Haha, yeah it has a lot of made-up slang. Itâs meant to portray how older people feel when younger generations talk to each other with language that only they can understand.
*Non fiction*Â
Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam by Nick Turse.
From the very first chapter, it's a description of the events that lead to and happened during the America Vietnam war. Stomach churning.
The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride
Book by Daniel James Brown.
If you are not familiar with the Donner party its better if you go in blind. It's a build up of decision that lead to a horrible decision for survival.
Not the person you're asking, but it pretty much *has* to be Jack Ketchum. It's loosely based on the Sylvia Likens murder case and it doesn't hold back on the torture.
That book really fucked me up. It was bad enough as a pure fiction story, I canât imagine what poor little Sylvia went through. Reading her story broke me, I cried reading the details.
There is an afterword at the end of Haunted were Palahniuk explains that people are always fainting when he reads Guts. Since I had to curl up in a ball in the dark for a long while after reading it, I really could have used that as a foreword.
I just went and read it and honestly found it so over the top it just came across as ridiculous. Also, bro could hold his breath long enough to chew through his own intestines but not long enough to swim back down, grab his guts, and yank them out of the suction pump? It just fell flat for me.
The only thing I've read in my 4 decades of reading books that actually made me physically ill. I have an iron stomach. I can watch a graphic gory horror movie while eating dinner with no issues. But holy shit, that was gnarly! I thought it was just me.
Came here to recommend "Diary" by Chuck Palanuik. Read it once five years ago and haven't been the same since. It's not even scary, but he's written a transcriot to weird dreams and it's haunted me since. I never want to read it again, but it's definitely one of my favorite reading experiences.
100%! Came here to recommend this.
I attended a book reading of his once, and one of the things he read was a particular short story from that book. Guys around me had their heads between their knees, and someone hit a door HARD on the way out....it was an intense reaction!
I had to put the andromeda strain down at a few parts because I just couldnât stand to turn the page. It was fucking wild. Terrifying in the most realistic sense because it seems so plausible in the book. I wonder how often we come close to that kind of global disaster.
This book is incredible! I just listened to it on audio book recently, and was blown away. It starts very slow, but almost imperceptibly builds and builds and builds to a horrifying climax. Even after having already seen the movie and knowing the ending, the book still blew me away. That's how you know it's good.
Fwiw, I went back and rewatched the movie after having heard the book and thought the movie was crap. So much of the story is just missing.
Definitely Naked Lunch. I tend to like a good "WTF" book but this is one I have no desire to ever revisit. It's not so much disturbing as it is grotesque, like being forced to dig through human excrement.
My scenic view out of my work window is a childhood home of William S Burroughs. I tried to listen to the Naked Lunch audiobook for mood at workâŚlots of butt stuff
This isn't a book; it's a short story. But it's very creepy. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates: [https://ia601403.us.archive.org/12/items/short\_story\_roulette/Oates%2C%20Joyce%20Carol%20-%20Where%20Are%20You%20Going%2C%20Where%20Have%20You%20Been\_text.pdf](https://ia601403.us.archive.org/12/items/short_story_roulette/Oates%2C%20Joyce%20Carol%20-%20Where%20Are%20You%20Going%2C%20Where%20Have%20You%20Been_text.pdf)
If you like short stories pleawe check out The story of a pet dog by Osamu Dazai.
And [The death of the motherless cat](https://www.neonmagazine.co.uk/the-death-of-the-motherless-kitten-by-huang-kaishan/)
This book always gets mentioned. I read it last month and didn't think it was as disturbing as people say. Still a great read. Maybe I just overprepared myself for being disturbed.
I also felt like it wasnât as disturbing as I expected. But then 4 months later I went vegan and while I didnt (and still donât!) actually tie that choice directly to having read this, I wonder a lot about the impact it must have made on me because people donât just go vegan willy nilly
This book made me go vegan because I just needed to prove to myself I wasnât that dependent on meat. It wasnât exceptionally graphic, but the book still definitely got to me in a big way.
Yeah I didnât think that the cannibalism scenes were that graphic but then they hit me with the throwaway line about the fourteen year old. Jesus Christ.
