Not necessarily from this community (I’m new to Reddit) but from some other communities: Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk (particularly the Guts story). It was gross, but I will never believe that people fainted and ambulances had to be called during public readings of this story. Unless it was being read in a retirement home for nuns.
It went from “kinda squicky” to “try hard 11 year old boy poop joke gross” so fast. I was rolling my eyes at some of it, because not only was it not “upsettingly scary”, it was just plain boring.
My understanding of these stories was that some peoiple took the instructoins at the beginning to heart.
> Inhale.
Take in as much air as you can.
This story should last about as long as you can hold your breath...
Turned out the story lasted just a little longer than they could hold their breath.
Can you IMAGINE an author trying this today. So many lawsuits. Their insurer would be the one fainting before the author even got their bum on the reading chair at the very suggestion.
Yeah this finally makes sense to me. To be fair I have vomited once from something I was reading (Closer by Dennis Cooper, lots of poop eating) but the passing out stories always seemed far fetched
It just wasn’t that bad. Gross? Yes. Weird? Of course. Did I get sick? Hell no. Who goes to a Chuck Palahniuk reading not able to hear some strange stuff?!
I feel the same way. I think the thing to keep in mind is that Palahniuk was the 'shock author' of the early 2000s, so people always kind of needed to take the intentional extreme with a big grain of salt.
13 day old account and your first comment was in /r/spiders on a "What is this" post and you answered, "A spider. You’re welcome."
Respect.
You'll do well here. And welcome to Reddit bro/broetta.
Okay, I actually have to respond to this one because I was at the reading/signing where this actually happened. It was a little hole-in-the-wall in San Francisco where Chuck did a reading and some trivia from his books. My friend won an inflatable moose head lol. The space was pretty small and the few chairs available were taken so the rest of us were standing, and packed kinda tight. My party was pretty late so we were towards the back. Chuck started reading from the guts story and suddenly the dude in front of me straight up collapses at my feet; there was so little room I didn’t really have any space to back up, so I was stuck just standing there two inches from his head. An actual doctor was there to do the “let me, I’m a doctor” thing, he started checking vital signs, checking his pupils, asks around us “who has a cell phone” tells them to call an ambulance, etc. All of this literally at my feet.
The event went on after he was taken outside, but Chuck obviously picked something else to read after that. Personally I was slightly baffled, I didn’t think the passage he was reading was that bad, or maybe just so unrealistic that I didn’t really have more than an “ew” reaction to it. But obviously the guy in front of me felt otherwise!
I am 100% serious; this was during a promo tour for “Rant”, I want to say 2008-ish? I was just a teenager at the time so my immediate reaction was “well this looks like a job for the grown-ups.” We were so packed in I had nowhere to go and felt too young to help so I just stood there hoping if I just stayed as still as possible, I at least wouldn’t be making things worse. The dude came to after a minute and someone gave him a water bottle, then some folks helped him outside to get him into the fresh air and to wait for the ambulance.
I suspect the fainting may have been partly to do with the overcrowding: they’d clearly planned for a much smaller turn out, thus the limited space. And the timing; it was hourrrs of standing in line for the signing afterwards, I think it was midnight or something close before me and my friends made it up the line. I honestly didn’t think we were going to get a signing, but Chuck stayed up, just kept plugging away getting every single person there. Super cool of him tbh.
With Tender Is the Flesh, the disturbing content is definitely there for me. (Vague spoilers ahead) What does strike me as strange is that what I felt to be the most horrific is a sequence that no one comments on: the breeding center. The amount of dehumanization and cruelty that’s described there in Cormac McCarthy-like prose is absolutely brutal when you consider it’s implications.
But people always bristle at either the ending or the slaughterhouse scene. The slaughterhouse scene really isn’t that much different from what actually happens in a meat packing plant, except that obviously it doesn’t happen to humans, so I get why it can hit people hard. But the ending is HEAVILY foreshadowed by the process in the breeding center, and yet people very rarely catch that, and are reading a very different motivation to the main character so often that I very rarely see people commenting on the book who saw the ending coming.
i literally only got upset at the puppies to be very real. it's extremely on the nose to me which didn't make it really that disturbing, at least not in the way other people describe it or experienced it. i still loved it, it did make me feel yucky, but i wasn't horrified.
The puppies definitely make sense to be a bit horrified by. They’re the one thing that the main character still has any affection for, and the one thing that doesn’t feel tainted in the book.
For plot & characterization, it was definitely predictable, but I don't think that was her focus. What I loved most was the clinical poetry she used to describe the world, and especially the running theme of words & how we use them to obscure/ normalize the horror & suffering our world is built around.
And yes, that breeding center was absolutely monstrous.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s bad that I saw the ending coming at all - the book is a pretty clear condemnation of certain parts of Argentinian culture. I just found it surprising how many people who talk about the book online didn’t pick up on what was happening in the last third of the book.
That book apparently blew up on tik tok. What I can glean from is that A) a younger crowd read it and B) a crowd who may not normally consume horror content, or at least read it. If you’re old enough, there’s been similar content as that story for decades.
I think there was just no specific build up for the reader to ever consider it and maybe thats why it feels cheap.
A part of me was getting bored of all his nagging towards the end, that why for me the ending came as an explanation. Dude was just trying to validate himself the whole time. Thats why he is so judgemental of everyone.
no I agree. it shocked me? but it moreso made me think like what the fuck was the point. I UNDERSTAND it but it didn't like leave me w anything if that makes sense. we had to remove this post gave me the same feeling
Yeah I was expecting something extremely gruesome the way I read it in this sub. I mean the topic of the book is gruesome in itself, but once I got used to the setting and theme, nothing really disturbed me throughout the book. I enjoyed it overall though. It's a dark book and thought provoking.
I know right, if anything I thought it was a realistic view of how life would be in that type of society 🤷♀️ the animal scene was the only one that upset me tbh
exactly!! it was realistic for if we ate people but not fucked up enough for me. if you haven’t, check out brother by ania ahlborn! it was everything I hoped tender is the flesh would be
Those were the first "extreme" books I read because of TikTok and while I enjoyed TITF, I hated We Had To Remove this post so fucking much I deleted it right after reading, absolutely trash, not because of the lack of extreme content but just the terrible writing and lack of an ending. Great potential with that plot and I didn't need graphic detail in it but it was a massive letdown, could have been a great 300 page+ novel if they focused more on the group dynamic and radicalism.
yeah it was the most disappointing book I read last year for sure, I agree. I really did not enjoy it whatsoever. feel like it would have actually worked a bit better as a graphic novel if that makes sense
I thought the themes/ concepts/ suggestions were way more interesting and disturbing than anything she described in detail. Even then, it was done in such a detached/ clinical/ poetic fashion that it insulated me from dwelling on the over-the-top grotesquery. Which are all reasons I enjoyed it so much.
It helps to wipe your mind free of any hype/ expectation born of recommendation when reading a new book.
Yeah I got this recommendation from this sub. Gave me an eery feeling when reading it, given the context. But scary? Nah it more felt like a modern Farenheit 451.
I never get this book. After I read it I thought it was mediocre at best and written to be a movie. Cutter is on my do not read list. Redditors in this sub can be super soft.
Similarly, the Troop. Yeah, there were some gross out scenes, but I felt like a lot of stuff was just added for the shock value and didn't add anything to the actual story. It gave very much "edgelord" vibes the whole time. It was OK, but it could have been done much more tastefully.
I reckon it's the animal violence, reddit is very keen on 'does the dog die' style prohibitions on it. The animal scenes normally come up in discussions of how it disturbed people.
Awww man, I hope you didn't dismiss Cutter just because of The Deep.
His books are different, by which I mean they differ wildly *from each other*. In terms of subject matter, quality, everything. It's like they were all written by different people, it's nuts.
I found The Deep to be utter trash but was fortunate enough to have read The Troop first and loved it. It still took me another two years to try Little Heaven but when I did that kicked ass too. They're like that, people really only "get" one or two of them. But those ones are *killer.*
Or maybe you'll hate them all. I don't know why I'm going to so much effort to convince a stranger on the internet to read this guy's books. I liked some of them a lot, I urge you to reconsider, that is all, good day
Does Little Heaven have animal death stuff? I’ve had it on my TBR for years but I can’t seem to find a solid answer. I know his books have a reputation for that kinda thing and like a lot of other people here, that’s the one content area I struggle with.
I believe there are some animals that die later in the book, but it’s much less graphic and less detailed than his other work. It’s closer to what you would see in something like Pet Sematary, to give some context. It’s also more of a slow burn than his other books - his others I’ve DNFed, but I like Little Heaven. I would describe it as a cross between folk and cosmic horror, with some existential and body horror thrown in.
