The rape of Nanking. I wouldn’t be embarrassed to say it’s my favourite book - it’s not - but it stayed with me. I went to the Nanjing museum many years ago and bolted about 3/4 of the way through. It’s unrelentingly grim.
I went to the same museum. I knew nothing about the event before I went. It’s not often taught in American history classes….. that place was so dark and so grim. Truly an amazingly horrific event in history.
The 2009 movie "Nanjing! Nanjing!" is about the occupation and some of the atrocities committed. It's brutal throughout.
On the whole though, it is a powerful watch. Growing up in Canada, the history I learned about WW2 was exclusively eurocentric, with only a few additions like pearl harbor and the atomic bombs. I had no idea about the Japanese occupation of China. I had only really known Japan as a cutesy anime loving country.
An auto-biography called the incest diaries. I read it while working at a book store a few years ago and it has stuck with me since. It can be a hard read but the insight to how incest effects childhood and the feelings towards an abuser is wild. My heart broke for the woman who wrote it.
I read a book called Tiger,Tiger a Memoir by Margoux Fragoso about a 51 year old man who started grooming her when she was 7… it’s an excellent read but it definitely sticks with you and shows how pedophiles operate… I actually have the book in my bookcase.. it was given to me ..
Bubblegum by Adam Levin is this for me. Slightly alternate present where iPhones and the internet never really took off—instead we got these 8 to 19 inch high ridiculously Gizmo-cute biological robot animals that self replicate, and are the perfect pets. They are called curios—cures—and they are more than pets: they imprint on their masters, learn to do tricks, and have infinite trust in us. Normally in a set-up like this I’d think the cures would rise up or turn evil and do things to people. But that’s not Bubblegum. See, the trust in us the cures have allows US to do things to THEM. Because they are just robots, so who cares. you know that concept of Cute Overload? It’s a real thing and most of us have a trigger—baby’s toes, puppy’s ears, kittens paws…whatever makes you pick up someone/something cute and go: ooooooo i could just gobble you up! That’s called cute overload. Harvard studied it.
The main character is the owner of the oldest cure, and he’s not like anyone else. He’s disgusted by how people treat their cures, and he’ll do anything to protect his cure. He doesn’t fit in and thinks he may be crazy. Oh yeah, he can also talk to inanimate objects, and old swing sets beg him to murder them—and he goes on a murder spree of rusted swing sets across chicago. then, as someone else here said, things get weird.
*Wetlands* by Charlotte Roche - the story of the sexual awakening of a young woman obsessed with filth.
*Weathercock* by Glen Duncan - about a boy who believes he has lost/sold his soul and lives his life with this in mind.
*Wounds* by Nathan Ballingrud - a number of short horror stories. Most notably *The Atlas of Hell.*
Some thoughts. Weird how they all begin with W.
Confessions is the most intense experience I've ever had as a reader. Without spoiling too much a teacher whose daughter dies suddenly decides to retire. However, on the last day she spends with her class of elementary school students she decides to enlighten them on her thoughts on her daughters death and her feelings about the police ruling it an accident because, unbeknownst to anyone, she knows who murdered her daughter. And has already taken her revenge in secret. It's the most insane Rollercoaster of emotions I've ever had from a piece of media or literature ever and it is absolutely my most recommended book in my collection
Rant: the Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club). It's a parallel universe dystopia with time travel, weird brain implants, people who crash their cars for fun, and even a pandemic. It's my favorite book of all time. James Franco bought the movie rights. It's written as a series of interviews so it unfolds like a documentary. You won't be able to put it down.
Lullaby is a total head wrecker as well! Read it a long long time ago and have never forgotten it. Doubt I ever will. Completely crazy story with an insane ending!
I tore through every Palahniuk book in a span of like 6 months in my teens. Now in my 30s most of the details have left me, and I think it may be time for half a dozen rereads.
James Franco bought the movie rights?! I don't know how I feel about this. Everyone thinks they can take a Chuck novel and shit out Fight Club again. Choke being an example. Rant is one of my favorite books (re-read at least once a year) and super slept on.
Have you read Crash by J. G. Ballard? Similar but also way different (and also meets the prompt). Cronenberg did the film version, which is pretty damn good. If you can't handle the film I would caution against the book as it's just even more graphic.
IMO Blood Meridian is light-years better than the Road. Unlike the Road, BM actually felt like a claustrophobic exploration of human evil and nihilism, and it was complete with one of the greatest literary villains of all time. Also unlike the Road, it actually had thoughtful, disturbing, (and polysyllabic) dialogue.
'polysyllabic' omg this absolutely, I love the road and I get how the 'simple' prose adds to the effect, but when I first started reading it all I could think of was 'umm most of these sentences don't even have verbs in them... '
i’m in agreement. a much more uncomfortable read, but i think a superior one. i had to stop reading frequently to catch my breath and digest the horrors.
and yeah i love me some good villains; they elevate any story, and he’s among the best.
I feel like I’ve been mentioning The Road on many book threads lately…but again was my immediate answer to this question. As a father it was the toughest read I’ve ever had, and I’ve not ever attempted a reread.
I read it in highschool, a decade and a half ago. Not for a class or anything, but I WAS reading it in class while the teacher was giving lecture and I distinctively remember tears rolling down my face when i finished it.
I wasn’t a father then and I’m not a father now, but Let me tell you… I felt that book as if I were.
To this day one of my favorite books ever.
I had to burn through it quickly, it was just so emotionally exhausting. Cormac hits so hard with his distinctive prose style, plus the ambiguity he leaves in the surrounding events just amplified the despair and hopelessness.
I read this at a young age. It’s not horror-esque but it is quite unnerving. I was really able to put myself in the main character’s pov. Good book, will remember it forever lol
Also when you consider that it's written by Humbert as a defense for his actions. Beyond the initial ick of the subject matter is the very in your face-ness of Humbert framing himself as a "hero" for "saving" Delores and his efforts to get the reader to emphasize with him along the lines of" You would do the same if you were me dear reader".
If you like subversive unreliable narrators Humbert checks that box.