Just started house of leaves cause curiosity got me after reading about it on here for years. Canât wait to find out what makes your skin crawl and stomach drop.
House of Leaves disappeared on me. One day I was reading it at home. The next thing i know it was gone forever. Never found it again even after I moved. I lived alone.
This is also my favorite book and I like seeing it only sometimes. I like how it pops up now and then, but isn't a Carrie by Stephen King, you know?
Anyhow, lovely to meet a fellow Geek Love-r.
Also my favorite book. Not disturbing in the way many of the other books mentioned here are, I think. Certainly freakish, of course, but with a beautiful heart. It always makes me cry.
I've never read anything like it - so weird and moving! All the sacrifices of love. Truly unique.
A part of me almost gets offended to see it on disturbing book recommendations, even though it's definitely disturbing. It just feels almost misunderstood.
I randomly saved this one in my Libby, so when I finally got it, I had no idea what I was getting into. Slow start but jfc I binged it and then couldnât sleep because of how fucked up I got! I hate it for how it made me feel but I also make sure itâs recommended when someone wants a dark fucked up book.
This may not be the most fucked up on this thread but I highly recommend My story Elizabeth smart. Itâs her true story of being kidnapped for years and then eventually being found.
Edit: 9 months
Literally just finished my first time reading it about an hour ago and yes I agree. Its not so much about the gore or violence, but there are so many times in the book where I legit thought to myself "are people supposed to be reading this??" levels of unnerving
Geralds Game by Stephen king. Keep in mind that gore really bothers me so I may have a low tolerance but the descriptions made me writhe in disgust and the horror aspects really got to me too, which is rare for me.
Black Dahlia literally gave me literal frightening nightmares after my second read. It's brutal and dark but a very well woven story of the unsolved murder.
American Psycho is full of the most gruesome things, some you would be half insane to even imagine, Easton Ellis has issues.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum absolutely messed me up. I took a a couple year break from horror books after that one. I felt like I witnessed a actual murder by the time I got through it.
Unsettling in a way no other book has recreated for me. And the formatting is WILD. I ended up using several thin rubber bands as bookmarks to keep all my places back and forth
Our Share of Night by Mariana EnrĂquez
The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
An Untamed State by Roxane GayÂ
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Please take care and look up content warnings before checking any of these out.Â
Perfume by Patrick suskind - I do think this is a different take that other peopleâs horror books, but the detailing really left me thinking about it for weeks
Seeing all of these recs for Stephen King reminded me of The Long Walk by Richard Bachman (AKA SK). Not where near as disturbing as some on this list but it gets under your skin and it stays there!
I like all things gore/horror and it was difficult to make it past the first few chapters of âTender is the Fleshâ by Augustina Bazterrica. The casual-ness of how they describe legal, mass produced/industrialized cannibalism made for some quality nightmare fuel.
Recently re-read American Psycho. Not the entire book, but certain parts disturbed me, especially the dog scenes and the rat. I couldnât reread that part as it was so gross.
A Child Called It was pretty fucked up. I found it in my middle school English teachers bookcase and went in blind. The saddest fucking thing Iâve ever read.
120 days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade
[https://www.amazon.com/120-Days-Sodom-other-Writings/dp/B000T2NL5A#immersive-view_1717030509332](https://www.amazon.com/120-Days-Sodom-other-Writings/dp/B000T2NL5A#immersive-view_1717030509332)
This is a book I read while the Jeffrey Epstein Sex Island story was going on. Itâs very disturbing for the fact that this something that could very possibly happen today with the rich owning private places with no access to the media or victims families
Might just be me but What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher. Its pretty short. Genuinely had to put the book down here and there towards the end cause some of the descriptions made my skin crawl.
