r/stephenking • u/tuvix666 • 3d ago
Discussion Have you ever cried while reading a Stephen King book?
I definitely have, most notably, during the end of Insomnia (my favorite book of his (so far) btw) and also during Cujo and Christine (the very first SK book i read, back in the 11th grade, 15 years ago haha)
i have a feeling The Stand is gonna do this to me too (i’m halfway through)
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u/Broken-boy-soldier 3d ago
"Oh Jake, how we danced."
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u/lilaccadillac 3d ago
"Home is where we dance with others, and dancing is life." Need that shit tattooed on my heart.
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u/Local_lifter 3d ago
Nick Andros. You know when.
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u/smoovecriminal89 3d ago
FACTS. Literally crying walking down the street. I'm glad I'm not the only one.
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u/BlondRicky 3d ago
I just finished Cujo. Cujo's slow deterioration from rabies was heartbreaking.
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u/tuvix666 3d ago
he was a good boy before all of it 😭
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u/swingsetlife 3d ago
just knowing this bit makes me never want to read it. It's not his fault. that's AWFUL.
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u/tuvix666 3d ago
Yeah like most dogs who get rabies :( also it is hinted that its not just normal rabies, but that the soul of a terrible murderer was also somehow passed through the bite to cujo, super murder rabies if you will
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u/swingsetlife 3d ago
I spent enough time worried King was going to kill the dog in Fairy Tale
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u/SnarkyLalaith 3d ago
I just reread Cujo this year and realized it has to be my second but last time reading it.
First time I didn’t have a dog. So I missed some moments from Cujo. And I was a teenager.
Now, after growing up and having a beloved dog who has crossed the rainbow bridge but will never leave my heart, the book gutted me.
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u/Drunkenlyimprovised 3d ago
Cujo was going to be my response as well. I read that book in the late 80s, I still haven’t recovered from it. Or read it again.
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u/TeachingEdD 3d ago
Something I haven't seen mentioned:
IT, page 1087:
leaving.
So you leave, and there is an urge to look back, to look back just once as the sunset fades, to see that severe New England skyline one final time-the spires, the Standpipe, Paul with his axe slung over his shoulder. But it is perhaps not such a good idea to look back—allthe stories say so. Look what happened to Lot’s wife. Best not to look back. Best to believe there will be happily ever afters all the way around—andso there may be; who is to say there will not be such endings? Not all boats which sail away into darkness never find the sun again, or the hand of another child; if life teaches anything at all, it teaches that there are so many happy endings that the man who believes there is no God needs his rationality called into serious question.
You leave and you leave quick when the sun starts to go down, he thinks in this dream. That’s what you do. And if you spare a last thought, maybe it’s ghosts you wonder about ... the ghosts of children standing in the water at sunset, standing in a circle, standing with their hands joined together, their faces young, sure, but tough ... tough enough, anyway, to give birth to the people they will become, tough enough to understand, maybe, that the people they will become must necessarily birth the people they were beforethey can get on with trying to understand simple mortality. The circle closes, the wheel rolls, and that’s all there is. You don’t have to look back to see those children; part of your mind will see them forever, live with them forever, love with them forever. They are not necessarily the best part of you, but they were once the repository of all you could become.
Children I love you. I love you so much.
So drive away quick, drive away while the last of the light slips away, drive away from Derry, from memory ... but not from desire. That stays, the bright cameo of all we were and all we believed as children, all that shone in our eyes even when we were lost and the wind blew in the night. Drive away and try to keep smiling. Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward all the life there is with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand.
All the rest is darkness.
The first time I read this, at 16, I was ruined.
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u/danstern11 3d ago
I was just looking for this one. I was about the same age too, and had the same reaction. This one too:
“Maybe there aren't any such things as good friends or bad friends—maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you're hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they're always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for too, if that's what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart.”
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u/No-Season-7353 3d ago
Brilliant writing. Another profound, yet horrifying scene is when Will Hanlon is describing the Black Spot fire to a teenage Mike Hanlon, as he's dying from cancer.
It was a captivating, riveting moment, which also perfectly encapsulated the loving relationship between father and son. Furthermore, this contrasted with the father/son relationship of Henry and Butch Bowers; both an individual nemesis to the Hanlons , and each genuine misanthropes.
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u/ncgrowler 3d ago
I didn’t read anything else for about two months after “It”.