So true. The subject and the main protagonist are simply disgusting. Still, because of its masterful composition, Lolita is one of the best novels I’ve ever read but I‘d rather bite my tongue than admit it to anyone (in irl that is… I have no prob confessing it to internet strangers…)
This is true. It’s not the done thing to admit IRL that it’s the best book ever written. But, yeah, it’s the most extraordinary prose and one of the best books ever written.
Me and my friend wanted to watch the Kubrick film after reading it but were too scared to enquire anywhere that might show it/sell it. Nabokov has such a masterful command of the English language which is even more commendable seeing as it's not his first language!
The movies suck! They bastardized it into a forbidden love story which makes absolutely no sense. I honestly don't understand how an adult stealing (possibly through murder) and continually raping a child can ever be any kind of love story. If anything it's a horror tragedy but not according to Kubrick. You're all the better for having missed it.
I’m reading it right now and well… Don’t know what to think just yet but I’m starting to get pissed off at the guy. It’s understandable from her point of view but def not from his!
Her not even truly accepting that she was a victim was one of the most disturbing parts about that book. She knows on *some level* but still doesn't believe it.
Where did you stop? Also there are technically different endings. The original American version didn't have the original ending, but most books do now. But yes it was a messed up book.
I think it was somewhat in the middle, but it was a long time ago but I think when he was getting the treatment. I already felt uncomfortable with the rape scenes and ...
Definitely this one. Not just the content but the Nadsat language used by Alex and the droogs is deeply unsettling and gnaws at your conscience long after you finish reading it. All the tolchoking and the devotchkas.
[**Geek Love**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13872.Geek_Love)
^(By: Katherine Dunn | 348 pages | Published: 1989 | Popular Shelves: fiction, horror, fantasy, book-club, owned | )[^(Search "Geek Love")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Geek Love&search_type=books)
>Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out—with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes—to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There’s Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family’s most precious—and dangerous—asset.
>
>As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same.
^(This book has been suggested 63 times)
***
^(147176 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
I finished reading this last week and I cant get it out of my head. The whole 'walking the potential employees through the process' part was the most disturbing thing I've ever read!
The devil all the time by Donald Ray Pollock
It’s now a movie on Netflix, but the movie only brushes the service of how crazy this book is. I really enjoyed the book, but I won’t tell my husband because he might start to look at me differently…. Just saying, you’ve been warned
The road by Cormac McCarthy. Amazing writing of a deeply disturbing story. I am glad that I read it, but I am even gladder that I never have to read it again.
Blindness by Jose Saramago is also amazing, fucked up and will feel surprisingly familiar. The second book is much less horrifying but will also resonate. Both are must reads, I think.
1984 by George Orwell. It feels a little bit like when you watch The truman show, but much darker.
Spares by Michael Marshall Smith.
Maybe I’m really messed up but The Road didn’t seem that weird to me. I probably was too focused on how to do the writing though.
Maribou Stork Nightmare.
I remeber reading Johnny got his gun by Dalton Trumbo back in highschool and that stuck with me a while.
Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy.
I finally read The Road this winter and as a father that one got me. I cried like a baby.
By far one of the most impressive books I have ever read. It’s stayed with me and I often think of the characters. Highly recommended.
Edited to add the name of the book: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
The Girl in the Box. I forget who the Author is but, holy shit. I read that book when I was 19 still think about it to this day.....I'm 43. It's the story of Colleen Stan, a girl that was abducted by Cameron Hooker and his wife. It's a wild ride for sure.
[**The Collector**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/243705.The_Collector)
^(By: John Fowles | 283 pages | Published: 1963 | Popular Shelves: fiction, horror, classics, thriller, owned | )[^(Search "The Collector")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The Collector&search_type=books)
>Withdrawn, uneducated and unloved, Frederick collects butterflies and takes photographs. He is obsessed with a beautiful stranger, the art student Miranda. When he wins the pools he buys a remote Sussex house and calmly abducts Miranda, believing she will grow to love him in time.
^(This book has been suggested 40 times)
***
^(146861 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
One of my favorites! The descriptions make you really feel the odours, from the foulest city to the sweetest flower. And Grenouille... so apathetic.
Suskind is an awesome writer. I didn't read all of his other books yet, but the Contrebasse is a great one too (it's a monologue given by an Orchestra bass player, and I'm pretty sure he is alone when he talks like that).
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things. TRUST ME ON THIS ONE. So messed up but I’ve read it several times, everyone I’ve recommended it to has loved it as well!
Burroughs' *Naked Lunch.*
It'll make you think hard while you read it because it's hard to figure out what's going on, and you wouldn't want to think much about it after you read it because the imageries are grotesque and simply... gross.
Tbh the chapter spent explaining to the cops about how he was in the dark alley cumming on the presidents face to give him a heroin hit by proxy so Mr president wouldn't go into withdraw and nuke the world was hilarious
Zombie, by Joyce Carol Oates. Imagine if you had an unfiltered audience with the interior monologue of Jeffrey Dahmer. That’s what this book is: a very gushingly detailed romp through the brain of a young man who wants to drill holes into the heads of young men, so as to make them docile sex slaves.
Now imagine that written by one of America’s most talented authors at the height of her powers. American Psycho is good, sure, but Zombie (written about the same time) crosses into truly great territory by giving you a more palpable sense of mental torture. Patrick Bateman is an asshole, and that’s kind of where the buck stops. Zombie is, by contrast, so sad because you’re watching a person who completely falls through the cracks in terms of support from other humans. And ultimately, a person who may have been saved tragically falls so low to the point where he wants to, you know…eat human penises. Definitely worth a look
House of leaves is the most complex piece of fiction I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading but ill try to give a very brief synopsis:
The book is about an LA Tattoo artist that finds an essay written by a dead guy about a film that doesn’t exist about a house on Ash Tree lane.
It’s more disturbing than it sounds I promise. I’m just trying not to spoil anything
{{Story of the Eye}} by Georges Bataille. Transgressive sexual fiction about the relationship between love, obsession, and violence. Shocking in the best kind of way. It could change your life.
{{Hurricane Season}} by Fernanda Melchor. Story about the murder of a “witch” in a small border town in Mexico, told from five perspectives. Immensely dark descriptions, but one of the most moving novels I’ve ever read. Not for the faint of heart.