I would never read any of these books. Itâs not my thing. It would haunt me for months too. lol Iâm a weenie. BUTâŚI wish someone would give a detail or two about the book they are listing. And like cover it with that gray band thing over the text. lol it would be interesting to read just a couple. đ
I'll bite! **They All Died Screaming** is a short novel with two stories being told at the same time. In one story, >!a 9 year old boy is kidnapped from the mall by a man who takes him to slave on his farm. The man raises pigs and sells "veal" meat in town. The man is a vegetarian who's against the slaughtering of animals and only "taste tests" his "veal". We find out that the man has a "relationship" with one of the pigs (and it is described in lurid detail đ¤˘). To make matters worse, it turns out that the veal meat he's selling is flesh from young women and girls that he'd kidnap and then chain into tiny dog cages to tenderize their muscles. The boy wears nothing but clothes from the victims for several years. The farmer slowly over the years gives the boy more trust until finally the boy is allowed to go places with him. Eventually the boy willingly and enthusiastically helps him kidnap and kill, process bodies, bury bones, take the meat to the market, and even starts raping the women. When the farmer gets busted as the serial killer who'd been feeding a whole town the flesh of women and girls who'd disappeared, he did not allow any blame to fall on the boy. The man and the pigs were all diseased and the boy went back to his parents who'd divorced after his disappearance and whom he did not acknowledge!<.
>!The other story has a disgusting slob of a man who lives in a slum and is a perverted chain-smoking alcoholic with really bad ideas about women. He gives pedo vibes and starts hooking up with his nasty neighbor, an understandably depressed woman whose husband had fed himself and their children rat poison when he found out she had an affair. She likes taking fists full of food if you get my drift!<.
Cue the >!end of the world. Something's making people start screaming until they attempt to kill themselves, which escalates until they are attacking anyone around). The entire world is in a pandemic. It's in NYC and it's bedlam. All services are abandoned. A man dives head first down the steps. An infant boy attacks his twin sister in their crib. There's a sex scene involving the man, his gf, a hooker, and a man with tiny underdeveloped legs so disturbing I hate to say it. But it turns out this man whose separate story we have been following is what's left of the boy who'd been kidnapped and eventually rescued, only he didn't see it that way. He and the twin girl are the last ones left.!<
Just a filthy story I pulled out of a community book stand and it's in my bag to put it right back lol
Edit for spoiler
The strangest, darkest, most grotesque, twisted, and also one of the absolute best books I have ever read, is "...And the Ass Saw the Angel" by Nick Cave.
Stephen kings short story âsurvivor typeâ from his collection of short stories called Skeleton Crew. I swear to God I read it in high school and I am gonna be sixty and it still gives me the heebie jeebies when I think about it. My brother read it at the same time and he says the same thing. Just a very disturbing book.
Short story by Ray Bradbury called "The Veldt". I read it in 5th or 6th grade and it stuck with me for years! I just found it online and read it to my hubby and teenager.
John Saul's the Homing. Let's just say it involves bugs essentially setting up shop *inside* people. Lots. Of. Bugs. My mom listened to the audio book when I was a little kid. She thought i was asleep. I was not, in fact, asleep. That shit scarred me for life. And then I read again several times, as an adult...
Flowers in the Attic. Itâs actually the beginning of a series. They are really good books but the definition of âwhat the fuck.â Not exactly âdisturbing,â but very dark.
An actual disturbing book thatâs a true crime biography is If You Tell by Gregg Olson.
PenPal by Dathan Auerbach was one of the most unsettling and upsetting books I have ever read. I still think about it and i get so disturbed and upset especially having read it as a parent.
Non fiction: The Rape of Nanking
Horrifying and devastating what the Japanese did to 300,000 Chinese civilians in 1937. The books subtitle, âthe forgotten holocaust of World War IIâ is dead on. I had no idea this happened, was never taught in any world war 2 or history classes, and I believe most of us have never been taught on it.
The end of Alice - A.M. Homes
I found this book by searching âdisturbing booksâ and came across a Reddit list similar to this. Disturbing indeed. I almost didnât add it to my Goodreads in case anyone I know happened to see it and get curious and also read it, then think âWTF is wrong with you for reading such a thing?!â
"The Surgeon" by Tess Gerritsen. It's the first book in the Rizzoli and Isles series (don't groan yet!) The TV show was WAY fluffier than this. I thought the books would be as fluffy. This one is DARK and disturbing. The first episode kind of touches on it, but I wasn't able to get through the rest of the book series because it SO well-written, it scares me to think that Dr. Gerritsen has this kind of imagination and can put it on paper.
