

    I apologize for making entirely too many references to that book on WF. But it's just so unbelievably good I can't help it.

    I fell in love with Rudy Steiner. I fell in love with Max Vandenburg. I fell in love with just about everyone in that book.

    And when they died, part of me died with them.

    I felt exactly the same. I fell in love with Rudy Steiner. I was crying so hard at the end when he died... I read it a few months ago and to this day I try to avoid thinking about him because it makes me depressed. If feel so bad for Leisel in the end!

    That book is so good it's ridiculous. My favorite book ever!
     
  23. JaketheNinja

    JaketheNinja New Member

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    Inheritance from the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini

    When the characters make a massive discovery, that is pretty important I just couldn't stop smiling. It made me so happy it was if I was there. But then my emotions flipped when the characters had to forget about it, and I mean they can't remeber anything about it, until they accomplish something else! But it is such a brilliant book, and it probably got me so much as I was connected to the characters, throughout the whole series, as this is the final book. If any one has read Inheritance then you'll probably be able to work out what I'm talking about if not, then I didn't want to give too much away, and so if you want to find out go, and read the four books.
     
  24. milagros

    milagros New Member

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    Jane Eyre has quite impressed me emotionally as I child. I felt very close to my heart what Jane experienced in Lowood.
     
  25. Cayo Costa

    Cayo Costa New Member

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    Maybe a little more obvious, but Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi never fail to make me cry. On that note, Maus too.
     

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