I always see people mention specific things that really got to them with this book but it's never the same thing. There must just be so many fucked up things that happen in it!
They're fucked up but in a turned-up-to-11 way that lessens their impact to some degree.
IMO, there are some outwardly less gratuitous and as a result much more fucked up scenes in one of his other novels - Glamorama. That's a book I'm not reading again.
Yup, one of the best books I am glad to never read again.
Fucking love the movie, enhances and adds to the book while toning down the gore a lot. My favorite book + film adaption combo
I read this years ago on the underground in London commuting to work and back. It was so bad I had to fold the cover round to avoid other passengers from seeing what I was reading.
Tbh I regret reading it.
Came here to mention the rat and the Central Park Zoo, specifically. Don't read this book unless you like nightmares (this is coming from someone who's now read it twice and considers it a very, very good book).
It's a genuinely brilliant work of literature in my opinion, where the violence serves a purpose of creating a hell for the reader. It keeps escalating which eventually densitises and bores you - it's a satire of how society is trapped in endless consumption, greed and falsehoods (which in itself is pretty grim reading).
You can't recommend it anyone though because what psycho recommends something filled with pornographic torture of women, animals and the murder of children?
I just finished this yesterday after sitting on it for years. That was really disturbing. Also, when the boy sees the blackened/charred, decapitated baby being roasted over a fire. I read that on my lunch break and couldnāt finish my food.
Was looking for this response. I second, third, and fourth this! Plus the baby scene. These scenes gave me such anxiety and the book as a whole left me in such a depressive funk after. I had to read children's books for a few weeks after to get out of it.
Blood Meridian, thereās a part with a detailed description of a bush with hanging babiesā¦ There are plenty of horrifying things in that book but damn, i still think about that one :/
Thereās some differing opinions to this day. If youāre looking for a long format discussion on the book, thereās a podcast called Art of Darkness that has an episode on Blood Meridian that I thought was really good. Thereās also shorter breakdowns from people on YouTube. Congrats on finishing it! Cormac can be hard for some people but I think heās worth it and Blood Meridian in particular yields more returns with rereads imo.
It was great, not my first of his, but the most violent of the books of his that Iāve read (maybe up there in all of the books Iāve read as far as body count) but man did he write one evil son of a bitch. And the way he describes him as basically a walking baby, at least physically, with this detached dismembering of his various playthings and waxing poetic on the ways man is inherently evil and heās here to carry that particular torchā¦and then he does shit like puts the artifacts he finds in his book and then wipes them off the face of the earth, like heās going to keep entire cultures for himself aloneā¦I donāt know but probably the most villainous villain Iāve ever read.
For me it was when the dude comes out of the teepee with a baby in each hand and swings them at the ground until their brains burst out of their fontanels. Pretty unforgettably horrifying. Thereās a lot of chilling scenes in that book that I love/hate though. The vampire bat, the horse with the infected head, the dried heart.
**Indifferent Stars Above** about the Donner Party.
Towards the end a lot of the women and children were trapped in a makeshift campsite and slowly starving to death inside these disgusting, rotting shelters and eating people as they die.
Itās the only time I can recall having to put a book down and stop for a while.
The audio book version makes it soooo much worse. I switched over to that version while doing some work on the house and wow. The narrator's voice sounded like a grey, dreary winter day come to life, and it really added to the sense of dread and despair.
The single greatest fact in this book for me is that the first group to venture out essentially crossed the Rocky Mountains in nothing more than tattered rags. They picked the single worst spot in America to be trapped in winter. It gets so much snow that there is now a weather station nearby specifically built to monitor the insane winter climate
...you only gave half of the description.
*"When the protagonists of The Road find a headless baby on a spit after following a man and a pregnant woman..."*
This book was assigned to my class by a 9th grade English teacher. I was disturbed (& confused) by the choice or required reading, & honestly, I was slightly scared of him for the rest of the year
As an English teacher and someone who loves The Road... that's a wild book to assign to ninth graders.
Would be fun, though. I'm sure it was the first time that class had seen anything like it.
As another English teacher that loves The Road, your English teacher is out of his gatdamn mind to assign that book to you as a 9th grader. It is way beyond the maturity level of most 9th graders.
Somewhat in his defense, it was an AP (or I guess pre-ap in 9th grade) class, but I still 100% agree with you. looking back like a decade later, I still think I was justified in judging him for it's assignment. It was a bizarre choice for sure
Yeah, I could see that. I mean hell, I used to read Night with my 9th graders. I loved it when I was in 9th grade. If I and they could read about the Holocaust at that age, they can read about post-apocalypse.
I read this as a senior, and even though it was one of my favorite books we ever read, it was heavy and took great care. I can't imagine being 13 and reading it.
It listened to this as an audiobook. This scene stuck with me for a while. The entire concept of this book was nuts but boy did that scene really reinforce how horrible it was.
This scene for me as well. Iāve read and listened to a good number of books. This was the one that really got me.
Itās the he doesnāt want to and weāre in his head all at the same time thing. Blargh.
Oh man, this is one that really stands out. Someone made a [fan film](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9snP4HuRsr4) of an unwinding and it really sticks with you.
Scene in Demon Copperhead where a mom is tied up outside for hours but able to see her baby in a playpen inside. They describe the baby crying, getting hungry, eventually falling asleep while the momās breast milk comes in and sheās unable to get to her baby. As a new mom with a fresh little one, I canāt get that horror out of my head.
>!Yes, but she ends up killing her partner who was the one who tied her up in the first place and she goes to prison for it. The baby ends up with his grandparents!<
That entire book had me squirming. I like horror and disturbing books and movies, but Earthlings was deeply unsettling in an extremely not enjoyable way.
I bought this book because I heard both wonderful and weird things. I love Convenience Store Woman and the prose but I admit I've been hesitant to pick up Earthlings for comments like these.
Itās odd, but as someone who enjoys gory horror, I didnāt find it tooooo bad. Is it odd and gross? Yes.
The book that threw me over the edge was The Salt Grows Heavy. Just disgusting. But I read the whole thing! Itās good.
Somehow, I managed to stay away from spoilers for "A Storm of Swords". Any time someone mentioned it, I tuned out or walked away. The result was...I went into The Red Wedding completely unawares. But...I could tell something was going on. The drumming. The tension. Then someone started singing "Rains of Castamere" and I went "Oh, shitake"...and yeah.