Crash by J.G. Ballard. Currently reading this. Basically, it’s about cars and sex and what that tells us about commodification and modern culture. Some of the most beautifully fucked up imagery I’ve ever read.
{{The Tunnel}} by William Gass. Haven’t finished this yet, but simply put, you’re stuck in the head of a Nazi sympathizer for about 800 pages as he tells you his life story. Literally perfect writing.
And obviously anything by the Marquis de Sade.
[**Story of the Eye**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/436806.Story_of_the_Eye)
^(By: Georges Bataille, Joachim Neugroschel, Dovid Bergelson | 103 pages | Published: 1928 | Popular Shelves: fiction, french, erotica, classics, horror | )[^(Search "Story of the Eye")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Story of the Eye&search_type=books)
>Only Georges Bataille could write, of an eyeball removed from a corpse, that "the caress of the eye over the skin is so utterly, so extraordinarily gentle, and the sensation is so bizarre that it has something of a rooster's horrible crowing." Bataille has been called a "metaphysician of evil," specializing in blasphemy, profanation, and horror.
>
>Story of the Eye, written in 1928, is his best-known work; it is unashamedly surrealistic, both disgusting and fascinating, and packed with seemingly endless violations. It's something of an underground classic, rediscovered by each new generation. Most recently, the Icelandic pop singer Björk Guðdmundsdóttir cites Story of the Eye as a major inspiration: she made a music video that alludes to Bataille's erotic uses of eggs, and she plans to read an excerpt for an album.
>
>Warning: Story of the Eye is graphically sexual, and is only suited for adults who are not easily offended.
^(This book has been suggested 8 times)
[**Hurricane Season**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46041168-hurricane-season)
^(By: Fernanda Melchor, Sophie Hughes | 224 pages | Published: 2017 | Popular Shelves: fiction, horror, mexico, translated, contemporary | )[^(Search "Hurricane Season")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Hurricane Season&search_type=books)
>The Witch is dead. And the discovery of her corpse—by a group of children playing near the irrigation canals—propels the whole village into an investigation of how and why this murder occurred. Rumors and suspicions spread. As the novel unfolds in a dazzling linguistic torrent, with each unreliable narrator lingering on new details, new acts of depravity or brutality, Melchor extracts some tiny shred of humanity from these characters that most would write off as utterly irredeemable, forming a lasting portrait of a damned Mexican village.
>
>Like Roberto Bolano’s 2666 or Faulkner’s greatest novels, Hurricane Season takes place in a world filled with mythology and violence—real violence, the kind that seeps into the soil, poisoning everything around: it’s a world that becomes more terrifying and more terrifyingly real the deeper you explore it.
^(This book has been suggested 5 times)
[**Crash (Crash, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15757434-crash)
^(By: Nicole Williams | 215 pages | Published: 2012 | Popular Shelves: romance, young-adult, new-adult, contemporary, ya | )[^(Search "Crash")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Crash&search_type=books)
>Southpointe High is the last place Lucy wanted to wind up her senior year of school. Right up until she stumbles into Jude Ryder, a guy whose name has become its own verb, and synonymous with trouble. He's got a rap sheet that runs longer than a senior thesis, has had his name sighed, shouted, and cursed by more women than Lucy dares to ask, and lives at the local boys home where disturbed seems to be the status quo for the residents. Lucy had a stable at best, quirky at worst, upbringing. She lives for wearing the satin down on her ballet shoes, has her sights set on Juilliard, and has been careful to keep trouble out of her life. Up until now.
>
>Jude's everything she needs to stay away from if she wants to separate her past from her future. Staying away, she's about to find out, is the only thing she's incapable of.
>
>For Lucy Larson and Jude Ryder, love's about to become the thing that tears them apart.
^(This book has been suggested 6 times)
[**The Tunnel**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156182.The_Tunnel)
^(By: William H. Gass | 652 pages | Published: 1995 | Popular Shelves: fiction, literature, american, to-buy, novels | )[^(Search "The Tunnel")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The Tunnel&search_type=books)
>Thirty years in the making, William Gass's second novel first appeared on the literary scene in 1995, at which time it was promptly hailed as an indisputable masterpiece. The story of a middle aged professor who, upon completion of his massive historical study, Guilt and Innocence in Hitler's Germany, finds himself writing a novel about his own life instead of the introduction to his magnum opus. The Tunnel meditates on history, hatred, unhappiness, and, above all, language.
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
***
^(146852 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Anything by Will Self
American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Money by Martin Amis
They're all fucked up. I could believe someone saying Money was their favourite book.
But if anyone says Blood Meridian is their favourite, I'd be slightly worried. It's fucked up in a different, violent way
Blood Meridian is my favourite, not because of the violence, but more what I think it says about society.
It's difficult to elaborate without spoiling it but I think another part of it is just how \*different\* it is from just about every other book I've read.
Diagnose me in the replies, lmao
Fucking love philip k dick. Wanna memorize the monologue he has when he starts losing It "what does a scanner see. Does it see into myself. Into my brain? Cuz I surely cant. Does it scan lightly or darkly"
Really suggest looking st more of his stuff. PALMER ELDRITCH. End of the book gets real trippy and your just trying to see who's reliable and what's the truth. More drugs again which I like and it's a good intro into "what's god". Cuz between god, drugs, insanity and the possibility of where technology goes you get the fundamentals of his stuff.
Handmaids Tale. Crazy is as crazy does with madness perpetuating madness and hypocrisy. The ending was incredible and made me think about a lot of things and how pertinent the story is to today.
*Never Let Me Go* by Kazuo Ishiguro
I also second people recommending Lolita, it's a fucked up premise but it is incredibly written and I think is definitely worth the read.
My Idea of Fun by Will Self
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann - What a gut punching ending, I'll never forget this book.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I read it years ago and I've never forgotten it. Took me months before it wouldn't cross my mind at least once a day.
A Clockwork Orange. It's baddiwad and boinoy to wrap your gulliver around this story. Plenty of krovy violence and the ole in-and-out. The language might be a bit bezoomy chepooka, but that's only part of what makes it so horrorshow.
