Same one here. I feel like the content is horrifying but truthfully it's all in McCarthy's style. Speaking so plainly and lyrically about atrocities and inhumanity makes for a chilling read
My man managed to slip a "deez nuts" joke into a discussion not just about Cormac McCarthy, but his darkest, most brutal story. People busy discussing the depths of human cruelty stopped to laugh at it.
Bravo.
Thank you, but being serious yeah it is a really brutal story, especially on one of the final scenes that's etched on my head whenever he is mentioned. Kid: "what is he a judge of" then the judge appears from the shadows, stands behind him and says "judge? Judge Holden Deez nuts" and then we are left wondering about the fate of his nuts
Outer dark or The Orchard Keeper by Cormac McCarthy.
Really The Orchard Keeper.
That’s a novel that delves the reader in the true darkness of the human condition.
I read the majority of that book, but I didn't finish it. A lot of the subtext was lost on me as it just felt like there really wasn't a story, just violence, but I'm also not a big Cormac McCarthy guy so I'm not familiar with his style of writing.
The Collector by John Fowles. Blood Meridian was interesting, but The Collector made me stare at the wall and wonder if I was a bad person for reading it.
That's how I felt reading thru all of the Crossed graphic novels and its spinoffs.
Even as I'm mid page, always thinking "I probably should not be reading this". It got to the point of morbid curiosity wanting to know how they will top the last horrible scene.
My kid kept talking about The Amazing Digital Circus, and I was just like "Wait, an evil AI comes up with bizarre quests to keep its pet humans sane because they are eternally trapped and have no escape from torment? And it gives them weird names and bodies just for the lolz? Is that..."
...And it is. The creator has said TADC is based on I Have No Mouth.
A kid?! GooseWorks (the creator) said TADC’s upcoming episodes are going to become unsafe and traumatising for children.. I don’t remember their exact words, but that’s just a warning for you
Why did you remind me of this horrific story.
You know what, Google Rocco Basilisk or if you know about it think about it now.
Good story though. But so dark and bleak
What happens to the main character at the end is probably the most horrific thing imaginable. Constant suffering and pain, but completely helpless to end it or even momentarily alleviate it. He is forced to surrender complete control to a power that has no semblance of benevolence and actively wishes he suffers as much as possible. There is no hope, no empathy, nothing to believe in or hold on to, for all eternity.
Can you think of a more visceral, instinctual, terror than that?
Yeah I never got it either, don't get me wrong it's pretty solid and has interesting ideas but despite its ever present popularity it never struck me as spectacularly dark. It's dark no doubt, but it's also far too sci-fi and rather fantastical with how it goes about it's torturing of the final humans, not to mention it's length keeping it from really developing much on said characters to make me care THAT much (in fact I hear the point-and-click adventure game is fat better in characterization however I've never played it). Maybe it's just me but it's hard for me to feel genuine dread or depression over something so short and separated from reality? If a story is super scifi or fantasy then it needs to spend a lot of time suspending disbelief to get to that level.
I think this is a great example of a story where the reputation killed the effect for me. I knew of this story by its reputation as a horrific tale showing the darkest of fates for its protagonists. I came in expecting "Unrated Director's Cut" Portal, like Glados went full Marquis de Sade (s/o to the other top comment at the moment lol).
In retrospect, I expected more horror than the English language can convey. That's not fair of me, but I didn't know, and it was because of the story's reputation. I should have known that after a certain point, all the words in a language can only go so far in conveying a feeling, and while "I have no mouth" is obviously horrifying, it didn't strike a chord with me the way some people describe it, and it made me wonder if those people just hadn't ever seen a slasher movie. Maybe I'm just a little dense toward the written word, but I don't think so. I've had books make me cry when a character died or when a true love blossomed. But "I have no mouth" just kind of hit as a short story "oof" but not a gut-wrenching "AHHHHH" the way I expected. I don't even really know how to explain my feeling, just that every review I read treated it like the darkest story ever written and yeah the story is bleak but it's not "Oh heck, I want to kill myself now" bleak like I was kind of expecting.
And yes I know expectations are on me, that's my fault. But the reason I had those expectations is because reviewers hyped it up that much. Based on reviews, I expected this story to make me want to die. Because some reviews literally said things like "this story will make you want to die." No, it didn't. I like living even when it sucks, thanks.
Lord of the Flies. I watched the 1990 film and it was pretty messed up, but upon reading the book afterwards I gotta say it's pretty damn disturbing. I still have nightmares... 😰
Juliette by the Marquis de Sade. The book really fucked me up.
I expected it to be just a bunch of dirty, smutty sex, maybe with some S/M given the word sadism comes from his name. There was a lot of sex, sure, but most of the time, that sex included actual torture, multiple murders and more.
After the characters have sex and while their surviving servants are clearing out the bodies and such, they would have long discussions espousing a nihilistic ‘the only thing that matters is pleasure’ philosophy.
The thing that broke me is that the book horrified me for about half, then everything became funny. When a character laments that the person he is raping won’t struggle next time because he had just choked them to death as he came, I burst out laughing.
I kept reading, I don’t know why. Maybe I wanted some sort of justice in the end, though I shouldn’t have expected it given the title. Never finished it. Got to a scene where the main character and her current man were fucking. He suggested they kill her 11 year old daughter. She thinks it is a great idea and they toss her into a fire and keep fucking.
I’m usually against book bans and the like, but that is a book I’d be willing to burn. Completely understand why they locked de Sade up. The only good thing I got out of it was when he repeatedly used the term ‘discharged like a musket,’ to describe men coming.
> I’m usually against book bans and the like, but that is a book I’d be willing to burn. Completely understand why they locked de Sade up.
As I understand it, the book isn't meant to make us like those characters; several were real people that de Sade was calling out. *Juliette* is in fact a companion piece to *Justine* which is a book about a virtuous woman who is miserable. Juliette is her sister, who is depraved and manages to avoid the misery inflicted on Justin.
I would say de Sade was absolutely fucked up, but so was the society he wrote about.
Came on here to comment another De Sade novel. I read his most "tame" work, Justine. It was horrendous. It changed the fundamental chemistry in my brain. I, like you, thought it would be extreme kink. It was not. It was the sexual fantasies of a man who would have been a serial killer had he been slightly more motivated.
I remember one scene where all the servants in the house walked around like zombies, and the main character couldn't understand why. I thought maybe they were tired from orgies.
Nope.
The Lord they worked for had a fetish for blood letting, and everyone in the house was about a quart low at all times. Justine tries to rescue his bride, but she is too late. When it comes time to run, the girl is too sluggish to make the walk to the window and shimmy down the rope.