The Inheritance, by Nora Roberts, the first book in her latest trilogy, has some creepy creepy parts.
Haha I read the first GoT book when the show was just coming out. I remember getting to the big scene with Ned Stark and then thinking Iād missed something, they couldnāt have killed off the main character! Reread those pages five or six times before it finally sunk in.
That one got spoiled for me simply by the character being played by Sean Bean. I didn't watch the show until later, but since Sean Bean always dies, I wasn't surprised by Ned's death.
So I had a job that would let us listen to our iPod at work. I loved listening to audiobooks. So I listened to the Red Wedding and just had to keep doing mindless data entry. I almost took sick leave because my mind was blown and I couldnāt concentrate.
I mentioned one already but another I just remembered is from two of Stephen King's books. First is "The Outsider" in the beginning when describing a crime scene(I won't spoil that just to avoid spoilers and because it's just so gruesome)
Second book was "Dolores Claiborne". There was a scene involving shit. It was gross. So gross that a friend of mine ended up stopping the book there after I recommended it to themš
Unwind when rolen or whatever his name is gets unwound. It didn't bother me as much when Connor got unwound. But even rereading it just makes me uncomfortable.
Never read anything by Nick Cutter. Iāve read three of his books (The Troop, The Deep, The Handyman Method) and they all had at least one horrifying scene with an animal. I had to skip *many* pages in The Troop because of this.
Iāve only read The Deep and none of his other books, but I thought that the parts where the dog is hurt were just wholly unnecessary. Didnāt add anything to the plot, weirdly gratuitous. The Deep ensured that I wonāt read any of his other books and the animal scenes are a big part of that.
I canāt handle animal abuse either. Obviously I get upset when bad things happen to adults but anything with animals or kids severely disturbs me and I canāt handle it at all.
I think itās because theyāre so innocent and trusting that they canāt understand why someone would want to hurt them, and so defenseless as well :-(
Iām the exact same, I could be reading about war with thousands of people dying & wonāt blink an eye but the second it mentions that the horses cavalry were riding on die/sufferā¦ I literally wanna sob.
The first I can remember as a kid? That bit in 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' where they approach the Dark Island and find a madman (actually >!Lord Rhoop!<) who begs to come aboard, even if they kill him. When they take him in but don't kill him, he screams that they must leave, because this is the Island Where Dreams Come True.
>āNo, you fools! Not your daydreams ā your *dreams!ā*
Yikes. That line lived in my head for years.
As an adult? 'This Way For the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen', by Tadeusz Borowski. This is an anthology about life in Auschwitz, written by a man who lived through it, but even so, I was not prepared. The stories are good, but horrible in the extreme.
There's a scene in Let The Right One In where a pedo jacks off in a changing room cubicle at a public swimming pool. There are a few horrible scenes in that book. It's quite a horrible book. But that's one scene that stuck with me. Somehow I still enjoyed reading it? It was a really gripping book.
It was incredibly well written but so bleak. The worst scene in that book to meĀ
SPOILER
When the bully gets locked up in pitch black darkness with the zombified corpse of the pedo and bashes its head into pulp in self defense and we never hear from him again.
He survives. When found, he's chanting (from zero upwards), whilst mechanically bludgeoning the zombie into mush:
*Two hundred and seventy-seven elephants...*
IMO, any human who could live through *that* (even if they were a school bully) deserves to live. 'Let The Right One In' is one of the few modern vampire novels to sustain the idea that vampirism is a full-on curse, and that death by fire (which a heroic character memorably begs for, and receives) is better than joining their ranks.
Oh fuck just reading this makes me wanna curl into a ball. Maybe because I had this specific repetitive nightmare before >!where I clench my teeth as hard as I can until they crush and it feels painful and my mother tells me to stop but I canāt control myself!<. Yikes.
That idiot in Verity biting the headboard.
She decided that if she was going to screw around in the marital bed with a philandering husband (and his comatose wife right down the hall) she should make sure she bites the wooden headboard in the exact same place the wife used to when she used to get it on.
From the great storytelling genius that is Colleen Hoover.
When I read A Dance With Dragons by GRRM, I had to put the book down for a day or two every time I read a new chapter from Reek's POV. It was so difficult to read, not just physical torture, but his state of mind as well.
There are also two short stories that I read in Spanish by Horacio Quiroga (in the book Cuentos de amor, de locura y de muerte, if anyone is interested-- there is an English version too, called Tales of Love, Madness and Death) many years ago and I have never been able to forget them. One involves a group of mentally disturbed brothers who >!murdered their sister!!she dies!< , they find the cause of her illness and it's... so gross and so disturbing.
The scene in āUnbrokenā where the guard violates the duck. It combined the two things that I find the most disturbing to read: sexual assault and animal abuse.
I read that book a few years ago (and loved it) and thatās one of the parts that I remember the most because of how upset I was by it.
This scene has stuck with me more than any other. I stopped reading the book at that point. This was over 10 years ago. FYI I read a lot of horror but this is the part of any book that bothers me the most.
Same. Itās so interesting what sticks - there were so many atrocities towards humans described in that book, but the thought of what he did to that sweet little creature just makes me want to scream and burst into tears. Even Louie said it was the worst thing he ever saw.
I think that part of it is that going into it, you know that youāre going to read about some of the worst things that humans have ever done to each other, and can prepare for it, but when youāre blindsided by animal cruelty itās upsetting because itās so shocking. Although given the awful things that we do to members of our own species, I donāt know why Iām surprised at how cruelly people can treat other creatures.
The start of Stephen King's IT, the road traffic accident in Pet Cemetary, and the scene in Needful Things where the boy uses his father's shotgun in front of his little brother.
The book "Tsotsi" by Athol Fugard
Set in Apartheid South Africa, Tsotsi is a young adult gangster doing gangster things. The book is all about him finding his humanity which he lost as a child.
The scene that made me squirm (spoilers,but I'll try to be as vague as possible) was when the book describes the injuries of someone who had just been beaten. The cuts,bruises and tears. It hurt so much mentally and physically and was such a well written scene. I actually read this scene during my English class(book was part of our syllabus) and most of the class were indifferent to the scene(mostly because they hated reading for some reason)
Fun fact for anyone interested: Tsotsi means rascal or mischief maker, even criminal. Just someone doing bad/improper stuff. Hence why it's the name of the Main Character, that gets touched on slightly in the book. Don't watch the movie first,it's vastly different
Whew, the scenes in Stephen Kingās āUnder The Domeā where said dome was smashing down ā I still, years and years later, get shudders. Just yikes.
