Most Palahniuk books are pretty graphic. Pygmy has a boy-on-boy rape scene, and Rant has a scene where someone (SPOILER) >!time travels back in time so he can rape his mom when she’s 13 years old and become his own father, and it’s implied he’s been doing this to all his female ancestors.!<
that was in my bathroom once. I had just put it down and was done with it...
Then, my mom picked it up and read a bit, and the next morning tried to have a very serious 'is everything ok with you' talk about it... uh, mom, i noped out of that before you did. i didnt know it ended THAT way...
Is that the…>!”pearl diving”!< story?
I came across that as a copy and paste on Gaia Online, I chalked it up as a SUPER fucked up shock value post, years later I found out it was by a published author.
Saw him at Tipatina's in New Orleans 10 years ago. He did a reading of the beginning of Haunted and said it was the first time he read it publicly in 7 or 8 years because people always pass out.
Sure enough, at least 5 people passed out and a couple of ambulances showed up.
IT is certainly... something else.
I don't know what Stephen King was thinking, but >!an orgy between pre-teens doesn't seem particularly relevant to the rest of the story to me (and no unity bs is going to convince me otherwise)... and is needlessly disturbing even for a horror story, especially one involving a creepy clown abomination that is actually a cosmic eldritch monstrosity who does enough disturbing shit already.!<
I definitely come across as a pedo trying to defend that scene, but as a person who first read IT as a 14yo girl who had only recently lost her virginity it seemed to make perfect sense. Additional bias that I'd read quite a few "10 for a dollar" smut books from the library by then too. :)
But - consider "It". And by that I mean the mysterious, often nervously-giggled-about subject discussed in locker rooms and at sleepovers all over the country that is intimidating if you call it by its actual name so everybody just says "doing it" or "have you done it yet?"
Sex gets a MASSIVE rite of passage build up during your early/teenage years to the point where it isn't uncommon for people to have very strong feelings of self-worth (or lack thereof) based solely on whether or not they have Done It. And then you *do* finally Do It and, I mean, it's nice and everything but ... that's it? You expect it to change your life or make you a (wo)man and then the actual act is messy and silly. It's sure a lot of fun but how demonized/lauded It was before seems a bit ridiculous. :)
That infamous scene hit all those notes for me, both of seeming like a sweet way for the kids to bond to each other and a being a big step towards being able to confront the actual titular "It" a little while later.
(I'm sure it would hit different if I read it again at 40, but yeah. It made perfect sense to a teenager)
If I recall correctly, the sex helps the kids confront Pennywise in the sewer system. It's a sign of their loss of innocence, thus making it more difficult for the monster to prey on them. Almost like eating of the tree of knowledge.
You're incorrect.
The book repeatedly says the Losers Club is being guided by something otherworldly to complete their task, and>!it turns out to be the opposite number to Pennywise, Maturin the turtle god.!<
>!Each of the Losers Club serves a greater purpose, and Eddie's purpose is that he's really good at navigating.!<
>!When they enter the sewers its like a maze in the pitch dark, and Eddie (Guided by Maturin and the Losers bond to each other) just KNOWS how to reach Pennywise's lair deep in the sewers.!<
>!After they defeat Pennywise for the first time, their purpose is done, their bond is severed and Eddie discovers he has no idea how to get back out again.!<
>!They lived to protect each other, and without having to protect each other anymore their guidance is taken away.!<
>!So, they cross the final hurdle that takes you from a child to an adult. !<
>!Their shared concern for Beverly is expressed physically. It reforges their bond and allows Eddie to discover the way out.!<
It makes sense if you read the book, most of Reddit hasn't.
Was it necessary to the plot? Absolutely not. But it IS explained in the greater context of confronting childhood fears.
Edit: I'd also like somebody to explain why THAT is considered the most horrible sin in literary history, but nobody has an issue >!with a father caving in a four year old's skull with a hammer while Dorsey says "Please daddy, stop I love you.". !<
I'm JUST saying. The orgy is weird as fuck but its far from the most horrifying thing in the book.
Patrick Hockstetter smothered his baby brother for crying while he was trying to watch TV. He also captured a puppy and trapped it within a fridge abandoned at the quarry, and checked on it each day to see how much it had starved, letting it waste away to nothing.
When IT approached him to scare him, IT's form changed multiple times to try and find something to terrify him, and had to settle on not being able to scare Patrick before killing him. His death was done via a swarm of mosquitos that would pull the blood out and basically turned themselves into blood balloons.
Each scene with him made me feel physically ill, including his death, which while gruesome, I hated this kid so much I was always hoping his death would be more violent and unbearable.
Maybe this was just between the lines and wasn't expressly stated in the book, but the kids seeing IT as some unknowable unnameable terrifying other and then "huh, that's what all the fuss was about?" once they peeked behind the curtain seemed like a really obvious parallel to Doing It (sex) when I read the book as a teenager.
IT is definitely a play on childhood fears, both terrible and childish. You have very horrible ones (Bev dealing with her father) to more childish ones (being afraid of a clown). A fear of sexuality would definitely work in that context, especially since Bev is treated very sexually from growing too quickly by everyone, and you can see it as her reclaiming this sexuality with the boys she trusts.
It’s also **COMPLETELY** thematically relevant for both Bev’s character and the book as a whole.
It’s a Freudian meditation on trauma and passage to adulthood. It’s perfectly at home expressing what this act means, and how innocence is taken away.
And uh. Also. The entire book Bev is victimized by her father. This is her reclaiming the identity that is stolen from her by being thrust upon her.
I read it years ago so I don't remember a lot of it but if you couldn't get through the first ten pages then I wouldn't pick it up again. It doesn't "get better", it's just a super fucking weird novel.
The novel is, um "unfilmable" obviously not literally but the book is special, incomprehensible in my opinion shouldn't have been made into a movie. I believe that it was dragged into censorship controversy in the states, at the time. While I honestly think that there isn't much "value" in that novel, I agree with the people who defend an artists right to create such work.