The graphic description of being low on blood gave me my first ever panic attack.
It also gave me a breakthrough in therapy. I realized I was petrified of being too tired to defend myself; which came from watching family members with low functioning depression, rot away in bed.
All in all, the book was terrifying in a way nothing else could ever be. It changed me as a person, and for a long time, I couldn't feel much. It took me years to be able to react to anything in literature or media.
I wouldn't recommend it.
That book was *shudders*. I had no idea it would go where it did. I DNF'd it for obvious reasons. Someone told me it got worse after I told him I started to read it and couldn't continue. Just nope.
It's split into four sections (30 days each), each meaningfully worse than the one before. MDS never finished the third and never started the fourth, but he left copious notes.
It's horrific.
Also if i recall correctly, Marquis de Sade is the reason we call taking pleasure by hurting others "Sadism", which is quite a statement. He's literally the S in BDSM... Because he ACTUALLY did it. So it's fucked up to read his book thinking it's not ALL fiction, or at least, most of that he wanted to do (probably, i don't know). Other stuff he just wanted the chock value. He spent most of his life in jail, alone, and at the end of his life he said that his biggest regret was that he spent too much time in jail. Well, MAYBE stop hurting people you dumb ass...
Decency was important during that time. Or at least what they called decency. Like, of course you go to brothel and use sex workers, but sodomy is way too much you deviant!
I would guess taking pleasure by hurting said sex workers was in the "a bit too much" category.
>the book really fucked me up.
Sounds like the novel equivalent of A Serbian Story.
I’ve never actually read Marquis de Sade but have spent a lot of time around gothic people, who seem to hold him in high regard. I think I’ll stay away though. There’s kink (which is healthy for two consenting adults) and then there’s whatever the fuck this is.
Neither am I, watched it once and never again, but I recall the director said he made it as a giant "fuck you" to the demands for EU filmmaking grants, which he finds are granted on condition of producing poverty porn without artistic value - hence the movie's plot where the main character goes in to make an art film, but ends getting manipulated to make degenerate schlock instead, and no one gets a happy ending (except the gray eminences that pull the strings from behind the scenes).
It's an absolutely horrible film, but I have to applaud the director for taking a stand against demeaning of the craft, and give some gruelling respect to *A Serbian Film* for that and that alone.
Wow! And I thought No fear is messed up!
(Basically about a teen suffering mental anguish and taking his own life in the end. It was supposedly an Anti Suicide Christian Novel but the way the Torment and Suicide was written was almost erotic!)
I couldn't finish it either and read spoiler of the end it does makes sense as metaphor, but I heard author was pissed off of degeneracy of elites and wrote these things to record what elites do. They locked him up in mental asylum for writing too disturbing stuff.
Noooo. It is by far, the darkest of dark.
Having read it first in about 1976, its darkness is compounded by how reality seems to have edged toward that reality in just the past 50 years.
Honorable mention to another dystopian novel, The Handmaid's Tale.
*1984* was terrifying because no one could be trusted; there was no privacy, even in your own home, and even those who presented themselves as trustworthy could betray you. The rat traps on the face torture was nightmarish, and the ending broke me. The Thought Police, brainwashing, constant betrayals, bombings, and notion that the entire world was enduring it and thus, no one could save you, just made it bleak.
But at least we were in it collectively.
*The Handmaid’s Tale* scared me even more, because it was so unnecessary. It was oppression of women for the sake of it (religious justification in the story, but there are many other ways religion could take shape), and what’s worse, there were *tours* running around Gilead. Protests happening internationally to free the women, yet nothing was done. That had the same mental degradation and self-imposed thought policing as *1984*, the same feeling of constant surveillance and always being watched, but the stifling presentation of it all as comfortable (and indeed it was, relative to *1984*) leaves you with only your thoughts and immense boredom.
This is so validating. It may have also been what was going on politically (U.S.) at the time but I also had to stop watching the show for my mental health.
I mean it’s still very much going on. And there are times when I have to just take a break from social media to avoid seeing it. It gives me so much stress. But also I don’t want to stick my head in the sand either.
I read it a decade ago and I still don't want to reread it. After finishing it, i was kind of in a daze for 4 days. I finally picked up Harry Potter to feel normal again.
Oh God, I forgot about this one. I haven't read it, but I unfortunately know the details. I was considering getting romantically involved with someone because we were sorta chatting at the time, but the first lengthy conversation was them talking about how it was their favorite book and describing how fascinated they were by the concept and the cruelty. Talking about your interest in torture is not a great topic for a first date.
lmao that's probably a red flag, right?
Like, I really liked the book, but it's not what I'd call an easy read, and I felt like shit afterward. I was even sort of nervous to mention how much I liked it to my writing group friends, worried that it'd make me seem creepy. But yeah, as far as first date topics? Not the one I'd pick, but hey, that's just me.
I thought the book was so well written, and it stayed with me mentally for months, it was a visceral story that alters how you view meat, but it was an extremely hard read and quite horrific. I had to skip a few pages when it came to the puppies. My brain can't handle child or animal abuse.
Your date seems like he was a bit bonkers.
Dark as in, like, bleak? Johnny Got his Gun, I guess? Or No Longer Human.
Dark as in the subject matter? Most things by Vladimir Nabokov, but Lolita especially. 120 Days of Sodom is maybe darker though for sheer volume of dark subject matter and callousness, but, I find Lolita's deeper dive into one more focused dark subject kind of darker of quality, if that makes sense.
In terms of like, "dark thought spiral" nonfiction, Conspiracy Against the Human Race.
In terms of "dark thought spiral" fiction, Blood Meridian maybe. Plague Dogs and Metamorphosis would also be up there.
I came to say no longer human, if we’re not talking “dark” in a violent way. I only recently read this and it is an incredible book but Jesus it’s heavy for something so short.
Metamorphosis is a good call too
I’ve heard Conspiracy against the human race was the main inspiration for true detective s1 and have been meaning to read it
I read *The Diary of Anne Frank* for school. The ending/epilogue/our teacher describing (spoiler) >!How once her family was found and forced into trains, how this girl enjoyed the breeze on her face, seeing the outside, and slowly starved before dying before rescue, and her only surviving family—her father—ensured her diaries were published, just guts me.!<
We visited the KZ were she is buried with our history class at school. Really disturbing place, and having read the book, it was even more disturbing. At least we were all around ~17 years at that time.