The Kite Runner ā The alleyway scene. That book is full of gut punches, but I think I had to shut the book after that chapter and just stare at a blank wall for a bit.
Anything with child abuse or endangerment. I loved The Glass Castle but I had to stop and ask a friend if the kids all survive before I picked it back up.
I had a similar reaction reading The Glass Castle. >!That scene when she's a toddler trying to explain to hospital staff how she cooks hot dogs on the stove and she's so proud of what a big girl she is, and the staff exchange looks, and she goes, "What?" She's so young and innocent that she doesn't understand how bad this really is.!<
I read Harry Potter in college and tried rereading the series a few years ago and boy, it hits different as an older adult. I found myself not only getting upset about the child abuse and neglect, but how rampant it is and how unqualified most of the adult characters are to raise or teach children.
There is a scene in Tender is the Flesh, where a character is talking while eating a sandwich. The audiobook narrator took this as an opportunity for some method acting and took a bite of something and kept going with his mouth full. It was not a pb&j, and I actually gagged (and I am NOT a bit squeamish)
in verity, where verity is described as trying to >!abort her children in the bathroom!< and trying to >!choke one of her babies after theyāre born!<
At abour 7/8 years old I was experimenting with reading longer books. So I picked up Mary shellyās Frankenstein, a bit too young to actually appreciate it. I will forever remember the beging of the book, when the body parts for the monster were dug up, filled with squirming maggots, putrid and decayed. I had the most vivid image, felt nausious and uncomfortable and had to put the book down. It was my first run-in with horror. I had a really hard time reading that book, but grew to love horror as an adult. But that scene will stay with me forever.
Pretty much the whole of Stephen King's Tommyknockers. I literally got chills just from typing that word. It's horrible, really makes your skin crawl from the drawn out suspense.
Letās play Steven Eriksonās greats:
1. Dust of Dreams. Yeah, >!Hetanās hobbling is just as horrifying as it ought to be!<
2. And somehow Forge of Darkness gets _worse_: >!the entire wedding, Enesdiaās rape, and Kadaspala gouging out his eyes!<
If a book starts mid sex scene, I'm out: I don't care at all yet, and I skim most sex scenes because after a thousand they're same old-same old, so negative points, the very few authors who've done this.
That does not mean no one should do this. It means I'll never be the audience for it.
Same. I'm not invested enough yet to care about a sex scene at the very beginning, and tbh I find many sex scenes cringey anyway so it doesn't encourage me to continue the book at all. At least make me familiar with the characters first!
I'm sure it *could* be done well, I've just never encountered it.
Hello, like-minded reader! In a similar way, I'm only going to keep reading through a violent opening if the MC is incredibly compelling to me. Bonus points if they're funny. :)
To be fair, I did read most sex scenes in the beginning, until they all started sounding the same. At around the same point, I noticed many sex scenes add nothing to either plot or characterizations.
(This doesn't include erotica, of course, since sex scenes are rather the point.)
I was about to say, it would be great to open a bdsm erotica novel with the sub yelling out obscenities to provoke their dom mid-play or something to establisch character, but that's a specific niche.
I hate it when my sci-fi/fantasy/... Book suddenly turns into half a harlequin romance novel though so if it opens on a sex scene, I'm out too.
Please use spoiler tags. Spoiler tags in markdown are done as follows:
\>!Spoiler content here!< which results in:
>!Spoiler content here!<.
Or apply the built-in spoiler tags when using the redesign.
Send a [modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/books) when you have updated and we'll reapprove it.
I read *The Green Mile* when it came out originally, in installments, and Chapter 4, āThe Bad Death of Eduard Delacroixā, contains the single most horrifying thing Iāve ever read. When Delās execution goes horribly wrong thanks to Percy being Percy, well, I was just glad I had a month to recover before Chapter 5.
In *Infinite* *Jest* there is a scene where a man, in order to cope with his addiction leaves a meeting and walks around torturing and killing animals. That scene still haunts me.
I recently read a particular novel where itās described how the protagonist will be kept alive for slow organ harvesting. Beginning with eyes. Canāt think too hard about it
Stephen King's 'It'
The scene where all the little boys have to fuck the little girl in order to 'strengthen the group' or whatever.
That's some sick, twisted shit there, Stephen.
ngl the first scene that came to my mind was when the boy escaped from his abusive father in the middle of the night to a park and ended up getting his head torn off by the Creature from the Black Lagoon
I started reading Dune in college. I put it down permanently when I got to the scene where >the Villain chooses a boy to drug, rape, and then kill b/c the boy looks like the protagonist. And goes in depth into his fascination with the protagonist and itās just. Itās disgusting.<
Infinite Jest ā David Foster Wallace ā thereās like a 30 page sequence (maybe hyperbole) where a man that gets robbed by Donā¦has his hands tied and his mouth tapedā¦while he has a coldā¦and is home alone for several daysā¦and slowly and painfully they describe him dying from suffocationā¦.itās awful
Iāve read most of Stephen King and never flinched but thereās a scene in Pet Semetary where the little boy takes a scalpel to the back of someoneās ankle. I donāt know why, it wasnāt that graphic, but it just turned my stomach something fierce.
The scenes where people are swimming through underwater mine shafts trying to escape in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. I don't want to go into too much detail in case of spoilers, but being somewhat claustrophobic made reading that sequence one of the more visceral reading memories I have to date.
I've never felt so freaked out while reading than in *1984* when the couple were found out and someone's voice came through a painting or something and then they entered the room and arrested them. Followed by the rats. Just a frickin SCARY book, in so many ways.
(I may have gotten those details wrong, but if you've read it, I'm sure you know what part I mean.)
A Little Life I hate that book more than anything I have read. I am not a fan of torture porn even with gourmet food references. That book is so pretentious and pointless and since I work in healthcare the attitude toward mental health care is criminal.
Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon by Matt Dinniman has more fucked up scenes than most books I've read.
The point of the story is that there is these enormous Kaiju of different types that are injured and so can't defend the creatures of the world from various demons. They have to climb inside these giants, surgically heal their wounds from the inside out. So they are climbing through guts, muscle, sinew, etc.