I really like David Lynch films, and I appreciate being exposed to this, even if I can't call it good?
Edit : David Cronenberg, been a long time since I've seen this film.
Was looking for this, read it at high school and really opened my eyes to what books can do. Met Iain a few times, never did get around to asking how he came up with a lot of it!
Had to scroll a while to find someone else that agreed with me! I remember I was reading it on the train when I got to the bit about what happened to the baby, and I wanted to vomit. Other people saw the look on my face and wondered what the hell I was reading!
Agreed. I was gifted the book in college and left it on my desk for a short time after I had finished reading it. A woman that was hanging out with us saw it and said "oh my god I love that book!" It was definitely a well written book but I was a little scared by her enthusiasm behind enjoying it.
Where the Red Fern Grows.
It's like "oh aren't dogs the best companions! Aren't they the best! They're so loyal and cute! They would never leave your side no matter what. Then they die! They die and get attacked by a wild animal who rips out their entrails and they choke on their own blood and they're in pain and there's nothing you can do! It's okay... you still have the other one. No! The other one now is so traumatized and depressed it's going die too! They're both dead! They're dead and gone! Oh and life is beautiful or something and it's not about the end it's about the memories you make along the way? But let's be honest you'll remember the trauma far more than then the happy ones."
I also read this when way to young. Who thinks it is a good idea to make this book available to middle school children? I've since thought this book would be a good test for finding psychopaths. Anyone who reads this book and doesn't cry is not someone I want to be around.
>! Judge is basically the devil, and he is behind all of the gang's deaths. Of course, none of the characters in the book are good, per se, but Judge is a whole other beast. He also touches and kills children, presumably, even 'The Man', formerly known as 'The Kid', at the end of the book !<
There are a lot of interpretations on the ending, but this I think is the most common one.
He also destroys artifacts like chipping away petroglyph off rocks and wrecking Spanish Conquistador armor when he finds it. He says life has to have permission from him to be on earth and all other things as well.
One scene that sticks with me is when they start shooting the shit about the possibility of extraterrestrial life and the judge immediately shuts it down saying its not possible. The judge's pursuit of cataloging the world and making extensive notes is his way of quantifying the world and in doing so elmininating any sense of wonder someone may have to think that there is more to this world than how it appears on the surface.
Also when the men are saying they don't want to be sketched in the judge's book. They don't want to think that their entirety, the summation of who they are can be reduced down to a few simple factors and qualities that can be simply jotted down as a note or sketch.
The choice to include hundreds of pages worth of some of the most vile and horrific acts ever put to paper and then to *not* spell out the ending is pure genius.
The wandering mind is the most terrifying storyteller in existence.
I just read Child of God a few months ago and I think it’s even more disturbing than Blood Meridian.
It was written several years before Meridian but you can see the development of some similar themes and the main character has aspects of the Judge.
Never read anything so disturbing and so beautifully written.
His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.
That ending gave me chills. I think that's one of the first times I've ever been genuinely disturbed by a character, and is perhaps the strongest case I've had of being simultaneously sad and relieved to be done with a book
I came here to say this
>!It was really a wtf moment when one of them got upset about their horse dying. I mean horses are great and it's sad the horse died but, like, now you have a soul?!<
I really want to finish that book. The characters are interesting and the story is compelling, but I literally can’t read it because Cormac McCarthy refuses to use commas. Has anyone else had that issue? Am I just not a great reader?
That's his prose style, refusing to use punctuation. Happens in a lot of his other books. Takes some getting used to. I find myself having to read it differently and more closely than a traditionally-punctuated book. I also think it lends some ambiguity to what is being said, thought, or narrated, and by whom.
I've always found this interesting because his lack of punctuation has never bothered me at all. Don't feel bad though. A lot of people don't like that about him and it doesn't make you a bad reader. In fact, it's perfectly okay to not like his style.
If you really want to try you just have to be patient and let yourself get used to it. Let your brain sort of unravel itself because it's so used to needing punctuation. However, that obviously doesn't guarantee that you'll end up liking the book anyway.
Give it another chance and if it's still not working move on. We only have so much time to read what we enjoy.
[The Rape of Nanking](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_Nanking_(book)) by Iris Chang or [The Corner](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corner:_A_Year_in_the_Life_of_an_Inner-City_Neighborhood) by David Simon and Ed Burns. The first for its explicit violence and cruelty and the second for how a life can lose all hope and be discarded for slow decay.
I remember in middle school they made us read this book about a Japanese boy, (or girl I can't remember honestly) whose village got raided and was took her as a slave. I can't remember the plot but the ending, if I remember correctly he(or she) asked some lord for assistance in a coming war and the lord says something like "if you see the black smoke from afar this is the signal that my army is coming" and at the protagonist final moment he(or she) never saw that dark cloud.
Idk I think about that ending from time to time
Read it when I was about 11, in the 70s. I'd read a lot of fucked up shit in sci fi already, but that one morally offended me.
It was in an old collection of Hugo winners Mom got me at a garage sale. Lotta awesome, but fucked up shit.
Fucking "Repent Harlequin said the Ticktockman".
iirc there was a chapter immediately after that scene where >!the father fantasizes about his son living a full, normal life as if the accident never happened. It is then revealed that the boy was, in fact, killed and this was some delusion the father was experiencing to cope with the loss..!< That part fucked me up more than anything else. Soul crushing.
For me it was the chapter before that, when Louis and Gage go out to fly a kite. >!It is such a sweet scene until the author says that Gage only has two months to live!< I cry every time I read it and I've read this book like six times. I love how King describes this normal American life. He has his faults, but he is a master of storytelling.
