Booktube Recommends Emotionally Impactful Fantasy, Sci-fi, Horror, and Literary Fiction!

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Some of my favorite reads of all time are those books that just hit you in the feels and make you feel something that you haven't felt in a long time. I love a good book that just takes you and grabs you and makes you feel pain, makes you feel anger, makes you feel joy, makes you feel something. So, I've asked a bunch of my friends in the book community to let me know what are some of their favorite books that have made them feel something. Let's get started.

[00:00:34]So, books with emotional impacts. There are so many books that just hit the fields. However, I'm going to go with one that's a standalone, making it somewhat accessible. If you're just looking to be emotionally devastated for a while, definitely check out Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wong. Oh boy, does this hit you in the gut with emotional emotions.

[00:00:57]This follows a female scholar who is trying to become the first female mage in this high college. And when she does get in, things only get worse. Not only does she have to deal with the misogynistic older mages and such, there's also a really messed up class divide and a ton of other themes that really blend very well into this story.

[00:01:16]However, the thing that really hit me in the emotions was Siona's story, her character arc. There is one chapter in particular where she ain't doing so good and it just hit me right in the fields.

[00:01:29]It really is an emotional story unlike any other I have read and I highly recommend checking out Blood Over Bright Haven. Also, you should check out Sword of Kigan by the same author, but I feel like you probably already know about it.

[00:01:44]It's also very emotional. Um, but I feel like you probably already know about it, but if you don't, sort of Keenan is another one. Preacher, thanks for inviting us. Okay, we didn't have to think very long and hard for the last read that hit us emotionally cuz this read wrecked us. Once a quarter, we do a father-son buddy read here at Talking Story. And hey, this one, Boy's Life by Robert McCammon, uh, left let's left left us both weepy.

[00:02:16]I I think this is like the most emotional read I've ever read. I don't think I've ever cried half as much at a book as I have at this one. Um, I went through a whole experience reading this book because I knew it meant a lot to you. It was important for you that I read it. Um, and it was experience that we were going to share together. And I didn't have uh uh it took a while for me to kind of get onto this book. And I I guess the the slow small pitch for the book is that there's a bit of a small town mystery going on. You've got the POV from a young boy >> um while his father is kind of really dealing with the mystery and uh you just kind of experience the boy's life and and the mystery kind of takes a backseat for a long long time and you just enjoy and inhabit the shoes of this boy and uh enjoy some magical realism with his imagination and kind of interpret that magic as you will. And the ending, which I can't say much about, obviously completely wrecked both of us.

[00:03:21]>> Yeah. I read this when it came out in 1991. Huge fan of Robert McCammon. Went to a signing and now you have my signed copy. I passed it on to you and I I have this beautiful sunup edition that was sent to me as a lovely, lovely gift. It it's it's about a life. It there's magic there. There's relationships there. Um it everything happens in this small town that you get in this amazing glorious gift that we call a life. And if you if you just look a little harder, if you just stretch a little bit to remember what that childhood magic was like was like, it's still still there. And to share it with you and to go back and forth about how what it meant to us. Uh I'm I'm not talking about the single Denzel tier, you know, the Oscar tier.

[00:04:08]No, >> no. like ugly cry like a [ __ ] >> Yeah.

[00:04:13]>> Yeah.

[00:04:13]>> Yeah. Um >> Yeah, >> man. I It's a book that I would say everybody should read it, but I don't think it's going to hit for every kind of audience. It's a book that I think everybody should try because if you get into it and it ends up being that kind of book that you relate to and hits for you, it's going to be a really, really amazing experience. That was it for us.

[00:04:35]our most emotional read in a a good long while >> ever. Yeah.

[00:04:43]>> Thanks so much for having us, Preacher.

[00:04:45]Thanks for the invite, Preacher.

[00:04:47]>> Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica from Jessica's Library Card, and I am here today to recommend you a book that gave me all of the feelings, an emotional read. And I love an emotional read. I, if you know me, I like a book that makes me a little bit sad. I like a book that makes me think. I like a book that makes me feel all of the human emotions. And today I'm here to recommend you The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bold. This is a story of a man who has been away at war.

[00:05:14]He has been scarred. He's been damaged.

[00:05:16]He's been a prisoner. And he returns to the house that he came from seeking work just as the lowliest the lowliest of all servants. And he somehow finds himself the tutor of the ays of the house. and they go away to court where they encounter a lot of politics and intrigue and so many things that I I don't want to spoil for you because it's so amazing.

[00:05:40]But what made this book so good to me was the fact that we are following a character who is essentially good. We are following a man who asks for nothing and who would give what little he has to those that he really cares about. And I find that in fantasy that's actually fairly rare. It's a thing that I am I am trying to term nice guy fantasy because this is a nice guy fantasy.

