# Most disturbing thing(s) you've read



## sunnyboy (Feb 6, 2012)

After reading something very, VERY disturbing last night, I though it'd be interesting to see what other people have read that had disturbed them in any way.

For me it's:

Eric the Pie by Graham Masterton
Victims by Shaun Hutson (certain scenes in this book really made my toes curl)
Slug Bait (lyrics) by Throbbing Gristle
Totally Sexy French Girl by Kevin 'Earfetish' (Short story/contains sexual scenes throughout)

Please note that to read any of these stories you need to be in possession of a very strong stomach and not be easily offended.

To admin: If this thread is not suitable for the forum, deletion is welcome.


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## Sean Patrick Fox (Dec 3, 2011)

I just finished _Every Dead Thing _by John Connolly. I don't know that I would say it was disturbing, but I've never read anything that was so.. gruesome. Pretty good book, though.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

We're talking fiction, right?  I guess it'd be "The Girl Next Door."  In fact, I didn't finish it.


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## Rook (Sep 6, 2011)

Toni Morrison's _The Bluest Eye_. Disturbing situation, but an important read.

(I usually prefer my books to have more zombies and not quite so much reality)


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## planet_janet (Feb 23, 2010)

_Child of God_ by Cormac McCarthy. Loved the book but it was a difficult, disturbing read for me.


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## Jorja Tabu (Feb 6, 2012)

Are we talking gruesome as in horror gross-out fest (which I love), or excellent reality-based fiction (like _The Kite Runner_, which is definitely in the top ten of my most disturbing books ever read)?


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## Klip (Mar 7, 2011)

Some time ago I read some of Freda Warrington's  "Blackbird" books.  I dont know WHY I kept reading them because they are filled with horrific scenes of sexual torture.  I think she was trying to make a point about the abuse of women but jeez!  I ended up feeling severely traumatised, some of those scenes are still in my head.  I think I kept reading them hoping for some kind of resolve or for something to get better but it just got worse. Definite trigger warnings needed on those books!

I also had to stop reading "The Windup Girl" for similar reasons.

"The Knife of Letting Go" confuses me because most of it is so great, and then there are these absolutely over the top violent scenes that felt so manipulative - I'm still not sure if I'll read the sequel.

On the other hand I found Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go" deeply disturbing but still a fantastic, meaningful book.


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## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

_The 120 Days of Sodom_ by the Marquis de Sade. Nothing else has come close. This book made me physically ill.


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## Cyanide5000 (Aug 30, 2010)

Once read a book called Sharper Knifes, cant remember who it was by - it was a long time ago, but it was pretty grim


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## laurie_lu (May 10, 2010)

"Serial Uncut" by  J.A. Konrath, Blake Crouch, and Jack Kilborn.  Very graphic descriptions of torture performed by serial killers in this book of fiction told by the serial killers themselves.


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## Harry Shannon (Jul 30, 2010)

With respect to Every Dead Thing, Connelly said later he'd gone over the top. He did. I barely got through it, though I love the Charlie Parker series. Also couldn't finish The Girl Next Door, I have a daughter and it was based on az true story. Child of God was brilliantly written by Cormac McCarthy and thus somehow a tad less upsetting, despite the subject matter. Broad horror like the stuff Konrath and Crouch write doesn't upset me, that borders on comic. There are several brutal scenes that have stayed with me for life, such as the reporter glued to the wooden wheel chair and set afire in Red Dragon. Brrr...


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## Mel Odious (Feb 29, 2012)

Sad to say, no scribbler can match what I read in the news some days.  Most gruesome stories provide insight into the horror, but there's precious little to be learned from the family down the street found wrapped in a tarp.  It would be nice if "disturbing" remained within the boundaries of the printed/phosphored page.


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## jwest (Nov 14, 2011)

Mel Odious said:


> Sad to say, no scribbler can match what I read in the news some days. Most gruesome stories provide insight into the horror, but there's precious little to be learned from the family down the street found wrapped in a tarp. It would be nice if "disturbing" remained within the boundaries of the printed/phosphored page.