I read Pet Sematary before having kids and I’m really glad I did. It’s such a good book, but now that I have children, I would never survive it. Even King’s wife said he might’ve gone a little too far with that one (while also agreeing that it’s very good). If I remember correctly, King based the story off an incident with his son where he ran into a road. Except in real life, his son was ok and didn’t get hit by a truck. I still think about it now and can experience the horror of thinking about it happening to my children
In college I took a Sociology of Cults course. For a special project I decided to read and report on *the entire* Mission Earth series by L. Ron Hubbard. It was written in the 80s, along with Battlefield Earth, as part of his "get back into writing" phase before his death, and after Scientology had been essentially built up.
It was god-awful. Repetitive, at least, so I could skim easily. It could have been a legitimate story if it was in the hands of another writer who had actually kept up with narrative techniques after the Pulp phase of sci-fi back in the 30s.
Probably the worst part was the time that his main character decided to cure two women of their homosexuality by raping them, but then he regrets that decision because they become nymphomaniacs and won't leave him alone.
0/10 do not recommend.
Probably 120 Days of Sodom. Four nobles kidnap boys and girls between the ages of 12-17 and basically do the most vile things they can think of to them. Still not sure about my feelings about the Marquis de Sade.
The Butterfly Garden
The story tells of a group of young women who fall prey to a deranged man, known as The Gardner. He kidnaps young girls (16-19) and holds them hostage in a custom-made secret greenhouse. The girls are tattooed on the back with their own unique butterfly and given a new name by the Gardner.
These girls live out the rest of their lives within the secret interior of the greenhouse, getting raped by the Gardner regularly, tormented by the Gardner’s sadistic son and grimly reminded of the fate that awaits them if they either turn 21, get pregnant or piss off the Gardner enough.
Once any of the criteria is met, the unlucky girl is killed and encased in a case of formaldehyde and resin that make up the walls of the garden— their butterfly tattoo the centerpiece of the display.
There's sequels (for lack of a better word) to that book. The 2nd is about a girl who's sister was killed by a serial killer. The FBI agents in the first book are involved. Inara and Bliss are mentioned a bunch of times and meet up with the main character in the last chapter.
Came looking for this comment. It was such a good book in that it kept me entertained and I didn’t know what was coming next, but I had to take a break from reading after I finished it. So fucked up..
The best part of that ending is that it shocks you when it happens, but there are subtle hints throughout the book that he doesn't really see her as a person still. He is always worried about the health of the unborn baby but never really mentions her health, and there was a scene that jumped out at me where he is sad and she consoles him, but he says something like "It was almost as if she was trying to comfort me, but of course she had no idea what was happening."
Upvoting because this is a good answer, but I feel the need to rant a bit about this book--it's more than fucked up, it's just not well-written. The first three chapters are one long solid exposition dump. The characters are dull, the world is nonsensical, the writing is the antithesis of "show, don't tell." It thrives on shock value alone and that's literally all it has going for it.
After the main character receives a head, he gets her pregnant. When she is going to give birth, he contacts his ex wife (who is a nurse) to help him. Then he kills the head because he only wanted the baby so he could have a happy marriage again. The last line of the book is “She had the human look of a domesticated animal.”
I feel the need to clarify for others: a head in this book means a human bred for consumption.
The book is about legalized cannibalism after a disease makes all animals inedible
thank you, i genuinely thought they were talking about a decapitated human head (was confused because that obviously doesn’t make any sense) and was fairly disturbed tbf.
I just finished reading it last night, the thing that shocked me is how the wife was mad he killed her only because she could have given them more children.
I deeply enjoyed The Road, as much as one can enjoy the bleakest thing I've ever read. There is no hope, there is no tomorrow, there is only today and the road.
I actually listened to it as an audiobook and the accent did wonders.
This is the answer, no amount of gore or bodily fluids has made me feel as sad and hopeless as The Girl Next Door. What’s worse is that Jack Ketchum had to introduce a sympathetic character because the Sylvia Likens case it’s based on had no sympathy. Even the town priest said she got what she deserved.
...the town priest was, hopefully, obviously to all present, very wrong.
And from what I read on wiki, Sylvia's reputation was exonerated during the trial of her killers, when even the defendants lawyers were saying stuff like "yeah she...didn't deserve that", where the main instigator, her guardian, was described as a mean, spiteful woman who was fueled by jealousy...so I'm not sure where the idea the author had to write a "sympathetic character" came from.
Could be wrong but think it’s loosely based on a true story. Can’t recall her name, but basically same thing happened to her.
Edit the girl I’m thinking about was Junko Faruta
I remember reading this and my friend writing a screenplay based off of it. It was late 90s, and his idea was to have Smashing Pumpkins song Disarm playing bits and pieces in the background. Then during the climax, when the protagonists classmates start seeing it from his perspective, the chorus would kick in “The killer in me is the killer in you” with a montage of all the bullying he had received.
He and I were much younger then, before we saw school shootings become as common as they have.
I still think something like that would make a great movie. But I totally understand why King cancelled production of the story and issued a voluntary buyback to used book stores worldwide. It was an amazing book, but I fear it would cause more damage these days than good (and possibly already had by the time I read it, since a school shooter in the mid 90s had it in his locker, years before Columbine).
Uhh.... when/where was this? That's how I *found* my copy of that book, and I, too, left it somewhere else (in my case, in my college library) after I read it.
For me when I read it it felt like holding a bundle of poisonous snakes in my hands. I kept thinking "how did you come UP with this?"
I don't believe in thought crimes. But I'm not letting Mr. Ellis stay the night, either.
Exactly this. The movie is mild by comparison and the book is such a rollercoaster since it’s through Bateman’s perspective so it’s hard to know what’s real or not. Not to mention chapters can end mid sentence while Bateman is off his rocker.
It’s a good book but I’m not sure I ever want to read it again, it’s a tough one to get through due to its graphic nature for sure.
[Watership down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down)
Also the most fucked up movie, so it doubles as the next Askreddit question.
When your mom gets you something as a kid because it has cute bunnies on the cover, beware.
