Comment what books have caused you to become distressed, traumatized, or unsettled in any way. Please elaborate as to why.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
It was an assigned reading in 11th grade. When I finally finished it, I remember feeling like my skin was crawling, and my thoughts were a jumbled mess - I was questioning everything, how I viewed others and how they viewed me, was it right or wrong, how would I have behaved in those situations…
I remember l just staring out my bedroom window into the pitch black night for an hour just digesting it all. I also remember sleeping with the lights on because I was a little creeped out.
Being an impressionable teen probably helped, but that book left a profound impact on my way of thinking about how I interact with the world and the people in it.
It was also my gateway book to classic literature and how good it can actually be!
Chuck Palahniuk’s Haunted(a collection of short stories). It made me close my legs and squirm, and feel disgusted. The first story ‘‘Guts’’ made me put down the book and not touch it due to fear of what i am about to read next.
As Wikipedia describes it : It is a tale of violent accidents involving masturbation, in which the reader is instructed to hold their breath in the very first line.
Yeah, reader beware.
@SeverianWolf@beehaw.org > Haunted
I came here to post this!
I am not much of a horror/disturbing stories fan, but Guts was simply astonishing, I read this more than 10 years ago and still remember the story vividly.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy, it’s just so goddamn bleak. Nothing ever goes well and just about everybody is horrible, not a book I’ll likely read again even though I did enjoy it. Same with the movie, it’s just such a kick in the guts that I won’t be rewatching it even though it was great.
There’s plenty of relatively bleak stuff out there, so I thought I was fine with The Road. Until the basement. RIP Cormac.
This is funny, I immediately thought of Blood Meridian when I read the post title, then came in and saw another Cormac McCarthy book!
A writer of cheerful books he ain’t
Tough question, but I found The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch to be very disturbing. It really freaked me out in places.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. The main character has no name, no parents and his life is full of violence and death. It’s all he knows, so much as he knows anything.
It’s being adapted into a film now. I don’t know how they’re going to pull it off.
Notes From The Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky. It’s a dark mirror that presents itself to me. And while I detest looking at it, I also find it difficult not to.
Lolita, it’s simply unsettling.
Also Starship Troopers as I used to be in the military for a bit.
Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. The supernatural monsters in the novel are rank amateurs at being horrific compared to some of the human characters. While well written and a smooth read, I could not finish it.
Medical Block, Buchenwald: The Personal Testimony of Inmate 996, Block 36 by Walter Poller.
The Blood Bond saga. I’m just so genuinely baffled as to how the everloving f*ck it has such high ratings. By the time I was halfway through the first book I was hate-reading it. Pushed myself to finish the whole saga because it was so bad it made me feel comparatively good about myself and my life decisions. I now have zero doubts that anyone in this world can become a published author, including me. But also, this has me seriously worried that ANYONE in this world can become a published author… including me :/
The House in the Dark by Tarjei Vesaas. It’s a surrealist account of life under the Nazi occupation. It was written in Norway during the occupation. After writing it, Vesaas immediately buried the manuscript in the forest until the war was over - being caught with it would have meant immediate death.
1962 cold-war drama Fail-Safe is also very disturbing.
Gotta be a tie between Pet Semetary and Blindsight, although for different reasons.
For me, pet semetary was very disturbing as an examination of a parent’s grief. But kinda underwhelming as a supernatural afterlife story. Dont get me wrong, still loved it, but yeah the build up is way more harrowing than the pay-off