I am in complete agreement. In the internet age, with access to worldwide news, it only takes about ten minutes to saturate your head with so much true horror - in all its forms - that it's a wonder to me that we have not all been driven insane.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I think most of the books by JA Konrath I have read managed to gross me out or disturb me to the point of distraction, but that doesn't mean I do not whole-heartedly recommend them.  I don't mind being disturbed.  If I am reading a thriller or horror - I kind of want to be disturbed in some fashion.


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## EllenR (Mar 31, 2009)

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

I'm not easily disturbed. Sex doesn't bother me in books, graphic horror doesn't bother me. THIS bothered me tremendously. Of course, I have a teenaged daughter so I related too much to the story.

Having said that, it was a very well-written book, in my opinion. My daughter and I saw the movie together. Stanley Tucci was beyond creepy in it!


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

I agree with the news is scarier tan most fiction because you know it's real. But these are a few that seemed too real for me.

"A Clockwork Orange" _Burgess_

"Velocity" _Koontz_

"Every Dead Thing" _Connolly_

"Pet Sematary" _King_


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## Rook (Sep 6, 2011)

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel



The story of a Jesuit mission to an alien planet that ends in disaster. That's not a spoiler: on page 1 we see the sorry state of the sole survivor and throughout the rest of the book we learn what happened and why. The truth about the alien species is even more disturbing that I imagined... but, in truth, may be no worse than what many human societies did (and still do) today.


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## Tinker (Oct 3, 2011)

Agreed with "A Clockwork Orange" only managed to read it once, but boy has it stayed with me. 

Stephen King managed to stop me reading his short stories once, with a little tale called "Ladies' Fingers". Gruesome. More recently, Ben Elton's "The First Casualty". His descriptions of WW1 trenches and a skermish are chilling in their matter of factness. 

Julia


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## angiemccullagh (Feb 21, 2012)

Kite Runner. I had nightmares for weeks!


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## Derek Clendening (Mar 1, 2012)

DYB said:


> We're talking fiction, right? I guess it'd be "The Girl Next Door." In fact, I didn't finish it.


That book sent shockwaves throughout the literary world. I've read it. Very disturbing indeed.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

_Empire of the Senseless_ by Kathy Acker. I was supposed to read it for a university class in postmodern literature. The book made me so sick that I physically threw it across the room a couple of chapters in and said, "Screw all that! I don't care if I get a bad grade, I'm not finishing that book." Turned out that no one in the class had managed to finish that book, from the shy Christian boy to the tough campus lesbian. They were all disgusted by Ms. Acker's book.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Derek Clendening said:


> That book sent shockwaves throughout the literary world. I've read it. Very disturbing indeed.


Yeah. I suppose knowing that it's inspired by real life events just makes it that much more disturbing, nauseating and upsetting. I tried to get through it, but just decided there was no need to put myself through the trauma. It's not a reflection on Jack Ketchum. Perhaps he wrote it a bit too well!

Another title just came into my mind: "The Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kozinski. Pick a chapter! Sheesh!!! But I did finish it, back in high school. It was in an English honor class. We were reading the Bible as literature and had complementary readings for the various books in the Bible. When it came to the Book of Job the teacher gave us a choice of either reading "The Painted Bird" or "Candide." At first everyone picked "Candide" because it's a lot shorter. Then the teacher read a passage from "The Painted Bird" and the entire class without exception switched to "The Painted Bird." Kids are morbid, yes?


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## MrPLD (Sep 23, 2010)

It's an interesting thread, in light of the recent PayPal/CC moves to quash erotica books, of which were to some people "questionable", and yet incredibly disturbing books as such as "The Girl Next Door" are still on sale.  There's some equally "bent" historic literature around as well if you're not careful.

Oddly, the most disturbing thing I read was only a single scene, from "Toxin", where an investigating officer gets her hand sliced clean in half ... and strangely also in a Wilbur Smith book where some poor chap loses his fingers after gripping a sword - seems that's my weakspot, needless to say, twitching and pained "flashes" in my head for weeks after.


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## Jorja Tabu (Feb 6, 2012)

Rook said:


> The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel
> 
> 
> 
> The story of a Jesuit mission to an alien planet that ends in disaster. That's not a spoiler: on page 1 we see the sorry state of the sole survivor and throughout the rest of the book we learn what happened and why. The truth about the alien species is even more disturbing that I imagined... but, in truth, may be no worse than what many human societies did (and still do) today.