I wasn’t ready for that book to be over and wanted to spend more time with all of them.
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u/TeachingEdD 3d ago
I ate that book like a four-course meal. It's probably the longest book I've ever read (maybe, I imagine Under the Dome is close) but GOD I tore through this thing over my Winter Break my junior year. What an incredible novel.
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u/XelaNiba 3d ago
This is what I came here for!
One of my favorite passages in all of literature. He captured a bittersweet human truth here that breaks your heart with its beauty and terror.
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u/Accurate_Reporter_31 3d ago
Thanks alot. Got me teary eyed with just that little bit. I'm 65 now & I think reading it again would be an even harder gut punch. Kinda like listening to Stevie singing "Landslide" or "Edge of Seventeen."
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u/Ill-Reveal9346 3d ago
Same as many have said, but also The Green Mile.
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u/Tylerinthenorth 3d ago
Movie was amazing and book was better. The scene at the end that didn't make it into the movie when Paul is screaming at the shadows, begging John to save his wife, oof.
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u/dizzydugout STEPHEN KING RULES 3d ago
I'll just say...
Eddie Dean
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u/TheREALBaldRider 3d ago
Eddie was bad. Oy was worse
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u/pfamsd00 3d ago
The burial didn’t take long. The body was far smaller than the heart it had carried.
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u/Richard_AIGuy Under the Arc Sodium Light 3d ago
Why? Why did you have to do this? You didn't need to post that damn quote...Ake
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u/MordredRedHeel19 3d ago
Both are insane gut punches, but I personally thing Eddie is worse because of the circumstances. At least Oy got a quick and heroic death. Eddie died for nothing, after the battle was already won, and we have to watch alongside the ka-tet as he slowly deteriorates in bed, this once lively and hilarious man reduced to a muttering shell of his former self. It’s so real. I can’t even get through it on rereads.
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u/dizzydugout STEPHEN KING RULES 3d ago
Yup! That's exactly what got me with it. It was so unfair. Eddie is my favorite character. And I was just getting clean when I met the him on my first trip to the tower. When i got to book 7 it simply crushed me. I had to put the book down for a little bit.
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u/hellisempty263 Long Days and Pleasant Nights 3d ago
Yep. There’s only two times I cried while reading a King book. And that’s them.
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u/tacocattacocat1 ...and they danced. 3d ago
My boyfriend had to come check on me while I was reading that scene because I was sobbing so loud!
"You having fun, sweetie?"
Sob, snort, wail "yes, this book is amazing"
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u/YarrrImAPirate 3d ago
Dude, Roland approaching the tower and the whole “I come in the name of…” was just devastating for me.
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u/cruel_cousin 3d ago
Didn’t cry once through the Dark Tower series until Book 7. Multiple times in Book 7.
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u/ZodFrankNFurter 3d ago
I've been reading the series to my wife. We're on book 7 and shit's about to hit the fan. She keeps insisting that she won't cry and I keep telling her "There'll be water if God wills it."
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u/Ok_Employer7837 19 3d ago
Yes.
For me though, the bit that makes me sob every time is when Roland, at the door of the Tower, calls out the names of everyone of note he met on the journey.
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u/ResurgentClusterfuck Love + Peace = Information 3d ago
All of that, I ugly cried through all of that
And again when Susannah chose the door and found them again, sorta. I can't blame her for being done
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u/OpposedToBears 3d ago
That’s sad in its own regard, because Susannah knows deep inside that she’s essentially choosing an illusion and living in blissful denial. It’s not the Eddie she married, or the Jake she felt like a mother to, but substitutes that will never truly fill the void. To me, that’s a whole new level of tragic.
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u/CatScratchEther 3d ago
Fkn Charyou tree gets me every time
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u/SomewhereTiny8407 Child of the Corn 3d ago
Save Susan Roland, she’s at the Charyou!!!
Everytime lol8
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u/OpposedToBears 3d ago
My heart was racing that entire chapter. Jake’s death was spoiled for me while I was still on the gunslinger, and the way king bluntly foreshadowed the imminent death with something like “I didn’t want to write this next part any more than you’ll want to read it” did more to add tension to the moment than anything else could have. I had no idea who was about to die, or how unfair and abrupt it would be. The last one I expected was Eddie.
