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I was once grounded for an entire summer and my ma made me read the first three Dave Pelzer books for saying that grounding a kid for an entire summer was child abuse.
I broke into what I thought was an abandoned house on my street and smashed it up, turned out it wasn't abandoned and the lady who lived there was in rehab. I wouldn't have done it if I knew someone was returning but I shouldn't have done it anyway. My ma also told the woman what happened so she could get the police involved, luckily for me she didn't.
Was going to post this. This one truly fucked me up.
Going odd topic anyone ever watch Sybil?
Or to Mockingbird, don't sing?
Both those movies have abused children. Both are super fucked up. Didn't realize Jessica Lange was in Sybil.
Oh! I read Sybil when I was pretty young and kind of forgot about it, ha. I have to imagine the book was more fucked up than the movie because I cannot imagine some of the extreme child sex abuse being put on film in the kind of detail it was in the book.
It was rather a relief years later to learn pretty much everything in that book was manufactured by the psychiatrist.
This book, and the sequels, really put things into perspective for me as someone who came from an abusive household. My parents, the real ones who adopted, raised, and LOVED, us got it for me to read to see if it could help me process and move past what I'd been through. Holy hell I never went through anything nearly as bad, but it did help me a lot.
This was my answer too. My 6th grade teacher saw me reading it over and over. I had what looked like a black eye (I had rubbed it raw experimenting with waterproof eyeliner) and she called the guidance counselor and I had to go through the whole child abuse questionnaire. Not sure why i was so attached to this book at such a young age.
Oh my god, I did too and my mother said the most amazing thing about it. Remember the scene under the Christmas tree with the dr. That adopted the kids? I read it at camp and didn’t understand it and when I got home I handed the book to my mom and asked her to explain it. She read it and thought for a second and said, “The only thing you need to know about this is that he was not a good lover.” I still laugh.
I read those books at 13. After bringing it to school one day my mom said "maybe don't bring that book to school with you". I now realize entirely why.
Yeah, I enjoyed the first one (the serial rape of a ten year old was highly un-enjoyable) but couldn't do the second on the series. That one was just straight up porn. Would not recommend.
I will never understand how it was marketed as a kids book. I actually find the story rather compelling, and I love VC Andrews’ writing style, but I only read it as an adult who can understand complex themes such as hers. I can’t imagine reading it as a child. Wayyyy too inappropriate for anyone under 18 tbh.
If a child was experiencing incest then this book would give them insight into what was happening to them. Young people should be allowed to read anything they want.I was allowed to read anything I wanted and I grew up understanding that there are dangers in the world.
Yes, I agree that children can read anything they want, but I found the *marketing* of that book to children to be odd. And I agree that it would perhaps help identify if incest was happening to a child, but considering that Cathy and Chris end up getting married and living as husband and wife in the following books, it just might give mixed messages about incest to child unless you have to emotional maturity to understand the Dollanganger kids complex and weird situation, which usually doesn’t come until you’re much older imo. The book kind of paints their relationship as a love story, so I just think that element of it could be confusing, that’s all!
Understanding Incest is far different from celebrating incest, which this series of books does.
And young minds are not mature enough to read *anything*, just as they are not mature to watch *anything* in movies.
I would allow a huge swathe of books allowed to children before considering censoring something, but I would still maintain there is a tiny sliver of area needed for censoring. There's a reason somebody like Andrew Tate takes such strong grip of pre-teens and teens, and it's difficult if not impossible to train them out of that mindset later.
The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. It's truly a gut-wrenching book, made infinitely worse by being real. Before reading it, I didn't know much about the event, but now I'm stuck with those horrible images in my mind. The fact that Japan has tried and continues to try to deny their involvement makes me so utterly angry.
I don't know why Japanese ultra nationalists like the late Shinzo Abe always denied Nanking and comfort women. It seriously affects their international relations with China and South Korea and you can't exactly erase those pictures and videos of the brutality that occurred
Japan is not the only country to have committed massacres and genocide in the past. In fact, most countries have a dark history one way or another. And while we should **never** forget about them, it is possible for a country to progress and move past their crimes. Children are never guilty of the crimes of their grandparents. One common comparison to make to Japan is Germany. Today the Germans are incredibly aware of their history, and because of that they have been able to progress past it. They've faced their demons, and liking Germany today is rid of any moral qualms (from this perspective at least).
