Tell me about a book that disturbed, distressed, shocked, traumatized, or unsettled you in any way. Please elaborate on why it does.
The Road - Cormac McCarthy. Except I haven’t been able to finish it. I know the story, through watching the film, but the imagery in the book is so much more depressing and powerfully disturbing. When I watched the film I felt it for at least a week afterwards. I was getting that feeling each time I’d go to pick up the book of a night. I really want to read it completely, but I just can’t work myself up to it.
RIP Cormac McCarthy. I was able to read all of The Road, but only a little bit at a time. It’s so bleak, and so realistic.
That’s my answer as well. The book is just so bleak. I read it over a decade ago, and I have thought about re-reading it, but can’t bring myself to do it. It is a really good read though.
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I don’t read a ton of horror, but It by Stephen King was deeply disturbing to me. Not just because of the monster or the graphic child sex (yes, really), but because the entire book was basically a reflection of my own childhood until shit started getting horror-y. White, middle class, suburban New England gets turned into a huge bloody world.
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It’s difficult to choose as a horror fan because there are books that hit differently for vastly different reasons. I think Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite might be the one that eeked me out the most so far though. It was a thoroughly enjoyable book, but it was practically a meet-cute romcom with serial killers as the main characters. Loved it. Probably won’t read it again lol.
The Handmaid’s Tale. I started reading it recently, but it’s too much like current events. I had to stop reading. (Haven’t seen the show, either.)
Tokyo Doesn’t Love Us Anymore was pretty dark at times. Vurt has furry incest so… yeah.
I would have to say American Psycho was pretty fucked up and I don’t think I see it mentioned yet. Way more intense than the movie because it’s a much deeper character study. But man that Patrick Bateman has some fucking crazy thoughts
Cadaver Exquisito, known as Tender is the Flesh in English. I read it in the original Spanish.
It’s about a future where a virus infects all animals and so they have to be culled. But people still want to eat meat, so they begin farming humans.
It’s basically just standard factory farming stuff, but when it’s from the point of view of humans you see how horrific some of it is. It makes you think a lot about how animals are treated in agriculture.
The Real Story and Lord Foul’s Bane by Stephen Donaldson. The man is so utterly casual about rape as plot progression that it leaves me with serious questions about the author.
Lapvona by Ottesa Moshfegh. Honestly I couldn’t even finish it, I stopped about 30-40% in. I’m not even sure how I’d describe the genre. Maybe disgusting unsettling horror? The reason I found it so unsettling is because its purposely written like that, to draw you in and then hit you with grossness. I felt like taking a shower after reading it for 15-30 minutes.
The Painted Bird is a horrific read. So good, though.
I read “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank when I was about the same age. It disturbed me beyond measure, to learn what humans can do to each other. (Still I found hope in seeing people were also willing to help.) Same topic (but from a much older woman): Margot Friedländer’s memoir “Versuche, dein Leben zu machen” (“Try to make your life”).
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosiński, I went in the book knowing nothing about the book. It is from a young Jewish boy’s point of view during the second world war. Enough said.
Ian MacMillan’s Orbit of Darkness
about as visceral experience on the holocaust as you can get…I wan not prepared for the way I experienced this.
The holocaust and such industrialized murder is so overwhelming I usually am in “third person” perspective, this book made it “first person” and damn…I was not prepared mentally for it.