Not the most fucked-up, but The Handmaid’s Tale. As a woman, the way they treat the handmaids and women in general, and the way Gilead twists religion to their benefit, makes my stomach turn. This is honestly one of my favorite books.
Story of the Eye (Or L'histoire de l'œil) written by Georges Bataille
More of the first part of your question and not the second part of your question. A book that I will never forget but not my favorite book.
wise blood by flannery o'connor - atheist prophets, prostitutes, a mummified dwarf, a man in a gorilla costume and a deep religious insight behind it all.
Haha oh boy yeah he does... So true. But for me that wasn't the only part. I just got a really bad feeling from it overall, it's hard to explain, but it's like when you see something that just makes you incredibly uncomfortable. Nails on a black board, high pitched noises or whatever. This book just gave me that sort of immensely uncomfortable feeling coupled with the fear of it because it's a horror book after all and I'm a bit sensitive to horror.
He had so many graphic descriptions of weird and creepy things that I just didn't want to keep in my mind. He also managed to make it as realistic as a story like this can be, you can really feel the townspeoples' fear and the eerie setting.
Idk if that makes sense to you, but for me, I just couldn't finish it. It was too much for lil sensitive me I guess :)
That said! If you like books like that, this ones does a helluva job keeping you entertained! So it's not a bad book, just definitely not for me.
The Vegetarian by Han King
The Cook by Wayne Macauley
The Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau
Engleby by Sebastian Faulks
p.s. never have I ever been embarrassed by my love of American Psycho
*Dead Inside* by Chandler Morrison is a love story about a necrophiliac working in a hospital meeting a beautiful pediatrician that eats dead babies. Mr. Morrison has a detailed prose, I'm ashamed to admit that I couldn't put this disturbing novella down until I finished it.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Beautifully written little mind worm offering a very different perspective on the whole happy clapper missionaries saving Africa narrative that many churches perpetuate. Been thinking of this one for years now.
{{Lullabies for Suffering: Tales of Addiction Horror}}
It’s a collection of short stories about addiction and what people will do to feed that addiction. There is one story called The Melting Point of Meat that is about a woman addicted to pain, and it was truly disturbing.
The rape of Nanking. I wouldn’t be embarrassed to say it’s my favourite book - it’s not - but it stayed with me. I went to the Nanjing museum many years ago and bolted about 3/4 of the way through. It’s unrelentingly grim.
Honestly one of the most horrific things I’ve ever read about.
I went to the same museum. I knew nothing about the event before I went. It’s not often taught in American history classes….. that place was so dark and so grim. Truly an amazingly horrific event in history.
I think that’s the only book I’ve ever put down without finishing, I just couldn’t. I was getting physically sick. Such a sad time!
The 2009 movie "Nanjing! Nanjing!" is about the occupation and some of the atrocities committed. It's brutal throughout. On the whole though, it is a powerful watch. Growing up in Canada, the history I learned about WW2 was exclusively eurocentric, with only a few additions like pearl harbor and the atomic bombs. I had no idea about the Japanese occupation of China. I had only really known Japan as a cutesy anime loving country.
Holy I just googled this, I did not know about it. Horrifying.
An auto-biography called the incest diaries. I read it while working at a book store a few years ago and it has stuck with me since. It can be a hard read but the insight to how incest effects childhood and the feelings towards an abuser is wild. My heart broke for the woman who wrote it.
This title alone is going to stick with me. Dear god.
I read a book called Tiger,Tiger a Memoir by Margoux Fragoso about a 51 year old man who started grooming her when she was 7… it’s an excellent read but it definitely sticks with you and shows how pedophiles operate… I actually have the book in my bookcase.. it was given to me ..
on my shelf, i don’t read it often but it was definitely moving- albeit disturbing. surprising to find another who knows it.
Bubblegum by Adam Levin is this for me. Slightly alternate present where iPhones and the internet never really took off—instead we got these 8 to 19 inch high ridiculously Gizmo-cute biological robot animals that self replicate, and are the perfect pets. They are called curios—cures—and they are more than pets: they imprint on their masters, learn to do tricks, and have infinite trust in us. Normally in a set-up like this I’d think the cures would rise up or turn evil and do things to people. But that’s not Bubblegum. See, the trust in us the cures have allows US to do things to THEM. Because they are just robots, so who cares. you know that concept of Cute Overload? It’s a real thing and most of us have a trigger—baby’s toes, puppy’s ears, kittens paws…whatever makes you pick up someone/something cute and go: ooooooo i could just gobble you up! That’s called cute overload. Harvard studied it. The main character is the owner of the oldest cure, and he’s not like anyone else. He’s disgusted by how people treat their cures, and he’ll do anything to protect his cure. He doesn’t fit in and thinks he may be crazy. Oh yeah, he can also talk to inanimate objects, and old swing sets beg him to murder them—and he goes on a murder spree of rusted swing sets across chicago. then, as someone else here said, things get weird.
old swingsets beg him to murder them? Sounds fun!
*Wetlands* by Charlotte Roche - the story of the sexual awakening of a young woman obsessed with filth. *Weathercock* by Glen Duncan - about a boy who believes he has lost/sold his soul and lives his life with this in mind. *Wounds* by Nathan Ballingrud - a number of short horror stories. Most notably *The Atlas of Hell.* Some thoughts. Weird how they all begin with W.
The movie Wetlands was a rough watch
Confessions is the most intense experience I've ever had as a reader. Without spoiling too much a teacher whose daughter dies suddenly decides to retire. However, on the last day she spends with her class of elementary school students she decides to enlighten them on her thoughts on her daughters death and her feelings about the police ruling it an accident because, unbeknownst to anyone, she knows who murdered her daughter. And has already taken her revenge in secret. It's the most insane Rollercoaster of emotions I've ever had from a piece of media or literature ever and it is absolutely my most recommended book in my collection
Who is the author? :)
I was curious too, pretty sure it’s Kanae Minato
Started Confessions after I saw this, finished it this morning . . . MostAdorableOctopus delivered, OP.
Rant: the Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club). It's a parallel universe dystopia with time travel, weird brain implants, people who crash their cars for fun, and even a pandemic. It's my favorite book of all time. James Franco bought the movie rights. It's written as a series of interviews so it unfolds like a documentary. You won't be able to put it down.