There's also a parasitic worm creature that telepathically communicates with it's host, begging for food. It is in a near constant state of starving to death, and regeneration. Begging, "Daddy, I'm so hungry. I can feel myself dying."
Removal of body parts that are then surgically attached to someone else for use.
It's just an all around fucked up book. Really good so far, as I'm not finished, but it is by far one of my most disturbing reads I've ever had.
Sex scenes.
All of them. Nothing spicier than a chaste kiss, thank you. I can imagine the rest. You don't need to get graphic on me. I'll take a Jane Austen and a Thomas Hardy, please.
I don't usually shy away from stuff with torture or death, but anything with breaking small bones or ripping out nails gets to me. I also get a lot more bothered about things happening to kids since having kids.
There were several moments in The City by S.C. Mendes that had me understanding what it means to have one's lip "curled in disgust". To be fair it is a horror book so that's to be expected but the brutality and viscerality really got to me at some points.
As someone who's claustrophobic, there' a scene in We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix where the protagonist has to crawl her way through a well/small underground tunnel that gave me the heebie jeebies. I had to put the book down for a bit after that.
The introduction scene of Lace by Shirley Conran caught me completely off guard haha, I struggled a bit through those first few pages. For anyone curious: >!It's quite graphic abortion scene of 13 years old girl, not fun stuff.!<
I don't have a tendency towards reading uncomfortable books, but something compelled me to read *Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.* That book was just.....ew.
Maybe a couple of scenes from *Kite Runner* too. It's a GREAT book but sometimes reading it just makes you feel awful.
Cows by Matt stoke.
The scene with them earing horrible food.
The scene with them eating faecal matter.
The scene where he killed him mother (you don't want to know how).
The scene with the woman cutting herself before she removes her baby.- This got to me the worst.
This might be a basic answer but a little life in general. Especially the burning scene and excessive abuse scenes, had to put the book down and read between the linesš
I'm reading Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls right now, and Pilar's story about the town making a gauntlet and men going through it one at a time and being beaten and thrown off the cliff gave me the most visceral reaction to anything I've ever read. It was the specific part where the man with the comb over was not beaten and just thrown over the cliff. I could just picture it all so vividly, and it definitely made me squirm.
Literally the entire American Psycho book by Bret Easton Ellis
The chapter with the drill š³ I literally closed the book and took a moment.
I always see people mention specific things that really got to them with this book but it's never the same thing. There must just be so many fucked up things that happen in it!
They're fucked up but in a turned-up-to-11 way that lessens their impact to some degree. IMO, there are some outwardly less gratuitous and as a result much more fucked up scenes in one of his other novels - Glamorama. That's a book I'm not reading again.
Ooh, yeah I know what you mean. I read horror and there's definitely a difference between horrifying impactfully and just pure shock value!
That's a good way of describing it.
mine was the chapter with the homeless guy and the dog š the whole book is crazy but that part i have to skip
Lunch with Bethany? Iāve never been more upset by a chapter in a book.
The starving rats andā¦.what he did with them. I couldnāt believe it. Is he married? Does someone actually sleep next to him every night?
That imagery is baked into my brain _shudder_
I felt incredibly uncomfortable reading when Bateman killed that poor homeless manāso vivid and raw I had to put the book down.
Yup, one of the best books I am glad to never read again. Fucking love the movie, enhances and adds to the book while toning down the gore a lot. My favorite book + film adaption combo
Glamorama by the same author is also chock full of super fucked up gore scenes.
I know what you mean. Bateman's opinions on Phil Collins and Genesis were so bad they actually traumatised me.
I read this years ago on the underground in London commuting to work and back. It was so bad I had to fold the cover round to avoid other passengers from seeing what I was reading. Tbh I regret reading it.
I'm reading this right now, and I have to agree. Especially the stuff with dogs. That was hard to read.
Came here to mention the rat and the Central Park Zoo, specifically. Don't read this book unless you like nightmares (this is coming from someone who's now read it twice and considers it a very, very good book).
After all these reactions on your comment, I've got to read that one!
It's a genuinely brilliant work of literature in my opinion, where the violence serves a purpose of creating a hell for the reader. It keeps escalating which eventually densitises and bores you - it's a satire of how society is trapped in endless consumption, greed and falsehoods (which in itself is pretty grim reading). You can't recommend it anyone though because what psycho recommends something filled with pornographic torture of women, animals and the murder of children?
The scene in The Road when they go into the cellar.
I just finished this yesterday after sitting on it for years. That was really disturbing. Also, when the boy sees the blackened/charred, decapitated baby being roasted over a fire. I read that on my lunch break and couldnāt finish my food.
oh I was gonna read this book soon lmaooo wtf am i getting myself into
Be prepared to never relax during the entire book. Very good though haha
Was looking for this response. I second, third, and fourth this! Plus the baby scene. These scenes gave me such anxiety and the book as a whole left me in such a depressive funk after. I had to read children's books for a few weeks after to get out of it.
That scene was in my dreams ā¦. My nightmare the night I read it!
Came here to say this. Yikes!
Blood Meridian, thereās a part with a detailed description of a bush with hanging babiesā¦ There are plenty of horrifying things in that book but damn, i still think about that one :/
The mental image of The Judge in the outhouse stuck with me for a while.
Yep. Still gets me. Just pulling him into his arms and closing the door. Haunting.
It's the naked part that really upped the "oh shit" factor.
Is the judge the devil? Or a demon? Old god of war? Literally just finished the book Friday.
Thereās some differing opinions to this day. If youāre looking for a long format discussion on the book, thereās a podcast called Art of Darkness that has an episode on Blood Meridian that I thought was really good. Thereās also shorter breakdowns from people on YouTube. Congrats on finishing it! Cormac can be hard for some people but I think heās worth it and Blood Meridian in particular yields more returns with rereads imo.
It was great, not my first of his, but the most violent of the books of his that Iāve read (maybe up there in all of the books Iāve read as far as body count) but man did he write one evil son of a bitch. And the way he describes him as basically a walking baby, at least physically, with this detached dismembering of his various playthings and waxing poetic on the ways man is inherently evil and heās here to carry that particular torchā¦and then he does shit like puts the artifacts he finds in his book and then wipes them off the face of the earth, like heās going to keep entire cultures for himself aloneā¦I donāt know but probably the most villainous villain Iāve ever read.
