When was the last time you read a sad book or a large journal report? Do your daily reading habits center around tweets, Facebook updates, or the directions on your instant oatmeal packet?
If you’re one of the infinite souls who don’t make a habit of reading regularly, you might be missing out on something. Especially at your young age.
So we’ve made the list of the best sad books for teens and young adults.
For those of you who want to dive a little deep into their own world of imagination and help them grow from the feeling that books give them.
Now, during your young age, you will experience numerous transitions.
Changing schools, colleges, jobs, or cities may require you to replace old relationships with new ones, and sometimes successful adjustments are harder or take longer than expected.
Whether it’s through the comfort of a favorite book or through an emotional connection to relatable characters, books provide a stable source of companionship during the times that you feel the only person you can count on is yourself.
So, many people are crafting their resolutions like — Read More, and for a good reason!
Especially those who love to read with full of emotions, and It’s no secret that we made a list of the best sad books for young adults for you.
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Table of Contents
Best Sad Books For Teens That Makes You Cry [Must-Read]
Before we talk about the best sad young adult books.
Let's see one of the examples of why we all love novels and stories so much.
In the 11th century, a Japanese woman known as Murasaki Shikibu wrote “The Tale of Genji,” a 54-chapter story of courtly seduction believed to be the world’s first novel.
Nearly 2,000 years later, people the world over are still engrossed by novels — even in an era where stories appear on handheld screens and disappear 24 hours later.
That's totally insane, right?
What exactly do human beings get from reading books? Is it just a matter of pleasure, or are there benefits beyond enjoyment? The answer sounds “yes.”
Reading books benefits both your physical and mental health, and those benefits can last a lifetime.
They begin in early childhood and continue through the senior years, so why not read every day for good?
Now, let's talk about one of those good sad books for teens out there on the market worth reading.
Five Feet Apart
Sweet love story & sad teenage books about love
SUMMERY — Five Feet Apart is about a budding romance between two teens in treatment for cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic disease affecting the lungs and leading to severely shortened life expectancy.
Though the book is essentially a romance, larger issues of how serious illnesses affect families and the different ways patients deal with CF are important parts of the story.
The content is fairly tame, in that there’s no smoking, drinking, or drug use. Romance and attraction figure largely into the story.
REVIEW — Five feet apart is a heartwarming, one of the saddest books for teens, it will make you cry for sure. It has a beautiful message and teaches you a lot about CF(cystic fibrosis).
Not only will you fall in love with will and Stella and their romance, but also you will love how well Simon and Schuster wrote this story.
Girl in Pieces
Really sad books for young adults
SUMMERY — Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen, she’s already lost more than most people lose in a lifetime. But she’s learned how to forget.
The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don’t have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you.
Every new scar hardens Charlie’s heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts enough to not care anymore.
REVIEW — This book is sad and at times hard to read but is truly a beautiful story; it teaches you that you can grow from your past and overcome difficult situations.
Glasgow’s style is so thick with emotion and yet sparse on the page. In places, it reads like poetry.
It is a book about being gentle with yourself.
The Places I've Cried in Public
Sad romance novels for young adults
SUMMERY — “A powerful, vital gut-punch” — Laura Bates” Funny and sad, this book urges girls to know their own worth” — The Guardian” Tackles abusive relationships with a compassionate and authentic voice” — It looked like love.
It felt like love, but this isn’t a love story. Amelie fell hard for Reese. And she thought he loved her too. But she’s starting to realize that real love isn’t supposed to hurt like this.
So now she’s retracing their story, revisiting all the places he made her cry.
Because if she works out what went wrong, perhaps she can finally learn how to get over him.
REVIEW — This is a raw and emotional love story with a difference that teenagers and adults will love in equal measure; teenagers because it will hit home with things they may be going through.
And with adults who can look back on the heightened emotions of their youth.
A fantastic book, and one of Holly Bourne’s best!
The Fault in Our Stars
Best tragic books for young adults
SUMMERY — The Fault In Our Stars is a fabulous book about a young teenage girl who has been diagnosed with lung cancer and attends a cancer support group.
Hazel is 16 and is reluctant to go to the support group, but she soon realizes that it was a good idea. Hazel meets a young boy named Augustus Waters.
He is charming and witty. Augustus has had osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, but has recently had the all clear.
Hazel and Augustus embark on a roller coaster ride of emotions, including love, sadness and romance, while searching for the author of their favorite book.
They travel to Amsterdam in search of Peter Van Houten the author of An Imperial Affliction. While on their trip, Augustus breaks some heartbreaking news to Hazel and both of their worlds fall apart around them.
REVIEW — If you enjoy young adult books, full of witty humor and heartbreaking events, this book is perfect for you.
Expect to laugh, cry and smile throughout this masterpiece by the amazing John Green.
I highly recommend reading one of the good sad books for teens.
The Outsiders
Sad books for teens that make you cry
SUMMERY — The Outsiders is about two weeks in the life of a 14-year-old boy. The novel tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider.
According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for “social”) has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine.
A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he’s always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers–until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc.
The murder gets under Ponyboy’s skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser.
REVIEW — The Outsiders is one of the first—if not *the* first—Young Adult novel to take adolescents seriously, as complex human beings with inner conflicts and genuinely profound dilemmas that truly matter.
Yes, it has some drawbacks. Although it was written by a woman, it features just two female characters, only one of whom matters to the plot, albeit in a very limited manner.
It contains no racial or ethnic diversity, so it loses points in terms of representation.
All the Bright Places
One of the best sad novels for young adults
SUMMERY — All the Bright Places is a compelling and beautiful story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.
Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself.
But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.
The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park in this exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.
REVIEW — Awesome sad romance books for teens. Sometimes you find a book that not only makes you think, but changes the way you look at the world.
‘All the Bright Places’, in all its clever, poetic and honest beauty, is one of those books. It will stay with you, forever.
A final word: take care reading if you’ve experienced bereavement of a close family member, mental health issues or suicide ideation. It can cut a little close to the bone at times, even for a YA novel.
A Little Life
Very long sad books for teens
SUMMERY — A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune.
While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma.
A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.
REVIEW — A LITTLE LIFE is a title with 3 meanings. First, it refers to its protagonist, Jude, a man who cannot ever accept that his life is worthwhile.
Second, it refers to the act of reading it, spending time in this book is really like living a version of life.
There is a third meaning, one that you don’t discover until around halfway through the book, when the title’s words are used in a context that is like a punch to the gut.
Last Thoughts
At this point, I expect that you already got the list of the best sad books for young adults.
We all know, Every book has a different aspect and variety of zones that hit your heart, which is kind of insane if you are looking for that.
And if you have anything on your mind, feel free to recommend us in the comment section below, we are happy to share that as well with our audience.
Lastly, let us know how was the experience after reading one of these books, It will surely help us to write more articles like this in the future for sure.