Most disturbing book?

kylith

American Psycho definitely messed my head up for a long time afterwards.

Bodhidharma

Child of God by Cormac McCarthy, hands down the most gruesome, violent and disturbing book i've ever read.

alanna4

Exquisite Corpse by Poppy.Z.Brite..

Pretty messed up but a very good read!

Bagmagnet

'Filth' by Irvine Welsh is an awfully messed up book, but I found it an interesting read all the same

RonMexico

I thought American Psycho was hilarious. The violence is so over the top it just becomes redundant. I also found The Road to be hilarious but for far different reasons. Never before have I come across a book so completely hyped beyond belief.

Survival my arse! It has all the ingredients of a B-movie with an ending that is truly a cop out and laughable.

The cellar full of food that they discover at just the right moment is so badly cliched you wouldn't see it in a porno. If McCarthy had any balls he would have had the dying father see his child being eaten alive. Instead he opted for a convenient rescue that would make McGuyver blush.

Lame.

duckworth

The most disturbing I've ever come across has been William Burroughs work. Naked Lunch is bad, but Cities of the Red Night is downright traumatic. I had vivid nightmares after reading these books.

Another disturbing one is Hubert Selby Jr. Last exit to Brooklyn is harrowing, as is The Demon, and Requiem for a Dream.

The Road is pretty harrowing, but I wasn't disturbed like with the two writers above.

the purple tin

bullpost wrote: »

The Butcher Boy - Pat McCabe.
Only book I've read which gave me nightmares.
Didn't bother me that much on a conscious level but obviously sub-consiously hit a nerve.

Same here. His book "The Dead School" hit me even harder. Very bleak stuff.

longshanks

RonMexico wrote: »

I thought American Psycho was hilarious. The violence is so over the top it just becomes redundant. I also found The Road to be hilarious but for far different reasons. Never before have I come across a book so completely hyped beyond belief.

Survival my arse! It has all the ingredients of a B-movie with an ending that is truly a cop out and laughable.

The cellar full of food that they discover at just the right moment is so badly cliched you wouldn't see it in a porno. If McCarthy had any balls he would have had the dying father see his child being eaten alive. Instead he opted for a convenient rescue that would make McGuyver blush.

Lame.

have you only watched the films?

Carlos_Ray

John Fowles "The Collector." Very subtle and very creepy. Knowing that a number of serial killers were inspired by it probably added to the disturbing feeling I got from it.

porschespeedst

I found Ellis' newest novel Imperial Bedrooms more disturbing than American Psycho. I always read American Psycho as a sort of comedy, even before seeing the movie which of course plays up the comedic aspects and downplays the sick stuff.

Most disturbing book I have read was probably Martin Amis's Yellow Dog. I actually threw it away after reading although usually I am a fan of his work.

There is also a short story by Amis called which The Janitor on Mars which I found very bleak.

Raedwald

Has to be American Psycho for, some of the vilest stuff I have ever read in that book. Really freaked me about for while and left me wondering about the author and his life experiences to be able to write that stuff.

Might give his new book a read though as have heard decent things about it.

epgc3fyqirnbsx

Winterwood by Patrick McCabe

Didn't get through all of it, it was a hard and surreal read and extremely dark and menacing. I must try to locate it again and finish it, it had me completely confused as to what was going on but it seemed to contain paedophilia, violence and hallucinations. What I read of it was certainly strange and definitely disturbing

Doom

Dades wrote: »

Recently, The Road was somewhat disturbing.

I also remember being somewhat perturbed after reading Atomised, too.

Seen film.....see book worth reading still

Doom

Lizzykins wrote: »

Dean Koontz- The Taking frightened the living daylights out of me.

+1

2040

I've probably read more disturbing books but Lolita, by Nabokov, is an amazing insight into the mind of a paedophile.

RonMexico

longshanks wrote: »

have you only watched the films?

No.

anti-venom

The Gas by Charles Platt. This is a very dark and disturbing read and one which will offend most people who dare to read it. I wasn't too surprised to discover that it had been banned in many countries and the publishing house that first unleashed it in the U.K. was prosecuted for their efforts. It really is depraved and vile in the extreme.

Paddy Samurai

Found it disturbing at the time i read it about 10+ years back.Don't know if i would feel the same today.