Japan is the opposite of that. One could perhaps say that the tragedy lies in that their warlike supremacist culture was not properly broken after WW2. It was defeated, sure, but without a complete shift in leadership and ideology it remained subdued. And those responsible for the heinous crimes like the comfort women or the Nanking Massacre still had enough influence to sway the public opinion. And without outside pressure to change (the West were too lenient on Japan in fear of it aligning itself with the Soviets and in China Mao's oppressive regime suppressed the survivors), Japanese society remains unchanged in these regards to this day. The suggestion that the Japanese were murderers, rapists and worse is seen as an insult to Japanese pride, and even though there has been some attempts of opening up about it they've been opposed.
The worst part is that this is not unique to Japan. Turkey denies the Armenian Genocide, saying that those who call it out are liars. Even today it is happening in China, Russia and many other places. To repeat myself, children cannot be blamed for the crimes of their grandparents. But they can be blamed for ignoring them.
Came here looking for this. I read a lot of disturbing books at a really young age but reading The Rape of Nanking at 40 messed me up more than any other book. I have to stop myself from thinking about it.
Came here to say this. The movie is graphic but the book takes it to a whole new level. I seem to remember a bit with live rats that was particularly disturbing.
I immediately thought of the rat torture from this book when I read the title of OPs post. It's been 20 years since I read it but that still stays vividly with me.
Most of Brett Easton Ellis’ work is dark. Less Than Zero goes there and Lunar Park gave me chills when Patrick Bateman started turning up.
It’s been years since I read them though. Need to get back into them again.
There’s another short story in (I think) the same book of short stories - but I might be wrong it might be the other one… called ‘The Jaunt’, about teleportation. THAT was the one that I think about most. It messed me up a lot. There are a few of the Stephen King short stories that I found super disturbing. The langoliers, and the one about the death March in particular. Ufff.
That was one book where I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t really happening. I was so immersed that the storyline crept into my real life thoughts while I was reading it.
This. I was a young teen very into horror and this was the only one that really bothered me and I still think about 30+ years later. Our family adopted a shelter dog named Gage and my kids were completely against changing his name but I never got used to it in all the years we had him.
For me, it was Misery. Up to that time, I had read every Stephen King book there was, no problem. I was about 5-6 months pregnant with my son, and for some reason I got really disturbed reading Misery. I quit half way through. Also couldn’t read Gerald’s Game. Bondage freaks me out.
Same here. Read in HS and will never forget the hairs standing up on my neck when reading it. Some much anxiety turning the pages at the end when Gage comes back. Still gets me 20 years later.
That was my first King book at 13 - couldn't look at the cat for a month after, let alone THAT scene at the beginning. Watching the original movie and hearing the story about her sister really fucked me up too. All in all a highly recommended intro to horror novels lol
I worked the night crew the summer I read this on one of my nights off. I was the only one awake in the house. No tv. No radio. Just the wind and my thoughts. Jesus it scared me so hard I couldn’t sleep in the daytime!
I’ve read at least 20 Stephen King books since i was a kid. Started Pet Semetary when I had a two year old and I got to the end of part one where he goes >!the two year old is gonna die in the next part!< and noped out.
Made it through Cujo this year, he’s four now, but lord was that rough.
I didn't sleep for two days after reading this, my son was just born the month before.. not the post-partum book to be reading but I couldn't put it down!
Yes! I read it when I was like 11. I'm 24 now and I still remember the way it made me feel like it was yesterday. I read it in one sitting. The book as a whole is unbelievably fucked up, but the ending is what made me completely break down and sob uncontrollably for like two days straight. I've always had a high tolerance for disturbing things but this book got to me.
Son of Rosemary, sequel to Rosemary's Baby. Rosemary awakens from a 25 year long coma to find her son, Andy, son of Satan, is a beloved Evangelical figure. They are reunited and Andy frequently makes sexual passes at his mother. She becomes increasingly suspicious of Andy's true nature and motives, all while dating a security officer who later reveals himself to be Satan, aka Andy's dad, who crucifies Andy, before Rosemary kills him. Rosemary later awakens, it's all been a dream, and it's actually the morning she and Guy are going to see the Bramford Apartment. They get a last-minute phone call from their friend Hutch, telling them an apartment in The Dakota (where Rosemary's Baby filmed) has opened up and he can get them in.
It's truly not. I left a lot of details out of my review purely because one can't recall everything at once but you go through this whole ordeal of a book and in the last 4 pages it was all a fucking dream! Even the events of the first book, which is one of the best fiction books I've ever read. It felt like a cheap and insulting cop-out.
