TTT: Favorite “Aww” Moments In Books

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite “Aww” Moments In Books (Sweet/cute/poignant moments in books that give me warm-fuzzies or healed my soul.)

I don't read very much romance fiction so I had to expand the prompt to include books which helped heal my soul. I may have uttered a sigh, rather than an aww, but you know what I mean.

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1. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

“She laughed when there was no joke. She danced when there was no music.
She had no friends, yet she was the friendliest person in school.
In her answers in class, she often spoke of sea horses and stars, but she did not know what a football was... She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.”

This book. This story. It touched my soul like no others.

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2. Persuasion by Jane Austen

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.”

I love something in all of Jane Austen's books but this line "I am half agony, half hope" is so 'aww' worthy.

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3. A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

I love the mental picture this quote evokes of the two bike riders as a metaphor for a healthy relationship.

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4.  The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood

“and as she watched the father smile, she caught another bewitching way in which the son might have come to resemble him.” 

Something about this story, which revolves around a young boy whose life ends unexpectedly, just heals my soul for it's message of how important human connections are for a happy life. 

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5. Hum If You Don't Know the Words by Bianca Marais

Only after I had learned those boundaries and generalities of my grief was I able to venture further into the mountains and valleys, the peaks and troughs of my despair. And as I traversed them-breathing a sigh of relief thinking that I'd conquered the worst of it-only then would I finally arrive at the truth about loss, the part no one ever warns you about: that grief is a city all of its own, built high on a hill and surrounded by stone walls. It is a fortress that you will inhabit for the rest of your life, walking its dead-end roads forever. The trick is to stop trying to escape and, instead, to make yourself at home.

I'd lost my father a year before I read this book. This quote about grief profoundly affected me and touched that part of my soul that needed permission to let my grief settle in and become incorporated in my life. 

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5. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

Everything about this book screams AWW! It is so precious and wise.

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6. The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

“The world has given you the eyes to see the beauty of its mountains and rivers, and the ears to hear the music of its wind and sea, and the voice you need to tell it. We books are evidence that this is so. We are here to help you.”

There is such pain and loneliness in this book. But also so much hope and healing. 

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7. Virgil Wander by Leif Enger

“She kept looking away then back to me, as though at a nice surprise. This was maybe best of all. I never once expected to be someone’s nice surprise.”

So many feelings raced through me while I read this funny, sweet book where a man finally accepts himself and finds his tribe along the way.  

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8. When We Collided by Emery Lord

Just because a relationship ends doesn't mean we should diminish it in our memory.

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-Anne