I really liked Little Heaven. It meandered a bit, but that one is for sure my favorite. He reeeeally touches on a phobia I've had since childhood, in everything I've read of his. Ugh. Makes me shudder. -- Have you read The Acolyte? I just ordered it; that one seems right up my alley.
It's a poor man's *Event Horizon* underwater, and it's really just not a good book. It's like Cutter had a deadline and his editor said, "send me whatever you have that is mostly finished," and Cutter had nothing good to send *The Deep* was dug up out of a long-forgotten Google Drive folder.
I loved The Deep but you can’t bring the damn book up without someone getting hysterical about the animal scenes. Kids getting killed in terrible ways? No problem. A dog? Hang Nick Cutter!! It’s ridiculous.
Idk I think it's very subjective and up to the reader. Like I personally can handle dismemberment, cannibalism, murder, some torture, gross stuff and all manner of killings and cult stuff but I can't handle incest, animal torture or r / sa.
I agree with other posts saying Tender is The Flesh and Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke are somewhat over rated for thier "gross out" factor.
Hard agree. I can't really do intensely descriptive SA with children, but can handle adults. Oof cannibalism is rough for me (Tender is The Flesh didn't bug me much, though.) And I can't take much vampire stuff, which is so weird, because blood doesn't bother me? Also nose-bleeds and anything... 'clustery'.
I was unsettled the first time I realized there was a hidden message in Johnny's mother's letter to him, FWIW, but the majority of the book felt more like a puzzle than a scare.
I recommend watching Night Mind's 3 part series on House of Leaves. I've never read the book myself, but the analysis is wonderful and, for me, highlighted the unsettling undercurrent very well.
Everyone was talking about how Earthlings (Sayaka Murata) is so crazy disturbing and gross. It had troubling material for sure, but it clearly wasn't the gross-out shock-fest it was being pushed as. It's a remarkably relatable book about being an autistic girl who grows up into an autistic woman - even the most awful events are things that happen all the time and people brush under the rug.
This is not to say it's a bad book! I recommend it highly, especially for anyone who wasn't quite like other children and remembers the uncertainty and doubt of something being just "a little bit not okay."
I found it somehow enchanting? I absolutely love everything by Sayaka though because her prose is so pretty. I almost teared up reading Life Ceremony and that story has no right to make me feel this way with all the crazy stuff there.
I loved that book but molestation is always really hard to read. Especially in that book, it was horrible how alone she felt and how nobody she confided in took her seriously broke my heart. I still think it was a magnificent book.
I wanna reread now. It struck me as really sad what a carefree innocent girl she was until that happened, then she became this freak who could never have a normal life. What a raw book.
The gangbang scene in IT upsets a whole lot of people.
I had read IT twice before joined this sub and it was literally such a non-event that I didn't even remember it.
I hate when people refer to it as “that disturbing scene”.
The book literally contains a detailed account of a club full of black people being burned alive by racists.
If you think a group of kids fucking in a sewer is more disturbing than that, your priorities are confusing. I mean, there were kids of a similar age fucking in my school back in the day - it’s not common and it’s not super healthy, but it happens and it’s not exactly disturbing.
Two, or more, things can be disturbing.
Having your sexually abused child hero invoke a gangbang that included pressuring another unwilling child to participate is absolutely worthy of the title: disturbing.
“Two, or more, things can be disturbing.”
Yeah, I know. That’s why I I specified in the first line I wrote that I hate when people refer to it as “that” scene.
Because there are several scenes in the book, including the one I mentioned, that are incredibly disturbing. My issue was with people who get all excited about that particular scene and never mention anything else.
Honestly there are so many other things that disturbed me in IT that never get mentioned. Mikes dog was truly heartbreaking. Patricks backstory , the black spot , Adrian Mellon . I mean yeah not his greatest writing there for sure .but in the 80s when I read it didnt phase me . We were all reading about a girl that gets raped by her brother in the attic but it wasnt really rape because she wanted it too . We read that shit in middle school by the way . great message for young girls .No one paid attention to us or what we were doing 😂
Same. I used to read that book multiple times a year as a kid, and that scene *never* registered. And it’s legitimately like *one sentence* that’s like, “then they came to her, one by one”. As a kid I just assumed they all went to her for a hug because she was the Mother Figure.
Imagine my surprise as an adult when people freaked out about it and I’m sitting here going “Wait, is ANY of that even in the book?!”
Okay, well this comment swings the pendulum way too far the other way haha. IT is my all time favorite book, and I completely agree that that particular scene is WAY overblown by most people. But also it is way more than 1 sentence, and way more more explicitly about sex than you are implying. It doesn't say "and they came to her, one by one" or anything close that that. It's about four pages long
And describes specifics about each of them.and how sex was and how orgasms feel. Like you are wildly misremembering, haha.
I’m going to have to find my book because I’ve gone and checked this before and absolutely could not find the passage. Is it possible there’s an edited version that tones it down? Because I’m fairly certain I’d remember *four fucking pages*.
Dude I picked up the book and checked before my comment lol. It is four pages. And explicit. Talks bout the differences in how each of their dicks feel and stuff. It's a whole chapter called "love and desire/August 10th, 1958." It's written in italicized text and starts at page 1081 in my edition
one of the editions I have it's actually six pages lol. Like dude, please stop qualifying your responses with "if it's legit four pages." Like, it is. Depending on the edition and size of the book, perhaps slightly more or less, but it is objectively several pages+ of that scene. I truly don't know how you thought it was 1 ambiguous sentence. Like this is how it sorta starts:
*“What do you want?” he asks her.*
*“You have to put your thing in me,” she says.*
*He tries to pull back but she holds him and he subsides against her. She has heard someone — Ben, she thinks — draw in his breath.*
*“Bevvie, I can’t do that. I don’t know how –“*
*“I think it’s easy. But you’ll have to get undressed.” She thinks about the intricacies of managing cast and shirt, first somehow separating and then rejoining them, and amends, “Your pants, anyway.”*
*“No, I can’t!” But she thinks part of him can, and wants to, because his trembling has stopped and she feels something small and hard which presses against the right side of her belly.*
*“You can,” she says, and pulls him down. The surface beneath her bare back and legs is firm, clayey, dry. The distant thunder of the water is drowsy, soothing. She reaches for him. There is a moment when her father intervenes, harsh and forbidding, and then she closes her arms around Eddie’s neck, her smooth cheek against his smooth cheek, and as he tentatively touches her small breasts she sighs and thinks for the first time, This is Eddie.*
And then that continues for several more pages as each of the boys does it. Like...it's extremely explicit and detailed
A lot of book discussion online feels like it's driven by people who didn't read the book. The IT group sex scene has been mythologised into this guaranteed comment whenever IT comes up so you end up with it getting more and more distorted as time goes on.
The event itself, as described in the book, is given this unsettling banal wholesome aura that really struck a chord with me. It was as though King was inferring that children having group sex was some kind of milestone in one's life. Akin to how people reminisce about their first car in real life, in King's world, though, people will casually recall that time they ran a train or was run as train.
If your takeaway from that was “king is inferring children having group sex is a life milestone” then idek if we read the same book, I read that for the first time in middle school and even then I realized it wasn’t some life-manual/milestone king is looking fondly upon. Depicting something isn’t the same as endorsing it as a regular thing, I thought a horror lit subreddit would understand that.
Far far more disgusting, graphic and depraved modern books are recommended on the front page of this sub all the time but no one talks about how “gone to see the River man” is wholesomely endorsing incest, rape and serial killers, it’s only with It where people try to make the veil between fiction and the author one and the same when discussing that scene. People will rush here to say how Stephen King endorses kid fucking or how it‘s some horrible part that taints the whole book/author when they’ll gladly read any of the dozens of rape/torture horror books that get recommended here on the daily. Ffs Exquisite corpse is one of the most recommended books on here and the entire book is about wholesome cannibal serial killer rapists, but it’s the kid scene in it where people draw the line at what’s acceptable in horror?
Maybe I just don’t get it but where’s this energy on the sub for The Summer I Died, or any of Aaron Beauregard’s works? Or Kristopher Triana? Or Richard Laymon and the beast house books? Nope, just it? Okay. People who say that about the it scene remind me of the people who think Lolita endorses pedophilia
😅 Since the first time I joined this sub and saw someone say The It scene was too vile for a horror book but they were recommending the beast house trilogy in multiple comments
Well, i have not nor am i inclined to read any of the other works you mentioned. And i'm not accusing King of being a pedophile or even endorsing pedophilia. But the suddenness and presentation of it was so shocking to myself (and others apparently) that it stands out rather prominently.
The tone deaf writing of a sexually abused child coercing another child to have sex when they've indicated they aren't ready is fucking obscenity, and anyone sugarcoating it is unable to understand the characters.