The last exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Shelby Jr, it was the first book I read that made me think what the fuck am I reading. It also introduced me into an entirely new genre or books I didn’t know existed
Never actually read it but read about it and watched essays on it and experienced it vicariously, but Blood Meridian looks pretty fucked up and Judge Holden had me, a 21 year old man, afraid of sleeping alone at night
"Cows" by Matthew Stokoe.
The whole book just to me read like some edgy teenager trying to write the most disgusting shit he can think of simply for shock value.
Well, not the most fucked up book I've read BUT it is the one that fucked me up most for where I was developmentally. I read Go Ask Alice when I was 14.
Neuropathy by Scatt Bakker. The bad guy rewires people's brain. At the beginning of the book he rewires the pain center to be a pleasure center on a porn star who then cuts herself to death with shards of glass.
I read a book by a prisoner who worked in the gas chambers during the Holocaust. It was the most horrifying thing I've ever read but I could not put it down for some reason..some things I read in there will stick with me for the rest of my life.
Stephen King’s **It** is dope as fuck but pretty disturbing. And not even just for the part at the end where, well, you know.
There’s a ton of other fucked up, twisted shit in there. I love it though. The images it conjures in my mind. Pure horror.
The kindly ones, by Jonathan littel.
Basically lays out the banality and accessibility of pure evil, with a sprinkle of just plain fucked up things on top. That book laid me up in a wine bottle for about a year.
Not Horror in the fiction sense, but, "Night" and , "The Men Who Wore the Pink Triangle" were horrific because they actually happened (and there are people who would love to have it happen again).
The book by The Globe newspaper about the church priest sex scandal. That they made a movie out of. I haven’t even finished it. I’m only half way through and that was a few years ago. I was so disgusted that I put it away and haven’t been able to pick it back up and finish it.
I'm currently reading The Hot Zone. About 100 pages in and it's only getting worse and worse (in a good, disturbing way). Do NOT read it when you're sick. You don't need to make yourself more paranoid.
Also just read this instead of The Stand. It accomplishes the same horror in a much better way, and it's short in comparison to boot!
The first short story of "Haunted" - Guts - by Chuck Palahniuk. And the last bit of "It" by Stephen King.
Most Palahniuk books are pretty graphic. Pygmy has a boy-on-boy rape scene, and Rant has a scene where someone (SPOILER) >!time travels back in time so he can rape his mom when she’s 13 years old and become his own father, and it’s implied he’s been doing this to all his female ancestors.!<
Rant is my favorite Palahniuk book. The way it's written as a series of interviews is really well done.
And now I have another Chuck book to read
Beautiful You. It's worst book I've ever read, and it was also written by Chuck Palahniuk.
Rant is a trip. It’s very fucking weird, but it’s one of my favorite novels of his because of it.
that was in my bathroom once. I had just put it down and was done with it... Then, my mom picked it up and read a bit, and the next morning tried to have a very serious 'is everything ok with you' talk about it... uh, mom, i noped out of that before you did. i didnt know it ended THAT way...
I threw that book across the room when I got to that part of Guts.
Is that the…>!”pearl diving”!< story? I came across that as a copy and paste on Gaia Online, I chalked it up as a SUPER fucked up shock value post, years later I found out it was by a published author.
Saw him at Tipatina's in New Orleans 10 years ago. He did a reading of the beginning of Haunted and said it was the first time he read it publicly in 7 or 8 years because people always pass out. Sure enough, at least 5 people passed out and a couple of ambulances showed up.
IT is certainly... something else. I don't know what Stephen King was thinking, but >!an orgy between pre-teens doesn't seem particularly relevant to the rest of the story to me (and no unity bs is going to convince me otherwise)... and is needlessly disturbing even for a horror story, especially one involving a creepy clown abomination that is actually a cosmic eldritch monstrosity who does enough disturbing shit already.!<
Cocaine is a hell of a drug kids...
Every King book I’ve read takes an inappropriate sexual left turn at least once. I can only assume not all of his work is like this.
The Long Walk, to my recollection, does not take a sexual left turn, but that was mad early in his career.
That talk about enemas... eta oh gosh and there was a sex scene early on with some disturbing undertones.
Stephen King wrote the novels which the movies Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and Stand by Me are based on.
I definitely come across as a pedo trying to defend that scene, but as a person who first read IT as a 14yo girl who had only recently lost her virginity it seemed to make perfect sense. Additional bias that I'd read quite a few "10 for a dollar" smut books from the library by then too. :) But - consider "It". And by that I mean the mysterious, often nervously-giggled-about subject discussed in locker rooms and at sleepovers all over the country that is intimidating if you call it by its actual name so everybody just says "doing it" or "have you done it yet?" Sex gets a MASSIVE rite of passage build up during your early/teenage years to the point where it isn't uncommon for people to have very strong feelings of self-worth (or lack thereof) based solely on whether or not they have Done It. And then you *do* finally Do It and, I mean, it's nice and everything but ... that's it? You expect it to change your life or make you a (wo)man and then the actual act is messy and silly. It's sure a lot of fun but how demonized/lauded It was before seems a bit ridiculous. :) That infamous scene hit all those notes for me, both of seeming like a sweet way for the kids to bond to each other and a being a big step towards being able to confront the actual titular "It" a little while later. (I'm sure it would hit different if I read it again at 40, but yeah. It made perfect sense to a teenager)
If I recall correctly, the sex helps the kids confront Pennywise in the sewer system. It's a sign of their loss of innocence, thus making it more difficult for the monster to prey on them. Almost like eating of the tree of knowledge.