[00:06:04]A fantasy where he does the right thing and it works. I love fantasies about wise cracking rogues as much as the next fantasy fan. But this felt like something really special and really refreshing and and at the end I I definitely had a few a few tears in my eyes and I I just can't recommend this book highly enough. It is um a classic for a reason and I really hope that some of you will check it out.

[00:06:29]>> Hello preacher. What I normally try and do when you ask me for a book recommendation or ask me to give a recommendation to your audience rather is I try and think of something that maybe a good portion of your audience might not have read before. However, today we're doing Malazin. We're doing Malazen Book of the Fallen. Do I own three copies of Dead House Gates? No, I own five cuz I also have it on Kindle and Audible. I love this series to death. And I think if we're talking about emotional resonance, emotional engagement, if we're talking about feels, I want to go to Malazin today.

[00:06:59]For the for the few people maybe who haven't heard of Malazin before, Malazin Book of the Fallen is a 10 book series authored by Steven Ericson. There are other subseries set in this world, prequels, sequels, both by Ericson and his co-creator of the Malazin world, Ian C. Esselond. Everyone talks about how epic and clever Malasin Book of the Fallen is, and it is very epic, and it is very clever, but sometimes I think we we emphasize that to the detriment of just how flipping emotional Malazin Book of the Fallen can be because I cannot think of any series that made me feel so much in so many different ways. This series has the big climactic Avengers Assemble kind of moments where all your characters will get together and storm down a hill. It has that. It has those sacrificial moments where someone will lay down their life or something else for their friends. That exists here too.

[00:07:49]It has the quiet emotionality where two characters are having a dialogue and then they stumble across some realization about themselves or someone says something hurtful and that can be just as impactful as a sacrificial scene. There are moments of humor. I have never read a series short of dungeon crawler Carl that makes me laugh quite so much in the way that Malazin does. So, I'm using this video as a means of just topping on my soap box for a minute because yes, Malazin is tremendously clever. It can be difficult. It is a commitment. It's also hugely emotionally resonant. Every novel, maybe the first novel notwithstanding, has five or six moments that just hit me like an emotional train. Whether that is sadness or joy or catharsis or the withholding of catharsis. So, preacher, what I'm trying to say, first of all, I'm four corners of the page. every time I forget to tell you who I am. The second thing I want to tell you is that Malazin Book of the Fallen continues to be after so many years the series that I find emotionally resonant, the most emotionally resonant.

[00:08:52]Thank you so much for having me on and I am looking forward to everybody else's recommendations. Bye. Hey everyone, Preacher, thank you so much for having me on to talk about a book that gave me some emotions. Now, when I was going through and trying to think of what book I want to go through and recommend, I was thinking, do I go with book three of Sandman Slim, Aloha from Hell by the great Richard Cadri? Because this book frustrated me. Um, I was passionately upset reading this book. It almost ruined the full series for me because I didn't enjoy it at all. Or do I go through and talk about book six of Pierce Brown's Red Rising? This is Lightbringer and I spent years of my life going through and being with these characters within this universe and the heartbreaking moment that happened within this book. It felt like my heart was completely ripped out of my chest.

[00:09:46]If you've read it, you know what I'm talking about. But today, I want to go through and talk about an unknown indie author named Stfan King.

[00:09:58]You've probably never heard of him. He's super underground and super niche, like has a tiny tiny tiny fan base. So, specifically, I want to talk about this book, this hidden gem. It's called The Green Mile. Now, listen, this book is emotional to its core. If somehow you've not heard about this, or you probably haven't because it's quite niche, this is about a a a prison guard who works on death row in the 1930s who encounters a new inmate named John Coffee. And from there, the story turns into one of the most emotionally devastating stories I've ever read because John Coffee might be one of the the most engaging and most heartbreaking character that Stephen King has ever written. Like, this book had me sitting with my feelings for huge stretches of the story. and honestly reminded me why Stephen King is so loved and why he's way more than just a horror author. Yes, there's supernatural elements in this, but the heart of the story t goes over cruelty, compassion, humanity, and the emotional weight that people carry. And seriously, if you've not read The Green Mile, go through and pick it up. you're doing yourself a disservice by not reading this amazing story. And hey, it's always good to go through and support small and upand cominging authors like Stefan King.

[00:11:29]Preacher, thank you so much for having me. Until I see you in the next one, stay over booked.

[00:11:34]>> Emotional damage.

[00:11:38]Feel like Preacher's audience is probably too old to understand that, but I can already feel him looking at his analytics and like watching it disappear as I come onto screen.