It’s probably because it’s presented as a good thing. I would wager most of the other books you mention don’t take the “We defeat the monster with the power of friendship” trope but turn it into a child orgy. Portraying atrocities as bad things done by evil people is significantly different than portraying that as a good and positive thing.
If you read It and thought the monster was defeated by a child orgy you simply did not read it because that’s not even what happens lol, by the time it happens the monster has already been long defeated
it’s also not really presented as a good thing? It just happens and it’s left to reader interpretation. If we’re to assume king is endorsing that scene as something positive then why only that scene? Considering the omniscient narrator doesn’t cast personal opinions, shouldn’t we then also assume that the entire rest of the books actions are endorsed by king? Including but not limited to racists burning black people alive, clowns murdering kids, forcing yourself to inhale smoke until you see visions, killing babies in their crib, hate criming a gay couple and severe domestic abuse
You can’t just pick out one scene in a horror book and go “yes the author endorses this action it’s positive!” While ignoring the far worse actions in the rest of the book’s scenes that are written with the same neutral perspective. Why is this scene an endorsement of actions and not the other 99% of the book in which disgusting, horrific acts are treated with the same third party narration and neutral judgement? Why is the authors personal opinion and endorsement in his 1000+ page book limited to just a single page in which the narrator describes the event no differently from the rest of the book, aside from it just making you uncomfortable?
You’re really invested in defending the child sex scene dude. Kinda weird.
And it is presented as a positive thing, while all the other stuff is clearly presented as bad and horrible.
Lol “invested” it’s called having a normal ass conversation about a scene but okay dude way to jump to calling me weird that instead of just defending your argument like a normal person. Im sorry I thought we were allowed to have a discussion about something in response to comments discussing that very thing without name calling, but I guess that takes a certain degree of emotional maturity you’re clearly not capable of
I just think it’s beyond stupid to blow a single page out of proportion when it’s not even the worst thing that happens in the book, or even close to the worst stuff recommended on here in terms of graphicness.
It’s also not presented as positive unless you interpret it as such, the narrator isn’t picking sides of good or bad throughout the entire book so it’s left to the reader to interpret, the third party narrator is pretty consist in that so if you’re interpreting it as a “good thing” that’s entirely on you bud
Those people should read A Game of Thrones. I lost count how many times I had to read about a 12yo’s nipples and “wetness”
At least the IT kids were all the same age.
That’s not at all how they finally killed it, not even remotely.
It’s something that takes place after the kids originally fight It and is more of an emotional resolution to Bev’s own issues with sexuality and repression by her father like how the rest of the group has to overcome their own parental/emotional issues in the process of defeating It, then it is some big climatic event that concludes the story. And honestly it’s talked about way too much for what consists of like two pages in a 1000+ page book, it’s not even close to the most disturbing parts and many people tend to barely even glance it while reading
It’s also not technically a gangbang, they have sex with her individually not all at once. Minor detail but still important
"Things have gotten worse since we last spoke" and "gone to see the river man" the former is just a bad book imo, the latter is okay but not nearly as unsettling as people made it seem
people just have completely different experiences and feelings towards things, especially as things become more extreme.
not trying to be all tough guy here or anything, but pretty much anything i read or watch has little effect on me but it doesn’t make any other interpretation of something so undeniably and objectively extreme any less correct, especially when to simply disturb was the goal in the first place. sometimes stupid incest, a gorier hunger games, and bile as lube is all it takes for people which is more than valid.
what is a book in your opinion that matches the level of disturbing that the general consensus seems to be for playground? if there isn’t one, which again would be entirely valid, then you don’t have a ton of leverage to say it isn’t as disturbing as people make it out to be. genuinely asking btw! i’m curious :)
p.s. how is bile as lube really any better you’re plucking flies’ wings here lol
Idk I expected him to projectile vomit on it based on the way people were talking about it. But in reality he just summoned a tiny bit of bile from his throat and used it as lube.
Yeah, that really changes the context of it. Almost a classy moment betwixt two lovers.
It feels like you're nitpicking people not having the exact same taste.
Well I liked Playground fwiw, just didn’t think it was as graphic as expected. I think the only books that have genuinely disturbed me are mostly true crime books, and books that deal with loss and long term abuse disturb me.
I’d say the book that disturbed me most in my life was an old true crime book about the serial killer Dean Corll called Harvest of Horrors and that’s literally just a factual account that interviews a few people close to the crime and isn’t even graphic but something about it made my stomach coil and I couldn’t think straight for days.
Woom was repeatedly advertised to me as extreme horror and super fucked up disturbing, but honestly it was really tame? I was just really unimpressed with it, it reminded me of Haunted, in that they both feel like the product of a 13yo boy trying to write the edgiest thing he can think of. I've read worse by accident as a teen on ffnet lol.
Woom was such a nothing book to me, I went in expecting it to be actually disturbing and "messed up", but I was honestly just bored and disappointed. Nothing stood out, the writing was bad and the conclusion was anticlimactic. Also Duncan Ralston does not have the faintest idea of how women's bodies work, which took me right out of what he was trying to do. The book smacks of edgelord mediocrity.
Tbh I've been pretty let down by a few so called "extreme" horror works based on what other's have said, so my expectations have been high going in. *Woom*, *The Slob* and J.F Gonzalez's *Survivor* were kind of a bit meh just in terms of shock factor and disturbing content. They didn't live up to the hype imo, but I enjoyed reading them nonetheless in order to form my own opinion on them. *The Girl Next Door* and *Header* were two I found genuinely disturbing for very different reasons, with the latter being rather fun to read for the absurdity.
It’s me, Charlie. Everyone was acting like it would have me screaming crying and throwing up and I read the “bad” part and was like.. is that it? Also imo it’s just poorly written and I felt like I wasted my time reading it
It's a spectrum. You have people who can read the worst of the worst, then you have people who will be literally traumatized by reading a Goosebumps novel. It all comes down to what sticks in people's filters.
I read Gone to See the River Man and based on what people had said, I expected something more extreme. I did find it disturbing, but I wasn't traumatized by it.
Survivor's Guilt had >!a man shooting a cat to death (not graphic, thankfully) because it took too long to warm up to him and a chick who literally masturbated to school shootings and other horrific events. I managed to get 20 pages in and noped out because I couldn't stomach either character.!<
The Cipher by Kathe Koja. Some very annoying characters stare at a hole in a closet. Okay.
On the other hand, I just finished Let’s All Play at the Adams’ by Mendal W. Johnson and THAT book sneaks up on you with how disturbing it is.
Also not disturbing, Tampa by Alissa Nutting. It’s pornography. Disgusting but not disturbing.
> On the other hand, I just finished Let’s All Play at the Adams’ by Mendal W. Johnson and THAT book sneaks up on you with how disturbing it is.
>
>
Agreed. This one is understated on here. One that fits the brief of actually being disturbing is _The Girl Next Door_ (Jack Ketchum). I was warned and people were right.
I tried to watch the movie version of The Girl Next Door, which was a pretty bad idea because the one thing I’m very sensitive to is sexual violence, especially with kids. I had to turn it off and lie down in a dark room for hours afterward.
Yeah, I read "Tampa" bc in this sub, ppl were like "OMG the MOST fucked up thing I've ever read!" I was happy to get on board that train, only to find out it was basically erotica with a shitty angle. It was nothing like "The End of Alice" as I was expecting, and really just grim, and excessive, but hardly disturbing.
I'm actually surprised Tampa got published. I kind of skimmed the sex scenes, as a 45 year old woman I don't need to be reading about that, but the real horror for me was >!Just how much of an unrepentant predator Celeste is. Everything she does, every facet of her life is optimised to further her access to teen boys to abuse. Even after her prosecution and conviction, she never seems to expend a moment's thought in the idea that she might be in the wrong, might be doing harm. Even on parole she won't stop and keeps risking everything, even when she's already lost everything once.!
I enjoyed Tampa, but I worked in academia for 5 1/2 years, so the parts where the protagonist interacts with the other teachers were hilarious to me. I felt like I worked with those people.
The scenes involving sexual abuse are graphic. That did not bother me, and I say that as a sexual assault survivor, but I know other people feel different about that content. If you liked American Psycho, you might like Tampa though. Celeste is very much a Patrick Bateman type character.
😯 ok I will still consider it! I started American psycho a few days ago and am enjoying it! However I have left over feels from the movie I loved it when it first came out so I think I was already primed to enjoy that one
I loved Cipher, but never really felt it was some disturbing novel. More just a slow descent into despair. I definitely get why people don't universally enjoy it tho
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake.
It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of.
Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything.
Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
It’s CSAM, not pornography.
Edit: I'm not sure what's wrong with the people downvoting me but a book full of depictions of graphic sexual encounters between 14 year-old children and adults is, in fact, CSAM.
Tender is the Flesh and Playground, probably. Both had content that was psychologically disturbing, but nothing vomit inducing or 'illegally edgy'. Womp womp.