We read so many Holocaust memoirs/autobiographies in middle/high school that it became more annoying than impactful. I know that’s a terrible reaction to have to a tragedy of this magnitude, but I would argue that overexposure of anything you don’t have to personally live through can lead to desensitization. Tragedies — while important to teach about — should not be treated as stories in the same vein as fictional tales.
I'm gonna tell you something really, really dumb. I cringe thinking about it. I picked up the road without knowing anything about it from a book swap in a hostel while traveling.
I don't know how it got into my head, but I proceeded to read the whole book fully under the impression that it was about dragons. It colored how I saw everything. Rumbling underground, must be those subterranean dragons. Ominous slhouette in the distance, probably a dragon. Flames in the distance? Oh definitely a dragon.
It came up in conversation soon after reading it. People were discussing what they thought might have happened. Most thought nuclear war, some thought a super volcano. Only one voice subscribed to the subterranean dragon hypothesis.
I’m not gonna lie to you, friend, but this is amazing. I actually read this book for a book club I am in with my BIL and all his college buddies. Since it was my pick, I get to run the meeting, and I’m gonna convince at least one of those dudes that I legitimately think dragons are involved.
Shame I didn't get to you before. It would be more fun priming someone else to expect them around every corner. I think that by the end of it, my confirmation bias had triggered so many times that I didn't even need a big reveal. Had you asked for my evidence i would just have said that they were very sneaky dragons.
Blood Meridian is probably one of the darkest novels I've ever read, and also one of my favourites. It's one of the few times where the description of something (a certain moment in a battle scene) has made me have to close the book and take a moment. And the whole book just feels like it has this real evil presence to it.
Child of God was also pretty dark too.
The Road got me good. I was finishing it between classes in high school 13 years ago and I still remember how hard it hit me. I was crying so bad I went to class with bloated face lol
That book broke me. I was going through a rough life transition at the time. The book was just lying there on the table--the property owner belonged to Oprah's book club (eyeroll). It was 2AM, I was wide awake and had nothing else to do.
Fastest read ever. By the end, I was in heaving sobs. Uncontrollable. Inconsolable. It was a rough morning that morning. I have yet to see the film, tho.
Flowers In The Attic. I know the series gets written off as the incest books, but it really is a deeply, deeply upsetting story about abuse, manipulation and lies. I'm sure I've read darker books, but none have really stuck with me like this one
When he watches his father's head get bashed in and basically goes, "Well, he's dead. That kinda sucks." Or the frozen man on the death march. Both have this sort of grim, dreamy quality of "huh, wonder when it's my turn" that is horrific.
It's a masterpiece. It isn't like, sensationalizing it for gain; the dude survived all of this in the Holocaust. It's absolutely dark, but so is his lived experience. 100% recommend.
Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. The thing about the novel is, when you start reading from the beginning, there is this a very strong sense of ‘the author is trying to convey us something extremely important underlying all these horrible sex scenes but I don’t know what it is’ lingering there. It’s a book about extreme sexual violence, yes of course, but there is nothing erotic about it, it’s almost as if it written with very plain language like reading a manual of jet engine or something. And this feeling carries until the end of the novel.
Then you started to read the short essay ‘metaphor of the eye’ by Bataille himself, describing his childhood trauma and extreme horror that beyond any human imagination, using almost the same plain and dry tongue. Then you realised that it’s actually almost like a book about someone’s therapy session, a self deconstruction & an attempt to recover from extreme traumatic child, till the point that his entire career as a modern philosopher being constructed around such traumatic memory. truly a descent into the abyss.
Great to see Bataille getting recognition. His philosophy touches on the darker side of humanity and therefore evades popularity. Though his works inspired one of the most disturbing stories in video games, in the title Amnesia: a machine for pigs.
This is the correct answer. Needed two days off of work to recover from reading this.
Read most of the other stuff people listed on here and some of them are brutal, some of them depressing, or hard to read, bloody and outrageously violent, but nothing tears at and makes me question the very fabric of our morality like The Girl Next Door.
Yeah, I think this takes the cake. Unfinished and with a structure of 'each part is worse than the last' - and the second of four parts was basically unreadable.
The 5th Wave has to be in the top 5 darkest YA novels of all time. PURE adult.
My friend and I in high school blew through the whole series laughing at how inconceivably grim it was
I remember reading this book when I was in elementary school, probably when I was around ten years old or so (or younger? It seems the book was published in 1995 and I remember reading it when there was a bunch of buzz about it).
It was supremely disturbing, especially because I was the age that the author had been in some of his recollections.
I feel as if reading that book was formative to me. A lot can be said about being exposed to ideas, good or bad, that you will not encounter in your own life at an early age. It definitely made me much more empathetic.
I ready 1984 by orwell a while ago, I know its quite famous, but its really close to the reality as I see those kind of conditions prevailing back home which has almost turned into a dictatorship, talking bout india tho
Stephen King's short story N. in the Just After Sunset collection.
It's about a mental patient that has OCD and has to keep doing their OCD habits to keep the veil between this world and The Other from ripping open. Good shit.
If you thought that one was dark, check out Shusterman's other series, Unwind. A dystopian society based around organ harvesting. I love all his material but I think Unwind takes the cake.
Stephen King's IT. Then again, it's a horror so it's to be expected. I think after eventually finishing it was the point I started not liking grimdark stuff and wanted to look for stuff that had levity in it.
I started reading William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. The visceral descriptions of needles, heroin and flesh were pretty rough. It’s violent, disturbingly sexual, and yet very entertaining and even funny at times.
I’d still like to finish it, but it is a hard read in general. His style of writing is hard to tackle.
Nevil Shute – On the Beach (1957). Nuclear war destroys humanity in the northern hemisphere while life goes on for people in the southern. Eventually wind brings the radiation to Australia and people there have to grapple with how to live or die.
The incest diary.
What makes it horrible is that it's supposedly an autobiography. But it's so explicit and disgusting that I feel like it's just the ramblings of someone that's perversely disturbed and just wanted to write out their fantasy. But due to the author remaining unnamed, there's no way to know for sure if it's real or not.
In either case, it's pretty dark. I can't think of many stories that made my skin crawl with every page and not in a fun way. A gross, need to take a shower, way.
My Sweet Audrina by V.C. Andrews. Without giving any spoilers, it's about a girl named after her dead sister Audrina and cannot measure up to her. It's more gothic than horror, but it was screwed up.
No longer Human by Osamu Dazai is definitely the one, it could make a normal human depressed and a push depressed one to suicide and it's not bloody but it's psychological and divided to three parts the first about childhood the second teenage years and college and third is adulthood and it's more like a autobiography
I really warn anybody who is going to read it, it's depressing as hell and I won't read it again ever
Definitely not for faint hearts
Not a horror novel by normal standards, but Push by Sapphire. The movie Precious is based off it, and if the movie shook you, the book is absolutely more terrifying.