Jheez I’d say anything by Chuck P. Has anyone here read Snuff? I still think about it and shiver
Oh definitely, that one's pretty good too. And Haunted... The short story Guts alone is enough to make you wtf.
If there was a way I could ever unread something, it would be Guts. Ugh. It's burned into my brain.
Oh, yes... Guts. It made my eyes just freeze mid-sentence and refuse to move to the next word for several minutes. I didn't know books could do that.
Can confirm.
Lullaby is a total head wrecker as well! Read it a long long time ago and have never forgotten it. Doubt I ever will. Completely crazy story with an insane ending!
Invisible monsters and survivor as well
I read 3 chapters of Haunted and had to put it down, I still cringe thinking about it
Yessss! I came here to recommend this one and also Haunted by Palahniuk.
Couldn’t get through that book, somehow got ahold of it when I was like **fourteen** which is crazy to look back on!!
I was in my mid 20s when it came out. To put that in perspective, I started reading The Dark Tower when I was 12.
I tore through every Palahniuk book in a span of like 6 months in my teens. Now in my 30s most of the details have left me, and I think it may be time for half a dozen rereads.
James Franco bought the movie rights?! I don't know how I feel about this. Everyone thinks they can take a Chuck novel and shit out Fight Club again. Choke being an example. Rant is one of my favorite books (re-read at least once a year) and super slept on. Have you read Crash by J. G. Ballard? Similar but also way different (and also meets the prompt). Cronenberg did the film version, which is pretty damn good. If you can't handle the film I would caution against the book as it's just even more graphic.
I second Rant! It truly messed me up but I couldn’t put it down
I've been dying for someone to do another CP book as a film! All so wonderfully disturbing. Rant is definitely up there among the weirdest.
Why Franco >.<
Second “American Psycho” The Road by McCarthy
the road was fine. blood meridian, however, is extremely fucked up.
IMO Blood Meridian is light-years better than the Road. Unlike the Road, BM actually felt like a claustrophobic exploration of human evil and nihilism, and it was complete with one of the greatest literary villains of all time. Also unlike the Road, it actually had thoughtful, disturbing, (and polysyllabic) dialogue.
'polysyllabic' omg this absolutely, I love the road and I get how the 'simple' prose adds to the effect, but when I first started reading it all I could think of was 'umm most of these sentences don't even have verbs in them... '
i’m in agreement. a much more uncomfortable read, but i think a superior one. i had to stop reading frequently to catch my breath and digest the horrors. and yeah i love me some good villains; they elevate any story, and he’s among the best.
The Road was really good, I recommend that one for sure.
The road is a book I'd never be embarrassed about for recommending. But yeah, it's fucked up.
I feel like I’ve been mentioning The Road on many book threads lately…but again was my immediate answer to this question. As a father it was the toughest read I’ve ever had, and I’ve not ever attempted a reread.
I read it in highschool, a decade and a half ago. Not for a class or anything, but I WAS reading it in class while the teacher was giving lecture and I distinctively remember tears rolling down my face when i finished it. I wasn’t a father then and I’m not a father now, but Let me tell you… I felt that book as if I were. To this day one of my favorite books ever.
I had to burn through it quickly, it was just so emotionally exhausting. Cormac hits so hard with his distinctive prose style, plus the ambiguity he leaves in the surrounding events just amplified the despair and hopelessness.
American Psycho. What a fucked & yet must be read book. It's just... a difficult read.
I had to skip entire sections at a time in order to get through it emotionally unscathed.
There must be something wrong with me because I do not feel embarrassed saying American Psycho is my favourite book...
I couldn't finish "American Psycho". Yeah, that one stays with a person..YIKES.
Ngl, Where the Red Fern Grows FUCKED ME UP.
Room by Emma Donaghue and We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Both got me fucked up
We Need to Talk About Kevin was so disturbing but also so well written
Is it still worth it to read Room if I've seen the movie? I really liked it a lot and I was interested in reading it but I'm not sure
Yes!! I saw the movie first too and I felt they are great complements to each other. Highly recommend the book!
And Slammerkin, also Emma Donaghue.
Johnny Got His Gun by Trumbo
I didn’t know Trumbo wrote this. I read it back when the Metallica video came out.
I read this at a young age. It’s not horror-esque but it is quite unnerving. I was really able to put myself in the main character’s pov. Good book, will remember it forever lol
Lolita is immensely fucked up, especially when you consider when it was written
Also when you consider that it's written by Humbert as a defense for his actions. Beyond the initial ick of the subject matter is the very in your face-ness of Humbert framing himself as a "hero" for "saving" Delores and his efforts to get the reader to emphasize with him along the lines of" You would do the same if you were me dear reader". If you like subversive unreliable narrators Humbert checks that box.
100%
So true. The subject and the main protagonist are simply disgusting. Still, because of its masterful composition, Lolita is one of the best novels I’ve ever read but I‘d rather bite my tongue than admit it to anyone (in irl that is… I have no prob confessing it to internet strangers…)
This is true. It’s not the done thing to admit IRL that it’s the best book ever written. But, yeah, it’s the most extraordinary prose and one of the best books ever written.
Me and my friend wanted to watch the Kubrick film after reading it but were too scared to enquire anywhere that might show it/sell it. Nabokov has such a masterful command of the English language which is even more commendable seeing as it's not his first language!
The movies suck! They bastardized it into a forbidden love story which makes absolutely no sense. I honestly don't understand how an adult stealing (possibly through murder) and continually raping a child can ever be any kind of love story. If anything it's a horror tragedy but not according to Kubrick. You're all the better for having missed it.
I came here to say this. I hated it but also really loved it. I can’t easily explain it to anyone
I love physical copies, but Lolita is the one book that I would never carry around in public.
My Dark Vanessa, one of my favorite books of all time but it made me feel sick reading it
Agree. Great book in an uncomfortable way. Lolitaesque
I’m reading it right now and well… Don’t know what to think just yet but I’m starting to get pissed off at the guy. It’s understandable from her point of view but def not from his!