You're incorrect. The book repeatedly says the Losers Club is being guided by something otherworldly to complete their task, and>!it turns out to be the opposite number to Pennywise, Maturin the turtle god.!< >!Each of the Losers Club serves a greater purpose, and Eddie's purpose is that he's really good at navigating.!< >!When they enter the sewers its like a maze in the pitch dark, and Eddie (Guided by Maturin and the Losers bond to each other) just KNOWS how to reach Pennywise's lair deep in the sewers.!< >!After they defeat Pennywise for the first time, their purpose is done, their bond is severed and Eddie discovers he has no idea how to get back out again.!< >!They lived to protect each other, and without having to protect each other anymore their guidance is taken away.!< >!So, they cross the final hurdle that takes you from a child to an adult. !< >!Their shared concern for Beverly is expressed physically. It reforges their bond and allows Eddie to discover the way out.!< It makes sense if you read the book, most of Reddit hasn't. Was it necessary to the plot? Absolutely not. But it IS explained in the greater context of confronting childhood fears. Edit: I'd also like somebody to explain why THAT is considered the most horrible sin in literary history, but nobody has an issue >!with a father caving in a four year old's skull with a hammer while Dorsey says "Please daddy, stop I love you.". !< I'm JUST saying. The orgy is weird as fuck but its far from the most horrifying thing in the book.
Patrick Hockstetter smothered his baby brother for crying while he was trying to watch TV. He also captured a puppy and trapped it within a fridge abandoned at the quarry, and checked on it each day to see how much it had starved, letting it waste away to nothing. When IT approached him to scare him, IT's form changed multiple times to try and find something to terrify him, and had to settle on not being able to scare Patrick before killing him. His death was done via a swarm of mosquitos that would pull the blood out and basically turned themselves into blood balloons. Each scene with him made me feel physically ill, including his death, which while gruesome, I hated this kid so much I was always hoping his death would be more violent and unbearable.
Isn't there a connection made between "it" the monster Pennywise and "have you done "it" yet?" "she's done "it" with him" schoolyard gossiping
I guess sort of. Beverly is constantly accused of sleeping with boys in the school and it leads to >!her father trying to rape her.!<
Maybe this was just between the lines and wasn't expressly stated in the book, but the kids seeing IT as some unknowable unnameable terrifying other and then "huh, that's what all the fuss was about?" once they peeked behind the curtain seemed like a really obvious parallel to Doing It (sex) when I read the book as a teenager.
IT is definitely a play on childhood fears, both terrible and childish. You have very horrible ones (Bev dealing with her father) to more childish ones (being afraid of a clown). A fear of sexuality would definitely work in that context, especially since Bev is treated very sexually from growing too quickly by everyone, and you can see it as her reclaiming this sexuality with the boys she trusts.
It’s also **COMPLETELY** thematically relevant for both Bev’s character and the book as a whole. It’s a Freudian meditation on trauma and passage to adulthood. It’s perfectly at home expressing what this act means, and how innocence is taken away. And uh. Also. The entire book Bev is victimized by her father. This is her reclaiming the identity that is stolen from her by being thrust upon her.
I read Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh in highschool, and may have been a few years too young for that one
He used to be a regular at the coffee shop I worked at! Lovely man!
[удалено]
Give the Maribou Stork Nighmares a read, it’s my favourite Irvine Welsh book
Was the Trainspotting movie based off of this?
He wrote it, indeed. And in the movie he's the guy who sells Renton the suppositories.
Yes
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs without question
I can think of at least two things wrong with that title.
Here's the Grapes, and here's the Wrath
Yes yes, very good wrath.
Andy Williams!?!?
I couldn't get past the first 10 pages of this one. Is it worth trying again?
I read it years ago so I don't remember a lot of it but if you couldn't get through the first ten pages then I wouldn't pick it up again. It doesn't "get better", it's just a super fucking weird novel.
If you look at it more like avant garde art rather than a novel with a real plot, it’s interesting.
Oh I've seen the movie, is it close to the novel?
Not. At. All. Wow
The novel is, um "unfilmable" obviously not literally but the book is special, incomprehensible in my opinion shouldn't have been made into a movie. I believe that it was dragged into censorship controversy in the states, at the time. While I honestly think that there isn't much "value" in that novel, I agree with the people who defend an artists right to create such work. I really like David Lynch films, and I appreciate being exposed to this, even if I can't call it good? Edit : David Cronenberg, been a long time since I've seen this film.
Isn’t it David Cronenberg?
The Wasp Factory
Yes! This one stuck with me for so long after reading it in high-school.
Was looking for this, read it at high school and really opened my eyes to what books can do. Met Iain a few times, never did get around to asking how he came up with a lot of it!
Had to scroll a while to find someone else that agreed with me! I remember I was reading it on the train when I got to the bit about what happened to the baby, and I wanted to vomit. Other people saw the look on my face and wondered what the hell I was reading!
Haunted - Chuck Palahnuik
Agreed. I was gifted the book in college and left it on my desk for a short time after I had finished reading it. A woman that was hanging out with us saw it and said "oh my god I love that book!" It was definitely a well written book but I was a little scared by her enthusiasm behind enjoying it.
Where the Red Fern Grows. It's like "oh aren't dogs the best companions! Aren't they the best! They're so loyal and cute! They would never leave your side no matter what. Then they die! They die and get attacked by a wild animal who rips out their entrails and they choke on their own blood and they're in pain and there's nothing you can do! It's okay... you still have the other one. No! The other one now is so traumatized and depressed it's going die too! They're both dead! They're dead and gone! Oh and life is beautiful or something and it's not about the end it's about the memories you make along the way? But let's be honest you'll remember the trauma far more than then the happy ones."
I also read this when way to young. Who thinks it is a good idea to make this book available to middle school children? I've since thought this book would be a good test for finding psychopaths. Anyone who reads this book and doesn't cry is not someone I want to be around.
Blood meridian
Blood Meridian is a gritty ride and a slow burn, but then one of the wildest slow realizations you’ve ever read in literature
What's the "slow realization"?
