Weekly Question - Mar 19 - Laugh or Cry

[Robin P, Orbicular Mod]

What book(s) made you laugh and/or what book(s) made you cry?

[Jennifer W]

I laugh easily, life is amusing to me, so most books will make me chuckle at least once. The last book that really had me laughing was also the last book that really had me crying, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. It's full of juvenile, crude humor, so it's definitely not a book for everyone, but I found it hysterical. And if you can't figure out why it made me cry, well....

[Amy (Other Amy)]

Really, really laugh AND really, really cry:

Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

[Ashley Marie]

I laugh at a lot of things, but Craig Schaefer's Daniel Faust series perfectly fits my snarky sense of humor - the most recent one of those I read was The Neon Boneyard. Also Mindy McGinnis's new book, A Long Stretch of Bad Days - the MCs are teenagers, and their sass knows no bounds.

The last book to make me ugly cry was The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

[Mandy]

Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense. Light Novels, Vol. 1 series makes me laugh out loud in almost every book.

I haven't really found a book that made me cry yet. i've been close but none have moved me to actual tears.

[Kendra]

I laugh in most books so that's too hard to pick, but the last book that made me cry was The Travelling Cat Chronicles

[Robin P, Orbicular Mod]

I remember the first book that made me cry was Lassie Come-Home that I was reading in about 4th grade. It wasn't any of the bad things that made me cry, but the happy ending. That is generally what makes me cry in books or movies.

I laugh more often at audiobooks than in print because the narrators are so much better at timing and expression than I am in my own head.

[Rachel]

I very rarely literally laugh out loud or cry from books, but the one that gets me every single time is A Monster Calls. I literally sobbed at the same part both times I read it (and at the same part when I watched the movie)

[Jen]

I cried buckets when I read The Time Traveler's Wife. I'm not sure why, but that story just tore me up. The Fault in Our Stars was another tear-jerker.

I still remember reading Me Talk Pretty One Day in a cafe and silently laughing so hard (because I didn't want people to look at me weird) that there were tears rolling down my cheeks. So in the end, people looked at me weird anyway. My husband and I still quote from that book. Dear Committee Members also had me in stitches (possibly because I am an English professor).

[Trish, Annular Mod]

There are a few books that have me in tears in the last couple of pages (including The Lord of the Rings (view spoiler)[Frodo and Bilbo going to the West at the end (hide spoiler)]), although the last couple that had me in floods by the end were The Travelling Cat Chronicles and Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

On the other hand I enjoy a good laugh, too, especially a good one-liner. Most of the Discworld books fit into the laugh out loud category, as did the original The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Recently, parts of The Thursday Murder Club had me chuckling openly, as is How Iceland Changed the World (yes, a sarcastic history book), which I'm reading at the moment.

[Sheena]

Nodding in agreement with lots previous mentioned (Jenny Lawson, David Sedaris, Richard Osmond) all make me LOL.

Sunshine Vicram particularly in A Good Day for Chardonnay made me howl (that Raccoon story!)

I laughed all the way through Republic of Dirt: A Return to Woefield Farm - the characters are just so wonderfully odd.

Crying .. just finished Us Against You & The Winners and of course sobbed all the way through

A few scenes in the Harry Potter series make me cry no matter how many times I've read them.

[Sherri]

I do chuckle every now & then out loud but I can't remember which books made me chuckle. I laughed out loud at Broken & I read passages to my husband & he laughed. Books that made me cry. We were in the car when I finished Hamnet I told my husband to not mind me but I was going to sit there & cry for a moment. Beartown made me cry. Sometimes it physically hurt to read on. The Winners made me cry.

[Ashley Marie]

Sherri wrote: "I do chuckle every now & then out loud but I can't remember which books made me chuckle. I laughed out loud at Broken & I read passages to my husband & he laughed. Books that made m..."

Hamnet had me sobbing at the office. Thankfully I have a secluded space and wasn't surrounded by coworkers, but woof. What a book.

[Amy (Other Amy)]

Rachel wrote: "I very rarely literally laugh out loud or cry from books, but the one that gets me every single time is A Monster Calls. I literally sobbed at the same part both times I read it (an..."

Oh, holy moly, I forgot about A Monster Calls! Definitely broke out the whole tissue box for that one.

[Ashley Marie]

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Rachel wrote: "I very rarely literally laugh out loud or cry from books, but the one that gets me every single time is A Monster Calls. I literally sobbed at the same part both time..."

YES. Jason Isaacs's narration was stellar.

[Marie]

A Monster Calls made me cry so much. I don't know if I could read it again, even though it's such as good book.

Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog had me crying from the intro, but there was a lot of laughter to balance out the tears.

I listened to What If It's Us on my walk to work and back and that had me laughing and crying (I probably looked like a crazy person).

[Ashley Marie]

The other memorable book that made me bawl was Rogue, the final book in Gina Damico's Croak trilogy. I sat in the corner and needed mint chocolate chip ice cream to cheer me up after that finale.

[Kelly Sj]

Authors that make me laugh are Terry Pratchett (Discworld series), Elizabeth Peters (Amelia Peabody series), Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and Julie Schumacher (academic satire at its finest).

Books that made me cry include Mornings in Jenin, The Book Thief, The Farthest Shore (from the Earthsea series), and The Invisible Bridge. All 5-star reads for me.

And one of my favorite books ever that had me laughing and crying: A Prayer for Owen Meany

[Joan]

So I laughed out loud a lot with You. I just thought Joe's inner voice was kinda funny sometimes. I also laughed a lot with The Martian. Those are the ones that first come to mind.

As far as crying - The Fault in Our Stars and Me Before You are some of the ones I really remember crying a lot over. A Monster Calls - that definitely made me cry too. I can't believe I forgot about that one.

[Lindsay]

I laughed and cried when listening to the audiobook for Moranifasto by Caitlin Moran. It’s a feminist view on society. I’ve previously read her book How to be a Woman, and this has similar themes. I’d recommend both.

[Pam]

Nives by Sacha Naspini made me laugh out loud! I loved this book! I wish more of this author's books were translated into English.

Wonderful book but definitely some tears - My Brilliant Life by Kim Ae-ran. One of my top 3 books in 2022!

[Chrissie]

I don't read a lot of funny books. I remember crying at:
The Fault in Our Stars
The Winners (literal sobbing for the last 50 or so pages)
A Little Life
and although I read it long ago, literally the day it came out, I remember crying at Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows though it's been so long now, I hardly remember what happened.

[♞ Pat]

If I have an emotional reaction to a book, it's usually a tearful one.

The most recent one that got me teary was What the Wind Knows by Amy Harmon

[Misty]

The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa had me sobbing. I lost it in House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas when a particular character that I loved didn't make it. I really don't cry much in books. However, I laugh all the time. Stephen King and Charlaine Harris both crack me up. Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books always make me laugh.