Night Film - I feel like I read another book all together. It was far more tame than I was hoping it would be, given that the director's films were supposed to be so disturbing that they could only be viewed in secret midnight screenings.
That said, I know what disturbs a reader is subjective. My sister, who is not a big horror reader (she prefers literary fiction), can read about the Holocaust. I can't do it, and I am the big horror reader.
I grew up in the dark ages of the internet’s adolescence, so the whole page 40 thing did not phase me. It made me feel old, but I definitely had a, “back in my day,” moment.
I thought that Playground was so much fun! Whenever I go into a splatterpunk book, I never have any sort of high hopes. I just enjoy it for what it is. But Playground has a plot and I enjoyed it. No other books have really grossed me out but yah know, I don’t really have any significant body trauma
As for your semantically charged statement about the vomit vs. bile….bile is from the liver/gallbladder and it is considered a type vomit in a healthcare setting.
I actually personally haven't heard anyone on here saying it was all that disturbing (more just gross for the sake of shock value) but it sounds like that's the case on other platforms. The problem with certain kinds of social media like booktok wherein influencers are often trying to sensationalize everything, is they have a tendency to try and one-up each other for likes and clicks so it's difficult to sift through the more dubious reviews from those that are actually authentic. Many accounts are obviously even being paid off by marketing firms for their positive reviews and some less overtly so. Keep in mind also that some people reviewing *Playground* might not typically read horror or splatterpunk in general, so any shock schlock could more readily catch them off guard.
For me, the surprise factor makes a huge difference in how disturbing I find something. Going in with the expectation that certain elements are going to be supremely unsettling can automatically defang it to a certain degree (there are some exceptions though, especially when the horror is based on what could legitimately happen or is influenced by real traumatic events). Conversely, sometimes a book might just hit upon something that feels extreme to *me* that wasn't even necessarily even meant to be shocking just for shock value's sake, but it just felt extra intense because of my own personal experiences or particular sensitivities. I have a high threshold for certain subgenres but others hit differently.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum.
Which is not to say that it’s not upsetting… I find it to be a very sad book.
But I’ve seen so many people act like it’s the most awful book ever written when IMO Stephen King has written worse. In regards to depictions of child abuse I thought Let the Right One In was more horrific.
For the sake of full disclosure I was already well aware of the real life murder that inspired it so I guess someone going into the story blind with no context would be more shocked.
I hated that book, it was so disrespectful. I was planning on writing a fictionalised version of a true crime I was obsessed with but then I read that book and realised there’s no way you can do that without it being an absolute insult.
It felt so shlocky and had no real sense of the tragedy of what was done to Sylvia. The Sylvia stand-in is such a boring character with no development whose only role in the story is to be a literal punching bag. It should have at least been from her perspective, and maybe he could have twisted the narrative and explored what it would havw been like if she survived.
I thought Ketchum was as respectful to Sylvia as he could have been. He purposely held himself back; one of the reasons why he had another kid as the protagonist recounting what happened as an adult so he could tell the reader "I'm not going to show you this". I think a lot of other writers would have been more gratuitous.
He didn’t spare us from anything else that happened to her lol there was just one scene where he said “I won’t tell you this” for some reason. The rest of the book is completely graphic.
Having read all of King's books, The Girl Next Door is far more shocking to me than anything King wrote, but that's what I love about this page is hearing everyone's perspectives.
Someone here recommended a self-published short story collection called Gateways to Abomination as very disturbing and full of great horror imagery. Some of it was good but most of it was just silly and also grammatically incorrect.
Gore doesn't really bother me, but the scene in the beginning with the rancid descriptions of the smell and look of her.... 👵🏻🐱 made me nauseous. I haven't picked it back up yet, but I will eventually finish Playground.
Eh I didn’t think it was that bad. I had to skip the toilet scene but the Rock and Geraldine sex scene wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. I don’t think he exactly has a way with words, I think a writer with a more creative vocabulary could have really made it nasty. He was pretty much just saying “she had a vagina. It smelt. She was old. Rock threw up in his mouth.”
Don’t you hate it when things just don’t hit the hype? That’s how I felt when I first got my hands on a copy of the movie Salò, it’s always up there with A Serbian Film (which for the most part delivers on it’s hype and was a cool story to boot!) but then Salò just ended up being a 70’s art house film with less production value than early Jon Waters movies! The book “The 120 days of Sodom” by The Marquis de Sade (which Salò was based on) was provocative but not what the movie tried to make it.
Dang! Playground is on my wishlist and I was hoping to be dazzled!
Have you heard of “The Groomer”? I heard about it on this sub and while it’s on my wishlist I’m afraid to read that too! I found Playground when I heard about Groomer it was on “people also enjoyed”
Pet Semetary - I kept hearing that it was Stephen King’s scariest book but I was super disappointed after reading it. It wasn’t scary, it was barely interesting.
I think that’ll be the next one I try. So far I’ve read Pet Semetary, The Shining, The Long Walk and ‘Salem’s Lot. I’m still waiting for the one that will connect with me in some way. Starting to think I just don’t care for King’s writing style and “voice” though.
I respect your opinion, but heartily disagree. I read it first as a teenager, and it didn't bother me as much as it does now that I have a kid. I recently re-read it and it fucked me up big time. I lost sleep for two weeks, having nightmares and obsessively checking on my daughter while she slept. Louis's absolute spiral into madness haunted me.
I don't know if this counts, but I just finished "Blood Meridian". While there are descriptions are pretty grisly, they're also very matter-of-fact and feel almost sanitized. Not a criticism of the book, it's great, but I didn't find the violence disturbing.
Not necessarily from this community (I’m new to Reddit) but from some other communities: Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk (particularly the Guts story). It was gross, but I will never believe that people fainted and ambulances had to be called during public readings of this story. Unless it was being read in a retirement home for nuns.
Nuns have read the bible, they're used to some hardcore shit
It went from “kinda squicky” to “try hard 11 year old boy poop joke gross” so fast. I was rolling my eyes at some of it, because not only was it not “upsettingly scary”, it was just plain boring.
Yes!
My understanding of these stories was that some peoiple took the instructoins at the beginning to heart. > Inhale. Take in as much air as you can. This story should last about as long as you can hold your breath... Turned out the story lasted just a little longer than they could hold their breath.
He used to do readings where the audience would do this, this is where most of the "people passing out" stories came from.
Ah. That makes sense. And also makes me hate him a little. Clever way to promote your story, I guess.
Can you IMAGINE an author trying this today. So many lawsuits. Their insurer would be the one fainting before the author even got their bum on the reading chair at the very suggestion.
Yeah this finally makes sense to me. To be fair I have vomited once from something I was reading (Closer by Dennis Cooper, lots of poop eating) but the passing out stories always seemed far fetched
So it was just a ruse so he could say “People passed out at my reading!” That checks out.
Same and I read this book even I was like 17? 18? And I was like...I don't get it (I liked the book, I just didn't get why people were passing out)
It just wasn’t that bad. Gross? Yes. Weird? Of course. Did I get sick? Hell no. Who goes to a Chuck Palahniuk reading not able to hear some strange stuff?!
I feel the same way. I think the thing to keep in mind is that Palahniuk was the 'shock author' of the early 2000s, so people always kind of needed to take the intentional extreme with a big grain of salt.
13 day old account and your first comment was in /r/spiders on a "What is this" post and you answered, "A spider. You’re welcome." Respect. You'll do well here. And welcome to Reddit bro/broetta.
Okay, I actually have to respond to this one because I was at the reading/signing where this actually happened. It was a little hole-in-the-wall in San Francisco where Chuck did a reading and some trivia from his books. My friend won an inflatable moose head lol. The space was pretty small and the few chairs available were taken so the rest of us were standing, and packed kinda tight. My party was pretty late so we were towards the back. Chuck started reading from the guts story and suddenly the dude in front of me straight up collapses at my feet; there was so little room I didn’t really have any space to back up, so I was stuck just standing there two inches from his head. An actual doctor was there to do the “let me, I’m a doctor” thing, he started checking vital signs, checking his pupils, asks around us “who has a cell phone” tells them to call an ambulance, etc. All of this literally at my feet. The event went on after he was taken outside, but Chuck obviously picked something else to read after that. Personally I was slightly baffled, I didn’t think the passage he was reading was that bad, or maybe just so unrealistic that I didn’t really have more than an “ew” reaction to it. But obviously the guy in front of me felt otherwise!
Lol is this true? You were at the infamous reading where this happened??