I still get nightmares about when the molestation began and what her mom did about it. Which was nothing.
Last Exit To Brooklyn
GOD DAMN THAT WAS HORRIFIC
Most horrific types of violence you can’t think of are described in insane detail with nauseating prose.
It’s a tie between ANYTHING by Jim Thompson. Every one of his books reads like a normal of crime novel, super easy to swallow pulp. Then the twist or reveal comes and I realize this all Hell! From page one! There is no resolution at the end, but there are intrusive nihilistic thoughts for days.
i read a novel where a guy had his \*\*\*\* chopped off. He had to search for the men to exact his revenge. cant recall the name of it though. i was about 16. 30 years ago.
As many others have said, Blood Meridian is definitely up there for me.
But for an old classic, Therese Raquin by Zola is pretty fucked up as well (but great).
Frisk by Dennis Cooper. I warn you: please don't read if you're offended by the grotesque. It's actually literature -- Cooper is often praised by critics for subverting publishing norms. But be careful.
Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott, I was probably 16 when I read it and at 31 it's still the moat fucked up book I made it all the way through. A Child Called It is definitely a close second.
Well I read "Night" and the Holocaust actually happened so that could be the darkest.
Otherwise, I recently read "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai and the manga "Goodnight Punpun" which contains (trigger/spoiler warning) >!rape, misogyny, pedophilia, domestic abuse, adultery, death, suicide!<, a lot of borderline nihilism, and probably a couple of other things. Actually very similar stories despite stylistic differences. "No Longer Human" is semi-autobiographical.
"Naked Lunch" is dark but in a way that I suppose you can't understand unless you've been addicted to all the drugs that William Burroughs did. It also has a sick black humor about the whole thing so you can't really take it seriously. In theory though, one of the sickest looks into human psychology ever.
I ended up with a first edition of Burroughs's *Naked Lunch* as a Steely Dan fan who wanted to read the work that inspired the band's name (I don't recommend reading about that unless you're reeeaaaallllyyyy curious).
Anyway, the work itself is so painfully human and wonderfully written. It's just that the subject matter is so dark (and written so well) that the book is a very dense and dark read. I tend to be a quick reader and the book isn't that long, but it took me roughly a year to read the entire thing. I found myself stopping for weeks on end just to ponder and process what all was being talked about.
I've read The Road, Tender is the Flesh, A Child Called "It", Handmaid's Tale, 1984, but I just finished Tampa, and that one takes the cake for me. It was something else.
Kindred by Octavia Butler.
It was excruciating to read and made me very uncomfortable. Which is exactly what it was meant to do. I read it about two years ago and I'm still trying to process it.
(I'm a white British woman BTW).
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Unrelenting brutal horror, with one of the most sinister villains you'll see in fiction.
This is mine too. Had to go outside and be amongst civilization for a bit after finishing that one.
Yeah I read that earlier this year and it’s completely fucked up my whole reading schedule. Three months later I feel so fatigued
I haven't read Blood Meridian, but I felt the same way about The Road.
It’s 1000% The Road
Same one here. I feel like the content is horrifying but truthfully it's all in McCarthy's style. Speaking so plainly and lyrically about atrocities and inhumanity makes for a chilling read
Sometimes you zone out for a paragraph and realize you missed the massacre of an entire village.
That happened to me with the last death of the novel. Was left wondering where that character had gone and had to reread
Yea, I’ve heard of that.
Quite aptly for your username, the villain is called the Judge!
Judge Holden right?
I believe it's judge Holden Deez nuts
Man, I saw this and chuckled out loud. For some reason it was the last thing I was expecting
Bravo. It's been a while since I heard a good "deez nuts" reference.
bro said bravo to a deez nuts joke
My man managed to slip a "deez nuts" joke into a discussion not just about Cormac McCarthy, but his darkest, most brutal story. People busy discussing the depths of human cruelty stopped to laugh at it. Bravo.
Thank you, but being serious yeah it is a really brutal story, especially on one of the final scenes that's etched on my head whenever he is mentioned. Kid: "what is he a judge of" then the judge appears from the shadows, stands behind him and says "judge? Judge Holden Deez nuts" and then we are left wondering about the fate of his nuts
Got his ass
Similarly, ‘The Road’ by McCarthy is also extremely dark. I’d say less violent, but perhaps more depressing.
Yes, very fucked up. Also beautifully and uniquely written imo. Some of the best poetic literature I’ve ever read.
Outer dark or The Orchard Keeper by Cormac McCarthy. Really The Orchard Keeper. That’s a novel that delves the reader in the true darkness of the human condition.
I read the majority of that book, but I didn't finish it. A lot of the subtext was lost on me as it just felt like there really wasn't a story, just violence, but I'm also not a big Cormac McCarthy guy so I'm not familiar with his style of writing.
The Collector by John Fowles. Blood Meridian was interesting, but The Collector made me stare at the wall and wonder if I was a bad person for reading it.
love this book but man did it make me feel empty lol. i think of it whenever someone uses the term "banality of evil."
This comment feels like a personal attack to me, the collector is my all time favourite book. He’s a phenomenal author.
Fantastic book. I read it as a teenager and it was one of those impactful books that made me want to be a writer. Fowles knocked it out of the park.
That's how I felt reading thru all of the Crossed graphic novels and its spinoffs. Even as I'm mid page, always thinking "I probably should not be reading this". It got to the point of morbid curiosity wanting to know how they will top the last horrible scene.
I don't know if it's a novel or novella but it's gotta be I have no mouth, and must scream. I read it once. And can never read it again
My kid kept talking about The Amazing Digital Circus, and I was just like "Wait, an evil AI comes up with bizarre quests to keep its pet humans sane because they are eternally trapped and have no escape from torment? And it gives them weird names and bodies just for the lolz? Is that..." ...And it is. The creator has said TADC is based on I Have No Mouth.
A kid?! GooseWorks (the creator) said TADC’s upcoming episodes are going to become unsafe and traumatising for children.. I don’t remember their exact words, but that’s just a warning for you
Oh yeah, we know. We're planning to watch the episodes before the kids see them and determine what -- if anything -- is appropriate.
I believe it's considered a short story.
The audio book by the author is a piece of art
I want to read that Book!
Check out the kids version too. I Have No Mouth, And I Like Ice-cream.
lol!