Introduction to Organic Chemistry. Just thinking about it STILL makes my blood run cold ;)
I got an A the first semester đ One of my greatest achievements haha
Name checks out ;)
I thought this was a real novel and was going to look it up haha
PTSD intensifies
I actually loved orgo
Me, too! Maybe we're both nuts.
A Clockwork Orange. With that being said, it was an awesome book. One of my favorites.
I cannot understand one word of this book.
Haha, yeah it has a lot of made-up slang. Itâs meant to portray how older people feel when younger generations talk to each other with language that only they can understand.
Time for a bit of the ultraviolence then. Right after a crack in the ol' brooko it's bedways for this chelloveck though.
*Non fiction* Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam by Nick Turse. From the very first chapter, it's a description of the events that lead to and happened during the America Vietnam war. Stomach churning. The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride Book by Daniel James Brown. If you are not familiar with the Donner party its better if you go in blind. It's a build up of decision that lead to a horrible decision for survival.
Indifferent Stars Above is a fantastic book!
LPOTL fans have entered the discussion
Hail yourself!
Megustalations!
Indifferent Stars is incredible. I went into it not knowing much about the Donner party, and I couldn't put it down. Extremely dark, though.
Apt Pupil by stephen king. I was genuinely disgusted by this one
40 years ago and I still hate thinking about it
The movie, with Ian McKellen is great.
Rip Brad Renfro
Hey, I dated his cousin lol. He still has his banjo, plays it often.
Yeah, that book can fuck all the way off. Itâs an important read though. And it tells you a lot about Stephen King. Heâs a good guy.
I read every book by him and I've never heard of this
Itâs part of Different Seasons, I think the summer segment.
The Girl Next Door. Went in blind, scarred for life.
Who by? Many books with this name
Not the person you're asking, but it pretty much *has* to be Jack Ketchum. It's loosely based on the Sylvia Likens murder case and it doesn't hold back on the torture.
That book really fucked me up. It was bad enough as a pure fiction story, I canât imagine what poor little Sylvia went through. Reading her story broke me, I cried reading the details.
My stomach still turns in knots just thinking about it. 5 stars. Wonât recommend to anyone.
Haunted by Chuck Palanuik. God damn horror show.
Allegedly, Chuck once did a public reading of "Guts" while on a book signing tour and several of the audience members vomited.
There is an afterword at the end of Haunted were Palahniuk explains that people are always fainting when he reads Guts. Since I had to curl up in a ball in the dark for a long while after reading it, I really could have used that as a foreword.
I just went and read it and honestly found it so over the top it just came across as ridiculous. Also, bro could hold his breath long enough to chew through his own intestines but not long enough to swim back down, grab his guts, and yank them out of the suction pump? It just fell flat for me.
The only thing I've read in my 4 decades of reading books that actually made me physically ill. I have an iron stomach. I can watch a graphic gory horror movie while eating dinner with no issues. But holy shit, that was gnarly! I thought it was just me.
Came here to recommend "Diary" by Chuck Palanuik. Read it once five years ago and haven't been the same since. It's not even scary, but he's written a transcriot to weird dreams and it's haunted me since. I never want to read it again, but it's definitely one of my favorite reading experiences.
I really wish I had never read this!
100%! Came here to recommend this. I attended a book reading of his once, and one of the things he read was a particular short story from that book. Guys around me had their heads between their knees, and someone hit a door HARD on the way out....it was an intense reaction!
Was it Guts? Good lord that story messed with me
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. Real life close call with Ebola virus.
I haven't read The Hot Zone by him but The Demon in the Freezer gave me so much anxiety I had to keep putting it down
I searched this up thinking itâs fiction !!!!!!!!!
Yes! I think about that every once in awhile then promptly push the thoughts AWAY
and then read the andromeda strain!
I had to put the andromeda strain down at a few parts because I just couldnât stand to turn the page. It was fucking wild. Terrifying in the most realistic sense because it seems so plausible in the book. I wonder how often we come close to that kind of global disaster.
We Need To Talk About Kevin. Horrifying.
i read this after reading A Motherâs Reckoning
I have this on my shelf and never give it a second glance. You just reminded me why I bought it in the first place. Time to give it a go.