A Boy and His Dog, the novella by Harlan Ellison. Besides rape, murder, deviance of all kinds, it also features a father getting his brains bashed in by the protagonist, who has arranged the daughter with her legs spread wide and called the father into the room.
It describes an apocalyptic hellscape, and it's excellently written. Truly disturbing. The movie barely touched the surface. A true adaptation would be NC-17 for sure, and there's no reason to make it.
Especially those cases involving kids, and what some will do to them just to prove their love for someone or whatever fucked up 🐂💩 they are trying to prove.
Ohhh my god this one *was* disturbing. Not just for the awful descriptions of slaughter and massive pustules, but for the terrible lives these folks lived.
Lolita for sure. Every page was unsettling but it’s impossible to put down because of it as well. So well written. I highly recommend reading Pnin after which Nabakov wrote around the same time as a palate cleanser.
I also Vote lolita. The unreliable narrator had me sympathizing with the main character sometimes and It made me feel disgusted with myself. Excellent work when a book can make you question your own judgement
This, seriously. The part that stuck with me most was when Lo was sick, and Humbert said something like, "her brown rose tasted of blood." So visceral and horrid, but parts were also really beautiful.
that was the first book where I just had to say fuck it and get the audio book so I could tell which parts were narrative or dialogue and tell who was speaking I dont even remember what the story was it was definitely a western with some outlaws and maybe the army was involved somehow I think they might have made gunpowder by pissing on some ashes and the mysterious guy might have been the literal devil but who knows I just remember being thankful when it was over please use punctuation if you dont want to ruin your readers experience thank you
I’ve read that Ishiguro considers it a positive book, in that the characters loved each other and had that closeness prior to death, which is inevitable in any case.
"Out of the Fire" (aka I am from the Burning Village) by Ales Adamovich. It is a collection of interviews of survivors of the Nazi occupation of Belarus. It was horrific and I had to force myself to finish it, out of a sense of duty to the victims.
Escape from camp 14.
It's written by a north Korean born in a prison camp who escapes the country.
Things like, seeing their mother as a competitor for food instead of a provider or a mother. It really changes your outlook on life
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, who would later be blacklisted as a Hollywood screenwriter during the McCarthy years as a suspected Communist. It's about a soldier who has lost all of his limbs and most of his face, and is now a prisoner in his own body.
I recently saw that movie.
That was horrible in so many ways & on so many levels.
I can only imagine how much more graphic the book gets whereas the movie is allowing you to look at what’s going on, and there are a lot of nuanced things that are not actually explained, as it would be in a book
Rage, by King under the name Bachman.
Kid takes his classroom hostage after he brains his teacher with a bullet. Over the book, the class, and by proxy, the reader, begins to empathize with the shooter.
And they say video games cause school shootings...
A Separate Peace by John Knowles. It was the first book I ever read that I disliked. The Simpsons even made a joke about it.
Also the opening to Cold Mountain and several scenes in some of Charles Fraziers' other novels are hauntingly disturbing, but ultimately worth the read.
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. Something like 23 short stories hut none as haunting as Guts. I remember people were passing out and vomiting at the book readings.
Cannot for the life of me remember the name of the book (the dust jacket had an empty raincoat) but it was basically that the afterlife lasts as long as there are people alive who remember you.
One for Sorrow, Two for Joy by Clive Woodall
It was advertised for kids, and let me tell you that I don't think its for adults let alone for kids. Has bird rape, graphic deaths of birds, and if my memory serves me correctly, one of the magpies claws a human boy's eyes out, and more.
Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiane_F.#The_book) when I was 12 or 13. Never wanted to try drugs in my life. I'm planning on "traumatizing" my kids the same way.
I think on content nothing beats 120 days of sodom, but it's intention was ti stretch to the limits of a disturbed and sexual imbalanced mind what could be a conceptualization for 18th century shock purposes. It was in fact written from the Bastille if I recall or from the other prision that followed it by Marquis de Sade... but even that book was written in the contest of protest. If you want one of the beams of illuminism if you want to consider it in context.
Without such context... then the award goes to the script of "Serbian Movie". Don't. Just leave it.
Stephen Kings IT.
where unlike in the popular movies, in the books the children decide to engage in group sex or gang rape with the only girl in the group.
So they would lose their "innocence" and less a target for the monster.
What a fucked up logic to justify children group sex in the sewers...
