When someone dies in a book, do you feel sad? 

A character in the book I've been reading has just died. Actually she was "put down" by a close friend (an act of kindness believe me, it's a zombie novel) after she has betrayed all her friends for the right reasons. The fact that she doesn't actually exist doesn't matter to me. She's still gone.

I read alot of books, both fiction and non-fiction. People die all the time in them. Try Marie Coffey's Book Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow for a little light reading. Several people die in them, doing what they love (climbing) and normally pushing the boundries of what they personally could achieve. I've never met any of them, some died before I was even born. I'll probably never meet any of them, but there are stil real, right? 

The only thing for me that defines their reality is normally whats written down on paper and in print media. They are as real as the words that describe them, and if you've spent 300 pages on the edge of your seat following thier life, they can be as real as the person sitting next to you. 

I'm not trying to belittle the death of so many real people, real loved ones that people could hold or touch or smell, all I'm saying is it sucks when people died in the books I'm reading.