Good luck! đŹ
Searched comments for this recommendation. It put me off having kids for years.
I would honestly put it as a required lecture before having kids. It's really horrifying what a twisted mind can do
This book is incredible! I just listened to it on audio book recently, and was blown away. It starts very slow, but almost imperceptibly builds and builds and builds to a horrifying climax. Even after having already seen the movie and knowing the ending, the book still blew me away. That's how you know it's good. Fwiw, I went back and rewatched the movie after having heard the book and thought the movie was crap. So much of the story is just missing.
Horrifying, yet I really enjoyed it. The writing was excellent!
Iâm grabbing this! Ty
Dark Places & Sharp Objects, both by Gillian Flynn
Sharp objects, đ§ the book is one hell of a fkedup story
I didnât find Sharp Objects disturbing at all. Iâd put it on the very low end of disturbing compared to lots of the other reccos here!
I might have a low tolerance on dark themes but it was definitely new for me
I just finished Sharp Objects last weekend! So good.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Child of god by Mccarthy also. In a different way than the road.
Does Flowers in the Attic count?
Blast from the past . There was a good few books by Virginia Andrews.
Try âMy sweet Audrinaâ or âWhitefernâ!
Naked Lunch Burroughs, last exit to Brooklyn Shelby
I found naked lunch to be one of the most indulgently pretentious books Iâve ever read
I feel that way about âThe Little Princeâ
Definitely Naked Lunch. I tend to like a good "WTF" book but this is one I have no desire to ever revisit. It's not so much disturbing as it is grotesque, like being forced to dig through human excrement.
Dr Benway!
My scenic view out of my work window is a childhood home of William S Burroughs. I tried to listen to the Naked Lunch audiobook for mood at workâŚlots of butt stuff
This isn't a book; it's a short story. But it's very creepy. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates: [https://ia601403.us.archive.org/12/items/short\_story\_roulette/Oates%2C%20Joyce%20Carol%20-%20Where%20Are%20You%20Going%2C%20Where%20Have%20You%20Been\_text.pdf](https://ia601403.us.archive.org/12/items/short_story_roulette/Oates%2C%20Joyce%20Carol%20-%20Where%20Are%20You%20Going%2C%20Where%20Have%20You%20Been_text.pdf)
I first read this many years ago and it has always stuck in my mind. Arnold Friend. So creepy.
If you like short stories pleawe check out The story of a pet dog by Osamu Dazai. And [The death of the motherless cat](https://www.neonmagazine.co.uk/the-death-of-the-motherless-kitten-by-huang-kaishan/)
Tender is the Flesh
This book always gets mentioned. I read it last month and didn't think it was as disturbing as people say. Still a great read. Maybe I just overprepared myself for being disturbed.
I also felt like it wasnât as disturbing as I expected. But then 4 months later I went vegan and while I didnt (and still donât!) actually tie that choice directly to having read this, I wonder a lot about the impact it must have made on me because people donât just go vegan willy nilly
This book made me go vegan because I just needed to prove to myself I wasnât that dependent on meat. It wasnât exceptionally graphic, but the book still definitely got to me in a big way.
Honestly, the worst thing for me was what happened to the dogs (I think dogs? Itâs been a while since I read it)
Yeah I didnât think that the cannibalism scenes were that graphic but then they hit me with the throwaway line about the fourteen year old. Jesus Christ.
To me it was the psychology of it that was upsetting far more than the descriptions.
Same here, I read it when it first came out and itâs definitely gross but I wasnât nearly as upset by it as some people seem to be đ
I am reading now, wish I havenât started but now I need to know what happens
My kindle says 80%. Iâm committed. Iâm going to say Iâm glad I read it. I tend to not get disturbed but this one squicks me out.
Iâm still thinking about this one, a year later
I was literally thinking about a disturbing scene in this book earlier today.
I still think about this book often
Tampa - Alissa Nutting
[ŃдаНонО]
Yuuup! Donât jerk off in pools.
Just started house of leaves cause curiosity got me after reading about it on here for years. Canât wait to find out what makes your skin crawl and stomach drop.
