The Most Disturbing Book You've Ever Read.

Have you ever read a book that made you sick to your stomach?

Made you cringe and set it down?

Made you depressed for a week with the ideas it conveyed?

Scared the living crap out of you?

Tell what and why. :cute:

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Mine are A Clockwork Orange and Night. ACO was disturbing for me because I read the brain-washing scenes while I had pneumonia, so I was kind of like the entire time.

And I was sickened by the descriptions of concentration camps in Night. I've had trouble being able to watch/hear things about them ever since. It was really... devastating.

I'm sure there are others, I just can't think of any off the top of my head.

But, well, say yours.

I think Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake was pretty disturbing for me. I got pretty close to the end and had to put it down for a few days before I finished it.

It isn't gorey or anything but it's dystopian lit and it just all seems very possible. Not to mention the fact that I was doing a report on dystopian lit and I'd read about eleven or so dystopian novels. It was all very...depressing and by the time I got to the point where I was going to actually write my essay, I was just kind of in a 'fuck the world' kind of place.

I think that any well-written dystopian lit should be disturbing. That's like a key factor.

^ For that reason, I'm gonna say 1984.

Out of pure weirdness, I'm going for Ecstasy by Irvine Welsh.
:tehe:

It's not really that horrible, it's just really freaking weird!

I don't know if I've ever found a book disturbing.
Then again, I don't know what I find disturbing. Not much, I don't think.
I did once read this ghost story when I was a kid (no idea what it was called) which really freaked me out at the time. But I don't think it would affect me now.

Audrey T.yler Moore:

I think that any well-written dystopian lit should be disturbing. That's like a key factor.

I've read a lot of well-written dystopian books and I've never found the books themselves disturbing. Maybe that's the thing; I find the ideas they convey disturbing, but not the books themselves.

Brave New World is a good one for disturbing ideas and characters.

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, hands down.
I find it hard to imagine that a book more disturbing than that could be written.
The language and the way he writes are ..haunting, the plot itself will..eat up your brain, the imaginary, the sharp humor, everything. It has dystopian novel parts too. Maybe, the fact that our world could produce such a book is disturbing in itself. War of the End of the World and American Psycho also scared and disgusted me a little.

^ I've heard many times that Naked Lunch is a pretty upsetting novel. What, exactly, is it about?

fool's paradise:

^ I've heard many times that Naked Lunch is a pretty upsetting novel. What, exactly, is it about?

It's about... hell, more or less. At the core it's a story about drug addiction, but then it's so much more than that because the story jumps in time and space and doesn't have a real plot and it's mostly dream-like and very bitter, sarcastic. The most upsetting thing about it is that it simply draws you in unlike other books on drugs or how disgusting our society is, the language just hypnotizes you. At least, it had that effect on me.

It didn't disturb me as such, but I thought The Moth Diaries was pretty weird.

kafka.:

It's about... hell, more or less. At the core it's a story about drug addiction, but then it's so much more than that because the story jumps in time and space and doesn't have a real plot and it's mostly dream-like and very bitter, sarcastic. The most upsetting thing about it is that it simply draws you in unlike other books on drugs or how disgusting our society is, the language just hypnotizes you. At least, it had that effect on me.

Yeesh. Sounds disturbing. Interesting and harrowing, but most likely very disturbing.

120 days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade

It tells the story of four wealthy male libertines who resolve to experience the ultimate in orgies. To do this, they seal themselves away for four months in an inaccessible castle with a harem of 46 victims, mostly young male and female teenagers, and engage four women brothel keepers to tell the stories of their lives and adventures. The women's narratives form an inspiration for the sexual abuse and torture of the victims, which gradually mounts in intensity and ends in their slaughter.

I couldn't get pass chapter 1... I closed it and am not intending to read it again.

Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood. It creeped me out.
And
1984 by George Orwell. It made me paranoid for a while.

I read A Child Called It in 5th grade. It freaked me out pretty badly.

Guts by Chuck Palahnuik. The whole time I was sat there like "omgno:"

beyond; bee.:

Guts by Chuck Palahnuik. The whole time I was sat there like "omgno:"

:tehe:
I loved that story. But it was very disturbing.

Dark Tower Series

'Ticuarly the bit where they all have the dream about the kid that was run over
He was creepy x_x

fool's paradise:

kafka.:

It's about... hell, more or less. At the core it's a story about drug addiction, but then it's so much more than that because the story jumps in time and space and doesn't have a real plot and it's mostly dream-like and very bitter, sarcastic. The most upsetting thing about it is that it simply draws you in unlike other books on drugs or how disgusting our society is, the language just hypnotizes you. At least, it had that effect on me.

Yeesh. Sounds disturbing. Interesting and harrowing, but most likely very disturbing.

You should read it. I thought it was better than the Palahnuik/Bret Easton Ellis crowd. Nobody tries to kill everybody for no reason.
Dunno, the book just makes sense to me and doesn't seem puerile. Not that there's anything wrong with books like Palahnuik, etc., they're just too scary-for-the-sake-of-scary for me.
And I just realized, Kafka's short stories are pretty disturbing too. They're creepy by being so ...cold and impersonal. The story is told as though it was a nice story while in fact it crawls under your skin and hits you when you least expect it too.

The whole time I was reading Naked Lunch I was just like omgno:

That book Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates was kinda twisted too, but I'm pretty sure I've read worse.

fool's paradise:

^ I've heard many times that Naked Lunch is a pretty upsetting novel. What, exactly, is it about?

A recollecion of memories but most of these memories seem to be about ORGIES which are less fun to read about than you'd think.

American Psycho was very disturbing. The part where he (very disgusting spoiler)describes eating a woman's intestines haunted me for weeks, it still makes me feel sick when I remember it...

1984 by Orwell really creeped me out. For about a week I was walking around with a omgno: face in my brain. But I loved it. :tehe:

Deny Everything:

fool's paradise:

^ I've heard many times that Naked Lunch is a pretty upsetting novel. What, exactly, is it about?

A recollecion of memories but most of these memories seem to be about ORGIES which are less fun to read about than you'd think.

American Psycho was very disturbing. The part where he (very disgusting spoiler)describes eating a woman's intestines haunted me for weeks, it still makes me feel sick when I remember it...

I read that bit for my Englsih Lit revsion
Nightmares galore x_x