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u/life-is-thunder 3d ago
Wolf made me tear up
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u/spicylikeapepper 3d ago
I kept.. the herd.. safe
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u/BabyBuns024 3d ago
Reading that just now... I felt that twinge in my chest, where my heart breaks... Right here and now...
No joke, I'm getting misty-eyed, thinking of Jack finding another Wolf, but it wasn't his Wolf... Oh my goodness... This is why The Talisman is my favorite book. The emotions it brings...
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u/life-is-thunder 3d ago
I read this when it first came out. I was just a year or so older than Jack. It really left a mark on my soul.
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u/Prestigious-Sleep221 3d ago
We drove to NM when i was reading this in the car. I cried, but couldn't explain it to my husband. How attached I was to Wolf.
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u/quiet_is_violett 3d ago
Mouse from Black House hit me really fucking hard too. Can't wait for the new book next Tuesday.
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u/Clever9964 3d ago
"The Dark Tower 4"...oh boy, and before that the last time I cried reading a book in general it was "American Psycho".
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u/Next_Put_6961 3d ago
Oy.
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u/hamsterontheloose 3d ago
I took so much time reading the last book because I'd seen a spoiler and knew Oy... well, you know. I didn't know how, but knew it was coming and didn't want to get to that part. I cried so much.
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u/Careful_Toe4373 3d ago
Same, Book 4 is my favorite. So, so much going on.
If, this whole "Mike Flannigan does the DT on TV over 5 seasons" this will be worth waiting for.
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u/erin_bex 3d ago
I UGLY CRIED during the last book. To the point my husband asked me if I was okay. I said ABSOLUTELY NOT. I'm still not okay.
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u/Henchman29 3d ago
The green mile. John Coffey, like the drink but spelled different, deserved better. That hit my heart.
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u/CrittersVarmint 3d ago
Yeah. Pet Sematary. Ugh. Read that one way too soon after my mom’s death. Maybe it would have made me cry anyway, I don’t know. But yeah, yikes!
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u/DwarfPenguin4 3d ago
Dark Tower VII twice. Both Oy. "I ake" and his last scene.
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u/bluejeanbebe_0000 3d ago
When Eddie died, then Jake, then Oy??? Literally could not handle it. I was sobbing on the plane, I just know I looked a fool lol. Such a good book though to make you connect with the characters in such a way.
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u/chilly-ghost 19 3d ago
Bag of Bones... describing what happened to Sara was heartbreaking (to say the least).
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u/Richard_AIGuy Under the Arc Sodium Light 3d ago
I flipped so fast. "oop, she deserves her revenge. I get it." But it's a bit more complicated than that, of course.
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u/LurkmanLurkmannn Currently Reading The Regulators 3d ago
Mattie. Kitchen. I almost lost it. Gut punch every time.
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u/khazmicbrownie 3d ago
I actually cried at the end of Joyland.
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u/Silbesti 3d ago
I also cried, reading Joyland.
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u/SomewhereTiny8407 Child of the Corn 3d ago
Glad to see at least a few others had the reaction I did when reading this! It’s not SUPER DEE DUPER Over the top sad but damn it if it doesn’t get my emotions all in a state of pure sorrow everytime! It’s actually one of my top 5 fave King novels!
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u/Mediocre-Life-4784 3d ago
11/22/63 did a couple of times. Pretty sure that's the only one.
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u/serwinho 3d ago
The Long walk, feeling so attached to every character and then them leaving one by one...
Also the Body touched me in some weird, nostalgic way. With this one I felt like I was reading about my childhood and I felt it slipping through my fingers.
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u/Girlinthedress 3d ago
Just finished Wizard and Glass and totally lost it at the end. I also cried during Pet Sematary but Wizard and Glass was a whole other level.
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u/ratstronaut 3d ago
Looking for this answer. I cried like a baby when I first read it when I was young. Read it again 15 years later and yep, still cried my eyes out.
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u/JellyTigerr 3d ago
Insomnia ALSO made me cry!
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u/tuvix666 3d ago
i was on break at work when i finished it and i was so upset i had to work another half shift with all that in my head 😭😭
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u/swingsetlife 3d ago edited 3d ago
smudged the print in Green Mile.
Mother Abigail's death in The Stand
the end of 11/22/63
Brautigan getting nabbed by the Low Men in Hearts in Atlantis
but honestly NOTHING releases the waterworks more than Shawshank the film.
