Stirring audiobooks guaranteed to make you cry

Author Kazuo Ishiguro is known for writing heartfelt stories that bring listeners to tears, but when I really want to get lost in my feelings, Never Let Me Go is the Ishiguro listen I always return to. This is the story of a peculiar English boarding school called Hailsham, where the students are told they are special and have a purpose...and it isn’t until much later that they discover what that horrifying purpose is. The story centers around three friends, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, as they are raised together at Hailsham, separated from the outside world, and eventually grow into adults who have to accept their fate. Rosalyn Landor’s narration of this audiobook truly captures the listlessness of our main character, Kathy. Her reading of this story will certainly bring you to tears.

Once you listen to The Time Traveler’s Wife, you’ll never be able to get this unique and heartbreaking love story out of your mind. Henry is one of the first diagnosed cases of Chrono-Displacement Disorder, meaning he lives outside of time. When he first meets the love of his life, Clare, she claims she’s met him before, several times, although he can’t remember meeting her at all. When Clare first meets Henry, she is a young girl, only six years old, and Henry is 36. They marry when Clare is 23 and Henry is 31. Trying to have a successful romance that exists outside of time has its challenges and is confusing at first, but it’s impossible to not get swept away in this story of love in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Clare and Henry’s story is beautifully brought to life by Phoebe Strole and Fred Berman.

Akwaeke Emezi’s The Death of Vivek Oji begins in tragedy. In a town in southeastern Nigeria, a mother opens her door to find the dead body of her son, Vivek Oji, wrapped in colorful fabric, on her doorstep. As the tragic story continues, the people who loved Vivek look back at his life and try to make sense of his heartbreaking death. Emezi’s novel is a story of family, friendship, and loss that will have you in tears from beginning to end. Audible listeners have praised the dual narrators, Yetide Badaki and Chukwudi Iwuji, for breathing life into the unforgettable characters and evoking the deep emotions that this engaging story so rightfully deserves.

M.L. Stedman’s debut novel is a tragic story of love, family, and the difficult decisions people are often forced to make. Set in Australia in 1918, The Light Between Oceans focuses on Tom Sherbourne, a young man who returns from the war to take a job as a lighthouse keeper on the remote Janus Rock. He soon marries and brings his wife, Isabel, to the island to live with him. The two begin their life together deeply in love and excited to start a family—but after several miscarriages, Isabel is becoming despondent, and Tom is losing hope. So when a boat washes up ashore holding a dead man and a living baby, the couple feel an immediate attachment to the young child. Defying protocol, and against Tom’s better judgement, they decide not to report the baby and raise her as their own. But back on the mainland, a distraught mother is searching for her lost child. Narrator Noah Tyler really made this story for me when I listened to it. His gentle and understated narration fits the somber mood of this beautiful story.

While Celeste Ng’s sophomore novel Little Fires Everywhere has been receiving a lot of attention as of late, it’s her debut, Everything I Never Told You, that will really have you in tears. The listen begins, as so many tragic stories do, with a death: “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet…” Lydia is the teenage daughter of Marilyn and James Lee. Her parents have many expectations for Lydia: she should be smart and popular. She should study hard and be a doctor all while being the life of every party. But there’s so much about Lydia that no one in her family fully understood. As these characters learn more about Lydia’s death, they also uncover surprising truths about her life. This novel is narrated by Cassandra Campbell, winner of five Audie Awards and a 2018 inductee in Audible’s Narrator Hall of Fame.

Stories about tragic deaths at a young age are never easy to hear, and Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones is no exception. In a unique look at loss, the late Susie Salmon, the novel’s protagonist, tells the story of those she left behind as they try to come to terms with her tragic death. Her father spends his day searching for her killer, her sister and brother try to be stronger for their family, and her mother completely disappears into her grief. The author herself narrates this tear-jerker of a novel, and she gives an exclusive interview at the end. This audiobook is also available in a Booktrack Edition, which adds music and sound effects to enhance the listening experience.

In this widely adored audiobook, acclaimed voice actor and narrator Oliver Wyman (winner of five Audie and 19 Earphones Awards) reads Hanya Yanagihara’s devastating novel with heart-wrenching emotion. A Little Life is the story of four college friends who move to New York City full of dreams, ambitions, and hopes for the future. There’s Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, an artist; Malcolm, an architect; and Jude, an attorney. But Jude’s life hasn’t been easy, and he is haunted by a dark past that he can’t seem to escape. This novel has been named one of the Audible Essentials, and when it inevitably brings you to tears, you’ll see why.

Haruki Murakami’s novels often go to surreal and strange places; however, Norwegian Wood is something entirely different. This novel takes an unflinching look at reality and all its tragedies. Toru is a college student living in Tokyo, and he’s completely obsessed with Naoko, a beautiful girl who shares in his pain after the tragic loss of their best friend. But Toru feels Naoko slipping away from him, similarly to how his friend disappeared into his emotions years earlier. And he feels helpless to stop it. This deeply sad and introspective novel is read by award-winning narrator John Chancer.

Speaking of childhood classics that wrecked you emotionally, who can forget Where the Red Fern Grows? Wilson Rawls’s iconic novel is about Billy and his two dogs, Old Dan and Little Ann. This is a heat-warming story of adventure, friendship, and yes, tragedy that we have to face, even at a young age. Anthony Heald’s moving narration of this unabridged production breathes fresh life and fresh emotions into an enduring classic.

Confession: I didn’t start this audiobook thinking that I was going to be so moved by it. But by the time I made it to the end of Nicola Yoon’s The Sun Is Also a Star, I had tears running down my face. Natasha is a girl who believes in science and facts. She certainly doesn’t believe in love, especially not when her family is about to be deported to Jamaica. Then she meets Daniel, a boy who is a self-proclaimed romantic and poet, and he’s determined to change her mind. This is an emotional story about love and, more importantly, how all of our lives are intricately connected in ways we can’t fully understand. This book is narrated by Hall of Fame narrator Bahni Turpin, one of my personal favorites, with the help of Raymond Lee and Dominic Hoffman.

A warm and deeply personal listen, How to Be a Girl will seize your whole heart with a perspective on gender identity we haven’t often heard: that of a mother whose young child has recently come out as transgender. Generous, thoughtful, and full of sensitivity and warmth, Marlo Mack's self-narrated memoir is a gorgeous exploration of family, identity, and unconditional love and acceptance. Deeply meditative on the nature of community and support and lovingly punctuated by the delighted giggles and singsong voice of Mack's daughter, this sincere listen shares a heartfelt story and a necessary lesson in allyship. It’s also, as one Audible listener rightfully says, the single most beautiful and tear jerking thing I have ever come across.

Sometimes when we experience something horrible in our own lives, it helps to lose ourselves in fantasy. Such is the case for 13-year-old Conor in A Monster Calls, who wakes to find a monster outside of his bedroom window after his mother begins treatments for her cancer. This book by Patrick Ness is based on an idea from author Siobhan Dowd, who was unable to write this story herself because of her own struggle and eventual death from cancer. Film and television actor Jason Isaacs narrates this novel using a wide range of voices to embody all of the characters flawlessly.