Books which one can’t put down, but how to cope with the ‘emptiness’

Probably anything by Cynan Jones. 'The Dig' is one of the most hopeless books I've ever read (a book without hope, I mean).
Farmer's wife killed (kicked in the head by horse). Farmer carries on alone with lambing (thankless job in difficult conditions). A "hard man" makes his living from animal abuse & digs up a sett on farmer's land to catch a badger for "sportsmen" to pit against dogs in a to-the-death fight. Farmer investigates during the night & is killed (with a spade to the head, nice).
BUT the initial prose is so poetic, it soars. It evens out into plain English later, even though I suspect the original was written in Welsh. I love anything by Cynan Jones - it's harsh and sometimes dismal, but the language, ah, the language...

Emily St John Mandel is a similar style of writer to Anthony Doerr. I also enjoyed Station Eleven.

This is interesting - note the position of Doerr and Mandel:

www.literature-map.com/emily+st.+john+mandel

The names on there remind me a story that I didn't want to end and that was Marilynne Robinson's Gilead although it does live on in the other books in the series: Home. Lila and Jack.

I thiink I preferred Teddy's story in A God in Ruins to Life After Life - Atkinson at her best imo.

The last book to give me book grief when I finished it was Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel. The characters had almost become family members and I missed them when the book was finished.

Silverbrooks

It most definitely is subjective. TerriBull lists titles that I also loved (I’d add Atkinson’s A God in Ruins to that list) and yet the Doerr is not among them. I'd add umpteen titles by Margaret Atwood.

I don’t necesarily feel bereft to have finished a novel; more that it leaves me reflecting on it for a long time afterwards. Currently reflecting on Trust by Hernan Diaz - one of those stories that bends reality and leaves the reader wondering what the truth really was.

I saw Life After Life on BBC and loved it so bought A God in Ruins but haven’t started it yet. I was hoping they’d do that also.

Yes, Quincunx, an epic but very enjoyable read with unreliable narrators just as Trust has, other than Ida but even she creates a fictional version of Bevel's story when she believes she is being extorted. I was left wondering whether Mildred wrote the Rask version under Vanner’s name and all the implications of that. Trust reminded me a little of Ali Smith’s How to be Both.

I'm with Maybee- A Thousand Splendid Suns, and The Kite Runner were so powerful that I felt sad that I had left the characters behind when I closed the books.

Many, many years ago when I was about 20 I was bereft when I finished Forever Amber.

Yes Silerbrooks I also loved a God in Ruins too, maybe not quite as much as Life after Life.

I read Trust by Hernan Diaz, pretty much on the basis that it shared the Pulitzer Prize with Demon Copperhead in the same year, so I thought it's got to be wonderful, but it didn't do anything for me.

Just remember another book I'd add to my list this was one that was mooted by many on MN from quite a few years ago and probably one of the longest books I've ever read, something like 1,200 pages, but a knockout, The Quincunx - Charles Palliser. A sort of Dickens pastiche about an inheritance,very, multilayered and involved with an unreliable narrator and an ambiguous plot, so that was also a book that left the reader wondering what the truth was.

It most definitely is subjective. TerriBull lists titles that I also loved (I’d add Atkinson’s A God in Ruins to that list) and yet the Doerr is not among them. I'd add umpteen titles by Margaret Atwood.

I don’t necesarily feel bereft to have finished a novel; more that it leaves me reflecting on it for a long time afterwards. Currently reflecting on Trust by Hernan Diaz - one of those stories that bends reality and leaves the reader wondering what the truth really was.

Glad someone else is enjoying the ‘Boudica’ series, The WeirdoAgain. I’m Just taking a break from “Dreaming the Hound” - the third in the series - because it’s getting so intense! Although I’ve already read them once they are have the same impact on me as if I’ve come to them a for the first time.

I absolutely loved “A Thousand Ships” by Natalie Haynes. I didn’t want it to end. Likewise “The Mask of Apollo” by Mary Renault. All her books in fact. She is a scholar and a writer without peer.

Much better to read than watch tv...and there is more detail in a book. Plus, if it sends you to sleep, you can go back and catch up in your own time.

I recently enjoyed The Lost Bookshop by Evie Wood.

To be absorbed and delighted by a good read is wonderful. Close the book and sigh. Reflect. Then … the frisson of excitement deciding on what to read next is always a pleasure for me!

The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood, in fact I probably liked that one more than Alias Grace, but both great reads.

I thought 1000 Splendid Suns was a wonderful book in a heartbreaking sort of way, but I wouldn't add to my "Absolutes"

Definitely not "All The Light We Cannot See" over it as soon as I finished it, but that's books for you, subjective.

These: I was bereft when I finished them

Star of The Sea - Joseph O'Connor
Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood
The Goldfinch - Donna Tart
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
The Crimson Petal and the White - Michel Faber
Any Human Heart - William Boyd
The Heart's Invisible Furies - John Boyne
All The Broken Places - John Boyne
Life After Life - Kate Atkinson

I'll probably have forgotten an absolute favourite and kick myself.

I was pretty upset when I finished Gone with the Wind but I was 15 at the time and a decade later The Thorn Birds. .

Anything by Dorothy Whipple. I read and re-read her novels and short stories.

Somerset Maugham short stories.

I just wish they had written more.

I've just finished Blood Rites by Rachel Lynch, it was brilliant!

Recently started Boudica: Dreaming The Eagle (Boudica 1).

I've always got my hooter in a book!

Just finished The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese it is a huge epic tome but there was so much to it and so full of life I can’t choose my next book.

I thought I would pick an easy read/ detective type next, but I am still with the ‘Indian family’,and cannot think of anything else.

MayBee70

A Thousand Splendid Suns wasn’t an easy read but it was one of those books that made me want to suffer from amnesia so I could read it again for the first time.

I couldn't bear to read it again, it was so harrowing. I even gave away my copy.

I find most fiction unputdownable because I'm always dying to know what happens in the end

A Thousand Splendid Suns wasn’t an easy read but it was one of those books that made me want to suffer from amnesia so I could read it again for the first time.

Jane Eyre, the second time I read it.

Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry. Best book I have read for ages. It haunted me.

Oh gosh, thank goodness we are all different!
I hated “Light” and was happy to abandon it but I agree with OP’s premise, when you come to the end of a good book, or a good series where the principal characters have become friends, there is a huge sensation of loss.

I also enjoyed "Light". Doerr's next novel was a long time coming but worth waiting for. I can highly recommend Cloud Cuckoo Land.