[00:11:49]So, in 2023, I actually kept in a league table which books made me cry the most because there is something fundamentally wrong with me. And the winner of that was Jade Legacy. But because that's the third book in the series and also because of recency bias, I'm instead going to recommend for you The Sword of Kigan by ML Wong. I have no idea why this took me so long to get to. It's been on my priority TBR for about 3 years and I just read it last month and it was incredible and it was emotionally destructive and it's a book that in the first half I kind of thought, you know, I've I've read this before. I I vaguely know where it's going and I was completely wrong. If you're familiar with the threeact structure, this doesn't follow it at all. In fact, it really skips the second act as far as my understanding goes. Ordinarily within modern fantasy, the second act is going to take up about twothirds of this book.

[00:12:56]And somehow Emma Wang does without it, which is just insane. The narrative structure is one of the things that make this unique, but there are so many bold and interesting decisions that Emma Wong as an indie author is able to make. And I think this really highlights how brilliant indie books can be and why they have a certain advantage to me over the trad published books which tend to be less likely to take risks. But also this is just a impeccably executed book that is a true piece of art and also very very upsetting to read in a good way I think. Although I'm going to struggle to recover from this book.

[00:13:45]>> Thank you, preacher, so much for having me a part of this video. When I think of a book that genuinely hit me emotionally, the first book that comes to my mind is The Power and the Glory by Graham Green. There's a few books that I wanted to go with, but Graham Green is slowly becoming one of my favorite authors of all time, so I had to go with this one. This book takes place in Mexico during a time where great persecution was going on against the church. Priests were being hunted down and they were being executed. And many were being pressured to renounce their faith in order to save their lives. And at the center of the story is a priest that is known as the whiskey priest. And he is not the kind of religious character that many people would expect.

[00:14:21]He is flawed. He struggles with alcoholism. He carries a tremendous amount of guilt. Not only that, but shame and failure. And throughout this novel, he is being pursued by this police lieutenant who outwardly seems more moral, disciplined, and righteous than he is. But that is what makes this book so devastating to me. Because Graham Green gets you to wrestle with some difficult questions. The main one being is what makes someone actually good? Is it outward morality, looking polished, looking disciplined, looking respectable in other people's eyes? Or is it somebody who understands how wholly broken they are and knows that they desperately need God's grace? That is what makes the whiskey priest such an unforgettable character to me because despite all of his flaws, despite all his failures, when the pressure ultimately comes, he cannot choose to abandon Christ. He does not have the ability to renounce his own faith, even if it would save his own life in the process. And honestly, I think that is so profound. The whiskey priest knows that he is not able to save himself. He knows that he is sinful. He knows that he is weak. And yet, he continues to cling to God anyways. And that's not because he believes that he is righteous, but because he knows he needs mercy. This book hit me so emotionally hard because Green gets us to confront something that many of us are too afraid to admit. Sometimes the people who seem the holiest on the outside are not the ones that are closest to grace. And the power and the glory captures that better than any novel that I have ever read.

[00:15:55]And as always, peace and God bless.

[00:15:59]What's up everybody? Jake here from Nerd Level Rising. And we're talking about books that really hit you in the fields.

[00:16:03]And I have quite a few of those. It's not that hard to make me cry to be honest. Uh but I want to show some love to book's own Philip Chase. The Edan trilogy, specifically book three, Return to Edan. Philip does some really interesting and unconventional things with the end of this trilogy with the book three and one of those is has been talked about a lot online is introducing a new character who is quite prominent to the story and the way that he writes this character and the arc and what what happens to this person at the end. The catharsis was so powerful and so moving and relatable that I I was walking on the treadmill while I was reading this and I was just crying and just hoping nobody looks at me, right? It was one of those things and it was just fantastic.

[00:16:46]So, if you have not yet checked this out, whole trilogy is amazing, but man, what an emotional punch at the end that just really brought it all together. So, the Dan Trilogy by Phil Chase.

[00:16:56]>> Hey everyone, I'm Nil with Shelf Esteem.

[00:16:58]Thank you so much to Preacher Reads for inviting me to be a part of this video about books with emotional impact. Now, I've had the good fortune of reading a lot of these types of books in the fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and historical fiction genres. And if I had to choose just one, it would probably be the one that started my Robert McCammon journey with Boy's Life. It's about 600 pages or so, and it's about a boy growing up in a small town called Zephr, Alabama, as he witnesses cultural and social changes in the 60s. But really what the book is about is growing up, about the innocence of youth. And I think the reason why the book has become so timeless is even though a lot of the things that happened to the kid happen in the context of someone growing up in the 60s, you know, his dad is a milk bottle salesman. So you really get to see, you know, some of the ' 60s isms that uh would have been part of that culture. It I feel like the principles are timeless there. You see things through a boy's eyes, you know, that age growing up with the innocence of youth. But there's a parallel story running through this whole thing. my friends. Suddenly, while on a milk bottle run with his dad, they see a car drive into a lake and there's a dead body inside and a murder mystery begins.

