Disturbing Books

[underjoyed]

bagofbones said:

Out of boredom I read something called (I think) Let's Go Play at the Adams House. I'd bet money no one's ever heard of this piece of trash.

Actually, I have this book on my Disturbing Books list as one to avoid. I don't remember where I first heard of it - maybe on The Site That Once Was?

I'd heard of this one, and I don't think I'll be reading it, either. I have a pretty strong stomach, but I also have a brain that seems fond of endlessly picking over disturbing images or scenes at 3:00am.

[glitterbug]

The Lovely Bones has a very disturbing beginning, but brings its own peace towards the end - I'd rather have that than a disturbing end!

Oh, and the sex/birth scenes in The Handmaid's Tale really bothered me the first few times I read the book.

However, I've never read anything as bad as my hubby, who favours the "real-life" war-type books by ex-soldiers. Some of their experiences are truly shocking. One example he read me made me feel sick to the point of not being able to eat all day (most unlike me!!!)

[emersende]

Just remembered this yesterday- a while ago my mother had me read Creating a Life by Sylvia Ann Hewlitt. It's a book about the problems of putting off having children, and the message of the book is that you should have children while you're young because a lot of the fertillity treatments don't work very well for older women, and if you don't have kids you'll regret it terribly and your life will be empty and sad. But then the last chapter, for no discernible reason, is all about the horrible things about childbirth and why women died in chidbirth so often. I'm glad that I read the book because it pushed me to clarify my own plans for my life, but wow, if I'd ever had the urge to have children, that last chapter would have beaten it right out of me in favor of ensuring my own survival. I think Sylvia Ann Hewlitt's got some issues.

[stargirl]

Deerskin by Robin McKinley is a great example of a book that both disturbed and fascinated me.
I read it quite awhile ago; I'd kind of like to reread it but I don't think it's in print anymore. On her website, she said it's the book she's gotten the most mail on. I was surprised to learn it had its origins in a fairy tale. Then again, the original versions of most fairy tales don't exactly mesh with the Disney interpretations! (As a kid I was pretty creeped out by a version of Cinderella where the stepsisters cut of part of their feet to try and fit into the glass slipper and got an eye pecked out by birds during the wedding procession at the end of the story.)


I read Night, by Elie Wiesel around 10 or 11 years ago. I haven't read it since (too sad) but I still remember whole lines from the book; it was that powerfully written. (By the way, I attended a speech he gave last year--he was so not what I was expecting--he was a sweet and funny with a wry sense of humor, totally with it; not the sad, melancholy type of person you'd think he would be based on his writings--I thought it very telling that he never made any specific references to the Holocaust or concentration camps, just said stuff like "some things I went through a long time ago.")

[Shalamar]

I wish I could remember the name of this book, but it was one that my Grade 6 teacher read to us in English. It had to do with a kid having problems with his mean stepfather. The kid had a kitten. One day the stepfather tripped over it, and in a fit of temper, he told the kid to "take that kitten and kill it!" He didn't really mean it, but for some reason the kid decided that by doing exactly what he'd been told, he'd somehow get back at his stepfather.

So he killed his kitten - in probably the most horrible way possible. He hanged it. And, as anyone who's studied such things knows, if you don't break your neck first off, you slowly strangle to death. Guess what happened to the kitten?

GAH. I still can't believe that my teacher let 12-year-olds hear that.

[Deleted]

Michael Crichton's <b> Jurassic Park </b>.

The death of Wayne Newton's character scarred me. Everytime I see Wayne Newton, I always remember the passage in the book. And I get grossed out again. After reading that book, I moved right to John Grisham courtroom dramas.

Then, I started Anne Rice after seeing "Interview With Vampire." I made it through The Vampire Chronicles without any trouble. So I decided to try to read "The Witching Hour." The incest was disconcerting. Then, I started to read "Lasher" and couldn't make it past the second chapter. The incest was just too much.

[goggle]

shalamar said:

I wish I could remember the name of this book, but it was one that my Grade 6 teacher read to us in English. It had to do with a kid having problems with his mean stepfather. The kid had a kitten. One day the stepfather tripped over it, and in a fit of temper, he told the kid to "take that kitten and kill it!" He didn't really mean it, but for some reason the kid decided that by doing exactly what he'd been told, he'd somehow get back at his stepfather.

So he killed his kitten - in probably the most horrible way possible. He hanged it. And, as anyone who's studied such things knows, if you don't break your neck first off, you slowly strangle to death. Guess what happened to the kitten?

GAH. I still can't believe that my teacher let 12-year-olds hear that.

That sounds like the beginning of Black Boy by Richard Wright, but I read that in 11th grade, I'm not sure about 6th.

[Deleted]

On The Other Site, people were too disturbed when I told my most disturbing moment from a book.

[biondetta]

Blindsighted, by Karin Slaughter, really disturbed me and stuck with me for a few weeks. The discription of the main murder in the story and the depravity of it just turned my stomach and creeped me out.

[glitterbug]

Spill, poorfrances!

Topic? The weird kiddy sex in Stephen King's It, which I'd forgotten all about. I mean, it was for a purpose in the book but it still creeped me out.