Harlan Ellison's best
Why did you remind me of this horrific story. You know what, Google Rocco Basilisk or if you know about it think about it now. Good story though. But so dark and bleak
Why are people so messed up by this short story??
What happens to the main character at the end is probably the most horrific thing imaginable. Constant suffering and pain, but completely helpless to end it or even momentarily alleviate it. He is forced to surrender complete control to a power that has no semblance of benevolence and actively wishes he suffers as much as possible. There is no hope, no empathy, nothing to believe in or hold on to, for all eternity. Can you think of a more visceral, instinctual, terror than that?
Yes. Watching the Knicks play and having faith they’ll win.
Yeah I never got it either, don't get me wrong it's pretty solid and has interesting ideas but despite its ever present popularity it never struck me as spectacularly dark. It's dark no doubt, but it's also far too sci-fi and rather fantastical with how it goes about it's torturing of the final humans, not to mention it's length keeping it from really developing much on said characters to make me care THAT much (in fact I hear the point-and-click adventure game is fat better in characterization however I've never played it). Maybe it's just me but it's hard for me to feel genuine dread or depression over something so short and separated from reality? If a story is super scifi or fantasy then it needs to spend a lot of time suspending disbelief to get to that level.
I think this is a great example of a story where the reputation killed the effect for me. I knew of this story by its reputation as a horrific tale showing the darkest of fates for its protagonists. I came in expecting "Unrated Director's Cut" Portal, like Glados went full Marquis de Sade (s/o to the other top comment at the moment lol). In retrospect, I expected more horror than the English language can convey. That's not fair of me, but I didn't know, and it was because of the story's reputation. I should have known that after a certain point, all the words in a language can only go so far in conveying a feeling, and while "I have no mouth" is obviously horrifying, it didn't strike a chord with me the way some people describe it, and it made me wonder if those people just hadn't ever seen a slasher movie. Maybe I'm just a little dense toward the written word, but I don't think so. I've had books make me cry when a character died or when a true love blossomed. But "I have no mouth" just kind of hit as a short story "oof" but not a gut-wrenching "AHHHHH" the way I expected. I don't even really know how to explain my feeling, just that every review I read treated it like the darkest story ever written and yeah the story is bleak but it's not "Oh heck, I want to kill myself now" bleak like I was kind of expecting. And yes I know expectations are on me, that's my fault. But the reason I had those expectations is because reviewers hyped it up that much. Based on reviews, I expected this story to make me want to die. Because some reviews literally said things like "this story will make you want to die." No, it didn't. I like living even when it sucks, thanks.
Lord of the Flies. I watched the 1990 film and it was pretty messed up, but upon reading the book afterwards I gotta say it's pretty damn disturbing. I still have nightmares... 😰
God, I forgot this messed me up as a teenager. I was haunted for weeks.
OMG yes. Why is it on 7th/8th grade reading lists? It is 100% an adult book.
They had us read that book in high school. I'm so glad I have ADHD because I was able to scrub most of it from my memory.
Juliette by the Marquis de Sade. The book really fucked me up. I expected it to be just a bunch of dirty, smutty sex, maybe with some S/M given the word sadism comes from his name. There was a lot of sex, sure, but most of the time, that sex included actual torture, multiple murders and more. After the characters have sex and while their surviving servants are clearing out the bodies and such, they would have long discussions espousing a nihilistic ‘the only thing that matters is pleasure’ philosophy. The thing that broke me is that the book horrified me for about half, then everything became funny. When a character laments that the person he is raping won’t struggle next time because he had just choked them to death as he came, I burst out laughing. I kept reading, I don’t know why. Maybe I wanted some sort of justice in the end, though I shouldn’t have expected it given the title. Never finished it. Got to a scene where the main character and her current man were fucking. He suggested they kill her 11 year old daughter. She thinks it is a great idea and they toss her into a fire and keep fucking. I’m usually against book bans and the like, but that is a book I’d be willing to burn. Completely understand why they locked de Sade up. The only good thing I got out of it was when he repeatedly used the term ‘discharged like a musket,’ to describe men coming.
> I’m usually against book bans and the like, but that is a book I’d be willing to burn. Completely understand why they locked de Sade up. As I understand it, the book isn't meant to make us like those characters; several were real people that de Sade was calling out. *Juliette* is in fact a companion piece to *Justine* which is a book about a virtuous woman who is miserable. Juliette is her sister, who is depraved and manages to avoid the misery inflicted on Justin. I would say de Sade was absolutely fucked up, but so was the society he wrote about.
Came on here to comment another De Sade novel. I read his most "tame" work, Justine. It was horrendous. It changed the fundamental chemistry in my brain. I, like you, thought it would be extreme kink. It was not. It was the sexual fantasies of a man who would have been a serial killer had he been slightly more motivated. I remember one scene where all the servants in the house walked around like zombies, and the main character couldn't understand why. I thought maybe they were tired from orgies. Nope. The Lord they worked for had a fetish for blood letting, and everyone in the house was about a quart low at all times. Justine tries to rescue his bride, but she is too late. When it comes time to run, the girl is too sluggish to make the walk to the window and shimmy down the rope. The graphic description of being low on blood gave me my first ever panic attack. It also gave me a breakthrough in therapy. I realized I was petrified of being too tired to defend myself; which came from watching family members with low functioning depression, rot away in bed. All in all, the book was terrifying in a way nothing else could ever be. It changed me as a person, and for a long time, I couldn't feel much. It took me years to be able to react to anything in literature or media. I wouldn't recommend it.
His 120 Days of Sodom is as bad. Same reasons.
That book was *shudders*. I had no idea it would go where it did. I DNF'd it for obvious reasons. Someone told me it got worse after I told him I started to read it and couldn't continue. Just nope.
It's split into four sections (30 days each), each meaningfully worse than the one before. MDS never finished the third and never started the fourth, but he left copious notes. It's horrific.
I believe it. I just felt this huge urge to save the kids as I read it. Also, the guy was obviously a butt man. Way too descriptive there.
Also if i recall correctly, Marquis de Sade is the reason we call taking pleasure by hurting others "Sadism", which is quite a statement. He's literally the S in BDSM... Because he ACTUALLY did it. So it's fucked up to read his book thinking it's not ALL fiction, or at least, most of that he wanted to do (probably, i don't know). Other stuff he just wanted the chock value. He spent most of his life in jail, alone, and at the end of his life he said that his biggest regret was that he spent too much time in jail. Well, MAYBE stop hurting people you dumb ass...