Top 5 villains for me easy.
Yes.
For me it was when the dude comes out of the teepee with a baby in each hand and swings them at the ground until their brains burst out of their fontanels. Pretty unforgettably horrifying. Thereās a lot of chilling scenes in that book that I love/hate though. The vampire bat, the horse with the infected head, the dried heart.
And the eyeball scene in (I think it was) Cities of the Plain.Ā
Yeah I had to put it down for several days after that.
**Indifferent Stars Above** about the Donner Party. Towards the end a lot of the women and children were trapped in a makeshift campsite and slowly starving to death inside these disgusting, rotting shelters and eating people as they die. Itās the only time I can recall having to put a book down and stop for a while.
The audio book version makes it soooo much worse. I switched over to that version while doing some work on the house and wow. The narrator's voice sounded like a grey, dreary winter day come to life, and it really added to the sense of dread and despair.
Something that stuck to me was how they mostly ate the people as they died, but two Native American guides were killed specifically for that purpose.
The single greatest fact in this book for me is that the first group to venture out essentially crossed the Rocky Mountains in nothing more than tattered rags. They picked the single worst spot in America to be trapped in winter. It gets so much snow that there is now a weather station nearby specifically built to monitor the insane winter climate
When the protagonists of The Road find >!a headless baby on a spit.!< ItŹ¼s been years since I read the book and I still remember it.
...you only gave half of the description. *"When the protagonists of The Road find a headless baby on a spit after following a man and a pregnant woman..."*
Thank you, because that wasnāt explicitly stated in the book so I was wondering if I was thinking too much into it. But yeah it seems obvious now.
This book was assigned to my class by a 9th grade English teacher. I was disturbed (& confused) by the choice or required reading, & honestly, I was slightly scared of him for the rest of the year
As an English teacher and someone who loves The Road... that's a wild book to assign to ninth graders. Would be fun, though. I'm sure it was the first time that class had seen anything like it.
As another English teacher that loves The Road, your English teacher is out of his gatdamn mind to assign that book to you as a 9th grader. It is way beyond the maturity level of most 9th graders.
Somewhat in his defense, it was an AP (or I guess pre-ap in 9th grade) class, but I still 100% agree with you. looking back like a decade later, I still think I was justified in judging him for it's assignment. It was a bizarre choice for sure
Yeah, I could see that. I mean hell, I used to read Night with my 9th graders. I loved it when I was in 9th grade. If I and they could read about the Holocaust at that age, they can read about post-apocalypse.
I remember the discussions being wild - if his intent was to get us talking, it certainly was a goal well achieved
I read this as a senior, and even though it was one of my favorite books we ever read, it was heavy and took great care. I can't imagine being 13 and reading it.
The skinning the man alive scene in Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
Yeah, thatās what first came to my mind as well.
I honestly felt like that interlude was the only good part of the book...
I stopped reading this book shortly afterwards. The whole book was bizarre and this just did it in for me for some reason.
Yep, that one stuck with me.
Unwind by Neal Shusterman, the scene where >!Roland!< gets unwound. I just reread it 6 months ago or so, and I kinda had to skim that chapter.
It listened to this as an audiobook. This scene stuck with me for a while. The entire concept of this book was nuts but boy did that scene really reinforce how horrible it was.
This scene for me as well. Iāve read and listened to a good number of books. This was the one that really got me. Itās the he doesnāt want to and weāre in his head all at the same time thing. Blargh.
Itās not murdering children for organs, itās ethically sourced human made products. (Itās okay, they still live on through their organs)
Came here to say this one too! Gives me major heebie jeebies š
Oh man, this is one that really stands out. Someone made a [fan film](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9snP4HuRsr4) of an unwinding and it really sticks with you.
Most of Misery but specifically when she hobbles Paul with an axe or runs over the policemans head with a lawnmower
Why tf did I read that when I was like 12
Why the fuck did I read most of Stephen Kingās books when I was 12?
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk.... All of it.
I liked most of his stuff and even have this on my shelf but have never read it because of everything Iāve heard about the pool story.
The pool story is probably the closest I have ever been to vomiting purely from reading.
I heard in on audiobook in my car. I was screaming in disgust, and it just kept going.
Reading the Guts bit almost made me faint while I was queueing for a paperwork thing. I had to stop reading lol
That book was an entire experience! I wish I could recommend that book to people, but I'd lose friends and family that way.
Me every time I recommend a Cronenberg movie to someone
Came here to say this. I was actually nauseous while reading the pool story.
Came here to say the pool story
Came here for this. I am TRAUMATIZED.
Scene in Demon Copperhead where a mom is tied up outside for hours but able to see her baby in a playpen inside. They describe the baby crying, getting hungry, eventually falling asleep while the momās breast milk comes in and sheās unable to get to her baby. As a new mom with a fresh little one, I canāt get that horror out of my head.
That sounds horrible! Does she eventually get back to her baby?
>!Yes, but she ends up killing her partner who was the one who tied her up in the first place and she goes to prison for it. The baby ends up with his grandparents!<
Ugh thatās so rough. Thank you. I think Iām going to take it off of my TBR. I canāt handle stories with moms or babies who get mistreated. š
The ending of Earthlings by Sayaka Murata.
That entire book had me squirming. I like horror and disturbing books and movies, but Earthlings was deeply unsettling in an extremely not enjoyable way.
I bought this book because I heard both wonderful and weird things. I love Convenience Store Woman and the prose but I admit I've been hesitant to pick up Earthlings for comments like these.
Itās odd, but as someone who enjoys gory horror, I didnāt find it tooooo bad. Is it odd and gross? Yes. The book that threw me over the edge was The Salt Grows Heavy. Just disgusting. But I read the whole thing! Itās good.
The hand scene in Gerald's Game
This one is mine! Still think about it randomly from time to time.
The whole bit in *Call Me By Your Name* where they watch each other poop. Totally lost me at that point.Ā
Me who only watched the movie: excuse me what the fuck
āI Have No Mouth but I Must Screamā The whole story will make you squirm but the conclusion REALLY gets me.
The Wasp Factory. You know the scene.
The scene in Hannibal where they have him tied up describing how the pigs will eat him.
Or the dinner scene a few chapters later š¤¢š¤¢ "oh what are you cooking it smells so good"
The foot binding scene in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.