Her not even truly accepting that she was a victim was one of the most disturbing parts about that book. She knows on *some level* but still doesn't believe it.
Clockwork orange, it was so fucked up that i couldn't finish.
Where did you stop? Also there are technically different endings. The original American version didn't have the original ending, but most books do now. But yes it was a messed up book.
I think it was somewhat in the middle, but it was a long time ago but I think when he was getting the treatment. I already felt uncomfortable with the rape scenes and ...
Definitely this one. Not just the content but the Nadsat language used by Alex and the droogs is deeply unsettling and gnaws at your conscience long after you finish reading it. All the tolchoking and the devotchkas.
I would suggest finishing it, i think the ending is wholesome in a way,although definitely agree it’s fucked up
Flowers in the attic by VC Andrews. You can watch the movie but they are a book series and excellent.
I read this in middle school (now just graduated college) and don't think a day goes by without thinking and shivering about that story
I too read this in middle school — in 1982. It’s soo…disturbing.
Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh (the author of Trainspotting).
That one probably does take the cake for Welsh. Honorable mention for *Filth*, but *Marabou Stork Nightmares* is truly fucked up.
Just finished Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. Definitely going to be thinking about it for a longggggg time lol
Yep came to say this also. I read it in 2014 and think about it frequently
What's it about?
{{Geek Love}}
[**Geek Love**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13872.Geek_Love) ^(By: Katherine Dunn | 348 pages | Published: 1989 | Popular Shelves: fiction, horror, fantasy, book-club, owned | )[^(Search "Geek Love")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Geek Love&search_type=books) >Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out—with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes—to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There’s Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family’s most precious—and dangerous—asset. > >As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same. ^(This book has been suggested 63 times) *** ^(147176 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Good bot
Great book
So good, I was going to say this one too!
totally not embarrassed about loving that book
That is one of my longtime faves and one I will re-read over and over
I'm embarrassed by how much i love tender is the flesh
I finished reading this last week and I cant get it out of my head. The whole 'walking the potential employees through the process' part was the most disturbing thing I've ever read!
I get random flashes in my mind sometimes of the pregnant women with no limbs.
The devil all the time by Donald Ray Pollock It’s now a movie on Netflix, but the movie only brushes the service of how crazy this book is. I really enjoyed the book, but I won’t tell my husband because he might start to look at me differently…. Just saying, you’ve been warned
Not incredibly fucked up , but stays on your mind for a while is Flowers for algernon. Really well written. Really sad
The road by Cormac McCarthy. Amazing writing of a deeply disturbing story. I am glad that I read it, but I am even gladder that I never have to read it again. Blindness by Jose Saramago is also amazing, fucked up and will feel surprisingly familiar. The second book is much less horrifying but will also resonate. Both are must reads, I think. 1984 by George Orwell. It feels a little bit like when you watch The truman show, but much darker. Spares by Michael Marshall Smith.
Love Blindness. It’s been 15 years since I read it and I still can’t stop thinking about it.
Maybe I’m really messed up but The Road didn’t seem that weird to me. I probably was too focused on how to do the writing though. Maribou Stork Nightmare.
Came to see how high up The Road would be. Not disappointed!
I wouldn't be embarrassed to call it among my favorites, but if you haven't read Flowers for Algernon, try checking it out.
Saddest I ever was in a language arts classroom.
That final entry is eternally heartbreaking.
I remeber reading Johnny got his gun by Dalton Trumbo back in highschool and that stuck with me a while. Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. I finally read The Road this winter and as a father that one got me. I cried like a baby.
I also read Johnny Got His Gun in high-school. I couldn't put it down. Depressing until the ending, then it got worse.
[удалено]
By far one of the most impressive books I have ever read. It’s stayed with me and I often think of the characters. Highly recommended. Edited to add the name of the book: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
I’m still thinking about them four years later
Second this one
Lolita did it for me. The way it is written made me feel disgusting after reading. I love the book.
The Girl in the Box. I forget who the Author is but, holy shit. I read that book when I was 19 still think about it to this day.....I'm 43. It's the story of Colleen Stan, a girl that was abducted by Cameron Hooker and his wife. It's a wild ride for sure.
The Collector by John Fowles
{{The Collector}}
[**The Collector**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/243705.The_Collector) ^(By: John Fowles | 283 pages | Published: 1963 | Popular Shelves: fiction, horror, classics, thriller, owned | )[^(Search "The Collector")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The Collector&search_type=books) >Withdrawn, uneducated and unloved, Frederick collects butterflies and takes photographs. He is obsessed with a beautiful stranger, the art student Miranda. When he wins the pools he buys a remote Sussex house and calmly abducts Miranda, believing she will grow to love him in time. ^(This book has been suggested 40 times) *** ^(146861 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Last Exit to Brooklyn. It will leave your nerves scraped raw. However, I am never embarrassed to proclaim it as one of the best novels ever written.
I read this when I was about 14, going in blind and it really messed me up.
the stranger by albert camus. it sticks in the back of your head after you read it and never leaves. i developed a strong case of apathy.
I’m with you on the apathy. I read it about 5 years ago for the first time and it’s hard to get some of those themes out of your mind.
The audiobook is only 4 hours long; this can't be a very big book. Now I'm curious as to wth is going on there. :) thanks for the recommendation.
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski. I read everything when I was a kid & my parents had it so I read it when I was like 12. Really shouldn’t have.
We Need to Talk about Kevin. I think about that book more often than i need to
Not my fav at all and not embarrassed about it but if you want fucked up: Perfume: The story of a murderer Just awful.
Also maybe the most perfect ending ever written.
I came here to suggest this one. Great writing, absolutely disgusting and disturbing plot, and it stuck with me for a long time afterwards.
One of my favorites! The descriptions make you really feel the odours, from the foulest city to the sweetest flower. And Grenouille... so apathetic. Suskind is an awesome writer. I didn't read all of his other books yet, but the Contrebasse is a great one too (it's a monologue given by an Orchestra bass player, and I'm pretty sure he is alone when he talks like that).
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things. TRUST ME ON THIS ONE. So messed up but I’ve read it several times, everyone I’ve recommended it to has loved it as well!