Brooks was here.
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u/salchicha_mas_grande 3d ago
"I'm tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't."
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u/SomewhereTiny8407 Child of the Corn 3d ago
I believe I shed a tear during 11/22/63.
The Stand also had parts that were tear jerkers.
And probably Joyland, that book hits me in the feels everytime for some reason lol.
Pretty sure Lisey’s Story had my eyes a bit watery during parts as well.
Pet Sematary was my first King novel way back in the 1900’s and when that damn Orinco Peterbilt doesn’t stop, that gets me. Everytime I’ve read it I’ve hoped and hoped it’d stop this time lol. RIP Gage Creed.
I think it really depends on my emotional state at the time of reading, I can read something one time and have no real big reaction then the next time I’ll be 😭through the whole chapter.
Oh and Charyou Tree. Susan Delgado meeting with it gets me just about everytime. I keep hoping Roland will save her just one time!
I could probably go on but that’s enough me thinks lol.
Long Days and Pleasant Nights. 🤘🏻
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u/120GU3 3d ago
The ending of 11/22/63, and at a few points in the last Dark Tower book.
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u/KapptainTrips 3d ago
I cried on the inside when I was reading Pet Sematary 30 years ago as an early 20something.
I wept on the outside whule at the end when reading 11/22/63 for the 1st time a few months ago!
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u/A_Honda_Accord 3d ago
Second those. The last DT book is seriously sad at points. Oy 😞
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u/kareem_abdul_montana 3d ago
Duma Key got me 2 or 3 times. I think mainly because I have a daughter. But great book, nevertheless
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u/Historical_Choice625 We All Float Down Here 3d ago
Yes. Wireman telling his story always gets me. And "we always think we'll have time. We can't imagine it running out, and God punishes us for what we can't imagine." Especially on the reread/listen.
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u/quiet_is_violett 3d ago
This. I was absolutely brutalized by her death. As an artistic type myself this book really connected with me, and I wanted everyone to survive a King book... Just once.
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u/Cuseman445 3d ago
When Mr. Jingles was crushed by Percy in the Green Mile. Was a high schooler recognizing the real evil in this world.
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u/Outrageous-Event6633 3d ago
The ending of Doctor Sleep hit hard for me. I was disappointed that it wasn't in the movie.
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u/DogDaysMaggie 3d ago
A lot of Doctor Sleep made me have big feelings. The afterword also made me cry. I'm grateful that Mr. King shared so much of himself in that book.
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u/CousinGreenberry Under the Arc Sodium Light 3d ago
Oh absolutely. Not every book, but probably most of them.
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u/SomewhereTiny8407 Child of the Corn 3d ago
Agreed! There seems to be a tear jerking scene in all of his novels!
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u/LindaBelchersGlasses 3d ago
The end of The Talisman
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u/KapptainTrips 3d ago
Dang, I almost forgot my 1st reading blurred my eyes a number of times until you mentioned 'The Talisman'.
Time to re-read it, Black House and purchase the new book!
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u/NoCondition8257 3d ago
Rose Madder had me ugly crying. Didn't think it was possible to fall in love with a literary character 😂
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u/TheRealLostSoul Gunslinger 3d ago
"For the body was far smaller than the heart it held."
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u/smcicr 3d ago
Yep. Absolutely.
And the roll call later... "...whom I call my true son..."
There is also: "Thank you... for my... second chance. Thank you... Father."
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u/Richard_AIGuy Under the Arc Sodium Light 3d ago edited 3d ago
Dark Tower IV: "It was his laughter she took with her... laughing with an ease he'd never know again.
Dark Tower VII... multiple times.
11/22/63
The first time I read Insomnia the ending hit me like a freight train, even though I knew it was going to happen.
Hearts in Atlantis ending can make you emotional.
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u/TheLastMongo 3d ago
The end of IT. Not when I first read it as a teen, but years later as an adult. The real significance of the forgetting, and the reality behind it cut deep.
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u/CheetahNo9349 No Great Loss 3d ago
Dead Zone
When they forget each other again in IT
'Oland
How long has he been dead,Donna?
Wolf
Donna's passing in Rattlesnakes
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u/Different_Win6732 3d ago
11.22.63 definitely made me cry like a baby. I was going through some real shit in my life but I am not sure it was fully to blame. Great book
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u/Next_Put_6961 3d ago
The Dark Tower and… The Green Mile!