[00:18:10]So, as much as it is about the innocence of youth, it is also about that loss of innocence, about growing older and witnessing the changes around him. So, if again, if I had to choose one book, this book is a banger from start to finish. It's extremely well paced and the ending honestly brought a tear to my eye. And I'm not even somebody who cries when I read books. So, one choice emotional impact boy's life by Robert McCammon.

[00:18:35]>> All right, guys. It is my turn to answer the question and I was struggling with this question because I just have so many great books on my list that have made me feel some emotional impact. And so, what I might do is ask the guy who's running this video if I can actually talk about two books instead.

[00:18:52]>> I'm good with it.

[00:18:53]>> All right. So, let's first talk about Demon Copperhead by Barbara King Solver.

[00:18:57]Now, this book did not just make me feel sad. It did not just make me cry. It also made me angry. This is a book that engages the concepts of generational trauma and the concept of generational addiction in a way that just hit home for me. The main character, Demon Copperhead, is going through some things that I went through in my life. And I think that's one of the main ways that you can find a book that hits you emotionally is when you can find yourself in the main characters. And I thought that Barbara Kingolver did such a great job of accurately portraying what it's like to be in the midst of the hopeless situation that is generational trauma and generational addiction. If you have never read this book and that is something that you're interested in engaging with and dealing with, you need to pick up this book. But it didn't just make me angry. It didn't just make me cry. It also brought me joy and hope in some ways. Barbara handles both of these concepts in such a beautiful way where it doesn't feel cheesy or schllocky and so hopeful that there's just no realism to it, but it also doesn't just feel neither way that it approaches this question of what do we do with generational trauma? What do we do with generational addiction? So, you need to check out Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Next up, we've got what I think is the greatest fictional engagement with grief and loss that I have ever read, and that is A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. If you have watched this channel at all, you know how much I gush about this book. This is an easy read. It is a quick read. It's technically almost written like a middle-grade novel, but it is about this boy who is dealing with the imminent death of his mother due to a disease.

[00:20:35]and how he engages with this is through meeting with a monster every night who is going to walk with him through his grief and his trauma and what is coming next for him. This is a book that I think that every human should read because we will all deal with grief and loss and especially we will all deal with the fact that we know death is coming both for us and for those that we love and we need to be able to engage with those emotions. We need to be able to deal with that fact. And this book does such a great job within a fictional medium of helping us through that. All right, let's see what some more of my friends have to recommend to us for emotionally impactful reads. Hey preacher, you asked me for a book recommendation of a book that makes me emotional, gets me in my feels, and one that I cried at the end of very recently. In fact, this month is The Long Walk by Stephen King. This book is phenomenal. It's dystopian. It's a death games style of novel where we've got a hund boys who have to walk right down until there's just one left. Think of the Hunger Games, but just a lot more psychological torture. You get attached to these characters. Gity is this interesting young man, and we get to forge these relationships and then watch as they just slowly fall apart. By the end of this book, I wanted to cry. It is such a powerful novel that just explores tons of themes and deep, deep characterizations. It's literally a book where all of our characters are doing is walking and talking, and it's so incredibly good. Well, I'm back.

[00:22:18]Meaning, my last appearance must not have been such a disaster. Thank you, preacher, for letting me back on because you've given me the opportunity to preach myself about a book with some of the best emotional peaks in the fantasy genre I've read for a long, long time.

[00:22:32]Though it's probably not the kind of emotions that a lot of other recommendations in this video will be giving, I never cried my eyes out while reading this, nor jumped out of my seat and joy. Instead, this is the kind of book that will probably have you needing to go on a long walk to rethink your life choices. A book to remind you that reading is powerful. But to understand this book's magic, you got to know a little bit about the author himself. In fact, if you're a fantasy fan at all, not knowing who this guy is should be labeled a criminal offense, because he's kind of the godfather of us all. No, I'm not going to recommend Tolken to y'all or like CS Lewis. Please respect me.

[00:23:04]Instead, I'm going to recommend a book from the guy that birthed those giants.

[00:23:08]CS Lewis called this guy his master. He wanted to be this guy. His name is George McDonald, or old McDonald since we're tight, you know. And by the end of the 19th century, this guy was, if I could be so bold, the first king of fantasy. And the book I'm going to be recommending today is his magnum opus, 1895's Lilith. Now, this just isn't a book that's significant for the development of the fantasy genre, but also for the author himself, because George McDonald was surrounded by death when he wrote this. Three of his children had died of tuberculosis, and he would as well in about 10 years from now. But the reason why this book is so significant is because how he used those tragedies in his life and his knowledge of his own upcoming death and wo it into his story. A Lilith is dark unlike anything else coming out in this time.