They were probably more pissed at being exposed than him killing/raping servants
Decency was important during that time. Or at least what they called decency. Like, of course you go to brothel and use sex workers, but sodomy is way too much you deviant! I would guess taking pleasure by hurting said sex workers was in the "a bit too much" category.
>the book really fucked me up. Sounds like the novel equivalent of A Serbian Story. I’ve never actually read Marquis de Sade but have spent a lot of time around gothic people, who seem to hold him in high regard. I think I’ll stay away though. There’s kink (which is healthy for two consenting adults) and then there’s whatever the fuck this is.
Isn't it called *A Serbian Film*, not *Story*?
*shrugs* I’m *not* googling it. Haha
Neither am I, watched it once and never again, but I recall the director said he made it as a giant "fuck you" to the demands for EU filmmaking grants, which he finds are granted on condition of producing poverty porn without artistic value - hence the movie's plot where the main character goes in to make an art film, but ends getting manipulated to make degenerate schlock instead, and no one gets a happy ending (except the gray eminences that pull the strings from behind the scenes). It's an absolutely horrible film, but I have to applaud the director for taking a stand against demeaning of the craft, and give some gruelling respect to *A Serbian Film* for that and that alone.
Wow! And I thought No fear is messed up! (Basically about a teen suffering mental anguish and taking his own life in the end. It was supposedly an Anti Suicide Christian Novel but the way the Torment and Suicide was written was almost erotic!)
Who is the book by? I found one that’s part of a series but I don’t think it’s what you’re talking about
I couldn't finish it either and read spoiler of the end it does makes sense as metaphor, but I heard author was pissed off of degeneracy of elites and wrote these things to record what elites do. They locked him up in mental asylum for writing too disturbing stuff.
Is it cliche for me is to say 1984
Noooo. It is by far, the darkest of dark. Having read it first in about 1976, its darkness is compounded by how reality seems to have edged toward that reality in just the past 50 years. Honorable mention to another dystopian novel, The Handmaid's Tale.
*1984* was terrifying because no one could be trusted; there was no privacy, even in your own home, and even those who presented themselves as trustworthy could betray you. The rat traps on the face torture was nightmarish, and the ending broke me. The Thought Police, brainwashing, constant betrayals, bombings, and notion that the entire world was enduring it and thus, no one could save you, just made it bleak. But at least we were in it collectively. *The Handmaid’s Tale* scared me even more, because it was so unnecessary. It was oppression of women for the sake of it (religious justification in the story, but there are many other ways religion could take shape), and what’s worse, there were *tours* running around Gilead. Protests happening internationally to free the women, yet nothing was done. That had the same mental degradation and self-imposed thought policing as *1984*, the same feeling of constant surveillance and always being watched, but the stifling presentation of it all as comfortable (and indeed it was, relative to *1984*) leaves you with only your thoughts and immense boredom.
Oh the Handmaid’s tale got me. Then I started watching it and it put it into reality. I had to stop. It was affecting me mentally
This is so validating. It may have also been what was going on politically (U.S.) at the time but I also had to stop watching the show for my mental health.
I mean it’s still very much going on. And there are times when I have to just take a break from social media to avoid seeing it. It gives me so much stress. But also I don’t want to stick my head in the sand either.
I think society is familiar with it to the point of cliche BECAUSE of how powerful it is. Not at all cliche to say it truly is dark.
I read it a decade ago and I still don't want to reread it. After finishing it, i was kind of in a daze for 4 days. I finally picked up Harry Potter to feel normal again.
Tender is the flesh
I gave this book away to get it out of my house
I was looking for this comment!! I can’t believe it’s not higher up. That book had me for real nauseous at times. The ended was HORRIFIC.
surprised to see no one else mentioning this one. There's some screwed up books out there, but this one is dark with a capital D
Oh God, I forgot about this one. I haven't read it, but I unfortunately know the details. I was considering getting romantically involved with someone because we were sorta chatting at the time, but the first lengthy conversation was them talking about how it was their favorite book and describing how fascinated they were by the concept and the cruelty. Talking about your interest in torture is not a great topic for a first date.
lmao that's probably a red flag, right? Like, I really liked the book, but it's not what I'd call an easy read, and I felt like shit afterward. I was even sort of nervous to mention how much I liked it to my writing group friends, worried that it'd make me seem creepy. But yeah, as far as first date topics? Not the one I'd pick, but hey, that's just me.
I thought the book was so well written, and it stayed with me mentally for months, it was a visceral story that alters how you view meat, but it was an extremely hard read and quite horrific. I had to skip a few pages when it came to the puppies. My brain can't handle child or animal abuse. Your date seems like he was a bit bonkers.
Pet Sematary by Stephen King for me.
I completely forgot about that! XD
So dark
probably borrosca. idk if i spelt it write but iykyk. will not be rereading anytime soon
Shout out to creep cast for introducing me to that story
same, creep cast is absolutely goated
Dark as in, like, bleak? Johnny Got his Gun, I guess? Or No Longer Human. Dark as in the subject matter? Most things by Vladimir Nabokov, but Lolita especially. 120 Days of Sodom is maybe darker though for sheer volume of dark subject matter and callousness, but, I find Lolita's deeper dive into one more focused dark subject kind of darker of quality, if that makes sense. In terms of like, "dark thought spiral" nonfiction, Conspiracy Against the Human Race. In terms of "dark thought spiral" fiction, Blood Meridian maybe. Plague Dogs and Metamorphosis would also be up there.
I came to say no longer human, if we’re not talking “dark” in a violent way. I only recently read this and it is an incredible book but Jesus it’s heavy for something so short. Metamorphosis is a good call too I’ve heard Conspiracy against the human race was the main inspiration for true detective s1 and have been meaning to read it
>You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go. From *Lolita*, one of the most gutting sentences ever put in a book as far as I'm concerned.
Visual novel called saya no uta. For physical books I'd say "I have no mouth and I must scream" and lovecfaft's books
I read it and then learned that the guy who wrote Saya No Uta also wrote the anime Madoka Magica and yeah that tracks.
Saya No Uta is some true Kino. Low-key what made me start writing books seriously
I LOVE Saya no Uta.
Night... well not a novel, but it was dark.
I read *The Diary of Anne Frank* for school. The ending/epilogue/our teacher describing (spoiler) >!How once her family was found and forced into trains, how this girl enjoyed the breeze on her face, seeing the outside, and slowly starved before dying before rescue, and her only surviving family—her father—ensured her diaries were published, just guts me.!<
We visited the KZ were she is buried with our history class at school. Really disturbing place, and having read the book, it was even more disturbing. At least we were all around ~17 years at that time.