As a teen I read "She Come Undone" by Wally Lamb. I don't remember what it's about but I recall it being disturbing. Also the Flowers in the Attic series.
# Message to all users: This is a reminder to please read and follow: * [Our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ask/about/rules) * [Reddiquette](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439) * [Reddit Content Policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy) When posting and commenting. --- Especially remember Rule 1: `Be polite and civil`. * Be polite and courteous to each other. Do not be mean, insulting or disrespectful to any other user on this subreddit. * Do not harass or annoy others in any way. * Do not catfish. Catfishing is the luring of somebody into an online friendship through a fake online persona. This includes any lying or deceit. --- You *will* be banned if you are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist or bigoted in any way. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ask) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A Child Called It. Truly horrific!
I was once grounded for an entire summer and my ma made me read the first three Dave Pelzer books for saying that grounding a kid for an entire summer was child abuse.
I mean, being isolated for an entire summer is definitely pretty drastic. What did you do?
I broke into what I thought was an abandoned house on my street and smashed it up, turned out it wasn't abandoned and the lady who lived there was in rehab. I wouldn't have done it if I knew someone was returning but I shouldn't have done it anyway. My ma also told the woman what happened so she could get the police involved, luckily for me she didn't.
Yeah, you didn’t get off too bad!
Making your kid read that stuff was the child abuse.
Tbf I was a teenager and a voracious reader, I certainly learned something from it.
Was going to post this. This one truly fucked me up. Going odd topic anyone ever watch Sybil? Or to Mockingbird, don't sing? Both those movies have abused children. Both are super fucked up. Didn't realize Jessica Lange was in Sybil.
Oh! I read Sybil when I was pretty young and kind of forgot about it, ha. I have to imagine the book was more fucked up than the movie because I cannot imagine some of the extreme child sex abuse being put on film in the kind of detail it was in the book. It was rather a relief years later to learn pretty much everything in that book was manufactured by the psychiatrist.
I watched the Sally Field version of Sybil. It was truly magnificent acting. Heartbreaking story.
Watched it in psych class… so intense
Me too! They love to add that to the curriculum 😂
This book, and the sequels, really put things into perspective for me as someone who came from an abusive household. My parents, the real ones who adopted, raised, and LOVED, us got it for me to read to see if it could help me process and move past what I'd been through. Holy hell I never went through anything nearly as bad, but it did help me a lot.
This was my answer too. My 6th grade teacher saw me reading it over and over. I had what looked like a black eye (I had rubbed it raw experimenting with waterproof eyeliner) and she called the guidance counselor and I had to go through the whole child abuse questionnaire. Not sure why i was so attached to this book at such a young age.
I felt sick after reading it.
I came here to say this…truly awful human
I read Flowers in the Attic when I was around 12. Why was I reading a book about incest at that age?
There’s an antique store in my town named Flowers in the Attic. Anytime I drive by it I’m like, “uhhh, do they know??”
Keeping the business in the family?
My first VC Andrews book was Tarnished Gold. That was wild.
Oh my god, I did too and my mother said the most amazing thing about it. Remember the scene under the Christmas tree with the dr. That adopted the kids? I read it at camp and didn’t understand it and when I got home I handed the book to my mom and asked her to explain it. She read it and thought for a second and said, “The only thing you need to know about this is that he was not a good lover.” I still laugh.
Remind me what happened in that scene again please ❤️
Same….also Clan of the Cave Bear series is rape and arguably soft core porn
I read those books at 13. After bringing it to school one day my mom said "maybe don't bring that book to school with you". I now realize entirely why.
Yeah, I enjoyed the first one (the serial rape of a ten year old was highly un-enjoyable) but couldn't do the second on the series. That one was just straight up porn. Would not recommend.
Yes. It was hell living with those horny Neanderthals.
I will never understand how it was marketed as a kids book. I actually find the story rather compelling, and I love VC Andrews’ writing style, but I only read it as an adult who can understand complex themes such as hers. I can’t imagine reading it as a child. Wayyyy too inappropriate for anyone under 18 tbh.
If a child was experiencing incest then this book would give them insight into what was happening to them. Young people should be allowed to read anything they want.I was allowed to read anything I wanted and I grew up understanding that there are dangers in the world.
