Some of the best books are freakin' sad

I am reading a really compelling book right now, and it happens that it's profoundly sad (I had to stop myself from crying on the train while reading on the way home from work). Here are some of my favorite devastating stories (both fictional and true):

1. Cracking India, by Bapsi Sidhwa - a novel set at the time of the partitioning of India into India and Pakistan (which I am currently reading)
2. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy - a novel set in southwestern India, about a family's sad history (this is one of my top 5 favorite books)
3. Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres - a memoir of a woman raised in a harshly conservative Christian family and sent to a creepy religious correctional camp in the Dominican Republic, where her brother was also sent
4. Beloved by Toni Morrison - a novel about a slave woman and her love for her children, particularly one child whom she lost (I won't give away details)
5. The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler - a collection of accounts from women who gave up unplanned children for adoption when they were young, in the time between World War II and Roe v. Wade