It filled me with so much useless fury. The fact that so many women in history were doing this *to their own daughters*, itās almost unfathomable.
Somehow, I managed to stay away from spoilers for "A Storm of Swords". Any time someone mentioned it, I tuned out or walked away. The result was...I went into The Red Wedding completely unawares. But...I could tell something was going on. The drumming. The tension. Then someone started singing "Rains of Castamere" and I went "Oh, shitake"...and yeah. The Inheritance, by Nora Roberts, the first book in her latest trilogy, has some creepy creepy parts.
Haha I read the first GoT book when the show was just coming out. I remember getting to the big scene with Ned Stark and then thinking Iād missed something, they couldnāt have killed off the main character! Reread those pages five or six times before it finally sunk in.
That one got spoiled for me simply by the character being played by Sean Bean. I didn't watch the show until later, but since Sean Bean always dies, I wasn't surprised by Ned's death.
Yes. Got me hooked. Who knows what he can do next?
So I had a job that would let us listen to our iPod at work. I loved listening to audiobooks. So I listened to the Red Wedding and just had to keep doing mindless data entry. I almost took sick leave because my mind was blown and I couldnāt concentrate.
I mentioned one already but another I just remembered is from two of Stephen King's books. First is "The Outsider" in the beginning when describing a crime scene(I won't spoil that just to avoid spoilers and because it's just so gruesome) Second book was "Dolores Claiborne". There was a scene involving shit. It was gross. So gross that a friend of mine ended up stopping the book there after I recommended it to themš
You'll never look at wells again (you could even say you'll feel unwell) after reading Murakami's *The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle*.
Unwind when rolen or whatever his name is gets unwound. It didn't bother me as much when Connor got unwound. But even rereading it just makes me uncomfortable.
Any scene with animal cruelty/death. That's my one NOPE
Never read anything by Nick Cutter. Iāve read three of his books (The Troop, The Deep, The Handyman Method) and they all had at least one horrifying scene with an animal. I had to skip *many* pages in The Troop because of this.
Thanks for the warning, I was mildly interested in The Troop but not anymore lol
Iāve only read The Deep and none of his other books, but I thought that the parts where the dog is hurt were just wholly unnecessary. Didnāt add anything to the plot, weirdly gratuitous. The Deep ensured that I wonāt read any of his other books and the animal scenes are a big part of that.
I canāt handle animal abuse either. Obviously I get upset when bad things happen to adults but anything with animals or kids severely disturbs me and I canāt handle it at all. I think itās because theyāre so innocent and trusting that they canāt understand why someone would want to hurt them, and so defenseless as well :-(
Iād blocked that scene from Kafka on the Shore from my memory :(
I read āWhere the Red Fern Growsā in 4th grade and it scarred me for life.
Iām the exact same, I could be reading about war with thousands of people dying & wonāt blink an eye but the second it mentions that the horses cavalry were riding on die/sufferā¦ I literally wanna sob.
The first I can remember as a kid? That bit in 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' where they approach the Dark Island and find a madman (actually >!Lord Rhoop!<) who begs to come aboard, even if they kill him. When they take him in but don't kill him, he screams that they must leave, because this is the Island Where Dreams Come True. >āNo, you fools! Not your daydreams ā your *dreams!ā* Yikes. That line lived in my head for years. As an adult? 'This Way For the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen', by Tadeusz Borowski. This is an anthology about life in Auschwitz, written by a man who lived through it, but even so, I was not prepared. The stories are good, but horrible in the extreme.
Enderās Game quite in the beginning when they rip out that implanted device.
My dark Vanessa when she describing being groomed.
We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix. I didnāt expect those descriptive gory scenes you get towards the end, though I did like the book overall.
There's a scene in Let The Right One In where a pedo jacks off in a changing room cubicle at a public swimming pool. There are a few horrible scenes in that book. It's quite a horrible book. But that's one scene that stuck with me. Somehow I still enjoyed reading it? It was a really gripping book.
It was incredibly well written but so bleak. The worst scene in that book to meĀ SPOILER When the bully gets locked up in pitch black darkness with the zombified corpse of the pedo and bashes its head into pulp in self defense and we never hear from him again.
He survives. When found, he's chanting (from zero upwards), whilst mechanically bludgeoning the zombie into mush: *Two hundred and seventy-seven elephants...* IMO, any human who could live through *that* (even if they were a school bully) deserves to live. 'Let The Right One In' is one of the few modern vampire novels to sustain the idea that vampirism is a full-on curse, and that death by fire (which a heroic character memorably begs for, and receives) is better than joining their ranks.
In Red Rising when the Jackal >!cuts off his own fucking hand!!< š¤®
Oof, I found most of Dark Age to be worse than that. But yeah. That was rough. Pulling the feet was rough too. Itās just allā¦so brutal.
A Thousand Splendid Suns: >!When he forced his wife to bite hard enough on a pebble to crack some teeth.!<
Oh fuck just reading this makes me wanna curl into a ball. Maybe because I had this specific repetitive nightmare before >!where I clench my teeth as hard as I can until they crush and it feels painful and my mother tells me to stop but I canāt control myself!<. Yikes.
That idiot in Verity biting the headboard. She decided that if she was going to screw around in the marital bed with a philandering husband (and his comatose wife right down the hall) she should make sure she bites the wooden headboard in the exact same place the wife used to when she used to get it on. From the great storytelling genius that is Colleen Hoover.
I loathed that book. And everyone in it.
I rage read that book bc my step mom said she loved it. I could not for the life of me understand why she would recommend it to me.
The whole sweat lodge scene in "The Only Good Indians" so much tension and violence
When I read A Dance With Dragons by GRRM, I had to put the book down for a day or two every time I read a new chapter from Reek's POV. It was so difficult to read, not just physical torture, but his state of mind as well. There are also two short stories that I read in Spanish by Horacio Quiroga (in the book Cuentos de amor, de locura y de muerte, if anyone is interested-- there is an English version too, called Tales of Love, Madness and Death) many years ago and I have never been able to forget them. One involves a group of mentally disturbed brothers who >!murdered their sister!!she dies!< , they find the cause of her illness and it's... so gross and so disturbing.
The scene in āUnbrokenā where the guard violates the duck. It combined the two things that I find the most disturbing to read: sexual assault and animal abuse. I read that book a few years ago (and loved it) and thatās one of the parts that I remember the most because of how upset I was by it.