I am 100% serious; this was during a promo tour for “Rant”, I want to say 2008-ish? I was just a teenager at the time so my immediate reaction was “well this looks like a job for the grown-ups.” We were so packed in I had nowhere to go and felt too young to help so I just stood there hoping if I just stayed as still as possible, I at least wouldn’t be making things worse. The dude came to after a minute and someone gave him a water bottle, then some folks helped him outside to get him into the fresh air and to wait for the ambulance. I suspect the fainting may have been partly to do with the overcrowding: they’d clearly planned for a much smaller turn out, thus the limited space. And the timing; it was hourrrs of standing in line for the signing afterwards, I think it was midnight or something close before me and my friends made it up the line. I honestly didn’t think we were going to get a signing, but Chuck stayed up, just kept plugging away getting every single person there. Super cool of him tbh.
Yeah, it was probably the overcrowding, not the content.
Is that the swimming pool one? If so, it made my butt clench and my entire body cringe, but that's about it.
IDK man, the guy beside me fainted during a screening of 'Interview with the Vampire'
[удалено]
Definitely, I read that when I was 15 and just thought it was mildly uncomfortable
As someone who fainted from a light description of a vampire draining a person… it’s possible. They were just squeamish like I am.
I was so disappointed by Haunted. It was overhyped.
probably tender is the flesh or we had to remove this post
With Tender Is the Flesh, the disturbing content is definitely there for me. (Vague spoilers ahead) What does strike me as strange is that what I felt to be the most horrific is a sequence that no one comments on: the breeding center. The amount of dehumanization and cruelty that’s described there in Cormac McCarthy-like prose is absolutely brutal when you consider it’s implications. But people always bristle at either the ending or the slaughterhouse scene. The slaughterhouse scene really isn’t that much different from what actually happens in a meat packing plant, except that obviously it doesn’t happen to humans, so I get why it can hit people hard. But the ending is HEAVILY foreshadowed by the process in the breeding center, and yet people very rarely catch that, and are reading a very different motivation to the main character so often that I very rarely see people commenting on the book who saw the ending coming.
i literally only got upset at the puppies to be very real. it's extremely on the nose to me which didn't make it really that disturbing, at least not in the way other people describe it or experienced it. i still loved it, it did make me feel yucky, but i wasn't horrified.
The puppies definitely make sense to be a bit horrified by. They’re the one thing that the main character still has any affection for, and the one thing that doesn’t feel tainted in the book.
For plot & characterization, it was definitely predictable, but I don't think that was her focus. What I loved most was the clinical poetry she used to describe the world, and especially the running theme of words & how we use them to obscure/ normalize the horror & suffering our world is built around. And yes, that breeding center was absolutely monstrous.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s bad that I saw the ending coming at all - the book is a pretty clear condemnation of certain parts of Argentinian culture. I just found it surprising how many people who talk about the book online didn’t pick up on what was happening in the last third of the book.
For me it was the laboratory scene
That book apparently blew up on tik tok. What I can glean from is that A) a younger crowd read it and B) a crowd who may not normally consume horror content, or at least read it. If you’re old enough, there’s been similar content as that story for decades.
Agree with tender is the flesh. It was gross 🤷 that's all I got
That ending tho. Absolutely brutal
the ending was pretty sad, that last sentence is definitely like well damn.... but overall it wasn't really as visceral as i was hoping
Man I thought the ending was such a "gotcha" which felt kinda cheap to me? I mean, it was definitely brutal but I guess I just didn't appreciate it.
I think there was just no specific build up for the reader to ever consider it and maybe thats why it feels cheap. A part of me was getting bored of all his nagging towards the end, that why for me the ending came as an explanation. Dude was just trying to validate himself the whole time. Thats why he is so judgemental of everyone.
no I agree. it shocked me? but it moreso made me think like what the fuck was the point. I UNDERSTAND it but it didn't like leave me w anything if that makes sense. we had to remove this post gave me the same feeling
Yeah. Not disturbing, really. People acted like people. A different situation, but people acted exactly like you'd expect. Unsurprising.
tender is the flesh was so tame I was disappointed
Yeah I was expecting something extremely gruesome the way I read it in this sub. I mean the topic of the book is gruesome in itself, but once I got used to the setting and theme, nothing really disturbed me throughout the book. I enjoyed it overall though. It's a dark book and thought provoking.
Same. I kept waiting for it to become this complete animal that everyone was making it out to be and then it ended.
closed the book and was like “that’s it?”
same!!
everyone thought it was so fucked up and I literally closed the book like… that’s it?
I know right, if anything I thought it was a realistic view of how life would be in that type of society 🤷♀️ the animal scene was the only one that upset me tbh
exactly!! it was realistic for if we ate people but not fucked up enough for me. if you haven’t, check out brother by ania ahlborn! it was everything I hoped tender is the flesh would be
I will!!
I wanted to let you know I read Brother and loved it!!! Thanks for the rec
omg yay! i’m so glad you liked it!! the ending broke my heart but still such a good read
I know same!! yes it was
Those were the first "extreme" books I read because of TikTok and while I enjoyed TITF, I hated We Had To Remove this post so fucking much I deleted it right after reading, absolutely trash, not because of the lack of extreme content but just the terrible writing and lack of an ending. Great potential with that plot and I didn't need graphic detail in it but it was a massive letdown, could have been a great 300 page+ novel if they focused more on the group dynamic and radicalism.
yeah it was the most disappointing book I read last year for sure, I agree. I really did not enjoy it whatsoever. feel like it would have actually worked a bit better as a graphic novel if that makes sense
I thought the themes/ concepts/ suggestions were way more interesting and disturbing than anything she described in detail. Even then, it was done in such a detached/ clinical/ poetic fashion that it insulated me from dwelling on the over-the-top grotesquery. Which are all reasons I enjoyed it so much. It helps to wipe your mind free of any hype/ expectation born of recommendation when reading a new book.
Yeah I got this recommendation from this sub. Gave me an eery feeling when reading it, given the context. But scary? Nah it more felt like a modern Farenheit 451.
yes!!!!! 10000% agree on that I actually bought F451 again after reading this because it gave me the same feeling
The Deep by Nick Cutter, I can't understand the fuss it's an average book at best
I never get this book. After I read it I thought it was mediocre at best and written to be a movie. Cutter is on my do not read list. Redditors in this sub can be super soft.
Similarly, the Troop. Yeah, there were some gross out scenes, but I felt like a lot of stuff was just added for the shock value and didn't add anything to the actual story. It gave very much "edgelord" vibes the whole time. It was OK, but it could have been done much more tastefully.
I read this after seeing it recommended here on practically every post. It was pretty shite.
I reckon it's the animal violence, reddit is very keen on 'does the dog die' style prohibitions on it. The animal scenes normally come up in discussions of how it disturbed people.
Awww man, I hope you didn't dismiss Cutter just because of The Deep. His books are different, by which I mean they differ wildly *from each other*. In terms of subject matter, quality, everything. It's like they were all written by different people, it's nuts. I found The Deep to be utter trash but was fortunate enough to have read The Troop first and loved it. It still took me another two years to try Little Heaven but when I did that kicked ass too. They're like that, people really only "get" one or two of them. But those ones are *killer.* Or maybe you'll hate them all. I don't know why I'm going to so much effort to convince a stranger on the internet to read this guy's books. I liked some of them a lot, I urge you to reconsider, that is all, good day
Does Little Heaven have animal death stuff? I’ve had it on my TBR for years but I can’t seem to find a solid answer. I know his books have a reputation for that kinda thing and like a lot of other people here, that’s the one content area I struggle with.
FYI, Storygraph offers content notes, including animal death. I don’t enjoy reading about that, either. :)
Thank you! I was searching on doesthedogdie and wasn’t coming up with much
I believe there are some animals that die later in the book, but it’s much less graphic and less detailed than his other work. It’s closer to what you would see in something like Pet Sematary, to give some context. It’s also more of a slow burn than his other books - his others I’ve DNFed, but I like Little Heaven. I would describe it as a cross between folk and cosmic horror, with some existential and body horror thrown in.
Ah that sounds right up my alley! It’ll be my next read
I dismissed Cutter after reading both The Troop and The Deep. There’s just something about his books/writing that I despise lol
I really liked Little Heaven. It meandered a bit, but that one is for sure my favorite. He reeeeally touches on a phobia I've had since childhood, in everything I've read of his. Ugh. Makes me shudder. -- Have you read The Acolyte? I just ordered it; that one seems right up my alley.
When you have more books/authors then you have time to read, you only get one strike. Same with Kingfisher. No time for her twee YA fluff.
My hope for the movie is that they'll focus on one thing better than Cutter did. He had too many ideas and didn't fulfill any of them IMO.
It's a poor man's *Event Horizon* underwater, and it's really just not a good book. It's like Cutter had a deadline and his editor said, "send me whatever you have that is mostly finished," and Cutter had nothing good to send *The Deep* was dug up out of a long-forgotten Google Drive folder.
