“What he knew, he knew from books, and books lied, they made things prettier.”
Some books don’t just make you cry while you’re reading them – they follow you long after you’ve turned the final page. They leave you staring at the ceiling, feeling strangely hollow, as if something has been quietly taken from you. If you’re looking for books that make you feel empty afterwards, you’re probably looking for stories that go beyond simple sadness and instead leave a lasting emotional imprint. These are the books that linger in your mind, that sit with you in silence, and refuse to let you go. Oftentimes, they’re emotionally devastating novels, tragic literary fiction, or beautifully written stories with endings that feel both inevitable and unbearable. Today at What We Reading, we’re taking you through the books that will leave you emotionally drained, hollowed out, and thinking about for days afterwards. They might always be the easiest reads – but they sure are unforgettable.
A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara
Where else could we start a list of sad books that make you feel empty than with A Little Life? Hanya Yanagihara’s acclaimed literary fiction novel follows four classmates from a small Massachusetts college as they move to New York. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter; Malcolm, a frustrated architect; and the withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity.
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realise, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his body and mind scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only never recover from, but that will define his life forever.
Check Out The Best Books Like A Little Life
The Road – Cormac McCarthy
A father and son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save for the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls, it is grey. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have just a pistol to defend themselves with, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food, and each other.
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is a profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which a father and his son are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best of which we are all capable.
Check Out The Best Books Like The Road
A Short Stay In Hell – Steven L. Peck
As a faithful Mormon, Soren Johnsson has always believed he’ll be reunited with his loved ones after death in an eternal hereafter. Then, he dies. Soren wakes to find himself cast by a God he has never heard of into a Hell whose dimensions he can barely grasp: a vast library he can only escape from by finding the book that contains the story of his life.
In this haunting existential novella, Steven L. Peck explores a subversive vision of eternity, taking the reader on a journey through the afterlife of a world where everything everyone believed in turns out to be wrong.
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
As a child, Kathy lived at Hailsham, a private school in the English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe they were special, and that their well-being was crucial not just for themselves, but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.
And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fuelled her adolescent crush on Tommy start to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstandings that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham’s nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood – and about their lives now.
Check Out Our Never Let Me Go Book Review
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story that promises to break your heart and refuse to put it back together again. Sethe, the story’s protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but, eighteen years on, she’s still not free.
She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.
The Long Walk – Stephen King
Against the wishes of his mother, sixteen-year-old Ray Garraty is about to compete in the annual gruelling match of stamina and wits known as The Long Walk. One hundred boys must keep a steady pace of four miles per hour without ever stopping. The winner will receive the prize of anything he wants for the rest of his life.
But, as part of this national tournament that sweeps through a dystopian America year on year, there are harsh rules that Garraty and ninety-nine others must adhere to in order to beat out the rest. There is no finish line – the winner is the last man standing. Contestants cannot receive any outside aid whatsoever. Slow down under the speed limit, and you’re given a warning. Three warnings and you’re out of the game – permanently.
Hello Beautiful – Ann Napolitano
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him – so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable. With the Padavanos, William soon finds a newfound contentment; every moment in their house is filled with loving chaos.
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardising not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for the future, but also the sisters’ unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives forever. Will the loyalty that once grounded them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters the most?
Check Out The Best Books Like Hello Beautiful
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
Another one of the best books that will leave you feeling empty is Khaled Hosseini’s iconic novel, The Kite Runner, a story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant. The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption.
A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the past three decades, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful novel that has become a one-of-a-kind classic.
Check Out The Best Books Like The Kite Runner
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
This is the extraordinary love story of Clare and Henry, who met when Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry was thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry suffers from a rare condition where his genetic clock periodically resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future.
In the face of this force they can neither prevent nor control, Henry and Clare’s struggle to lead normal lives is both intensely moving and entirely unforgettable, promising to leave you feeling broken and empty in all the best ways.
Call Me By Your Name – André Aciman
Call Me By Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents’ cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first, each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession, fear, fascination, and desire intensify their passion.
What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks’ duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two of them discover on the Riviera is the one thing they fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.
Flowers For Algernon – Daniel Keyes
Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence – a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.
As the treatment takes effect, Charlie’s intelligence expands until it surpasses that of his doctors, who engineered this metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?
Check Out The Best Books Like Flowers For Algernon
We Need To Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver
Eva never really wanted to be a mother – and certainly not the mother of an unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday.
Now, two years later, it’s time for her to come to terms with the marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin’s horrific rampage in a series of startling direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.
The Song Of Achilles – Madeline Miller
Achilles, son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to those who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods’ wrath.
They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins the cause. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.
Check Out The Best Books Like The Song Of Achilles
Everything I Never Told You – Celeste Ng
Lydia is the favourite child of Marilyn and James Lee, a girl who inherited her mother’s bright blue eyes and her father’s jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfil the dreams they were unable to pursue. But Lydia is under pressures that have nothing to do with growing up in a 1970s small town in Ohio.
When Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, James is consumed by guilt and embarks on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn is determined to make someone accountable. Lydia’s older brother, Nathan, is convinced local bad boy, Jack, is somehow involved. But it’s the youngest in the family – Hannah – who observes far more than anyone realises and who may be the only one who knows what really happened. Everything I Never Told You is a gripping page-turner about secrets, love, longing, lies, and race, perfect if you’re looking for a book that will leave you feeling empty inside.
Check Out The Best Books Like Everything I Never Told You
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
