Most DISTURBING fiction book you've ever read? (children, best, author)

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by nightlysparrow

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (1991). I've read dozens upon dozens of real-life serial killer books, but somehow, that book was worse.

You're right; that was pretty frightening.

[Jess5]

Originally Posted by nightlysparrow

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (1991).

I've read dozens upon dozens of real-life serial killer books, but somehow, that book was worse.

I've had this book forever and finally started reading it the other day. Going by my 50 page rule, I had to put it down at that point. All they talked about was eating and who had nice things and who didn't. I'm thinking that it had to get better because I've heard so much about the book, but, when?

[MagnoliaThunder]

Originally Posted by TracySam

I did a search to see if there was already a thread on this, but didn't find one.

I ask about fiction, because there are lots of non-fiction books people would find disturbing, and I don't want the thread to get political when people post that some book they politically oppose is "disturbing," or to get into religious debates with people claiming the Bible or The Origin of Species are "disturbing."



So, did you ever read a work of fiction that you found disturbing, so disturbing that the images stayed with you for a while, and you wanted to get them out of your head?

For me, the most disturbing fiction work I've read was The End of Alice by A. M. Homes. (1997)

It was about a pedophile child-killer in prison, and a young woman admirer who is his pen pal. She is also an aspiring pedophile, and the book is about her planning to seduce, and finally and seducing a young boy, and sharing her stories with the prisoner who enjoys the stories. There were also flashbacks to his molestation and murder of a little girl.

I bought the book back when it first came out because in Barnes & Noble, it was on one of the employee recommendations shelves.

Even all these years later, the memory of the story disturbs me, and I literally feel a little sick to my stomach.

How about your most disturbing book?

(1) "When Rabbit Howls" by Truddi Chase; and
(2) "The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy" by A. N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice pseudonym).

[nightlysparrow]

Originally Posted by Jess5

I've had this book forever and finally started reading it the other day. Going by my 50 page rule, I had to put it down at that point. All they talked about was eating and who had nice things and who didn't. I'm thinking that it had to get better because I've heard so much about the book, but, when?

It starts out focusing on the world of status objects and pretentious behaviors of the guy, then slowly shows how they twist him irrevocably.

[plain and simple]

So, did you ever read a work of fiction that you found disturbing, so disturbing that the images stayed with you for a while, and you wanted to get them out of your head?

I had to stop reading Stephen King a long time ago. His novels are far too graphic for me. The first book that popped into my mind immediately was Needful Things. Absolutely cringeworthy. Too graphic and detailed for me.

[Marlow]

As a rule, I don't read disturbing books because I find them too . . . disturbing.

But as a child, I read The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and it absolutely broke my heart. Even more so than Old Yeller or Where the Red Fern Grows.

I stopped reading Stephen King after Pet Sematary because the whole dug-up pets and kid thing was too dark and disturbing.

I found All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy very disturbing but very beautiful and went on to read The Crossing. It, however was so dark that I didn't read the third in the trilogy. The Road was also be a very emotionally difficult read, but I still appreciated the sheer mastery of it.

[tigerlily]

Originally Posted by Marlow

As a rule, I don't read disturbing books because I find them too . . . disturbing.

But as a child, I read The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and it absolutely broke my heart. Even more so than Old Yeller or Where the Red Fern Grows.

I stopped reading Stephen King after Pet Sematary because the whole dug-up pets and kid thing was too dark and disturbing.

I found All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy very disturbing but very beautiful and went on to read The Crossing. It, however was so dark that I didn't read the third in the trilogy. The Road was also be a very emotionally difficult read, but I still appreciated the sheer mastery of it.

I stopped reading McCarthy after All The Pretty Horses. The Handmaid's Tale was also disturbing.

[Unsettomati]

Cormac McCarthy's The Road was fairly disturbing - not just the presence of cannibalism but two particularly horrific presentations (or, rather, suggestions) of it. As if the entire setting and situation of the two main characters were not disturbing enough.

I'll also add the Stephen King short story The Jaunt. King imagines a rather novel sort of horror in the story, and then gives the reader an unexpected and disturbing example of it.

[DaddySpice]

For me, it was Thomas Harris' Red Dragon. Much more disturbing than the Stephen King stuff I was reading at the time, because this monster could be real.

[Mashiara4life]

Push by Sapphire
Misery by Stephen King
12 Years a Slave - Solomon Northup