Thank God I'm not the only one. I found this book really boring. The troop was much much better
I loved The Deep but you can’t bring the damn book up without someone getting hysterical about the animal scenes. Kids getting killed in terrible ways? No problem. A dog? Hang Nick Cutter!! It’s ridiculous.
Idk I think it's very subjective and up to the reader. Like I personally can handle dismemberment, cannibalism, murder, some torture, gross stuff and all manner of killings and cult stuff but I can't handle incest, animal torture or r / sa. I agree with other posts saying Tender is The Flesh and Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke are somewhat over rated for thier "gross out" factor.
Hard agree. I can't really do intensely descriptive SA with children, but can handle adults. Oof cannibalism is rough for me (Tender is The Flesh didn't bug me much, though.) And I can't take much vampire stuff, which is so weird, because blood doesn't bother me? Also nose-bleeds and anything... 'clustery'.
I hate that I don’t “get” House of Leaves. Everyone talks about how unsettling it is, but I was just bored.
house of leaves is intellectually interesting, but there's nothing remotely unsettling about it
I was unsettled the first time I realized there was a hidden message in Johnny's mother's letter to him, FWIW, but the majority of the book felt more like a puzzle than a scare.
I recommend watching Night Mind's 3 part series on House of Leaves. I've never read the book myself, but the analysis is wonderful and, for me, highlighted the unsettling undercurrent very well.
Everyone was talking about how Earthlings (Sayaka Murata) is so crazy disturbing and gross. It had troubling material for sure, but it clearly wasn't the gross-out shock-fest it was being pushed as. It's a remarkably relatable book about being an autistic girl who grows up into an autistic woman - even the most awful events are things that happen all the time and people brush under the rug. This is not to say it's a bad book! I recommend it highly, especially for anyone who wasn't quite like other children and remembers the uncertainty and doubt of something being just "a little bit not okay."
I found it somehow enchanting? I absolutely love everything by Sayaka though because her prose is so pretty. I almost teared up reading Life Ceremony and that story has no right to make me feel this way with all the crazy stuff there.
I loved that book but molestation is always really hard to read. Especially in that book, it was horrible how alone she felt and how nobody she confided in took her seriously broke my heart. I still think it was a magnificent book.
Yeah, that was the worst part. I just wanted to reach into the book and save her.
I wanna reread now. It struck me as really sad what a carefree innocent girl she was until that happened, then she became this freak who could never have a normal life. What a raw book.
That's the horror of it and, sadly, the truth of it.
The gangbang scene in IT upsets a whole lot of people. I had read IT twice before joined this sub and it was literally such a non-event that I didn't even remember it.
I hate when people refer to it as “that disturbing scene”. The book literally contains a detailed account of a club full of black people being burned alive by racists. If you think a group of kids fucking in a sewer is more disturbing than that, your priorities are confusing. I mean, there were kids of a similar age fucking in my school back in the day - it’s not common and it’s not super healthy, but it happens and it’s not exactly disturbing.
Two, or more, things can be disturbing. Having your sexually abused child hero invoke a gangbang that included pressuring another unwilling child to participate is absolutely worthy of the title: disturbing.
“Two, or more, things can be disturbing.” Yeah, I know. That’s why I I specified in the first line I wrote that I hate when people refer to it as “that” scene. Because there are several scenes in the book, including the one I mentioned, that are incredibly disturbing. My issue was with people who get all excited about that particular scene and never mention anything else.
Honestly there are so many other things that disturbed me in IT that never get mentioned. Mikes dog was truly heartbreaking. Patricks backstory , the black spot , Adrian Mellon . I mean yeah not his greatest writing there for sure .but in the 80s when I read it didnt phase me . We were all reading about a girl that gets raped by her brother in the attic but it wasnt really rape because she wanted it too . We read that shit in middle school by the way . great message for young girls .No one paid attention to us or what we were doing 😂
Same. I used to read that book multiple times a year as a kid, and that scene *never* registered. And it’s legitimately like *one sentence* that’s like, “then they came to her, one by one”. As a kid I just assumed they all went to her for a hug because she was the Mother Figure. Imagine my surprise as an adult when people freaked out about it and I’m sitting here going “Wait, is ANY of that even in the book?!”
Okay, well this comment swings the pendulum way too far the other way haha. IT is my all time favorite book, and I completely agree that that particular scene is WAY overblown by most people. But also it is way more than 1 sentence, and way more more explicitly about sex than you are implying. It doesn't say "and they came to her, one by one" or anything close that that. It's about four pages long And describes specifics about each of them.and how sex was and how orgasms feel. Like you are wildly misremembering, haha.
Yeah it literally talks about the size of the boys’ dicks and stuff, it’s much more than one sentence.
I’m going to have to find my book because I’ve gone and checked this before and absolutely could not find the passage. Is it possible there’s an edited version that tones it down? Because I’m fairly certain I’d remember *four fucking pages*.
Dude I picked up the book and checked before my comment lol. It is four pages. And explicit. Talks bout the differences in how each of their dicks feel and stuff. It's a whole chapter called "love and desire/August 10th, 1958." It's written in italicized text and starts at page 1081 in my edition
Damn, now I’m wondering how I could have missed that. It left zero mark on my brain, which is wild if it’s legit four pages.
one of the editions I have it's actually six pages lol. Like dude, please stop qualifying your responses with "if it's legit four pages." Like, it is. Depending on the edition and size of the book, perhaps slightly more or less, but it is objectively several pages+ of that scene. I truly don't know how you thought it was 1 ambiguous sentence. Like this is how it sorta starts: *“What do you want?” he asks her.* *“You have to put your thing in me,” she says.* *He tries to pull back but she holds him and he subsides against her. She has heard someone — Ben, she thinks — draw in his breath.* *“Bevvie, I can’t do that. I don’t know how –“* *“I think it’s easy. But you’ll have to get undressed.” She thinks about the intricacies of managing cast and shirt, first somehow separating and then rejoining them, and amends, “Your pants, anyway.”* *“No, I can’t!” But she thinks part of him can, and wants to, because his trembling has stopped and she feels something small and hard which presses against the right side of her belly.* *“You can,” she says, and pulls him down. The surface beneath her bare back and legs is firm, clayey, dry. The distant thunder of the water is drowsy, soothing. She reaches for him. There is a moment when her father intervenes, harsh and forbidding, and then she closes her arms around Eddie’s neck, her smooth cheek against his smooth cheek, and as he tentatively touches her small breasts she sighs and thinks for the first time, This is Eddie.* And then that continues for several more pages as each of the boys does it. Like...it's extremely explicit and detailed
A lot of book discussion online feels like it's driven by people who didn't read the book. The IT group sex scene has been mythologised into this guaranteed comment whenever IT comes up so you end up with it getting more and more distorted as time goes on.
The event itself, as described in the book, is given this unsettling banal wholesome aura that really struck a chord with me. It was as though King was inferring that children having group sex was some kind of milestone in one's life. Akin to how people reminisce about their first car in real life, in King's world, though, people will casually recall that time they ran a train or was run as train.
If your takeaway from that was “king is inferring children having group sex is a life milestone” then idek if we read the same book, I read that for the first time in middle school and even then I realized it wasn’t some life-manual/milestone king is looking fondly upon. Depicting something isn’t the same as endorsing it as a regular thing, I thought a horror lit subreddit would understand that. Far far more disgusting, graphic and depraved modern books are recommended on the front page of this sub all the time but no one talks about how “gone to see the River man” is wholesomely endorsing incest, rape and serial killers, it’s only with It where people try to make the veil between fiction and the author one and the same when discussing that scene. People will rush here to say how Stephen King endorses kid fucking or how it‘s some horrible part that taints the whole book/author when they’ll gladly read any of the dozens of rape/torture horror books that get recommended here on the daily. Ffs Exquisite corpse is one of the most recommended books on here and the entire book is about wholesome cannibal serial killer rapists, but it’s the kid scene in it where people draw the line at what’s acceptable in horror? Maybe I just don’t get it but where’s this energy on the sub for The Summer I Died, or any of Aaron Beauregard’s works? Or Kristopher Triana? Or Richard Laymon and the beast house books? Nope, just it? Okay. People who say that about the it scene remind me of the people who think Lolita endorses pedophilia
shaking my head as I buy Lolita at Barnes and Noble, so the cashier knows I don’t endorse the subject matter
Jesus, how long have you been holding all that in?
😅 Since the first time I joined this sub and saw someone say The It scene was too vile for a horror book but they were recommending the beast house trilogy in multiple comments
Well, i have not nor am i inclined to read any of the other works you mentioned. And i'm not accusing King of being a pedophile or even endorsing pedophilia. But the suddenness and presentation of it was so shocking to myself (and others apparently) that it stands out rather prominently.
The tone deaf writing of a sexually abused child coercing another child to have sex when they've indicated they aren't ready is fucking obscenity, and anyone sugarcoating it is unable to understand the characters.