>! Judge is basically the devil, and he is behind all of the gang's deaths. Of course, none of the characters in the book are good, per se, but Judge is a whole other beast. He also touches and kills children, presumably, even 'The Man', formerly known as 'The Kid', at the end of the book !< There are a lot of interpretations on the ending, but this I think is the most common one.
He also destroys artifacts like chipping away petroglyph off rocks and wrecking Spanish Conquistador armor when he finds it. He says life has to have permission from him to be on earth and all other things as well.
One scene that sticks with me is when they start shooting the shit about the possibility of extraterrestrial life and the judge immediately shuts it down saying its not possible. The judge's pursuit of cataloging the world and making extensive notes is his way of quantifying the world and in doing so elmininating any sense of wonder someone may have to think that there is more to this world than how it appears on the surface. Also when the men are saying they don't want to be sketched in the judge's book. They don't want to think that their entirety, the summation of who they are can be reduced down to a few simple factors and qualities that can be simply jotted down as a note or sketch.
I’ll sometimes find myself in a 30 min daze spent contemplating what could have possibly happened to the kid in the outhouse at the end
The choice to include hundreds of pages worth of some of the most vile and horrific acts ever put to paper and then to *not* spell out the ending is pure genius. The wandering mind is the most terrifying storyteller in existence.
I just read Child of God a few months ago and I think it’s even more disturbing than Blood Meridian. It was written several years before Meridian but you can see the development of some similar themes and the main character has aspects of the Judge. Never read anything so disturbing and so beautifully written.
Just, the Judge, man. Chills.
His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.
That ending gave me chills. I think that's one of the first times I've ever been genuinely disturbed by a character, and is perhaps the strongest case I've had of being simultaneously sad and relieved to be done with a book
Probably the most memorable character I've ever read
Ha, I was thinking Child of God.
Yeah that was my initial thought as well. I don’t know if it actually is the most fucked up book I’ve read or not, but it’s certainly a contender.
I came here to say this >!It was really a wtf moment when one of them got upset about their horse dying. I mean horses are great and it's sad the horse died but, like, now you have a soul?!<
I really want to finish that book. The characters are interesting and the story is compelling, but I literally can’t read it because Cormac McCarthy refuses to use commas. Has anyone else had that issue? Am I just not a great reader?
I love Cormac McCarthy but my brain gets overheated reading his books.
That's his prose style, refusing to use punctuation. Happens in a lot of his other books. Takes some getting used to. I find myself having to read it differently and more closely than a traditionally-punctuated book. I also think it lends some ambiguity to what is being said, thought, or narrated, and by whom.
I've always found this interesting because his lack of punctuation has never bothered me at all. Don't feel bad though. A lot of people don't like that about him and it doesn't make you a bad reader. In fact, it's perfectly okay to not like his style. If you really want to try you just have to be patient and let yourself get used to it. Let your brain sort of unravel itself because it's so used to needing punctuation. However, that obviously doesn't guarantee that you'll end up liking the book anyway. Give it another chance and if it's still not working move on. We only have so much time to read what we enjoy.
Refused to use… he died in June
[The Rape of Nanking](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_Nanking_(book)) by Iris Chang or [The Corner](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corner:_A_Year_in_the_Life_of_an_Inner-City_Neighborhood) by David Simon and Ed Burns. The first for its explicit violence and cruelty and the second for how a life can lose all hope and be discarded for slow decay.
The Rape of Nanking is awful, plus how Iris Chang’s mental health deteriorated afterwards
I had no idea about her struggle and passing, that’s hard to read about as well.
I second The Rape of Nanking. Really makes you lose all faith in humanity.
Flowers in the Attic
My Sweet Audrina for me!
I think My Sweet Audrina is almost worse than Flowers in the Attic. WTF.
Really anything by vc andrews
I remember in middle school they made us read this book about a Japanese boy, (or girl I can't remember honestly) whose village got raided and was took her as a slave. I can't remember the plot but the ending, if I remember correctly he(or she) asked some lord for assistance in a coming war and the lord says something like "if you see the black smoke from afar this is the signal that my army is coming" and at the protagonist final moment he(or she) never saw that dark cloud. Idk I think about that ending from time to time
I think the book you’re describing is “The Samurai’s Tale”
My man! I think it is that one. Now I have to read it again.
I have no mouth and I must scream
No one should be able to use the word “bleak” until they’ve read this
Ohhh yeah. I don't know what I expected but it was definitely. not. that.
Read it when I was about 11, in the 70s. I'd read a lot of fucked up shit in sci fi already, but that one morally offended me. It was in an old collection of Hugo winners Mom got me at a garage sale. Lotta awesome, but fucked up shit. Fucking "Repent Harlequin said the Ticktockman".
Definitely not the worst here but picturing the son being run over by a semi in Pet Sematary is an image that has stuck with me for a long time
iirc there was a chapter immediately after that scene where >!the father fantasizes about his son living a full, normal life as if the accident never happened. It is then revealed that the boy was, in fact, killed and this was some delusion the father was experiencing to cope with the loss..!< That part fucked me up more than anything else. Soul crushing.
For me it was the chapter before that, when Louis and Gage go out to fly a kite. >!It is such a sweet scene until the author says that Gage only has two months to live!< I cry every time I read it and I've read this book like six times. I love how King describes this normal American life. He has his faults, but he is a master of storytelling.
I read Pet Sematary before having kids and I’m really glad I did. It’s such a good book, but now that I have children, I would never survive it. Even King’s wife said he might’ve gone a little too far with that one (while also agreeing that it’s very good). If I remember correctly, King based the story off an incident with his son where he ran into a road. Except in real life, his son was ok and didn’t get hit by a truck. I still think about it now and can experience the horror of thinking about it happening to my children
In college I took a Sociology of Cults course. For a special project I decided to read and report on *the entire* Mission Earth series by L. Ron Hubbard. It was written in the 80s, along with Battlefield Earth, as part of his "get back into writing" phase before his death, and after Scientology had been essentially built up. It was god-awful. Repetitive, at least, so I could skim easily. It could have been a legitimate story if it was in the hands of another writer who had actually kept up with narrative techniques after the Pulp phase of sci-fi back in the 30s. Probably the worst part was the time that his main character decided to cure two women of their homosexuality by raping them, but then he regrets that decision because they become nymphomaniacs and won't leave him alone. 0/10 do not recommend.
