It’s time for another Friday Favourites hosted by Kibby @ Something of the Book! This weekly meme is where you get to share a list of all your favourites based on the list of prompts on Kibby’s page. Sounds fun, right? This week’s prompt is: Character Deaths**. So, I’m not really sure how to interpret this one because well, do I really have favourite character deaths? I’m not sure. The first thing that comes to mind when I think about this prompt is the character deaths that have stuck with me/made the biggest impact; so not necessarily my favourite death but it’s up on there on the list that I’ll never forget!

**Obviously I urge you to read this post with caution because I don’t know if you’ve read these books or if you want to read them, but warning: MAJOR SPOILERS! (Duh)

All the Deaths in the Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling. All the deaths in this book, especially towards the end of the series, really gutted me while reading the book and even more so when I watched the movies. Gets me every single time and I wail like a baby.

Willem in A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Obviously this wasn’t the only death in the book that was devastating, this book was already gut wrenching from the start, but just as we were getting a glimpse into how much better Jude’s life could be, and was slowly becoming, THIS CRAZY DEATH had to happen and basically set off an intense period of depression and death. It WRECKED me. I’m pretty sure I had to take a break from reading because the heartbreak was so real, y’all. So real. I still can’t believe Yanagihara would do us like that.

Old Yeller in Old Yeller by Fred Gipson. Dog deaths in real life, books, movies, and TV shows are the absolute worst. I can still remember how hard I wept when I read this book in school and Old Yeller died after saving his family’s life. What a good doggo boy 😭

Augustus Waters in The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. One of those tragic and unexpected twists in the book when you think one thing is going to happen and then something completely different happens. Oh, this book. I still cry whenever I reread it. I don’t think I could handle the movie (no, I haven’t watched it yet)!

Isabelle Rosignoll in The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. We were so close. SO CLOSE to a sort-of happy ending and even though, as you’re reading, you realize that this is probably not a possibility considering the physical and mental condition of the character towards the end of the book, you still can’t but feel (recklessly) hopeful that it can still happen. This was my favorite read last month and this death completely wrecked me. You can read my full review here.

Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Lennie’s death was a mercy killing, but his character was my favorite and it gutted me the first time I read this when I was in middle school and it was still able to slash at my emotions whenever I read it after I was out of school. Lennie was such a gentle giant who loved too much, and it really sucked that he had to die.

Werner Pfennig in All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. This was one of those shocking deaths in a book that I absolutely hated. As it was happening I felt like I was reading it in slow motion (if that even makes sense). It was horrifying and I felt so robbed of a happy ending with and for Werner. SO sad.

Bruno in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t particularly enjoy this book. But Bruno’s death at the end was B-R-U-T-A-L. I was reading this on the plane when I got to the end and it caused me to literally swear out loud and chant NO NO NO because for real, that ending threw me so hard. I was shook–especially considering this is a book for children?! Hell no.

Do you have any “favourite character deaths”? Or are there any character deaths that you’ll never get over!?