A Serial Reader Confesses: 10 Books That Made Me Cry on Public Transportation and Question Everything
- joie
- Nov 19, 2025
- 3 min read
This year I devoured 120 books (audiobooks, manga, graphic novels, and good old-fashioned paper) which sounds excessive until you realize most of them happened on the subway. There's something about being on a subway train that helps me concentrate. Usually I live in sci-fi and fiction worlds, but 2025 was the year I stepped out of my comfort zone and into the messy, magnificent lives of real people through autobiography.
Turns out, reading about Mariah Carey's journey from scared little girl to triumphant icon while someone's elbow is in your ribs hits differently. And when Viola Davis made me so uncomfortable I wanted to close the book but couldn't because her story of finding herself after a childhood of poverty and abuse reminded me that life isn't over and I need to keep going well, that's when I knew these memoirs weren't just books. They were mirrors, and sometimes mirrors show you exactly what you need to see, even if you're not ready.
The Meaning of Mariah Carey kicked off my top ten because I came for the 90s ballads and stayed for the brutal honesty about family trauma and the fight to feel safe.
The Woman in Me by Britney Spears reminded me how we build pedestals just to knock people off them, and her 13-year conservatorship story is a masterclass in survival.
Finding Me by Viola Davis legit made me uncomfortable the good kind. With her journey from rat-infested poverty to Juilliard to Hollywood, proving that your past doesn't define you but it sure does forge you.
My Life in the Sunshine by Nabil Ayers hit home because I know what it's like to meet your biological father's family later in life (very trippy), and his DNA-test-driven discovery of half-siblings while searching for musical identity is the kind of modern memoir that feels like a detective story.
Born a Crime solidified my crush on Trevor Noah (humble, funny, perfect smile, deep-conversation material) while teaching me that every second is precious after he shared that heartbreaking story about the girl who liked him back but moved to the States before he could tell her.
Becoming by Michelle Obama showed me that the First Lady isn't just a force she's the force, with her South Side Chicago roots and tenacity inspiring anyone who's ever felt like they had to work twice as hard.
Just As I Am by Cicely Tyson was full of nuggets I didn't know I needed, from her pregnancy at 17 to her groundbreaking decision to wear natural hair on television to her unvarnished truths about faith and perseverance.
Then came the fiction that wrecked me in the best way.
Tin Man by Sarah Winman made me cry actual tears on the subway in 2025 (I bought it in 2016 but wasn't ready), and two kind ladies handed me tissues and said they'd buy the book. The story about Ellis, Michael, and Annie's complicated love triangle set against Van Gogh's Sunflowers and the AIDS crisis.
Giovanni's Room and If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin are simply must-reads, period, no discussion.
Lovecraft Country proved the book is always better than the HBO series (sorry, HBO), blending cosmic horror with Jim Crow-era racism in a way that reclaims the genre from its racist founder and puts Black characters at the center of the terror.
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, recommended by a friend, had me hooked from page one with its apocalyptic world, oppressed orogenes, and the revelation that Damaya, Syenite, and Essun are the same woman at different life stages plus it's the first of a trilogy that won three consecutive Hugo Awards, so you know it's good.
Honorable mentions go to
Start With Why for changing how I see life (leading with purpose, not product).
The Man Who Died Seven Times, a time-loop murder mystery I finished two weeks ago that's basically Agatha Christie meets Groundhog Day.
Here's to another year of getting lost in books, long train journeys, and the occasional public crying session because if a story doesn't move you enough to make strangers offer tissues, is it even worth reading?