[00:23:53]But it's not a grim dark like the lost continent that I recommended in the last preacher video. It's about a lonely man named Mr. Vain who comes to own a mysterious library. And there he is visited by the ghost of a man named Mr. Raven who takes him through a portal into a fantastical realm. But this is certainly not Narnia. This is a realm of monstrous spirits, skeleton armies wielding hellfire, tyrannical queens of darkness, and angelic biblical beings, literally characters from the Bible, fighting a war for the possession of Mr. Vain's soul. But all of it is for a purpose, and it leads into one of the best thematic fantasy novels I've ever read. It's a book written by a man at the edge of death himself, an old man passing down his final bits of wisdom before he goes. And no book perhaps that I've ever read has ever affected me in such a way. Because despite all the dark imagery, the horrific scenes, and the deep philosophies around judgment, salvation, heaven, and hell, this is a book that's ultimately about hope. About how to live out your days in peace, unafraid of what's to come and how when that time does come, to face your mortality with a smile. And while it may not bring you to tears, it may change the trajectory of your entire life. And what a better emotional peak that is. So there you go guys. Ciao.

[00:25:08]>> Hey appreciate it guys at Tor Ramble here. Thanks for having us on to recommend books with the biggest emotional gump punch. The one I got here is The Poet Empress by Shanta. This is a relatively recent read because it's also a debut book that just came out this year that has a five-star from both Rich and I. And that's in part due to the emotional wreck this book will leave you in. If you if you have siblings, you will relate to this story. It's a it's not a romantic.

[00:25:39]It's an anti-romanty in many ways. And it is about a character who you learn more about as the book continues and goes on and you see >> that is lots of books.

[00:25:54]>> I'm sorry. That's the most generic idea.

[00:25:58]>> Character you learn more about as you read. I'm more upset that you're not wrong. I was being too spoiler free audacious. But you know what? Go read the book if you want to cry. And >> about the character as the book goes.

[00:26:11]>> Tell What's your book, Rich? What? What?

[00:26:12]What's your book? Go ahead. What's your book?

[00:26:15]>> Organomics.

[00:26:17]It has grown on me so much for two emotional feelings of it is an incredibly funny book. And also gut punch. I'm still thinking about some of the characters deep emotional moments of tragedy. It is very emotional. I cried and I also laughed and I think you should too. Go read it. I mean that was generic but in a good pitching way. So I can't even make fun of you there. But yes, go read organics for a good laugh and a little tearjerker and the pod empress. You will cry. You will cry. You will cry hard. All right. Thanks preacher.

[00:26:53]>> What's up everybody? Jeremy Reeds here.

[00:26:55]preacher reached out and asked us to give a book that had an emotional impact on us and I came answering the call.

[00:27:03]Okay, I can't do that voice. Um, I can't give energy. I don't know how you'll do it. Anyway, I didn't take very long to think about my answer. It has to be And every morning the way home gets longer and longer by Mr. Frederick Bachmann.

[00:27:20]I first heard about this book from Murphy Napier's channel. She has mentioned it a few times and has reread it multiple times. It's one of her favorite books. So, I added it to my TBR at the time, as we do, and promptly forgot about it. Um, one evening, months later down the line, I was looking for a standalone palette cleanser book um after finishing some big book in some series or another. So, I went my TBR for a short standalone and I came across it.

[00:27:48]I checked my library. It had it available as an audio book and it was about an hour long. So I thought at the time, "Oh, this is perfect. I'll listen to that. I'm going to the gym. I can work out and knock out a book in one go." Um, in hindsight, that probably wasn't the greatest idea at the time.

[00:28:06]Um, I've told this story in the Discord before. That's a uh bookree boys discord. Um, join it. Come chat and hang out. Link in description. I assume I I don't really know. I have no control over this. Let's see it was there.

[00:28:19]Anyway, there I was in the gym lifting weights, not expecting to go on an emotional journey, but at last I did.

[00:28:27]Um, and I really like books that can have that kind of emotional impact on you, but it's not often that they're able to draw tears from me. And that little mini book did um twice, two separate instances in public.

[00:28:44]Kind of awkward. Still worth it though.

[00:28:46]Um, it was one of my top books last year. I didn't even own it until yesterday. Um, preacher said he was making this video and I went out and bought it and reread it just to see if it still hit and it does. Got me only one time this time though. So, what's it about? Well, life really focuses mainly on grandpa and his grandson, but also includes the grandma and his father as well and has some perspective shifts thrown in there. Uh, deals with personal connection and memory about life continuing on and how to say goodbye.

[00:29:14]Sounds real uplifting, right? Um, I say the setting is really surreal and unique as well. Um, I'll leave it there. I don't want to talk too much at length about it because I went in blind and it worked great. Plus, look at the length of this thing. It's 76 pages and 10 of those are illustrations in this book.

[00:29:33]And then the margins are tiny, guys.