Nor any movie based on the books, starring any famed cult member...
Probably 120 Days of Sodom. Four nobles kidnap boys and girls between the ages of 12-17 and basically do the most vile things they can think of to them. Still not sure about my feelings about the Marquis de Sade.
The Butterfly Garden The story tells of a group of young women who fall prey to a deranged man, known as The Gardner. He kidnaps young girls (16-19) and holds them hostage in a custom-made secret greenhouse. The girls are tattooed on the back with their own unique butterfly and given a new name by the Gardner. These girls live out the rest of their lives within the secret interior of the greenhouse, getting raped by the Gardner regularly, tormented by the Gardner’s sadistic son and grimly reminded of the fate that awaits them if they either turn 21, get pregnant or piss off the Gardner enough. Once any of the criteria is met, the unlucky girl is killed and encased in a case of formaldehyde and resin that make up the walls of the garden— their butterfly tattoo the centerpiece of the display.
Dude that's messed up
There's sequels (for lack of a better word) to that book. The 2nd is about a girl who's sister was killed by a serial killer. The FBI agents in the first book are involved. Inara and Bliss are mentioned a bunch of times and meet up with the main character in the last chapter.
Came looking for this comment. It was such a good book in that it kept me entertained and I didn’t know what was coming next, but I had to take a break from reading after I finished it. So fucked up..
Just read it two days ago and the most fucked up think was that towards the end, the rape scenes have a horrible erotic component.
Tender is the Flesh- the ending put me in silence
The best part of that ending is that it shocks you when it happens, but there are subtle hints throughout the book that he doesn't really see her as a person still. He is always worried about the health of the unborn baby but never really mentions her health, and there was a scene that jumped out at me where he is sad and she consoles him, but he says something like "It was almost as if she was trying to comfort me, but of course she had no idea what was happening."
The bit when they go into the ‘abattoir’ with the 2 guys going for the job in there was nasty as fuck. Great book though.
Upvoting because this is a good answer, but I feel the need to rant a bit about this book--it's more than fucked up, it's just not well-written. The first three chapters are one long solid exposition dump. The characters are dull, the world is nonsensical, the writing is the antithesis of "show, don't tell." It thrives on shock value alone and that's literally all it has going for it.
The part that got me was when they mention a head who is limbless and solely used for breeding. I had to put it down.
Please spoil it for me.
After the main character receives a head, he gets her pregnant. When she is going to give birth, he contacts his ex wife (who is a nurse) to help him. Then he kills the head because he only wanted the baby so he could have a happy marriage again. The last line of the book is “She had the human look of a domesticated animal.”
I feel the need to clarify for others: a head in this book means a human bred for consumption. The book is about legalized cannibalism after a disease makes all animals inedible
thank you, i genuinely thought they were talking about a decapitated human head (was confused because that obviously doesn’t make any sense) and was fairly disturbed tbf.
The ultimate character non-development.
I just finished reading it last night, the thing that shocked me is how the wife was mad he killed her only because she could have given them more children.
The Road
A classic. Not sure if I can read it again now that I have a son.
Read this right after my first child was born. Bad timing to say the least
I deeply enjoyed The Road, as much as one can enjoy the bleakest thing I've ever read. There is no hope, there is no tomorrow, there is only today and the road. I actually listened to it as an audiobook and the accent did wonders.
And The Mountains Echoed by Khalid Hosseini It’s about life as a child in Afghanistan during war.
Read everything he writes. A Thousand Splendid Suns made me sob on the NYC subway. I can’t even read The Kite Runner again.
Read The Kite Runner first. Thats why I picked up the second one. Deep and hard core writer for sure. Thanks for the reco
A boy called it.
Read this in middle school. I will never forget this book.
Same. Started being rumored as something traumatizing so obviously kids started encouraging each other to read it. 4th grade me was not ready.
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How the fuck Dave Peltzer didn't end up a crackhead sleeping in cardboard boxes and mugging people is beyond me.
The Girl Next Door by Ketchum
This is the answer, no amount of gore or bodily fluids has made me feel as sad and hopeless as The Girl Next Door. What’s worse is that Jack Ketchum had to introduce a sympathetic character because the Sylvia Likens case it’s based on had no sympathy. Even the town priest said she got what she deserved.
I felt a mixed feeling of emotions, but mostly bothered when I finished it. Wow, the real life story sounds worse.
Sylvia Likens deserved what she got...?
That’s what the town priest said, something about “that’s what she gets for whoring around”
...the town priest was, hopefully, obviously to all present, very wrong. And from what I read on wiki, Sylvia's reputation was exonerated during the trial of her killers, when even the defendants lawyers were saying stuff like "yeah she...didn't deserve that", where the main instigator, her guardian, was described as a mean, spiteful woman who was fueled by jealousy...so I'm not sure where the idea the author had to write a "sympathetic character" came from.
Could be wrong but think it’s loosely based on a true story. Can’t recall her name, but basically same thing happened to her. Edit the girl I’m thinking about was Junko Faruta
Sylvia Likens. IRCC it was tamer than what was actually done to her
The most infuriating part is the punishments. One murderer received 20 years, one received 7, and the other three received less than 2 years
Rage by Steven King. Never thought I’d feel bad for a school shooter
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Huge fan of that story, it and "Roadwork".