DEUS-X is a gripping, frightening novel. Weaving elements of science fiction, theology and mystery into a story of ultimate cosmic horror with contemporary and historical reverberations … For those of you who are tired of vampires, serial killers and angst-ridden, deteriorating artist, DEUS-X will be welcome relief. Its cosmic scope, several creepy scenes of grotesque, supernatural horror, plus a downbeat ending all add up to an epic novel of millennial terror."—Fangoria

[FONT=times new roman,palatino][/FONT][FONT=times new roman,palatino]Available for the first time in paperback, Citro’s most ambitious novel is "a supercharged cross between The X-Files and The Exorcist"[/FONT]

[FONT=times new roman,palatino][FONT=Times, Times New Roman, serif]Named one of the "113 Best Books of Modern Horror" by critic Stanley Wiater, Deus-X offers a potent combination of mystery, psychological horror, and spiritual terror. Two seemingly unrelated events set in motion a complex plot: in a secret government installation in California, a political prisoner is grotesquely executed; while on the East Coast, an elderly Vermont farmer vanishes, the victim of an otherwordly abduction.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times, Times New Roman, serif]Three amateur investigators with divergent world views—a psychologist, a physicist, and a priest—join forces to discover the relationship between these two events. Stalked by a murderous psychopath intent on stopping them, they encounter UFOs, inexplicable religious phenomena, multiple personalities, and overwhelming psychic violence. They are drawn inexorably forward through the gothic halls of a Canadian hospital for elderly and demented priests to the locked chambers of a covert American repository for space-age weaponry, where they uncover a sinister application of computer technology.[/FONT]
[/FONT]

longshanks

RonMexico wrote: »

No.

so the father doesn't see his son cannibalised but leaves his son go with strangers, not knowing what kind of outcome that'll lead to but is too sick to have any other choice. not really a cop out ending

<mod edit: spoiler tags please dude, not everyone else has read the book as a few people have pointed out by PM</edit>

Chinafoot

InvisibleBadger wrote: »

I agree with The Road, it stayed with me for a long time. The Wasp Factory was a pretty disturbing read too.

Yeah I'd have to go with these two.

Both scenes which I found most horrific involved babies.

IvyTheTerrible

longshanks wrote: »

so the father ...

Spoiler tags?

Monkeybonkers

longshanks wrote: »

so the father doesn't see his son cannibalised but leaves his son go with strangers, not knowing what kind of outcome that'll lead to but is too sick to have any other choice. not really a cop out ending

Well that's the ending of that book fuc*ing ruined for me. Nice one!! :rolleyes:

sceptre

Guys, as a few people have pointed out on-thread and by PM, if you're going to give away the ending of a book, please use the spoiler tags (enter [noparse]

[/noparse] at the beginning and end respectively of what you're giving away). Obviously someone else might want to enjoy the book you're synopsising the ending of, give them a chance to discover it for themselves please...

Mental Mickey

"Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton S Trumbo

****kin thing scared the hell outta me. It's written with hardly any punctuation, and is gripping.

I watched the DVD of it and fell asleep, though.

RonMexico

longshanks wrote: »

so the father doesn't see his son cannibalised but leaves his son go with strangers, not knowing what kind of outcome that'll lead to but is too sick to have any other choice. not really a cop out ending

I still consider it to be a cop out. The book is completely overrated. Dull, uninspired and predictable with a whiff of bible off it that was lapped up by the American public, who love that kind of thing.

It is nowhere near his best work.

pwd

The Hot Zone, which is about the Ebola virus.

Filth, which has already been mentioned.

Resurrection Man, which is a novel about a violent man in Northern Ireland. It's the only book I can think of I stopped reading because it bothered me.

I read all of them when I was a lot younger though, so I don't know if they would have the same effect now.

ColmSewell

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs disturbed me in a really thrilling way. Highlights include miscarriages, backstreet abortions, erotic asphyxiation, direct genital heroin injection and open-heart surgery performed with a toilet plunger. Anything written by Burroughs after 1959 basically explores this content further. Also, Rant by Chuck Palahniuk.

My most disturbing literary experience, however, was when my ex-girlfriend made me read Twilight.

Crazyivan 1979

I also found the wasp factory to be a pretty disturbing, but absorbant read. Started to read alot of Banks after this, especially his sci-fi.

Honky McCool

Pimp by Iceberg Slim

Monkeybonkers

I'm currently reading Roots by Alex Haley and it's pretty disturbing to see what the blacks slaves had to suffer in America.