[00:29:38]Small. Read it. You can do it. And there's also a dialogue, too, making it even shorter. Just read it. Join the Discord and tell me about it. Unless you didn't like it, then don't tell me or lie to me. Whichever. That's all I got for you, preacher. Thanks for letting us know on book channel people be in the video. Peace.

[00:29:55]Hey, fellow readers. Jay and Steph here from Hathaway Ever After. Our good buddy Dustin Preacher Reads has asked us to contribute to this book recommends video all about books with an emotional impact, which is perfect for us because we love to get emotional about books.

[00:30:15]some outwardly >> more than inwardly. Um, >> I felt like this was my moment.

[00:30:19]>> Yeah. So, for me, when it comes to emotion in books, it's mostly an inward reaction and and I get whether it be like um, you know, a hopeful feeling or just like a one that really hits you.

[00:30:32]It's this like welling up um, you know, for me it's it's not usually outward now.

[00:30:37]>> Yeah, I'm I'm thinking about it. But this book was one that I actually read along with Dustin and it made the room get a little dusty. It got a little dusty in the room while I was reading towards the end. Um, >> and it was actually quite a surprise because when I read another book by this author, it had a completely different feeling.

[00:30:59]It the book was similar, but it it just felt so empty um and avoid any kind of like human emotion. Um, so going into this, it was wild to see the difference.

[00:31:10]And that book is The Road by Cormarmac McCarthy. Just the story of the father and son and you know having a young son I think really put me in the place to to read and and and enjoy this book in a way. The father and his protectiveness and at the same time trying to get his son ready for this world that they are now living in. Um, it just really really hit me and towards the end definitely hit me hard. And it's not just a lot of people think of this book as as just being like a a depressing book or um, you know, kind of nihilistic, but it really does have a uh, faith in humanity type of um, message to it as well. And I just the more I think about it, the more I love it, the more I want to reread it again. Um, but tears at the end, emotional impact.

[00:32:02]>> The book that I picked is a book that I know Dustin has not read yet. So, I picked this book in the hopes that Dustin will um bump it up on his TBR, number one, and number two, because this was such an emotionally impactful book.

[00:32:18]I think we both read this. Um, but both loved it.

[00:32:22]>> This is just a book that I continually think about. I continually recommend to people because I think this is a book that can resonate with all kinds of readers and a book that really emotionally impacted me. Um, and I haven't felt this way about a book really since I read Kristen Hannah's The Night and Gale and you know how I feel about that one. So, the book that I chose for uh this book recommends is um All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker.

[00:32:55]This book um is really impactful for a lot of different reasons and I think it also tackles a lot of themes in it. And off the bat, I want to say I'm going to be very vague about what the plot of this book is. Um like a lot of books that I go into, but this book specifically, I think it's important to go into not knowing very much about the plot. Um, I think it's best to go into this book blind and just sort of be immersed and enveloped by what is going on. This book follows um, two friends, Patch and Saint, over 25 plus years of their lives. So, this covers roughly early 1970s until about 2000. So, it follows their journeys both together and sort of how their paths diverge over those times. And uh Whitaker's writing in this book is astounding and really um just his pros. I know you said when you were reading it, it reminded you a lot of the way that King um writes as well, but this takes place um in the Ozarks.

[00:34:09]So sort of while you're reading this book, which the chapters are also very short and easy to digest. So page turners, some of the themes that they deal with in this book are, you know, it's a coming of age story. It's a love story, probably not in the way that, you know, you necessarily are thinking about. It is a mystery. There is trauma to overcome. There is um family uh relationships in this story. There are friendships in this story. So, it really packs a lot over this um 25 plus years that are really packed into this book.

[00:34:45]And the fact that he can write these characters over this time frame and you really feel like the characters at the end of this book, you know them and you've grown with them and it's just a book that sort of breaks your heart and puts it back together and you're better for it at the end of this book. Um, I just highly recommend uh recommend this read. I felt like a different person at the end of it.

[00:35:09]>> Yes, Jay recommends it as well. So, you got a twofur.

[00:35:12]>> So, there you have it. Our picks for books with emotional impact. Whenever I think of a book that has emotional impact stronger than SS Goku, I think of The Sword of Kai by ML Wong. So, I didn't know a ton going into this book, and I feel like that's the best way to go about it. So, I'm not going to tell you that much about it aside from the fact that it is a standalone fantasy with swords and elemental magic, aka like Avatar, the Last Air Bender magic.

[00:35:39]I'm talking ice. I'm talking fire. I'm talking wings. It's honestly so sick and it's written so visually, cinematically even. So, safe to say the fight scenes are, as Tony the Tiger would say, great.

[00:35:51]You thought I was going to do the voice.

[00:35:52]You thought I was going to do the voice, didn't you? Thought wrong. But what's even more great is the character work.