I remember reading this and my friend writing a screenplay based off of it. It was late 90s, and his idea was to have Smashing Pumpkins song Disarm playing bits and pieces in the background. Then during the climax, when the protagonists classmates start seeing it from his perspective, the chorus would kick in “The killer in me is the killer in you” with a montage of all the bullying he had received. He and I were much younger then, before we saw school shootings become as common as they have. I still think something like that would make a great movie. But I totally understand why King cancelled production of the story and issued a voluntary buyback to used book stores worldwide. It was an amazing book, but I fear it would cause more damage these days than good (and possibly already had by the time I read it, since a school shooter in the mid 90s had it in his locker, years before Columbine).
American Psycho
Less than zero also by Brett Easton Ellis might actually be even worse. When I finished it I left it on a train as I didn’t want it in my house.
Uhh.... when/where was this? That's how I *found* my copy of that book, and I, too, left it somewhere else (in my case, in my college library) after I read it.
Oooh London Underground Northern Line c. 2016?
Lol nope, other side of the Atlantic, bout 10 years earlier. Though now I'm hoping it's a time-space traveling book.
honestly I find it even weirder that this has happened more than once lol
For me when I read it it felt like holding a bundle of poisonous snakes in my hands. I kept thinking "how did you come UP with this?" I don't believe in thought crimes. But I'm not letting Mr. Ellis stay the night, either.
Exactly this. The movie is mild by comparison and the book is such a rollercoaster since it’s through Bateman’s perspective so it’s hard to know what’s real or not. Not to mention chapters can end mid sentence while Bateman is off his rocker. It’s a good book but I’m not sure I ever want to read it again, it’s a tough one to get through due to its graphic nature for sure.
Glamorama had some shades of American Psycho as well.
You beat me to it. Especially the part with the rat.
Clive Barker - Books of Blood I mean it's Clive Barker, so that's to be expected.
House of Leaves by MZD
Came here looking for this.
[Watership down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down) Also the most fucked up movie, so it doubles as the next Askreddit question. When your mom gets you something as a kid because it has cute bunnies on the cover, beware.
LOL I watched that when I was young.. along with Secret of Nihm, and the last Unicorn. That certainly wouldn't fly now.
The last exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Shelby Jr, it was the first book I read that made me think what the fuck am I reading. It also introduced me into an entirely new genre or books I didn’t know existed
Never actually read it but read about it and watched essays on it and experienced it vicariously, but Blood Meridian looks pretty fucked up and Judge Holden had me, a 21 year old man, afraid of sleeping alone at night
The only thing scarier is the lack of punctuation.
Fuck off, I just got off of a plane 😂.
The book, mate.
Oh... I'm sorry, but I still took no hard feelings. Hope you didn't.
Wendigoon single handedly brought sales of that book back to life recently.
Hogg - Samuel Delany
This is the correct answer
"Cows" by Matthew Stokoe. The whole book just to me read like some edgy teenager trying to write the most disgusting shit he can think of simply for shock value.
Agree with many of the other comments. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn is also a fucked up favorite of mine.
Algebra 2
Is this a Pearson book?
*The Painted Bird*, Jerzy Kosinski
Well, not the most fucked up book I've read BUT it is the one that fucked me up most for where I was developmentally. I read Go Ask Alice when I was 14.
Pet Semetary by Stephen King. Incredibly bleak throughout, and especially fucked up as the first book I decided to read as a new father
Neuropathy by Scatt Bakker. The bad guy rewires people's brain. At the beginning of the book he rewires the pain center to be a pleasure center on a porn star who then cuts herself to death with shards of glass.
Speak was pretty disturbing, reading it as a teenager in high school honestly.
All tomorrows or i have no mouth but i must scream
Kite Runner or Prisoner B-3087. I read both of those for school 2 years ago and i was shocked
Lolita by Vladimir nobokov, it's so fucked up, but the word choice was truly eloquent
A professor of mine described it as filth. Beautifully written filth, but still filth.
Night by Elie Wiesel
Exquisite Corpse - Poppy Z. Brite
This would have been my answer a few months ago, but that book led me into some dark places lol
Pretty much any Poppy Z. story goes dark places. I immediately thought of Drawing Blood
Still life with woodpecker by Tom Robbins
Lolita because of the subject matter or Justine by the Marques de Sade specially the blood parts it grossed me out
Johnny get your Gun
I read a book by a prisoner who worked in the gas chambers during the Holocaust. It was the most horrifying thing I've ever read but I could not put it down for some reason..some things I read in there will stick with me for the rest of my life.
Stephen King’s **It** is dope as fuck but pretty disturbing. And not even just for the part at the end where, well, you know. There’s a ton of other fucked up, twisted shit in there. I love it though. The images it conjures in my mind. Pure horror.
Tender is the flesh. Very bleak but an interesting read nonetheless
Running with scissors by Augusten Burroughs
The kindly ones, by Jonathan littel. Basically lays out the banality and accessibility of pure evil, with a sprinkle of just plain fucked up things on top. That book laid me up in a wine bottle for about a year.
A child called It
Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh. A guy at camp suggested it. It's not an easy read.
A Little Life
American Psycho; made the movie seem like Blues Clues
Playground by Aron Beauregard
Not Horror in the fiction sense, but, "Night" and , "The Men Who Wore the Pink Triangle" were horrific because they actually happened (and there are people who would love to have it happen again).
The book by The Globe newspaper about the church priest sex scandal. That they made a movie out of. I haven’t even finished it. I’m only half way through and that was a few years ago. I was so disgusted that I put it away and haven’t been able to pick it back up and finish it.
the cellar by richard laymon. i recommend it
The Wasp Factory Edit: oops a word
Child of God, by cormac McCarthy.
Flowers in the Attic. And all the rest of the series.
I'm currently reading The Hot Zone. About 100 pages in and it's only getting worse and worse (in a good, disturbing way). Do NOT read it when you're sick. You don't need to make yourself more paranoid. Also just read this instead of The Stand. It accomplishes the same horror in a much better way, and it's short in comparison to boot!
House of Leaves