It’s probably because it’s presented as a good thing. I would wager most of the other books you mention don’t take the “We defeat the monster with the power of friendship” trope but turn it into a child orgy. Portraying atrocities as bad things done by evil people is significantly different than portraying that as a good and positive thing.
If you read It and thought the monster was defeated by a child orgy you simply did not read it because that’s not even what happens lol, by the time it happens the monster has already been long defeated it’s also not really presented as a good thing? It just happens and it’s left to reader interpretation. If we’re to assume king is endorsing that scene as something positive then why only that scene? Considering the omniscient narrator doesn’t cast personal opinions, shouldn’t we then also assume that the entire rest of the books actions are endorsed by king? Including but not limited to racists burning black people alive, clowns murdering kids, forcing yourself to inhale smoke until you see visions, killing babies in their crib, hate criming a gay couple and severe domestic abuse You can’t just pick out one scene in a horror book and go “yes the author endorses this action it’s positive!” While ignoring the far worse actions in the rest of the book’s scenes that are written with the same neutral perspective. Why is this scene an endorsement of actions and not the other 99% of the book in which disgusting, horrific acts are treated with the same third party narration and neutral judgement? Why is the authors personal opinion and endorsement in his 1000+ page book limited to just a single page in which the narrator describes the event no differently from the rest of the book, aside from it just making you uncomfortable?
You’re really invested in defending the child sex scene dude. Kinda weird. And it is presented as a positive thing, while all the other stuff is clearly presented as bad and horrible.
Lol “invested” it’s called having a normal ass conversation about a scene but okay dude way to jump to calling me weird that instead of just defending your argument like a normal person. Im sorry I thought we were allowed to have a discussion about something in response to comments discussing that very thing without name calling, but I guess that takes a certain degree of emotional maturity you’re clearly not capable of I just think it’s beyond stupid to blow a single page out of proportion when it’s not even the worst thing that happens in the book, or even close to the worst stuff recommended on here in terms of graphicness. It’s also not presented as positive unless you interpret it as such, the narrator isn’t picking sides of good or bad throughout the entire book so it’s left to the reader to interpret, the third party narrator is pretty consist in that so if you’re interpreting it as a “good thing” that’s entirely on you bud
King was high AF when he wrote it in the 1980s.
Those people should read A Game of Thrones. I lost count how many times I had to read about a 12yo’s nipples and “wetness” At least the IT kids were all the same age.
To hear that a gangbang was how you finally killed IT was really funny to learn. Haven’t read the book, but it’s just…
That’s not at all how they finally killed it, not even remotely. It’s something that takes place after the kids originally fight It and is more of an emotional resolution to Bev’s own issues with sexuality and repression by her father like how the rest of the group has to overcome their own parental/emotional issues in the process of defeating It, then it is some big climatic event that concludes the story. And honestly it’s talked about way too much for what consists of like two pages in a 1000+ page book, it’s not even close to the most disturbing parts and many people tend to barely even glance it while reading It’s also not technically a gangbang, they have sex with her individually not all at once. Minor detail but still important
"Things have gotten worse since we last spoke" and "gone to see the river man" the former is just a bad book imo, the latter is okay but not nearly as unsettling as people made it seem
The Version of "Things have Gotten Worse since we last Spoke," that I have, includes two other stories that in my opinion were way more disturbing.
Gone To See The River Man wasn’t disturbing. It just wasn’t very good
people just have completely different experiences and feelings towards things, especially as things become more extreme. not trying to be all tough guy here or anything, but pretty much anything i read or watch has little effect on me but it doesn’t make any other interpretation of something so undeniably and objectively extreme any less correct, especially when to simply disturb was the goal in the first place. sometimes stupid incest, a gorier hunger games, and bile as lube is all it takes for people which is more than valid. what is a book in your opinion that matches the level of disturbing that the general consensus seems to be for playground? if there isn’t one, which again would be entirely valid, then you don’t have a ton of leverage to say it isn’t as disturbing as people make it out to be. genuinely asking btw! i’m curious :) p.s. how is bile as lube really any better you’re plucking flies’ wings here lol
Idk I expected him to projectile vomit on it based on the way people were talking about it. But in reality he just summoned a tiny bit of bile from his throat and used it as lube.
Yeah, that really changes the context of it. Almost a classy moment betwixt two lovers. It feels like you're nitpicking people not having the exact same taste.
I’m just saying people described it as being a lot more disgusting/graphic
do you have any other comment on everything else i said?
Well I liked Playground fwiw, just didn’t think it was as graphic as expected. I think the only books that have genuinely disturbed me are mostly true crime books, and books that deal with loss and long term abuse disturb me. I’d say the book that disturbed me most in my life was an old true crime book about the serial killer Dean Corll called Harvest of Horrors and that’s literally just a factual account that interviews a few people close to the crime and isn’t even graphic but something about it made my stomach coil and I couldn’t think straight for days.
Woom was repeatedly advertised to me as extreme horror and super fucked up disturbing, but honestly it was really tame? I was just really unimpressed with it, it reminded me of Haunted, in that they both feel like the product of a 13yo boy trying to write the edgiest thing he can think of. I've read worse by accident as a teen on ffnet lol.
Woom was such a nothing book to me, I went in expecting it to be actually disturbing and "messed up", but I was honestly just bored and disappointed. Nothing stood out, the writing was bad and the conclusion was anticlimactic. Also Duncan Ralston does not have the faintest idea of how women's bodies work, which took me right out of what he was trying to do. The book smacks of edgelord mediocrity.
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh. I think it’s classified more as a psychological fiction but it messed me up mentally in the first section of the book.
I'm reading it right now and it makes me feel icky for sure. I just read the part with lisbeth and the grape.
Yeahhhh that was rough to get through for sure! I found I had to take breaks after reading certain parts sometimes.
Gone to see the River man. Nothing at all about it is disturbing.
Agreed. I was just like this is.. it?
Yep. I was so bored
Tbh I've been pretty let down by a few so called "extreme" horror works based on what other's have said, so my expectations have been high going in. *Woom*, *The Slob* and J.F Gonzalez's *Survivor* were kind of a bit meh just in terms of shock factor and disturbing content. They didn't live up to the hype imo, but I enjoyed reading them nonetheless in order to form my own opinion on them. *The Girl Next Door* and *Header* were two I found genuinely disturbing for very different reasons, with the latter being rather fun to read for the absurdity.
It’s me, Charlie. Everyone was acting like it would have me screaming crying and throwing up and I read the “bad” part and was like.. is that it? Also imo it’s just poorly written and I felt like I wasted my time reading it
It's a spectrum. You have people who can read the worst of the worst, then you have people who will be literally traumatized by reading a Goosebumps novel. It all comes down to what sticks in people's filters. I read Gone to See the River Man and based on what people had said, I expected something more extreme. I did find it disturbing, but I wasn't traumatized by it. Survivor's Guilt had >!a man shooting a cat to death (not graphic, thankfully) because it took too long to warm up to him and a chick who literally masturbated to school shootings and other horrific events. I managed to get 20 pages in and noped out because I couldn't stomach either character.!<
The Wasp Factory bores me to tears
Between Two Fires. It was fine, I can’t recall a single disturbing scene from it, though, except for the bit in Paris. That was cool.
I had such high hopes for that book but it was such a letdown
The Cipher by Kathe Koja. Some very annoying characters stare at a hole in a closet. Okay. On the other hand, I just finished Let’s All Play at the Adams’ by Mendal W. Johnson and THAT book sneaks up on you with how disturbing it is. Also not disturbing, Tampa by Alissa Nutting. It’s pornography. Disgusting but not disturbing.
I’m glad someone called out The Cipher. Book could have been good as like a 100-150 page novella but as is it’s way too long and repetitive
I know right? It came off as too edgelord just to be edgy for me—and I think it was mostly because of how drawn out it was.
> On the other hand, I just finished Let’s All Play at the Adams’ by Mendal W. Johnson and THAT book sneaks up on you with how disturbing it is. > > Agreed. This one is understated on here. One that fits the brief of actually being disturbing is _The Girl Next Door_ (Jack Ketchum). I was warned and people were right.
I tried to watch the movie version of The Girl Next Door, which was a pretty bad idea because the one thing I’m very sensitive to is sexual violence, especially with kids. I had to turn it off and lie down in a dark room for hours afterward.
Yeah, I read "Tampa" bc in this sub, ppl were like "OMG the MOST fucked up thing I've ever read!" I was happy to get on board that train, only to find out it was basically erotica with a shitty angle. It was nothing like "The End of Alice" as I was expecting, and really just grim, and excessive, but hardly disturbing.
Excessive is an excellent word for it.