That's the one! Horrifying.


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## anguabell (Jan 9, 2011)

Among many horrifying non-fiction things, one stands out - JonBenet Ramsey's autopsy report (I read it for work-related reasons). That, and the fact it was posted on the Internet. I think at that point some tiny little remaining spark of belief in prevailing human goodness died inside me.


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## laurie_lu (May 10, 2010)

I'm bookmarking this thread!


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## michaelabayomi (Dec 13, 2011)

For me it would have to be Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. I still get goosebumps whenever I think of the things I read in the pages of that book (and others in the series). Incidentally, it is the only book that has successfully kept me up late at night (and well into the morning). I just couldn't put it down for fear of what might happen next.


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## Iain Manson (Apr 3, 2011)

Mel Odious said:


> Sad to say, no scribbler can match what I read in the news some days. Most gruesome stories provide insight into the horror, but there's precious little to be learned from the family down the street found wrapped in a tarp. It would be nice if "disturbing" remained within the boundaries of the printed/phosphored page.


Yes, we are all to some extent desensitised to real horror. Strange, isn't it, that we should often react more strongly to fiction? That said, one of the most disturbing books I've ever read was nonfiction. *King Leopold's Ghost, by Adam Hochschild* tells the story of Belgian exploitation of the Congo Free State around the turn of the twentieth century. Not for the squeamish, but a book which Europeans in particular do well to read.



michaelabayomi said:


> For me it would have to be Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. I still get goosebumps whenever I think of the things I read in the pages of that book (and others in the series). Incidentally, it is the only book that has successfully kept me up late at night (and well into the morning). I just couldn't put it down for fear of what might happen next.


_The Silence of the Lambs_ is certainly scary. But I think, if anything, its predecessor, _*Red Dragon*_, is still more so. Harris makes his story the more disturbing by forcing us to sympathise to some extent with a terrifying homicidal maniac.

But the palm must go to *Toby Twirl and the Witches, by Sheila Hodgetts*. (Don't swear to the exact title. I haven't been able to confirm it.) Sheila Hodgetts, a children's writer, created cartoon pig Toby Twirl in the 1940s. In the adventure I have in mind, a picture of a witch on a broomstick, flying across the moon, gave me nightmares. Literally. And if a witch caught you, she would _make you do the housework_. God, I was scared.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

_The Hot Zone_, about viral hemorrhagic fevers, freaked me out, especially the descriptions of people rapidly dissolving from the inside.

In fiction, King's _Pet Sematary_ did it for me (in a good way), but I found the violence in _The Hunger Games_ more disturbing, maybe because it's considered Young Adult.


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

I read a lot of disturbing fiction and non-fiction -- several true crime books such as Capote's _In Cold Blood _ come immediately to mind. As long as the disturbing bits aren't gratuitous and make some important point, I'm okay plowing through just about anything.

However, Poppy Z Brite's _Exquisite Corpse _ ended up in my trashcan, only half-read. I never throw dead-tree books away, either--if I don't like them for some reason, I pass them along to someone who I think will. Not EC though--it disturbed me so much that I didn't want to inflict it on anyone else.


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## planet_janet (Feb 23, 2010)

EllenR said:


> The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.
> 
> I'm not easily disturbed. Sex doesn't bother me in books, graphic horror doesn't bother me. THIS bothered me tremendously. Of course, I have a teenaged daughter so I related too much to the story.
> 
> Having said that, it was a very well-written book, in my opinion. My daughter and I saw the movie together. Stanley Tucci was beyond creepy in it!


I made the mistake of reading this book when I was pregnant with my first daughter. It was definitely a very well-written book, but it traumatized me! I'll never read it again and I won't ever see the movie.


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## tim_mc_dougall (Feb 27, 2012)

I would probably go with Blatty's "The Exorcist" because I tried to act tough and laugh off my fear when I finished it but soon after I got in my car, put the key in the ignition and realized my foot was shaking on the gas pedal.  The book has stayed with me ever since.


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## Debbie Bennett (Mar 25, 2011)

Mark Chadbourn's Testimony. The UK's answer to Amityville Horror and supposedly true. I've met Mark on many occasions and he doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who'd say it was true if he didn't believe that the people involved believed, if that makes sense?