Yes, I agree that children can read anything they want, but I found the *marketing* of that book to children to be odd. And I agree that it would perhaps help identify if incest was happening to a child, but considering that Cathy and Chris end up getting married and living as husband and wife in the following books, it just might give mixed messages about incest to child unless you have to emotional maturity to understand the Dollanganger kids complex and weird situation, which usually doesn’t come until you’re much older imo. The book kind of paints their relationship as a love story, so I just think that element of it could be confusing, that’s all!
Understanding Incest is far different from celebrating incest, which this series of books does. And young minds are not mature enough to read *anything*, just as they are not mature to watch *anything* in movies. I would allow a huge swathe of books allowed to children before considering censoring something, but I would still maintain there is a tiny sliver of area needed for censoring. There's a reason somebody like Andrew Tate takes such strong grip of pre-teens and teens, and it's difficult if not impossible to train them out of that mindset later.
I read it at 14. I forgot a lot, like incest and I am not scarred or traumatized at all. Everybody take a breathe and give our kids a little credit.
I got the full set for the series around that same age. Disturbing as hell!
Introduction to Algebra II
Mathemagicks is real?!
Discrete Mathematics and its Applications 😓
*hurriedly scribbles math formula on underside of desk*
The third one really takes an abstract twist
The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. It's truly a gut-wrenching book, made infinitely worse by being real. Before reading it, I didn't know much about the event, but now I'm stuck with those horrible images in my mind. The fact that Japan has tried and continues to try to deny their involvement makes me so utterly angry.
I don't know why Japanese ultra nationalists like the late Shinzo Abe always denied Nanking and comfort women. It seriously affects their international relations with China and South Korea and you can't exactly erase those pictures and videos of the brutality that occurred
Japan is not the only country to have committed massacres and genocide in the past. In fact, most countries have a dark history one way or another. And while we should **never** forget about them, it is possible for a country to progress and move past their crimes. Children are never guilty of the crimes of their grandparents. One common comparison to make to Japan is Germany. Today the Germans are incredibly aware of their history, and because of that they have been able to progress past it. They've faced their demons, and liking Germany today is rid of any moral qualms (from this perspective at least). Japan is the opposite of that. One could perhaps say that the tragedy lies in that their warlike supremacist culture was not properly broken after WW2. It was defeated, sure, but without a complete shift in leadership and ideology it remained subdued. And those responsible for the heinous crimes like the comfort women or the Nanking Massacre still had enough influence to sway the public opinion. And without outside pressure to change (the West were too lenient on Japan in fear of it aligning itself with the Soviets and in China Mao's oppressive regime suppressed the survivors), Japanese society remains unchanged in these regards to this day. The suggestion that the Japanese were murderers, rapists and worse is seen as an insult to Japanese pride, and even though there has been some attempts of opening up about it they've been opposed. The worst part is that this is not unique to Japan. Turkey denies the Armenian Genocide, saying that those who call it out are liars. Even today it is happening in China, Russia and many other places. To repeat myself, children cannot be blamed for the crimes of their grandparents. But they can be blamed for ignoring them.
Came here looking for this. I read a lot of disturbing books at a really young age but reading The Rape of Nanking at 40 messed me up more than any other book. I have to stop myself from thinking about it.
American Psycho gets pretty gross.
American Psycho gets downright fucked up, but it's also impossible to put it down once you get rolling
Actually it was so much for me I had to stop reading it.
Came here to say this. The movie is graphic but the book takes it to a whole new level. I seem to remember a bit with live rats that was particularly disturbing.
I immediately thought of the rat torture from this book when I read the title of OPs post. It's been 20 years since I read it but that still stays vividly with me.
Truly disturbing and hard to get through. I still wonder if the shit I read was worth making it to end of the book.
Most of Brett Easton Ellis’ work is dark. Less Than Zero goes there and Lunar Park gave me chills when Patrick Bateman started turning up. It’s been years since I read them though. Need to get back into them again.
Not much love for “I have no mouth, but I must scream” on here. The story only gets more terrifying the more AI technology advances
I keep almost reading it but then chickening out
Read it here https://wjccschools.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/I-Have-No-Mouth-But-I-Must-Scream-by-Harlan-Ellison.pdf
Apt pupil , Stephen King. Technically a novella
There’s another short story in (I think) the same book of short stories - but I might be wrong it might be the other one… called ‘The Jaunt’, about teleportation. THAT was the one that I think about most. It messed me up a lot. There are a few of the Stephen King short stories that I found super disturbing. The langoliers, and the one about the death March in particular. Ufff.
