New Inductee to the Philip Pullman Club*.

Criteria for joining:

Author must make me cry so hard and for so long that I:

A) get a headache and
B) want to repeatedly kick them in the knees.

Bonus points for pulling a bait-and-switch by making me think I've predicted the outcome (and thus, steeled myself emotionally) and then sucker-punching me by making it forty-seven thousand times worse.

So, Markus Zusak, congratulations.  You're in. 

Jerk. 

*The club is named for Philip Pullman, who killed my favorite character not once, but twice.  The rat.