Spoilers Off applies to all Tear Jerker pages, so all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
- The climax where Himmel Street is bombed and everyone but Liesel dies is a huge Tear Jerker in its own right.
- To add on to it, Liesel is absolutely devastated upon seeing Rudy's body. After trying to revive him, she gives him the kiss he'd always asked for. The Power of Love is a heartbreaking thing, isn't it? There's a small detail that makes it even worse: Death had mentioned that Rudy's blond hair was getting darker as he got older, and then when he dies says that he would always have lemon-colored hair.
- It's even worse in the movie: Rudy hangs on long enough to begin an Anguished Declaration of Love for Liesel, but dies mid-sentence.
- Hell, Markus Zusak himself admits he was a mess when he wrote that.
- Max is full-on starving when he arrives at the Hubermanns', but he is so weak that he can't even keep a few mouthfuls of soup down. In the movie, the little noises of relief he makes as he's finally eating are really heartbreaking. And then he throws it up.
- Both of Frau Holtzapfel's sons die in the story. Robert succumbs to cold at war, causing her to purposely keep her house's temperature very low. Also, her other son Michael is so broken by this he hangs himself. And then Frau herself dies in the bombing. Such an unfortunate family.
- The final line of both the book and the movie. In the end, Death sums it all up the best.Death: I am haunted by humans.