[00:35:58]Yeah. Some of my favorite characters ever live inside of these pages. And I think that's why it has such a high emotional impact for me. And those high emotional points made it a five-star read. Even though there's sections of the book that felt really slow or even like a slo for me personally. So in a way, this book is almost like the Frank Thomas of fantasy novels. It might not always get a hit. Look, it might bat 240 at times, but when it connects, man, that thing is going 600 ft. you are in awe and you will remember it for months, years even. If you've read this, you know, but there's a specific moment in this book that ripped my heart up like a bad report card. And then there's other smaller moments that ripped it up just a tad less. Yeah, this book is heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time. There's really interesting themes of family. If you spent any time on book, you've probably seen this cover, and there's a reason for that. It's awesome. Awesome enough to be on my goat shelf. It's in good company. So, if you haven't read the Sword of Kagan yet, give it a whirl. Thank you, preacher, for including me in this video. I don't know what what has just happened with my hands. Hey, my name is Toeer from the channel Toeer's Library, and I'm a firm believer that emotionally complex stories have the ability to help us wrestle with our own experience and fears while also inspiring, challenging, and at times even helping us move towards healing. With that in mind, I'd like to suggest the book Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger. This is to me one of those rare books that just hits nearly every emotion. Set in the summer of 1961, the story follows 13-year-old Frank Drum in a small Minnesota town after a series of tragedies begins just to really unravel not just his family, but really the community as a whole. His father is a Methodist minister. His younger brother Jake is observant and sweet and restless. And his 16-year-old sister Ariel is kind of like the golden child of the family. Over the course of this one summer, Frank is forced to confront grief and loss and faith and just the reality that adulthood is a lot more complex than he ever imagined. Now, listen, on paper that may sound heavy, and at times it is, but this is not a bleak book. It's emotional, sure, and it definitely hits at the universality of coming of age and of being human. But through all of that, there's really a warmth to it. There's compassion.

[00:38:07]There's wellplaced and honest feeling humor. The pros, mystery, and plotting of this book are all just incredible.

[00:38:13]And the book has the kind of writing that understands that even in the middle of heartbreak and loss and pain, life still moves forward. People still laugh.

[00:38:22]Kids still ride bikes and get into trouble. And everyone is almost always trying to make sense of the world in which they live. And what makes it even better, at least to me, is that it never feels manipulative. There's a logical progression to the story that earns every emotional moment honestly. And by the end, it leaves you with this profound sense of grace, exactly like the title promises. Not cheap or easy answers, not everything tied up in a nice little bow. Rather, a reminder that people are flawed, that life is sometimes really painful. And yet, even in the midst of all of that, there is still beauty and goodness worth noticing and worth holding on to. And in a world that sometimes elevates trauma for trauma's sake or encourages doom scrolling or cynicism or even the constant othering of people, this is a book that I think invites the reader to see the world and our experiences differently. So all that to say, go get this book and read it. Just just do it.

[00:39:15]It's worth every emotion that you're going to feel. I promise. Preacher, thanks for inviting me to contribute your continued stellar book recommendations and always being willing to wrestle with the heavier aspects of life. I really appreciate you, man.

[00:39:27]Hello everyone, Sam from I Sam Wise here and if I had to recommend one book based on a strong emotional impact there really is no question in my mind it would be Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card.

[00:39:40]I tend to be not a terribly emotional reader. Sad parts happen in a book. I can connect with that. I can resonate with that. But I rarely ever cry. Almost never. And there are parts in Lost Boys that had me breaking down actually sobbing. something that I have not done while reading a book in many many years, maybe since I was a kid actually. Um, Card's famous for his science fiction and his fantasy. Lost Boys is difficult to categorize. The thing that you'd compare it most to is maybe like slice of life, a bit of coming of age, maybe magical realism. So, Stephen King writes a lot of books that that could be compared uh to this one in terms of the type of genre that it would be classified in, although it's not really a horror novel. It's about the Fletcher family. They move from Indiana to a more southern state, I believe, Alabama. And uh the father is a video game developer, and so he starts working at this company that he has high ambitions for. And uh the company maybe isn't exactly what he wanted it to be or hoped it would be.

[00:40:43]and there becomes some really negative things there. On the home front, uh his wife is having a hard time settling into the community, moving into this new home. They've are having problems with these weird bug infestations. And to make matters worse, um not only is she pregnant, not only is the family struggling making ends meet, but their oldest son begins to interact with what he describes as imaginary people. and he's a little bit old to be having imaginary friends and they're not quite sure if something supernatural is going on, if this is just him uh not being able to make friends with people at school and so he's compensating with his imagination. The character work in this novel is second to none. I really can't tell you much more about what the book is about um because it would give too many of the secrets away and this is a book that has to be experienced. It is not a short book. It's probably 5 600 pages and yet the way that card writes it, it absolutely deserves that page count. And like I said, I've had no book impact me emotionally quite like this one did. And the other thing that's worth noting is that this book is the most personal one that Cart has written.