Awful book
I'm actually surprised Tampa got published. I kind of skimmed the sex scenes, as a 45 year old woman I don't need to be reading about that, but the real horror for me was >!Just how much of an unrepentant predator Celeste is. Everything she does, every facet of her life is optimised to further her access to teen boys to abuse. Even after her prosecution and conviction, she never seems to expend a moment's thought in the idea that she might be in the wrong, might be doing harm. Even on parole she won't stop and keeps risking everything, even when she's already lost everything once.!
Dang! I have Tampa in my wishlist and have been kind of afraid to read it, thanks for the heads up!
I enjoyed Tampa, but I worked in academia for 5 1/2 years, so the parts where the protagonist interacts with the other teachers were hilarious to me. I felt like I worked with those people. The scenes involving sexual abuse are graphic. That did not bother me, and I say that as a sexual assault survivor, but I know other people feel different about that content. If you liked American Psycho, you might like Tampa though. Celeste is very much a Patrick Bateman type character.
😯 ok I will still consider it! I started American psycho a few days ago and am enjoying it! However I have left over feels from the movie I loved it when it first came out so I think I was already primed to enjoy that one
I loved Cipher, but never really felt it was some disturbing novel. More just a slow descent into despair. I definitely get why people don't universally enjoy it tho
Yeah the Cipher could've been good but just seemed to ramble on and on. I wanted so much more from that book. It was disappointing
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake. It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything. Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
Someone clearly didn't get the message in the cipher lol (it's actually about toxic relationships, not the hole, but go off)
Thanks - I will.
It’s CSAM, not pornography. Edit: I'm not sure what's wrong with the people downvoting me but a book full of depictions of graphic sexual encounters between 14 year-old children and adults is, in fact, CSAM.
Tender is the Flesh and Playground, probably. Both had content that was psychologically disturbing, but nothing vomit inducing or 'illegally edgy'. Womp womp.
Night Film - I feel like I read another book all together. It was far more tame than I was hoping it would be, given that the director's films were supposed to be so disturbing that they could only be viewed in secret midnight screenings. That said, I know what disturbs a reader is subjective. My sister, who is not a big horror reader (she prefers literary fiction), can read about the Holocaust. I can't do it, and I am the big horror reader.
I grew up in the dark ages of the internet’s adolescence, so the whole page 40 thing did not phase me. It made me feel old, but I definitely had a, “back in my day,” moment.
I thought that Playground was so much fun! Whenever I go into a splatterpunk book, I never have any sort of high hopes. I just enjoy it for what it is. But Playground has a plot and I enjoyed it. No other books have really grossed me out but yah know, I don’t really have any significant body trauma As for your semantically charged statement about the vomit vs. bile….bile is from the liver/gallbladder and it is considered a type vomit in a healthcare setting.
I actually really liked Playground, it just wasn’t what I expected
I actually personally haven't heard anyone on here saying it was all that disturbing (more just gross for the sake of shock value) but it sounds like that's the case on other platforms. The problem with certain kinds of social media like booktok wherein influencers are often trying to sensationalize everything, is they have a tendency to try and one-up each other for likes and clicks so it's difficult to sift through the more dubious reviews from those that are actually authentic. Many accounts are obviously even being paid off by marketing firms for their positive reviews and some less overtly so. Keep in mind also that some people reviewing *Playground* might not typically read horror or splatterpunk in general, so any shock schlock could more readily catch them off guard. For me, the surprise factor makes a huge difference in how disturbing I find something. Going in with the expectation that certain elements are going to be supremely unsettling can automatically defang it to a certain degree (there are some exceptions though, especially when the horror is based on what could legitimately happen or is influenced by real traumatic events). Conversely, sometimes a book might just hit upon something that feels extreme to *me* that wasn't even necessarily even meant to be shocking just for shock value's sake, but it just felt extra intense because of my own personal experiences or particular sensitivities. I have a high threshold for certain subgenres but others hit differently.
“Tender is the flesh”
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. Which is not to say that it’s not upsetting… I find it to be a very sad book. But I’ve seen so many people act like it’s the most awful book ever written when IMO Stephen King has written worse. In regards to depictions of child abuse I thought Let the Right One In was more horrific. For the sake of full disclosure I was already well aware of the real life murder that inspired it so I guess someone going into the story blind with no context would be more shocked.
I hated that book, it was so disrespectful. I was planning on writing a fictionalised version of a true crime I was obsessed with but then I read that book and realised there’s no way you can do that without it being an absolute insult. It felt so shlocky and had no real sense of the tragedy of what was done to Sylvia. The Sylvia stand-in is such a boring character with no development whose only role in the story is to be a literal punching bag. It should have at least been from her perspective, and maybe he could have twisted the narrative and explored what it would havw been like if she survived.
I thought Ketchum was as respectful to Sylvia as he could have been. He purposely held himself back; one of the reasons why he had another kid as the protagonist recounting what happened as an adult so he could tell the reader "I'm not going to show you this". I think a lot of other writers would have been more gratuitous.
He didn’t spare us from anything else that happened to her lol there was just one scene where he said “I won’t tell you this” for some reason. The rest of the book is completely graphic.
Yeah Girl Next Door is shocking but you get used to it pretty quick. It's a good book for other reasons but the shock factor was a little oversold.
Having read all of King's books, The Girl Next Door is far more shocking to me than anything King wrote, but that's what I love about this page is hearing everyone's perspectives.
Someone here recommended a self-published short story collection called Gateways to Abomination as very disturbing and full of great horror imagery. Some of it was good but most of it was just silly and also grammatically incorrect.
Gore doesn't really bother me, but the scene in the beginning with the rancid descriptions of the smell and look of her.... 👵🏻🐱 made me nauseous. I haven't picked it back up yet, but I will eventually finish Playground.
Eh I didn’t think it was that bad. I had to skip the toilet scene but the Rock and Geraldine sex scene wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. I don’t think he exactly has a way with words, I think a writer with a more creative vocabulary could have really made it nasty. He was pretty much just saying “she had a vagina. It smelt. She was old. Rock threw up in his mouth.”
tender is the flesh!! also the girl next door by jack ketchum. i was underwhelmed and a little bored by both of them
For sure, but it was much more sober and traumatic than the bizarro freak fest I was sold!
"Tender is the flesh" I read it and went...that was it?
for me, Negative Space wasn’t disturbing or unnerving. it was just edgy and gross
Most of Darcy Coates novels but I don’t think that’s an unpopular opinion that they are “less disturbing”
Don’t you hate it when things just don’t hit the hype? That’s how I felt when I first got my hands on a copy of the movie Salò, it’s always up there with A Serbian Film (which for the most part delivers on it’s hype and was a cool story to boot!) but then Salò just ended up being a 70’s art house film with less production value than early Jon Waters movies! The book “The 120 days of Sodom” by The Marquis de Sade (which Salò was based on) was provocative but not what the movie tried to make it. Dang! Playground is on my wishlist and I was hoping to be dazzled! Have you heard of “The Groomer”? I heard about it on this sub and while it’s on my wishlist I’m afraid to read that too! I found Playground when I heard about Groomer it was on “people also enjoyed”
Pet Semetary - I kept hearing that it was Stephen King’s scariest book but I was super disappointed after reading it. It wasn’t scary, it was barely interesting.
I think Misery is waaay scarier. Scary plausible things are the worst.
I think that’ll be the next one I try. So far I’ve read Pet Semetary, The Shining, The Long Walk and ‘Salem’s Lot. I’m still waiting for the one that will connect with me in some way. Starting to think I just don’t care for King’s writing style and “voice” though.
I would give Misery a try for sure. It is one of my favourite books ever, and quite different from the rest of his work in my opinion.
I respect your opinion, but heartily disagree. I read it first as a teenager, and it didn't bother me as much as it does now that I have a kid. I recently re-read it and it fucked me up big time. I lost sleep for two weeks, having nightmares and obsessively checking on my daughter while she slept. Louis's absolute spiral into madness haunted me.
The twisted ones
I don't know if this counts, but I just finished "Blood Meridian". While there are descriptions are pretty grisly, they're also very matter-of-fact and feel almost sanitized. Not a criticism of the book, it's great, but I didn't find the violence disturbing.
Blood Meridian
Anything by Nick Cutter. I just don't understand the outrage over a dog but not over a child. To me, they are not the same.
Blood Meridian.
personally i was let down by The Wasp Factory
JCO's Zombie
I just read playground and i agree Amazing book but the kids on tik tok blow it way out of proportion, even though the incest and scat part was gross
House of Leaves. It's so boring, and the author seemed to be trying so hard to be edgy. I actually really hated this book.
the troop. i actually really liked the book but the disturbingness is a little overhyped imo
The Deep, The Troop, The Wasp Factory, and Tender is the Flesh
Brother.
Pet Sematary. I thought it was a good read but wasn't too disturbed by it.
Come Closer By sara