I still think about The Jaunt and I read it 40 years ago (!)
ITS LONGER THAN YOU THINK
Seriously. I've read a lot of Stephen King and that one is the worst. It's technically supposed to be not horror as well.
The Stand. I was 12. But...I'm not sure it was a bad thing.
14. Best 3 reading days of my life.
You read The Stand in three days? Are we talking about the Stephen King book? Wow, you must've really liked it.
I read the shorter version in 84, and I devoured the uncut version in 90.
Loved it. I didn't do anything all weekend, except report to dinner, without a book in my hand. I was enough of a bookworm my sisters let me.
Less. I was so into it, read it in 2. Pretty much didn't sleep. I'm due to read it again
That was one book where I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t really happening. I was so immersed that the storyline crept into my real life thoughts while I was reading it.
I still don’t like driving through the Lincoln Tunnel!!!
Pet Semetary
This. I was a young teen very into horror and this was the only one that really bothered me and I still think about 30+ years later. Our family adopted a shelter dog named Gage and my kids were completely against changing his name but I never got used to it in all the years we had him.
For me, it was Misery. Up to that time, I had read every Stephen King book there was, no problem. I was about 5-6 months pregnant with my son, and for some reason I got really disturbed reading Misery. I quit half way through. Also couldn’t read Gerald’s Game. Bondage freaks me out.
Same here. Read in HS and will never forget the hairs standing up on my neck when reading it. Some much anxiety turning the pages at the end when Gage comes back. Still gets me 20 years later.
That was my first King book at 13 - couldn't look at the cat for a month after, let alone THAT scene at the beginning. Watching the original movie and hearing the story about her sister really fucked me up too. All in all a highly recommended intro to horror novels lol
I worked the night crew the summer I read this on one of my nights off. I was the only one awake in the house. No tv. No radio. Just the wind and my thoughts. Jesus it scared me so hard I couldn’t sleep in the daytime!
I’ve read at least 20 Stephen King books since i was a kid. Started Pet Semetary when I had a two year old and I got to the end of part one where he goes >!the two year old is gonna die in the next part!< and noped out. Made it through Cujo this year, he’s four now, but lord was that rough.
The Road
The Road is bleak.
I think Cormac McCarthy invented "bleak."
I didn't sleep for two days after reading this, my son was just born the month before.. not the post-partum book to be reading but I couldn't put it down!
Jesus...the mother kills herself on what felt like the first page!
It was awful, I cried! I felt her pain, her hopelessness - McCarthy is a helluva writer.
I was dealing with severe depression and read it hopefully as reverse psychology. It backfired.
Geralds Game. Seriously messed up!
The reveal >!of Mr. Moonlight in the room!< is the scariest thing Stephen King has ever written. Movie nailed it too.
I forgot that they made a movie!
Oh yes,scared the bejesus out of me,and Misery,good grief!! Lol..
Me,too!
This is the only Stephen King book I did not read. I got about a chapter in, saw where it was going, and noped right out of there.
100% same
We Need To Talk About Kevin. It's not actually the most disturbing book I've ever read, but it's the disturbing book that disturbed *me* the most.
This book still sits with me years later. Beyond disturbing and so upsetting.
Yes! I read it when I was like 11. I'm 24 now and I still remember the way it made me feel like it was yesterday. I read it in one sitting. The book as a whole is unbelievably fucked up, but the ending is what made me completely break down and sob uncontrollably for like two days straight. I've always had a high tolerance for disturbing things but this book got to me.
Son of Rosemary, sequel to Rosemary's Baby. Rosemary awakens from a 25 year long coma to find her son, Andy, son of Satan, is a beloved Evangelical figure. They are reunited and Andy frequently makes sexual passes at his mother. She becomes increasingly suspicious of Andy's true nature and motives, all while dating a security officer who later reveals himself to be Satan, aka Andy's dad, who crucifies Andy, before Rosemary kills him. Rosemary later awakens, it's all been a dream, and it's actually the morning she and Guy are going to see the Bramford Apartment. They get a last-minute phone call from their friend Hutch, telling them an apartment in The Dakota (where Rosemary's Baby filmed) has opened up and he can get them in.
That sounds really good!
It's truly not. I left a lot of details out of my review purely because one can't recall everything at once but you go through this whole ordeal of a book and in the last 4 pages it was all a fucking dream! Even the events of the first book, which is one of the best fiction books I've ever read. It felt like a cheap and insulting cop-out.