[00:41:50]It is almost autobiographical. It is based on certain hardships and difficulties that they've actually encountered. Certain incidents from his real life made it into this book. Um, and so there's a certain extra weight and emotionality to the conflicts, to the characters that really comes through in the page as well. It is certainly one of my favorite books that I've read this year and more people should check it out. Hey mate, it's Jay from Paperback Journeys. Thanks so much for asking me to participate in this video. Uh, so a book that really had a big emotional impact on me. This is a difficult question uh for me to answer I think in a way because everything I read is packed with emotion. I read in order to deeply feel things and so uh yeah if a book can make me cry uh it it it gets an extra point. But I thought about it for a little while and I think that the book that had the biggest emotional impact on me that I read recently was Boy's Life by Robert McCann. Uh, this was actually my top read of 2025. On the surface, this book is about a young boy called Corey who's growing up in this small town in Alabama in the 1960s, and he and his father witness a murder. But really, uh, it's actually about a lot more than that. I I'd say if if you were to ask me what is this book actually about, I'd say it's about childhood itself. It's probably the best coming of age book that I've ever read. Uh it's that sort of like strange mix of wonder and fear.

[00:43:27]It when you're a little kid and your imagination is getting away from you, adventure, that sense of adventure and the slow realization that growing up means losing elements and and and parts of yourself gradually, piece by piece that you know you're never going to be able to get back. I think what hit me so hard about this book was the nostalgia. Uh Mccameron is somehow able to capture that feeling of being a kid so perfectly that there were times and there were moments where I was reading this book and it was like physically physically I felt pain. Reading it felt like uh reconnecting with memories and emotions that I really hadn't considered in years. the freedom of summer days when you're a kid and you're off of school and it feels like days just last for weeks. All of the things that still are a mystery to you when you're young as you're trying to piece the world together. the way that friendships just feel massive and how and this is something that I most connected with how the town that you're raised in and I think this is probably true for everyone is littered with characters that when you're young feel as though they are carrying their own legends and their own mythos. There's a lot of warmth and melancholy that is running throughout the entire book because you know that for Corey and for all of us, childhood can't last. And I think that's probably why it stayed with me emotionally since I read it last year.

[00:45:05]Uh it it reminded me not just of my own childhood, but just of childhood in general. How magical and and and fleeting that period of life really is.

[00:45:15]I cried three times. Boy's life absolute banger. I hope you're enjoying your reading, preacher. And thanks again for including me in your video, mate. Have a good one.

[00:45:25]>> Hello, I'm Tabitha over at Tabitha's Toms. Thank you so much, Preacher, for arranging this. I'm going to cheat and give two recommendations. I'm going to first say The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Build. This one is great if you're looking for something that has really good discussions on things like PTSD and trauma and how one survives that how that can shape a person and age them beyond their years and how they can also recover from that. I got so much out of this in that aspect. It also just has an incredible world and incredible world building. So would definitely recommend that one. So, we often think of those like sad emotions, those really intense, fearful, sad, angry kind of emotions when we're thinking of emotional impact, but I also want to highlight one that's joyous and just like makes you so happy. It's it's one that just brings a little bit of sparkle, and that's Guards Guards. This is book one in City Watch within Discorld. So, if you're looking for something that's a little bit more on the emotional like heart punch kind of feeling, you'll want something like this. But if you're looking for something that's emotionally impactful in the happy sense, in the hope sense, in the there is light at the end of the tunnel sense, then Guards Guards is going to be for you.

[00:46:42]>> Hello, preacher. Thank you for inviting me to tell you about a book that had a big emotional impact on me. And I could certainly talk about one of the usual suspects, something by Stephen Ericson or Robin Hobb or maybe John Gwyn, but instead I want to tell you about an indie trilogy that I absolutely adore.

[00:47:01]It's called the Sunder Nation trilogy and it begins with a severing sun and then Bold Ascension. And finally, it concludes with Destiny's Doom, which I recently finished. This is by Von Royoft and he has done just such a tremendous job of building up these characters, giving you a sense of a life's journey, taking you on its twists and turns, its triumphs and its failures, its joys and its sorrows. This is a story of redemption and hope and tragedy and loss and a story that is setting up the next generation. And honestly, it was that that really got me at the end of Destiny's Doom, the third book in the trilogy. Uh, it just absolutely had me in tears. So, uh, without question, a a book that had a huge emotional impact on me, Destiny's Doom, book three of the Sunder Nation trilogy by Von Royoft. All right, that's the list. Thank you guys so much for watching this video. If you've never watched my channel, I'm Preacher Reads. I talk a lot about horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and literary fiction from the lens of a Christian pastor. Hopefully, you enjoyed it.

[00:48:08]Please like and subscribe if you did.

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