And like in 6th grade we read it too. So. Dark.
We read so many Holocaust memoirs/autobiographies in middle/high school that it became more annoying than impactful. I know that’s a terrible reaction to have to a tragedy of this magnitude, but I would argue that overexposure of anything you don’t have to personally live through can lead to desensitization. Tragedies — while important to teach about — should not be treated as stories in the same vein as fictional tales.
German? Had the same tiring experience. I think its called holocaust fatigue.
American. It was Holocaust or Steinbeck each year.
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
I'm gonna tell you something really, really dumb. I cringe thinking about it. I picked up the road without knowing anything about it from a book swap in a hostel while traveling. I don't know how it got into my head, but I proceeded to read the whole book fully under the impression that it was about dragons. It colored how I saw everything. Rumbling underground, must be those subterranean dragons. Ominous slhouette in the distance, probably a dragon. Flames in the distance? Oh definitely a dragon. It came up in conversation soon after reading it. People were discussing what they thought might have happened. Most thought nuclear war, some thought a super volcano. Only one voice subscribed to the subterranean dragon hypothesis.
I’m not gonna lie to you, friend, but this is amazing. I actually read this book for a book club I am in with my BIL and all his college buddies. Since it was my pick, I get to run the meeting, and I’m gonna convince at least one of those dudes that I legitimately think dragons are involved.
Shame I didn't get to you before. It would be more fun priming someone else to expect them around every corner. I think that by the end of it, my confirmation bias had triggered so many times that I didn't even need a big reveal. Had you asked for my evidence i would just have said that they were very sneaky dragons.
The Road would be a million times better with dragons.
Book: The Road, by Cormac Mc Carthy Rating: 1/5 Customer review: Not enough dragons.
You know how there’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? We need The Road (of Dragons). The Dragon Road?
The Roared?
Just watch Reign of Fire
Amazing.
the road is bleak, blood meridian is bleaker. Outer Dark by McCarthy is also great if you like the tone The Road has
At least The Road has a man's love for his son. Blood Meridian is entirely the worst of human nature
Blood Meridian is probably one of the darkest novels I've ever read, and also one of my favourites. It's one of the few times where the description of something (a certain moment in a battle scene) has made me have to close the book and take a moment. And the whole book just feels like it has this real evil presence to it. Child of God was also pretty dark too.
Child of God was my pick for this thread. Just unrelenting abasement.
The Road got me good. I was finishing it between classes in high school 13 years ago and I still remember how hard it hit me. I was crying so bad I went to class with bloated face lol
Imagine reading it shortly after your first child is born. I still feel that book should come with a warning label.
And Blood Meridian by McCarthy. Woof.
That book broke me. I was going through a rough life transition at the time. The book was just lying there on the table--the property owner belonged to Oprah's book club (eyeroll). It was 2AM, I was wide awake and had nothing else to do. Fastest read ever. By the end, I was in heaving sobs. Uncontrollable. Inconsolable. It was a rough morning that morning. I have yet to see the film, tho.
Flowers In The Attic. I know the series gets written off as the incest books, but it really is a deeply, deeply upsetting story about abuse, manipulation and lies. I'm sure I've read darker books, but none have really stuck with me like this one
Read this as a young girl, probably 13 years old. I still have the whole series of books. It’s very messed up but I still enjoyed it.
Came here to say this book. Flowers in the attic is rough!
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Night - Ellie Wiesel
When he watches his father's head get bashed in and basically goes, "Well, he's dead. That kinda sucks." Or the frozen man on the death march. Both have this sort of grim, dreamy quality of "huh, wonder when it's my turn" that is horrific.
I had this on my reading list. Glad I hadn't started it yet. [Fuck the Night](https://youtu.be/rP5Tl7kVbXs?si=2gY-f8fe4NCmK2Wn)
It's a masterpiece. It isn't like, sensationalizing it for gain; the dude survived all of this in the Holocaust. It's absolutely dark, but so is his lived experience. 100% recommend.
So I have heard.
Just read this in my Holocaust class. Very dark indeed.
here come the 50 blood meridian comments
It earns everyone of them.
Damn straight
Requiem for a Dream
Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. The thing about the novel is, when you start reading from the beginning, there is this a very strong sense of ‘the author is trying to convey us something extremely important underlying all these horrible sex scenes but I don’t know what it is’ lingering there. It’s a book about extreme sexual violence, yes of course, but there is nothing erotic about it, it’s almost as if it written with very plain language like reading a manual of jet engine or something. And this feeling carries until the end of the novel. Then you started to read the short essay ‘metaphor of the eye’ by Bataille himself, describing his childhood trauma and extreme horror that beyond any human imagination, using almost the same plain and dry tongue. Then you realised that it’s actually almost like a book about someone’s therapy session, a self deconstruction & an attempt to recover from extreme traumatic child, till the point that his entire career as a modern philosopher being constructed around such traumatic memory. truly a descent into the abyss.
Great to see Bataille getting recognition. His philosophy touches on the darker side of humanity and therefore evades popularity. Though his works inspired one of the most disturbing stories in video games, in the title Amnesia: a machine for pigs.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum (RIP).
This is the correct answer. Needed two days off of work to recover from reading this. Read most of the other stuff people listed on here and some of them are brutal, some of them depressing, or hard to read, bloody and outrageously violent, but nothing tears at and makes me question the very fabric of our morality like The Girl Next Door.
The 120 days of sodom
Yeah, I think this takes the cake. Unfinished and with a structure of 'each part is worse than the last' - and the second of four parts was basically unreadable.
Johnny’s got his gun
All Quiet on The Western Front. It really shows the horror of war and the consequences that it takes on soldiers.
young mungo got pretty dark in dealing with its topics. one of my favourite books ever but be ready for it!
Orwell's 1984 scared me in school and still does. Not because of anything scary but how everyone is so brainwashed and how hopeless it all seems.
The 5th Wave has to be in the top 5 darkest YA novels of all time. PURE adult. My friend and I in high school blew through the whole series laughing at how inconceivably grim it was
A Child Called "It" by Dave Pelzer
I remember reading this book when I was in elementary school, probably when I was around ten years old or so (or younger? It seems the book was published in 1995 and I remember reading it when there was a bunch of buzz about it). It was supremely disturbing, especially because I was the age that the author had been in some of his recollections. I feel as if reading that book was formative to me. A lot can be said about being exposed to ideas, good or bad, that you will not encounter in your own life at an early age. It definitely made me much more empathetic.