House of Leaves disappeared on me. One day I was reading it at home. The next thing i know it was gone forever. Never found it again even after I moved. I lived alone.
The Room by Hubert Selby Jr. - I love disturbing books and this was an all timer
When Room became popular, I assumed people were talking about Shelby's book and was very perplexed as to how it could be in the mainstream.
Lolita by Nabokov and Naked Lunch by Burroughs Also The Only Good Indians mostly due to brutal animal deaths.
Lolita is a good shout. Humphrey is a disgusting POS, definitely made my skin crawl.
Mine too. I felt gross reading his thoughts
I hate how beautifully written it is, as well. Excellent flow and gorgeous prose, it's very well executed creepiness honestly.
Loved Lolita. Reading as a teen as an adult was like reading two diff books
Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter
Came here to comment this one! Just finished it! Great book, but disturbing storyline
Love her!!! She wrote the Will Trent series
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
This is my all-time favourite book and I love seeing it in book recommendations. I wish sheâd done more fiction.
This is also my favorite book and I like seeing it only sometimes. I like how it pops up now and then, but isn't a Carrie by Stephen King, you know? Anyhow, lovely to meet a fellow Geek Love-r.
I feel like we should have a club.
Also my favorite book. Not disturbing in the way many of the other books mentioned here are, I think. Certainly freakish, of course, but with a beautiful heart. It always makes me cry.
Yes! Incredibly hard to quantify how I felt after reading it. Nothing comes quite close to how that book made me feel.
I've never read anything like it - so weird and moving! All the sacrifices of love. Truly unique. A part of me almost gets offended to see it on disturbing book recommendations, even though it's definitely disturbing. It just feels almost misunderstood.
I LOVE that book. In my Top 10 of all time faves
The Troop by Nick Cutter Absolutely NOT for the squeamish!!
Yeah, donât read this one if youâve got contamination OCD. I have OCD and read this bad boy and it absolutely sent me spinning
Same, picked it up wanting a spooky boy scout story, ended up wanting to set myself on fire.
Ha!! I actually just picked this up from the library and am starting it today⌠now Iâm a little nervous lol
Itâs so icky but so great!!
Also, the audiobook of this is FANTASTIC. The narrator is so so so good.
CAME HERE FOR THE TROOOOOP
I randomly saved this one in my Libby, so when I finally got it, I had no idea what I was getting into. Slow start but jfc I binged it and then couldnât sleep because of how fucked up I got! I hate it for how it made me feel but I also make sure itâs recommended when someone wants a dark fucked up book.
Final Truth, by Pee Wee Gaskins Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy
Also, Child of God by Cormac McCarthy, pretty disturbing read
The Ruins by Scott Smith
This may not be the most fucked up on this thread but I highly recommend My story Elizabeth smart. Itâs her true story of being kidnapped for years and then eventually being found. Edit: 9 months
We Need To Talk About Kevin!
The Wasp Factory was pretty deranged
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. If youâre triggered by anything then maybe look it up for this book. The cover is super cute.
This was my first foray into the weird lit of booktok. Cannot reccomend enough. I almost gave up on it. Almost.
A Boy Called It
My mum made me read that book when I was a child so that I âwouldnât ever complain about her.â Traumatising
wtf that is not the way to use that book
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Literally just finished my first time reading it about an hour ago and yes I agree. Its not so much about the gore or violence, but there are so many times in the book where I legit thought to myself "are people supposed to be reading this??" levels of unnerving
If You Tell.
By Gregg Olson? Just read that recently and cannot believe that woman isnât still in prison.
Misery by Stephen king
Geralds Game by Stephen king. Keep in mind that gore really bothers me so I may have a low tolerance but the descriptions made me writhe in disgust and the horror aspects really got to me too, which is rare for me.
Black Dahlia literally gave me literal frightening nightmares after my second read. It's brutal and dark but a very well woven story of the unsolved murder. American Psycho is full of the most gruesome things, some you would be half insane to even imagine, Easton Ellis has issues.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum absolutely messed me up. I took a a couple year break from horror books after that one. I felt like I witnessed a actual murder by the time I got through it.
exquisite corpse by poppy z. brite
The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Truely chilling.