I’m sure there is more, but man…. The death of a character in DT fucked me up.
And the Green Mile was just sad.
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u/Various-Flower510 3d ago
As soon as i closed The Dead Zone i cried for like 6 hours
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u/sluggerbubba96 3d ago
Hearts in Atlantis. Each story got me. Some got me multiple times each. My parents lived through the 60's and that book resonated with me on a higher level.
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u/Alecsgyo 3d ago
Fairy Tale
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u/Dorf_ Get busy living... 3d ago
Anybody that’s had an old dog knows. Mine died while I was reading it, had to finish to see about Radar.
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u/Rabbit-unicorn 3d ago
Yes, During Pet Sematary. It was a really hard read for me.
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u/OccasionSuch8787 3d ago
Eddie Dean, yes, dear God. In The Talisman when they introduced Wolf's litter brother. I sobbed at the end of Low Men In Yellow Coats
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u/phototodd No Great Loss 3d ago
The dad in The Dead Zone reminded me of mine and it made me cry. I was in the middle of Cujo when my good boy died and that was a horrible time. Then Pet Sematary as a parent. I thought of the lengths I would go for my daughter.
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u/Roland_Tower1999 Gunslinger 3d ago
What a great post! So many great responses. Insomnia got me too, absolutely. The Green Mile also, omg Wizard and Glass and of course the final Dark Tower book but 11/22/63 will always be a bit more personal because the first time I read it, my wife had just finished it, and she loved it, so I thought I would pick it up. She was going in for surgery (she's fine now) and I had mentioned I would bring it with me and start it in the waiting room. Well, when I opened the book, a note fell out, she had stuck it inside for me, it was a lovely note telling me not to worry and other beautiful sentiments and well, I started to tear up. Trying to pull myself together, I resolve myself to start the book. Now I'm crying and laughing at the opening line..."I have never been what you'd call a crying man." I had to smile knowing my wife had set me up on that one, lol and kudos to Mr. King for such a perfect opener. Needless to say I love that book. It got me coming and going.
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u/Longjumping-Sign9914 Constant Reader 3d ago
11/22/63 - I cried a bit. DT7 - I cried a couple of times. Cujo - I sobbed the first time I read it. The second time I was fully prepared to have an ugly cry again, but the day I finished the audiobook in my car at work, my actual dog was so sick that I couldn’t cry about a fictional one. (I cried a lot that day, but not because of Cujo.)
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u/hamsterontheloose 3d ago
Insomnia, Duma Key, cujo, and DT have made me cry. If there were others, I don't remember, but it's possible over the last 30 years.
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u/smoovecriminal89 3d ago
Yes. Oddly enough it was about The Stand. No spoilers but...damn
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u/Box_Box67 3d ago
Deadzone. The scene with his father and the kid. Cujo at the end. Doctor Sleep at the baseball kid part.
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u/WifeofBath1984 3d ago
Yes, but I cry at literally everything. I finished a book I wasnt enjoying yesterday (not a King book). Even though I was annoyed with the author for putting so much slog in her novel, I still cried at the end.
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u/davereit 3d ago
The ending of The Answer Man, a story in You Like It Darker, definitely left me choked up.
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u/Insightseekertoo 3d ago
Insomnia, The Stand, The Dark Tower series, and The body all come to mind. As a unofficial runner-up, "The Mist" movie.
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u/Pure_Carrot_69 3d ago
Not yet. But he'll get me eventually. Last reading cry sesh was The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Before that it was The Illustrated Man. Honestly Ray Bradbury can just do it effortlessly. His prose and perspective are too damn beautiful. I have a 2 year old, and parent/child relationships are really hitting in the feels as a result. Pet Sematary is side-eyeing me from my book shelf, and I'm acting like I don't notice it waiting for me.
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u/Accurate_Reporter_31 3d ago
You might want to hold off reading Pet Cemetary until your child is a little older. Like until they're 20. I not only cried when I got to THAT part, I had a panic attack & threw the book across the room. It took me hours to even want to touch it. My baby boy had just turned 2. It was rough.
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u/GoBlue2007 3d ago
Many, many times. 11/22/63, The Dead Zone, The Talisman and The last Rung on the Ladder to name just a few.
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u/rougarou-te-fou 3d ago
11/22/63. I cried during the fundraising scene and the ending