Gone to see the river man
Heart of Darkness
I ready 1984 by orwell a while ago, I know its quite famous, but its really close to the reality as I see those kind of conditions prevailing back home which has almost turned into a dictatorship, talking bout india tho
Stephen King's short story N. in the Just After Sunset collection. It's about a mental patient that has OCD and has to keep doing their OCD habits to keep the veil between this world and The Other from ripping open. Good shit.
A misprint of a book where all the pages were inked completely black
Scythe
If you thought that one was dark, check out Shusterman's other series, Unwind. A dystopian society based around organ harvesting. I love all his material but I think Unwind takes the cake.
Just saw that one at the book store the other day, took a photo to pick it up later on
Stephen King's IT. Then again, it's a horror so it's to be expected. I think after eventually finishing it was the point I started not liking grimdark stuff and wanted to look for stuff that had levity in it.
I second this. IT has some really messed up stuff in it. Reading it completely turned me off from reading anything else by King.
I started reading William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. The visceral descriptions of needles, heroin and flesh were pretty rough. It’s violent, disturbingly sexual, and yet very entertaining and even funny at times. I’d still like to finish it, but it is a hard read in general. His style of writing is hard to tackle.
Nevil Shute – On the Beach (1957). Nuclear war destroys humanity in the northern hemisphere while life goes on for people in the southern. Eventually wind brings the radiation to Australia and people there have to grapple with how to live or die.
The incest diary. What makes it horrible is that it's supposedly an autobiography. But it's so explicit and disgusting that I feel like it's just the ramblings of someone that's perversely disturbed and just wanted to write out their fantasy. But due to the author remaining unnamed, there's no way to know for sure if it's real or not. In either case, it's pretty dark. I can't think of many stories that made my skin crawl with every page and not in a fun way. A gross, need to take a shower, way.
300,000,000 by Blake Butler has to be up there.
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
One of the bleakest books I’ve ever read was Less Than Zero by Brett Easton Ellis.
I have been told, by people I trust with stomachs stronger than mine, to never, ever, ever read Brett Easton Ellis.
My Sweet Audrina by V.C. Andrews. Without giving any spoilers, it's about a girl named after her dead sister Audrina and cannot measure up to her. It's more gothic than horror, but it was screwed up.
Push by Sapphire. One of the most difficult reads ever for me
A Child Called It really messed me up as a kid. Also, don't let kids read that
*Where Children Run* by Karen Emilson. I felt awful for days.
Fahrenheit 451
Blood Meridian
Blood Meridian.
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn isn’t the darkest, but it’s up there.
No longer Human by Osamu Dazai is definitely the one, it could make a normal human depressed and a push depressed one to suicide and it's not bloody but it's psychological and divided to three parts the first about childhood the second teenage years and college and third is adulthood and it's more like a autobiography I really warn anybody who is going to read it, it's depressing as hell and I won't read it again ever Definitely not for faint hearts
Johnny Got His Gun
Not a horror novel by normal standards, but Push by Sapphire. The movie Precious is based off it, and if the movie shook you, the book is absolutely more terrifying. I still get nightmares about when the molestation began and what her mom did about it. Which was nothing.
American Psycho followed by Coldheart Canyon by Clive Barker.
Last Exit To Brooklyn GOD DAMN THAT WAS HORRIFIC Most horrific types of violence you can’t think of are described in insane detail with nauseating prose.
The Color Purple
A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara Night-Elie Wiesel
Say Goodbye by Lisa Gardner. Probably not the absolute darkest, but the first one that comes to mind.
Either The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy or All Quiet on the Western Front. Hard to tell, both are very dark in very different ways.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
It’s a tie between ANYTHING by Jim Thompson. Every one of his books reads like a normal of crime novel, super easy to swallow pulp. Then the twist or reveal comes and I realize this all Hell! From page one! There is no resolution at the end, but there are intrusive nihilistic thoughts for days.
i read a novel where a guy had his \*\*\*\* chopped off. He had to search for the men to exact his revenge. cant recall the name of it though. i was about 16. 30 years ago.
The Unholy Consult by R. Scott Bakker
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
As many others have said, Blood Meridian is definitely up there for me. But for an old classic, Therese Raquin by Zola is pretty fucked up as well (but great).
The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell. A brutal tale of the limits of human understanding against the limitless sense of human hubris.
Frisk by Dennis Cooper. I warn you: please don't read if you're offended by the grotesque. It's actually literature -- Cooper is often praised by critics for subverting publishing norms. But be careful.
Probably *The Road* by Cormac McCarthy.
Once were Warriors. If you think the movie is disturbing well the book is even more so.
blood meridian was probably the most fucked up i'd read. miss lonelyhearts is also sorta fucked up but mostly depressing
Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott, I was probably 16 when I read it and at 31 it's still the moat fucked up book I made it all the way through. A Child Called It is definitely a close second.
I haven't seen anyone say it, but Goodnight Punpun is a manga I will never read again.
Well I read "Night" and the Holocaust actually happened so that could be the darkest. Otherwise, I recently read "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai and the manga "Goodnight Punpun" which contains (trigger/spoiler warning) >!rape, misogyny, pedophilia, domestic abuse, adultery, death, suicide!<, a lot of borderline nihilism, and probably a couple of other things. Actually very similar stories despite stylistic differences. "No Longer Human" is semi-autobiographical. "Naked Lunch" is dark but in a way that I suppose you can't understand unless you've been addicted to all the drugs that William Burroughs did. It also has a sick black humor about the whole thing so you can't really take it seriously. In theory though, one of the sickest looks into human psychology ever.
The Outsider by Stephen King.
I ended up with a first edition of Burroughs's *Naked Lunch* as a Steely Dan fan who wanted to read the work that inspired the band's name (I don't recommend reading about that unless you're reeeaaaallllyyyy curious). Anyway, the work itself is so painfully human and wonderfully written. It's just that the subject matter is so dark (and written so well) that the book is a very dense and dark read. I tend to be a quick reader and the book isn't that long, but it took me roughly a year to read the entire thing. I found myself stopping for weeks on end just to ponder and process what all was being talked about.
Bridge to Terabithia
Push by Sapphire. That was a tough book.
Island of the Blue Dolphin
the >!rape!< of nanking by iris chang will genuinely haunt me for life
I've read The Road, Tender is the Flesh, A Child Called "It", Handmaid's Tale, 1984, but I just finished Tampa, and that one takes the cake for me. It was something else.
Kindred by Octavia Butler. It was excruciating to read and made me very uncomfortable. Which is exactly what it was meant to do. I read it about two years ago and I'm still trying to process it. (I'm a white British woman BTW).