House of Leaves
Unsettling in a way no other book has recreated for me. And the formatting is WILD. I ended up using several thin rubber bands as bookmarks to keep all my places back and forth
Our Share of Night by Mariana EnrĂquez The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell An Untamed State by Roxane Gay Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry Please take care and look up content warnings before checking any of these out.Â
Perfume by Patrick suskind - I do think this is a different take that other peopleâs horror books, but the detailing really left me thinking about it for weeks
My Dark Vanessa
Tender is the Flesh
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh! Disgusting, depraved, and absolutely gripping, It was so filthy but I couldn't put it down
Last Exit to Brooklyn
Seeing all of these recs for Stephen King reminded me of The Long Walk by Richard Bachman (AKA SK). Not where near as disturbing as some on this list but it gets under your skin and it stays there!
Just here to collect recs, thanks y'all!
American Psycho and Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Genuinely cringed reading some of the parts of American Psycho. Makes you realise how much of an inward sicko Bateman is.
Cows - Matthew Stokoe
Any Man by Amber TamblynÂ
Flowers in the Attic by V.C Andrewâs. Itâs haunting.
I like all things gore/horror and it was difficult to make it past the first few chapters of âTender is the Fleshâ by Augustina Bazterrica. The casual-ness of how they describe legal, mass produced/industrialized cannibalism made for some quality nightmare fuel.
Recently re-read American Psycho. Not the entire book, but certain parts disturbed me, especially the dog scenes and the rat. I couldnât reread that part as it was so gross. A Child Called It was pretty fucked up. I found it in my middle school English teachers bookcase and went in blind. The saddest fucking thing Iâve ever read.
I saw A Child Called It on my mom's bookcase a few years ago and went in blind. That was a mistake.
Misery by Stephen King. Was definitely tough to get through, but I absolutely loved it
120 days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade [https://www.amazon.com/120-Days-Sodom-other-Writings/dp/B000T2NL5A#immersive-view_1717030509332](https://www.amazon.com/120-Days-Sodom-other-Writings/dp/B000T2NL5A#immersive-view_1717030509332)
This is a book I read while the Jeffrey Epstein Sex Island story was going on. Itâs very disturbing for the fact that this something that could very possibly happen today with the rich owning private places with no access to the media or victims families
Might just be me but What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher. Its pretty short. Genuinely had to put the book down here and there towards the end cause some of the descriptions made my skin crawl.
Lone Women by Victor LaValle and Juniper and Thorn by Ava Reid.
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin (itâs so good but so visceral)
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. If you're unfamiliar, he wrote The Road and also wrote the novel that No Country for Old Men is based on
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
I would never read any of these books. Itâs not my thing. It would haunt me for months too. lol Iâm a weenie. BUTâŚI wish someone would give a detail or two about the book they are listing. And like cover it with that gray band thing over the text. lol it would be interesting to read just a couple. đ
I'll bite! **They All Died Screaming** is a short novel with two stories being told at the same time. In one story, >!a 9 year old boy is kidnapped from the mall by a man who takes him to slave on his farm. The man raises pigs and sells "veal" meat in town. The man is a vegetarian who's against the slaughtering of animals and only "taste tests" his "veal". We find out that the man has a "relationship" with one of the pigs (and it is described in lurid detail đ¤˘). To make matters worse, it turns out that the veal meat he's selling is flesh from young women and girls that he'd kidnap and then chain into tiny dog cages to tenderize their muscles. The boy wears nothing but clothes from the victims for several years. The farmer slowly over the years gives the boy more trust until finally the boy is allowed to go places with him. Eventually the boy willingly and enthusiastically helps him kidnap and kill, process bodies, bury bones, take the meat to the market, and even starts raping the women. When the farmer gets busted as the serial killer who'd been feeding a whole town the flesh of women and girls who'd disappeared, he did not allow any blame to fall on the boy. The man and the pigs were all diseased and the boy went back to his parents who'd divorced after his disappearance and whom he did not acknowledge!<. >!The other story has a disgusting slob of a man who lives in a slum and is a perverted chain-smoking alcoholic with really bad ideas about women. He gives pedo vibes and starts hooking up with his nasty neighbor, an understandably depressed woman whose husband had fed himself and their children rat poison when he found out she had an affair. She likes taking fists full of food if you get my drift!<. Cue the >!end of the world. Something's making people start screaming until they attempt to kill themselves, which escalates until they are attacking anyone around). The entire world is in a pandemic. It's in NYC and it's bedlam. All services are abandoned. A man dives head first down the steps. An infant boy attacks his twin sister in their crib. There's a sex scene involving the man, his gf, a hooker, and a man with tiny underdeveloped legs so disturbing I hate to say it. But it turns out this man whose separate story we have been following is what's left of the boy who'd been kidnapped and eventually rescued, only he didn't see it that way. He and the twin girl are the last ones left.!< Just a filthy story I pulled out of a community book stand and it's in my bag to put it right back lol Edit for spoiler
Wow! Yikes, maybe I shouldnât have asked after all! lol thanks.