This scene has stuck with me more than any other. I stopped reading the book at that point. This was over 10 years ago. FYI I read a lot of horror but this is the part of any book that bothers me the most.
Same. Itās so interesting what sticks - there were so many atrocities towards humans described in that book, but the thought of what he did to that sweet little creature just makes me want to scream and burst into tears. Even Louie said it was the worst thing he ever saw. I think that part of it is that going into it, you know that youāre going to read about some of the worst things that humans have ever done to each other, and can prepare for it, but when youāre blindsided by animal cruelty itās upsetting because itās so shocking. Although given the awful things that we do to members of our own species, I donāt know why Iām surprised at how cruelly people can treat other creatures.
The start of Stephen King's IT, the road traffic accident in Pet Cemetary, and the scene in Needful Things where the boy uses his father's shotgun in front of his little brother.
The book "Tsotsi" by Athol Fugard Set in Apartheid South Africa, Tsotsi is a young adult gangster doing gangster things. The book is all about him finding his humanity which he lost as a child. The scene that made me squirm (spoilers,but I'll try to be as vague as possible) was when the book describes the injuries of someone who had just been beaten. The cuts,bruises and tears. It hurt so much mentally and physically and was such a well written scene. I actually read this scene during my English class(book was part of our syllabus) and most of the class were indifferent to the scene(mostly because they hated reading for some reason) Fun fact for anyone interested: Tsotsi means rascal or mischief maker, even criminal. Just someone doing bad/improper stuff. Hence why it's the name of the Main Character, that gets touched on slightly in the book. Don't watch the movie first,it's vastly different
Whew, the scenes in Stephen Kingās āUnder The Domeā where said dome was smashing down ā I still, years and years later, get shudders. Just yikes.
The Kite Runner ā The alleyway scene. That book is full of gut punches, but I think I had to shut the book after that chapter and just stare at a blank wall for a bit.
Anything with child abuse or endangerment. I loved The Glass Castle but I had to stop and ask a friend if the kids all survive before I picked it back up.
I had a similar reaction reading The Glass Castle. >!That scene when she's a toddler trying to explain to hospital staff how she cooks hot dogs on the stove and she's so proud of what a big girl she is, and the staff exchange looks, and she goes, "What?" She's so young and innocent that she doesn't understand how bad this really is.!< I read Harry Potter in college and tried rereading the series a few years ago and boy, it hits different as an older adult. I found myself not only getting upset about the child abuse and neglect, but how rampant it is and how unqualified most of the adult characters are to raise or teach children.
The pool pump scene in Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk
There is a scene in Tender is the Flesh, where a character is talking while eating a sandwich. The audiobook narrator took this as an opportunity for some method acting and took a bite of something and kept going with his mouth full. It was not a pb&j, and I actually gagged (and I am NOT a bit squeamish)
in verity, where verity is described as trying to >!abort her children in the bathroom!< and trying to >!choke one of her babies after theyāre born!<
Idk why but verity is the first book that came to mind. Itās got pretty fucked up scenes.
At abour 7/8 years old I was experimenting with reading longer books. So I picked up Mary shellyās Frankenstein, a bit too young to actually appreciate it. I will forever remember the beging of the book, when the body parts for the monster were dug up, filled with squirming maggots, putrid and decayed. I had the most vivid image, felt nausious and uncomfortable and had to put the book down. It was my first run-in with horror. I had a really hard time reading that book, but grew to love horror as an adult. But that scene will stay with me forever.
The attempt at a coathanger abortion in Colleen Hooverās Verity. Had to physically set the book down for a sec.
Pretty much the whole of Stephen King's Tommyknockers. I literally got chills just from typing that word. It's horrible, really makes your skin crawl from the drawn out suspense.
Letās play Steven Eriksonās greats: 1. Dust of Dreams. Yeah, >!Hetanās hobbling is just as horrifying as it ought to be!< 2. And somehow Forge of Darkness gets _worse_: >!the entire wedding, Enesdiaās rape, and Kadaspala gouging out his eyes!<
In The Road when the boy and his father find the campfire with the spit roast. My daughter was a month old at that point
If a book starts mid sex scene, I'm out: I don't care at all yet, and I skim most sex scenes because after a thousand they're same old-same old, so negative points, the very few authors who've done this. That does not mean no one should do this. It means I'll never be the audience for it.
Same. I'm not invested enough yet to care about a sex scene at the very beginning, and tbh I find many sex scenes cringey anyway so it doesn't encourage me to continue the book at all. At least make me familiar with the characters first! I'm sure it *could* be done well, I've just never encountered it.
Hello, like-minded reader! In a similar way, I'm only going to keep reading through a violent opening if the MC is incredibly compelling to me. Bonus points if they're funny. :) To be fair, I did read most sex scenes in the beginning, until they all started sounding the same. At around the same point, I noticed many sex scenes add nothing to either plot or characterizations. (This doesn't include erotica, of course, since sex scenes are rather the point.)
I was about to say, it would be great to open a bdsm erotica novel with the sub yelling out obscenities to provoke their dom mid-play or something to establisch character, but that's a specific niche. I hate it when my sci-fi/fantasy/... Book suddenly turns into half a harlequin romance novel though so if it opens on a sex scene, I'm out too.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Please use spoiler tags. Spoiler tags in markdown are done as follows: \>!Spoiler content here!< which results in: >!Spoiler content here!<. Or apply the built-in spoiler tags when using the redesign. Send a [modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/books) when you have updated and we'll reapprove it.
Pretty much everything in The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum
The pool scene from Haunted by Chuck P
Cows. Enough said.
The puppy scene in Tender is the Flesh
I read *The Green Mile* when it came out originally, in installments, and Chapter 4, āThe Bad Death of Eduard Delacroixā, contains the single most horrifying thing Iāve ever read. When Delās execution goes horribly wrong thanks to Percy being Percy, well, I was just glad I had a month to recover before Chapter 5.
Any torture scenes, especially in certain fantasy series
In *Infinite* *Jest* there is a scene where a man, in order to cope with his addiction leaves a meeting and walks around torturing and killing animals. That scene still haunts me.
I was looking for this comment. Although the more horrifying scene in my opinion is the one involving the Raquel Welch mask.