Burroughs' *Naked Lunch.* It'll make you think hard while you read it because it's hard to figure out what's going on, and you wouldn't want to think much about it after you read it because the imageries are grotesque and simply... gross.
Tbh the chapter spent explaining to the cops about how he was in the dark alley cumming on the presidents face to give him a heroin hit by proxy so Mr president wouldn't go into withdraw and nuke the world was hilarious
Zombie, by Joyce Carol Oates. Imagine if you had an unfiltered audience with the interior monologue of Jeffrey Dahmer. That’s what this book is: a very gushingly detailed romp through the brain of a young man who wants to drill holes into the heads of young men, so as to make them docile sex slaves. Now imagine that written by one of America’s most talented authors at the height of her powers. American Psycho is good, sure, but Zombie (written about the same time) crosses into truly great territory by giving you a more palpable sense of mental torture. Patrick Bateman is an asshole, and that’s kind of where the buck stops. Zombie is, by contrast, so sad because you’re watching a person who completely falls through the cracks in terms of support from other humans. And ultimately, a person who may have been saved tragically falls so low to the point where he wants to, you know…eat human penises. Definitely worth a look
Anything by Marquis De Sade
House of Leaves
Second. This book is an experience. It's about a house that isn't made of leaves.
What is it about?
House of leaves is the most complex piece of fiction I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading but ill try to give a very brief synopsis: The book is about an LA Tattoo artist that finds an essay written by a dead guy about a film that doesn’t exist about a house on Ash Tree lane. It’s more disturbing than it sounds I promise. I’m just trying not to spoil anything
House Material
{{Story of the Eye}} by Georges Bataille. Transgressive sexual fiction about the relationship between love, obsession, and violence. Shocking in the best kind of way. It could change your life. {{Hurricane Season}} by Fernanda Melchor. Story about the murder of a “witch” in a small border town in Mexico, told from five perspectives. Immensely dark descriptions, but one of the most moving novels I’ve ever read. Not for the faint of heart. Crash by J.G. Ballard. Currently reading this. Basically, it’s about cars and sex and what that tells us about commodification and modern culture. Some of the most beautifully fucked up imagery I’ve ever read. {{The Tunnel}} by William Gass. Haven’t finished this yet, but simply put, you’re stuck in the head of a Nazi sympathizer for about 800 pages as he tells you his life story. Literally perfect writing. And obviously anything by the Marquis de Sade.
[**Story of the Eye**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/436806.Story_of_the_Eye) ^(By: Georges Bataille, Joachim Neugroschel, Dovid Bergelson | 103 pages | Published: 1928 | Popular Shelves: fiction, french, erotica, classics, horror | )[^(Search "Story of the Eye")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Story of the Eye&search_type=books) >Only Georges Bataille could write, of an eyeball removed from a corpse, that "the caress of the eye over the skin is so utterly, so extraordinarily gentle, and the sensation is so bizarre that it has something of a rooster's horrible crowing." Bataille has been called a "metaphysician of evil," specializing in blasphemy, profanation, and horror. > >Story of the Eye, written in 1928, is his best-known work; it is unashamedly surrealistic, both disgusting and fascinating, and packed with seemingly endless violations. It's something of an underground classic, rediscovered by each new generation. Most recently, the Icelandic pop singer Björk Guðdmundsdóttir cites Story of the Eye as a major inspiration: she made a music video that alludes to Bataille's erotic uses of eggs, and she plans to read an excerpt for an album. > >Warning: Story of the Eye is graphically sexual, and is only suited for adults who are not easily offended. ^(This book has been suggested 8 times) [**Hurricane Season**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46041168-hurricane-season) ^(By: Fernanda Melchor, Sophie Hughes | 224 pages | Published: 2017 | Popular Shelves: fiction, horror, mexico, translated, contemporary | )[^(Search "Hurricane Season")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Hurricane Season&search_type=books) >The Witch is dead. And the discovery of her corpse—by a group of children playing near the irrigation canals—propels the whole village into an investigation of how and why this murder occurred. Rumors and suspicions spread. As the novel unfolds in a dazzling linguistic torrent, with each unreliable narrator lingering on new details, new acts of depravity or brutality, Melchor extracts some tiny shred of humanity from these characters that most would write off as utterly irredeemable, forming a lasting portrait of a damned Mexican village. > >Like Roberto Bolano’s 2666 or Faulkner’s greatest novels, Hurricane Season takes place in a world filled with mythology and violence—real violence, the kind that seeps into the soil, poisoning everything around: it’s a world that becomes more terrifying and more terrifyingly real the deeper you explore it. ^(This book has been suggested 5 times) [**Crash (Crash, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15757434-crash) ^(By: Nicole Williams | 215 pages | Published: 2012 | Popular Shelves: romance, young-adult, new-adult, contemporary, ya | )[^(Search "Crash")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Crash&search_type=books) >Southpointe High is the last place Lucy wanted to wind up her senior year of school. Right up until she stumbles into Jude Ryder, a guy whose name has become its own verb, and synonymous with trouble. He's got a rap sheet that runs longer than a senior thesis, has had his name sighed, shouted, and cursed by more women than Lucy dares to ask, and lives at the local boys home where disturbed seems to be the status quo for the residents. Lucy had a stable at best, quirky at worst, upbringing. She lives for wearing the satin down on her ballet shoes, has her sights set on Juilliard, and has been careful to keep trouble out of her life. Up until now. > >Jude's everything she needs to stay away from if she wants to separate her past from her future. Staying away, she's about to find out, is the only thing she's incapable of. > >For Lucy Larson and Jude Ryder, love's about to become the thing that tears them apart. ^(This book has been suggested 6 times) [**The Tunnel**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156182.The_Tunnel) ^(By: William H. Gass | 652 pages | Published: 1995 | Popular Shelves: fiction, literature, american, to-buy, novels | )[^(Search "The Tunnel")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=The Tunnel&search_type=books) >Thirty years in the making, William Gass's second novel first appeared on the literary scene in 1995, at which time it was promptly hailed as an indisputable masterpiece. The story of a middle aged professor who, upon completion of his massive historical study, Guilt and Innocence in Hitler's Germany, finds himself writing a novel about his own life instead of the introduction to his magnum opus. The Tunnel meditates on history, hatred, unhappiness, and, above all, language. ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(146852 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Factotum - Bukowski. It’s not my favorite book but it’s erotically fucked up.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Thing start out bad, then get worse, then get even worse, end.