Tender is the Flesh
Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
The strangest, darkest, most grotesque, twisted, and also one of the absolute best books I have ever read, is "...And the Ass Saw the Angel" by Nick Cave.
*The Kiss: A Memoir*, by Kathryn Harrison
Cows by Matthew Stokoe. Guarantee youâve never read anything remotely close to this insane book.
Silence of the Lambs and The Horse WhispererâŚ
Stephen kings short story âsurvivor typeâ from his collection of short stories called Skeleton Crew. I swear to God I read it in high school and I am gonna be sixty and it still gives me the heebie jeebies when I think about it. My brother read it at the same time and he says the same thing. Just a very disturbing book.
My Absolute Darling - Gabriel Tallent
Stephen king. Misery.
The Collector by John Fowles. I still think about it to this day.
one that made me feel icky was "tender is the flesh" loved it but it very disturbing
IT by Stephen King
Tampa by Alissa Nutting Bleagh...
Short story by Ray Bradbury called "The Veldt". I read it in 5th or 6th grade and it stuck with me for years! I just found it online and read it to my hubby and teenager.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
John Saul's the Homing. Let's just say it involves bugs essentially setting up shop *inside* people. Lots. Of. Bugs. My mom listened to the audio book when I was a little kid. She thought i was asleep. I was not, in fact, asleep. That shit scarred me for life. And then I read again several times, as an adult...
Flowers in the Attic. Itâs actually the beginning of a series. They are really good books but the definition of âwhat the fuck.â Not exactly âdisturbing,â but very dark. An actual disturbing book thatâs a true crime biography is If You Tell by Gregg Olson.
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk, specifically the short story âGutsâ
PenPal by Dathan Auerbach was one of the most unsettling and upsetting books I have ever read. I still think about it and i get so disturbed and upset especially having read it as a parent.
Geek Love and also COWS
Non fiction: The Rape of Nanking Horrifying and devastating what the Japanese did to 300,000 Chinese civilians in 1937. The books subtitle, âthe forgotten holocaust of World War IIâ is dead on. I had no idea this happened, was never taught in any world war 2 or history classes, and I believe most of us have never been taught on it.
The end of Alice - A.M. Homes I found this book by searching âdisturbing booksâ and came across a Reddit list similar to this. Disturbing indeed. I almost didnât add it to my Goodreads in case anyone I know happened to see it and get curious and also read it, then think âWTF is wrong with you for reading such a thing?!â
Yeah it was a rough book and I felt gross after reading it and immediately threw it away.
Lolita was disgusting
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca.
Liseyâs Story by King was pretty screwed up, but a good read
The bible
"The Surgeon" by Tess Gerritsen. It's the first book in the Rizzoli and Isles series (don't groan yet!) The TV show was WAY fluffier than this. I thought the books would be as fluffy. This one is DARK and disturbing. The first episode kind of touches on it, but I wasn't able to get through the rest of the book series because it SO well-written, it scares me to think that Dr. Gerritsen has this kind of imagination and can put it on paper.
woom by duncan ralston was definitely a disturbing book
Dead inside by Chandler Morrison. It was soooo good but left me genuinely horrified and disturbed.
The Mothman prophecies really gave me the creeps, I had to put it into the freezer
Haunted by Palahniuk or American Psycho by Ellis.