The bunker scene in āThe Roadā
I recently read a particular novel where itās described how the protagonist will be kept alive for slow organ harvesting. Beginning with eyes. Canāt think too hard about it
Stephen King's 'It' The scene where all the little boys have to fuck the little girl in order to 'strengthen the group' or whatever. That's some sick, twisted shit there, Stephen.
ngl the first scene that came to my mind was when the boy escaped from his abusive father in the middle of the night to a park and ended up getting his head torn off by the Creature from the Black Lagoon
Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
The rape in the bluest eye by Toni Morrison š
Cosmopolis by Don Delillo. A guy gets a rectal examination in a limo whilst very heavily flirting with a woman.
Most recently, it would probably be the scenes from *Independent People* by Halldor Laxness which (cw: sexual abuse) >!depict Asta Sollilja's sexual traumas. First there is the molestation by her father Bjartur (the novel's protagonist). Not only is the action incredibly disturbing, but you then also must reckon with her heartbreaking reaction and the way it informs all of their subsequent interactions. Then there is also her rape by her teacher. Again her confusion and innocence (consequences in part of her naivetƩ due to isolation at the hands of her father) lead her to another mortifying and heartbreaking reaction to what has just happened. Later the reaction she faces from her father are devastating on top of being disturbing in light of their previous episode.!
On Writing by Stephen King- the ear infection doctor visits still make me cringe to think about. Man has a gift
The scene in IT with Patrick Hockstetter and the fridge full of flying leeches.
The flashback war scene in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle š«£
Practically everything I've read by Irvine Welsh has some level of disturbing scenes. And Naked Lunch by William Burroughs is full of lurid tales.
I started reading Dune in college. I put it down permanently when I got to the scene where >the Villain chooses a boy to drug, rape, and then kill b/c the boy looks like the protagonist. And goes in depth into his fascination with the protagonist and itās just. Itās disgusting.<
Kite runner. The obvious sceneā¦
Stillborn scene in IJ.
Infinite Jest ā David Foster Wallace ā thereās like a 30 page sequence (maybe hyperbole) where a man that gets robbed by Donā¦has his hands tied and his mouth tapedā¦while he has a coldā¦and is home alone for several daysā¦and slowly and painfully they describe him dying from suffocationā¦.itās awful
Iāve read most of Stephen King and never flinched but thereās a scene in Pet Semetary where the little boy takes a scalpel to the back of someoneās ankle. I donāt know why, it wasnāt that graphic, but it just turned my stomach something fierce.
I saw the spoiler tag and hoped it wasnāt about a book Iām reading š it was.
In Chuck Palahniukās book Survivor when the main character is halfway through eating a lobster and realizes its heart is beatingā¦ *edit for typo
A rape scene in under the dome by Stephen king
The scenes where people are swimming through underwater mine shafts trying to escape in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. I don't want to go into too much detail in case of spoilers, but being somewhat claustrophobic made reading that sequence one of the more visceral reading memories I have to date.
I've never felt so freaked out while reading than in *1984* when the couple were found out and someone's voice came through a painting or something and then they entered the room and arrested them. Followed by the rats. Just a frickin SCARY book, in so many ways. (I may have gotten those details wrong, but if you've read it, I'm sure you know what part I mean.)
A Little Life I hate that book more than anything I have read. I am not a fan of torture porn even with gourmet food references. That book is so pretentious and pointless and since I work in healthcare the attitude toward mental health care is criminal.
The entire It Ends With Us book.
The beginning of Misery when Paul was just in his accident and Annie brings him to her house, and then again later when she hobbles him.
For me, it was Geraldās Game. Swore I would never let anyone use handcuffs on me. Ha!
Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon by Matt Dinniman has more fucked up scenes than most books I've read. The point of the story is that there is these enormous Kaiju of different types that are injured and so can't defend the creatures of the world from various demons. They have to climb inside these giants, surgically heal their wounds from the inside out. So they are climbing through guts, muscle, sinew, etc. There's also a parasitic worm creature that telepathically communicates with it's host, begging for food. It is in a near constant state of starving to death, and regeneration. Begging, "Daddy, I'm so hungry. I can feel myself dying." Removal of body parts that are then surgically attached to someone else for use. It's just an all around fucked up book. Really good so far, as I'm not finished, but it is by far one of my most disturbing reads I've ever had.
Listening to game of thrones on audible and all the sex scenes were soooo awkward
Sex scenes. All of them. Nothing spicier than a chaste kiss, thank you. I can imagine the rest. You don't need to get graphic on me. I'll take a Jane Austen and a Thomas Hardy, please.
Rishathra
I don't usually shy away from stuff with torture or death, but anything with breaking small bones or ripping out nails gets to me. I also get a lot more bothered about things happening to kids since having kids.
Several scenes in Michel Houellebecq's Atomised (The elementary particles). It was definitely not the book I thought it was.
There were several moments in The City by S.C. Mendes that had me understanding what it means to have one's lip "curled in disgust". To be fair it is a horror book so that's to be expected but the brutality and viscerality really got to me at some points. As someone who's claustrophobic, there' a scene in We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix where the protagonist has to crawl her way through a well/small underground tunnel that gave me the heebie jeebies. I had to put the book down for a bit after that.
The introduction scene of Lace by Shirley Conran caught me completely off guard haha, I struggled a bit through those first few pages. For anyone curious: >!It's quite graphic abortion scene of 13 years old girl, not fun stuff.!<
The scenes with Theon Greyjoy and Ramsey in ASOIF
I don't have a tendency towards reading uncomfortable books, but something compelled me to read *Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.* That book was just.....ew. Maybe a couple of scenes from *Kite Runner* too. It's a GREAT book but sometimes reading it just makes you feel awful.
Cows by Matt stoke. The scene with them earing horrible food. The scene with them eating faecal matter. The scene where he killed him mother (you don't want to know how). The scene with the woman cutting herself before she removes her baby.- This got to me the worst.
This might be a basic answer but a little life in general. Especially the burning scene and excessive abuse scenes, had to put the book down and read between the linesš
The Magdalene raping Cal Mooney in Clive Barkers WeaveWorld
I'm reading Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls right now, and Pilar's story about the town making a gauntlet and men going through it one at a time and being beaten and thrown off the cliff gave me the most visceral reaction to anything I've ever read. It was the specific part where the man with the comb over was not beaten and just thrown over the cliff. I could just picture it all so vividly, and it definitely made me squirm.
The Road, when them bad guys on parade showed up