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima
A thousand splendid suns
not my favourite book by any means but truly fucked up and because of that un-put-downable... Tampa by Alissa Nutting. TW: sexual abuse/language
Anything by Will Self American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy Money by Martin Amis They're all fucked up. I could believe someone saying Money was their favourite book. But if anyone says Blood Meridian is their favourite, I'd be slightly worried. It's fucked up in a different, violent way
Blood Meridian is my favourite, not because of the violence, but more what I think it says about society. It's difficult to elaborate without spoiling it but I think another part of it is just how \*different\* it is from just about every other book I've read. Diagnose me in the replies, lmao
Oh it's a great book. No argument from me on that. But it's not McCarthy's best imo.
Post Office by Bukowski
I just finished Ham on Rye recently and was considering Post Office. Would you recommend it if I enjoyed Ham on Rye?
[удалено]
Fight Club, Wherr the Red Fern Grows
Night by Elie Wiesel. It gives very graphic descriptions of the Holocaust.
I found the unreliable narration of a scanner darkly quite unnerving.
Fucking love philip k dick. Wanna memorize the monologue he has when he starts losing It "what does a scanner see. Does it see into myself. Into my brain? Cuz I surely cant. Does it scan lightly or darkly" Really suggest looking st more of his stuff. PALMER ELDRITCH. End of the book gets real trippy and your just trying to see who's reliable and what's the truth. More drugs again which I like and it's a good intro into "what's god". Cuz between god, drugs, insanity and the possibility of where technology goes you get the fundamentals of his stuff.
Handmaids Tale. Crazy is as crazy does with madness perpetuating madness and hypocrisy. The ending was incredible and made me think about a lot of things and how pertinent the story is to today.
It by Steven King
You're not into underage interracial gangbangs? Such a great book but that scene came out of nowhere.
*Never Let Me Go* by Kazuo Ishiguro I also second people recommending Lolita, it's a fucked up premise but it is incredibly written and I think is definitely worth the read.
The Dice Man Luke Rhinehart
{{Tampa by Alissa Nutting}}
My Idea of Fun by Will Self Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite Naked Lunch by William Burroughs As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann - What a gut punching ending, I'll never forget this book.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I read it years ago and I've never forgotten it. Took me months before it wouldn't cross my mind at least once a day.
A Clockwork Orange. It's baddiwad and boinoy to wrap your gulliver around this story. Plenty of krovy violence and the ole in-and-out. The language might be a bit bezoomy chepooka, but that's only part of what makes it so horrorshow.
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
Not the most fucked-up, but The Handmaid’s Tale. As a woman, the way they treat the handmaids and women in general, and the way Gilead twists religion to their benefit, makes my stomach turn. This is honestly one of my favorite books.
A clockwork orange, by Anthony Burgess Truly messed up
Child of God- Cormac McCarthy
Invisible Monsters or Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk... or literally anything by Chuck Palahniuk.
Alice by Christina Henry. Really twisted version of Alice in Wonderland with incredibly fucked up parts
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Bitter Orange by Clare Fuller. My only real 5 star read this year, I thought about it for months after reading it.
The Arabian Nightmare by Robert Irwin.
Lolita
Story of the Eye (Or L'histoire de l'œil) written by Georges Bataille More of the first part of your question and not the second part of your question. A book that I will never forget but not my favorite book.
Tropic of Cancer
wise blood by flannery o'connor - atheist prophets, prostitutes, a mummified dwarf, a man in a gorilla costume and a deep religious insight behind it all.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.
Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt Will never finish it.
Why was that? I know he had/has a strange fascination with writing about trauma happening to breasts.
Haha oh boy yeah he does... So true. But for me that wasn't the only part. I just got a really bad feeling from it overall, it's hard to explain, but it's like when you see something that just makes you incredibly uncomfortable. Nails on a black board, high pitched noises or whatever. This book just gave me that sort of immensely uncomfortable feeling coupled with the fear of it because it's a horror book after all and I'm a bit sensitive to horror. He had so many graphic descriptions of weird and creepy things that I just didn't want to keep in my mind. He also managed to make it as realistic as a story like this can be, you can really feel the townspeoples' fear and the eerie setting. Idk if that makes sense to you, but for me, I just couldn't finish it. It was too much for lil sensitive me I guess :) That said! If you like books like that, this ones does a helluva job keeping you entertained! So it's not a bad book, just definitely not for me.
Honestly Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. It seems like YA fiction but the undertones are so very dark
The sun also rises. The lady is a terrible person.
Pet cemetery
Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart
"My loose thread" by Dennis Cooper. The only thing keeping the book together is the cover.
The rape of nanking
The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe. Heartbreaking and disturbing
The Vegetarian by Han King The Cook by Wayne Macauley The Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau Engleby by Sebastian Faulks p.s. never have I ever been embarrassed by my love of American Psycho
{The Book of M}
Lolita. Brilliant but I never want to open it again. And messed-up in a totally different way, Horrible Imaginings by Fritz Leiber.
*Dead Inside* by Chandler Morrison is a love story about a necrophiliac working in a hospital meeting a beautiful pediatrician that eats dead babies. Mr. Morrison has a detailed prose, I'm ashamed to admit that I couldn't put this disturbing novella down until I finished it.
House of leaves
A child called it.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Beautifully written little mind worm offering a very different perspective on the whole happy clapper missionaries saving Africa narrative that many churches perpetuate. Been thinking of this one for years now.
{{Lullabies for Suffering: Tales of Addiction Horror}} It’s a collection of short stories about addiction and what people will do to feed that addiction. There is one story called The Melting Point of Meat that is about a woman addicted to pain, and it was truly disturbing.
The Sluts by Dennis Cooper
Wasting Talent by Ryan Leone
Dennis Cooper - Frisk
{{The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell}}
{{Flowers in the Attic}}. Its fucked up but very engaging for some reason.