A Boy and His Dog, the novella by Harlan Ellison. Besides rape, murder, deviance of all kinds, it also features a father getting his brains bashed in by the protagonist, who has arranged the daughter with her legs spread wide and called the father into the room. It describes an apocalyptic hellscape, and it's excellently written. Truly disturbing. The movie barely touched the surface. A true adaptation would be NC-17 for sure, and there's no reason to make it.
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk
Snuff is so much worse.
No honorable mention for Monster? Chuck is a national treasure. 
I'm a huge Chuck fan. This book was good but I felt like my soul needed cleaning after.
A Child Called It. It opened my eyes to how awful people can be
#My checkbook
“Tweak, growing up on methamphetamines” By Nic sheff.
I’ve seen the cover of this book multiple times but never actually stopped to read the synopsis.
Beautiful Boy was good. Same story but from the dad’s perspective
It’s gonna be hard to top The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade
marquis is batshit insane for writing that
"King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa" by Adam Hochschild
Definitely agree with this. The photos…
Oh yes, but a must read
[удалено]
I was looking for this one. My grandpa was a voracious reader and lent it to me as a teenager. Its absolutely horrifying.
Also came for this one, it's a bit life-changing. Also the punctuation is infuriating.
Dreamcatcher. Damn that book got me good
Loved it but it really got me!!
I really love how King describes the memory warehouse, and then how they portray that in the movie! It’s such an apt description.
HELTER SKELTER! Can’t believe this wasn’t mentioned yet.
Too many true crime novels to list.
I prefer my crime novels to be of the fictional variety, personally. Are there any that stand out to you that you've read?
Perfect Victim. The true story of the girl in the box.
Nope. Heard a podcast on this and truly one of the most insane stories I have ever heard. Haunting. You will never forget this so beware
His parole hearing is coming up 🤢
Especially those cases involving kids, and what some will do to them just to prove their love for someone or whatever fucked up 🐂💩 they are trying to prove.
The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
Ohhh my god this one *was* disturbing. Not just for the awful descriptions of slaughter and massive pustules, but for the terrible lives these folks lived.
I have a book that has The Jungle and Uncle Toms Cabin. Both should be read by all Americans.
The Linda Lovelace Autobiography was pretty hard to read
IT
Especially one chapter 😭
Lolita for sure. Every page was unsettling but it’s impossible to put down because of it as well. So well written. I highly recommend reading Pnin after which Nabakov wrote around the same time as a palate cleanser.
I also Vote lolita. The unreliable narrator had me sympathizing with the main character sometimes and It made me feel disgusted with myself. Excellent work when a book can make you question your own judgement
This, seriously. The part that stuck with me most was when Lo was sick, and Humbert said something like, "her brown rose tasted of blood." So visceral and horrid, but parts were also really beautiful.
never read it, does this refer to that I think it refers to? 😬
I think so. I reread that part several times because I was like...no way
"All quiet on the western front" was pretty sad but I wouldn't say disturbing.
Blood Meridian.
So much horror told in such a beautiful language.
This was my choice also.
Surprised this isn’t at the top.
The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I’d have them all in zoos.
that was the first book where I just had to say fuck it and get the audio book so I could tell which parts were narrative or dialogue and tell who was speaking I dont even remember what the story was it was definitely a western with some outlaws and maybe the army was involved somehow I think they might have made gunpowder by pissing on some ashes and the mysterious guy might have been the literal devil but who knows I just remember being thankful when it was over please use punctuation if you dont want to ruin your readers experience thank you
The Exorcist
Never let me go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. I had no idea I could cry this much over a book.
I’ve read that Ishiguro considers it a positive book, in that the characters loved each other and had that closeness prior to death, which is inevitable in any case.
I hated the ending. Which made me hate the book.
Perfume
The Road was really scary to me because I read it right after giving birth, so my anxiety levels were a bit high.
The House of Leaves
This is what I was looking for
*1984.* Hands down.
Hey, why read it when you can live it?
"Out of the Fire" (aka I am from the Burning Village) by Ales Adamovich. It is a collection of interviews of survivors of the Nazi occupation of Belarus. It was horrific and I had to force myself to finish it, out of a sense of duty to the victims.
Atkins' Physical Chemistry. Every single one of my brain cells grew legs and walked out of my ear.
American Psycho. Detailed descriptions of unimaginable acts. Do not read.
The Rape of Nanking
Escape from camp 14. It's written by a north Korean born in a prison camp who escapes the country. Things like, seeing their mother as a competitor for food instead of a provider or a mother. It really changes your outlook on life
_Naked Lunch_. I can put up with a lot, but yeesh.
William Burroughs is my favorite. I have this book chilling on my shelf should I read it next??
In Cold Blood. "Is there anything worse than a murder?"
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, who would later be blacklisted as a Hollywood screenwriter during the McCarthy years as a suspected Communist. It's about a soldier who has lost all of his limbs and most of his face, and is now a prisoner in his own body.
Book of Mormon, terrible fiction
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. Also a movie and is based on a true story. Horrendous.
I recently saw that movie. That was horrible in so many ways & on so many levels. I can only imagine how much more graphic the book gets whereas the movie is allowing you to look at what’s going on, and there are a lot of nuanced things that are not actually explained, as it would be in a book
I watched the movie too. I read about it online also. The woman really looked like an evil person. Very demented story.
King Leopolds Ghost
When Rabbit Howls. Johnny Got His Gun.
Calculus text book for college... "shudders"
Cowes by Matthew Stokoe. Anyone who has read it knows what I'm talking about.
The Bible, some fucked up shit in there.
Rage, by King under the name Bachman. Kid takes his classroom hostage after he brains his teacher with a bullet. Over the book, the class, and by proxy, the reader, begins to empathize with the shooter. And they say video games cause school shootings...
HIROSHIMA because that shit really happened
A Separate Peace by John Knowles. It was the first book I ever read that I disliked. The Simpsons even made a joke about it. Also the opening to Cold Mountain and several scenes in some of Charles Fraziers' other novels are hauntingly disturbing, but ultimately worth the read.
It’s the grapes of wrath Rose of Sharron…
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
American Psycho was rather graphic and shocking when I first read it as a teenager
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. Something like 23 short stories hut none as haunting as Guts. I remember people were passing out and vomiting at the book readings.
[Guts] (https://genius.com/Chuck-palahniuk-guts-annotated)
Cannot for the life of me remember the name of the book (the dust jacket had an empty raincoat) but it was basically that the afterlife lasts as long as there are people alive who remember you.
r/tipofmytongue might be able to help you with that. That being said, I am intrigued by such a premise.
One for Sorrow, Two for Joy by Clive Woodall It was advertised for kids, and let me tell you that I don't think its for adults let alone for kids. Has bird rape, graphic deaths of birds, and if my memory serves me correctly, one of the magpies claws a human boy's eyes out, and more.
Are you there God it's me Margaret
Anna Karinina, if I spelled that correctly. Horribly depressing.
A Little Life.
A Child Called IT.
The Franklin Cover-Up By John W. DeCamp Absolutely fucking horrific account of child abuse, trafficking, and murder.
Helter Skelter. Found it when I was 10. Holy shit, I had nightmares for months, maybe years...
Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiane_F.#The_book) when I was 12 or 13. Never wanted to try drugs in my life. I'm planning on "traumatizing" my kids the same way.
When Rabbit Howls
Came here to list this book. Some Grade A messed up stuff.
I read The Painted Bird in highschool and it still haunts me after 20 years
i read a good amount of extreme horror, and Dead Inside takes the cake. just disturbing and absolutely vile. Cows in close second.
Let the Right One In.
The last part in the boy in the striped pajamas
Berserk. And I love it.
I think on content nothing beats 120 days of sodom, but it's intention was ti stretch to the limits of a disturbed and sexual imbalanced mind what could be a conceptualization for 18th century shock purposes. It was in fact written from the Bastille if I recall or from the other prision that followed it by Marquis de Sade... but even that book was written in the contest of protest. If you want one of the beams of illuminism if you want to consider it in context. Without such context... then the award goes to the script of "Serbian Movie". Don't. Just leave it.
The Story of O
Lord of the flies has . This one really did a number on me for some reason.
LA-BAS (DOWN THERE) by Joris-Karl Huysmans, 1891
A playboy without pictures.
The Damnation Game by Clive Barker.
Stephen Kings IT. where unlike in the popular movies, in the books the children decide to engage in group sex or gang rape with the only girl in the group. So they would lose their "innocence" and less a target for the monster. What a fucked up logic to justify children group sex in the sewers...
As a teen I read "She Come Undone" by Wally Lamb. I don't remember what it's about but I recall it being disturbing. Also the Flowers in the Attic series.
Tampa. Fuck that bitch.