I read it once and I'm too scared to read it again. And I don't scare easily.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Iain Manson said:


> _The Silence of the Lambs_ is certainly scary. But I think, if anything, its predecessor, _*Red Dragon*_, is still more so. Harris makes his story the more disturbing by forcing us to sympathise to some extent with a terrifying homicidal maniac.


Oh yes, "Red Dragon" is terrifying, much more so than "The Silence of the Lambs."

I read "Helter Skelter" recently and when I read that the Manson Family "creepy crawled" houses (before the murders, they would go into houses at night while people slept and move stuff around....) for a couple of weeks I double-checked that my door was locked in the evenings!


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

When I think back on it, probably the most disturbing thing I have read is still the opening chapters of Helter Skelter, about the Manson murders.  Positively chilling stuff that have surpassed any horror novel I have ever read.  And to know it all really happened - well, it just made reading those opening chapters scarier.


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## Dawn McCullough White (Feb 24, 2010)

In *The Things They Carried* by Tim O'Brien, which is one of my favorite books. One of the stories talks about how they killed a water buffalo calf(I think it was) by hacking it to pieces. I have a lot of empathy for animals, and that really disturbed me.

Also in *On Writing* by Stephen King, the beginning memoir where he talks about having his eardrum lanced... I read that one night when I was having dinner alone with my 5 yr old son, he ran off to play and there I was at the table finishing up my dinner and I thought, "well, alone time woohoo, I'm going to do some reading!" And I read that scene. My stomach did a complete flip-flop. Eww, just eww...

Dawn


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## FrankColes (Feb 22, 2012)

Most things by Konrath et al are pretty gruesome, but, strangely, quite readable.

I agree with all the real life comments. When I worked in TV the things I saw in the news archives disturbed for life - remember watching women and kids being gunned down while the propaganda machine showed images of Saddam's statue being pulled over. Unrescuable victims melting in fires. Lots of that sort of thing.

A great book on TV carnage is Jon Steele's real-life War Junkie, I couldn't put it down: http://www.amazon.com/War-Junkie-Addiction-Worst-Places/dp/0552149845/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331284255&sr=8-1. Most horror stories are weak by comparison.

One of my parents died in quite gory circumstances. Meaningless gore made me mad for quite a few years.


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## Erick Flaig (Oct 25, 2010)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-Holocaust-Diaries-ebook/dp/B001Y35J5S/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1331296239&sr=1-1

I couldn't read past the first chapter or so. Was there ever a worse place than Europe in the late 30's until the end of the war?


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

balaspa said:


> When I think back on it, probably the most disturbing thing I have read is still the opening chapters of Helter Skelter, about the Manson murders. Positively chilling stuff that have surpassed any horror novel I have ever read. And to know it all really happened - well, it just made reading those opening chapters scarier.


I must say those opening paragraphs as Bugliosi describes things that people heard from miles away - because sound carries in very odd patterns in that area - were chilling.


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

DYB said:


> I must say those opening paragraphs as Bugliosi describes things that people heard from miles away - because sound carries in very odd patterns in that area - were chilling.


Oh, that book. I read that opening when I was fourteen or so, and along with _In Cold Blood_, it has to be one of the most terrifying true crime books I've ever read. I couldn't read any more after I got to the part where Sharon Tate pled for the life of her unborn baby. This world sometimes . . . it's just too much to handle.


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## Jorja Tabu (Feb 6, 2012)

Iain Manson said:


> Yes, we are all to some extent desensitised to real horror. Strange, isn't it, that we should often react more strongly to fiction? That said, one of the most disturbing books I've ever read was nonfiction. *King Leopold's Ghost, by Adam Hochschild* tells the story of Belgian exploitation of the Congo Free State around the turn of the twentieth century. Not for the squeamish, but a book which Europeans in particular do well to read.


Excellent nomination--I'd forgotten this one, but it definitely gave me nightmares for weeks.



purplepen79 said:


> However, Poppy Z Brite's _Exquisite Corpse _ ended up in my trashcan, only half-read. I never throw dead-tree books away, either--if I don't like them for some reason, I pass them along to someone who I think will. Not EC though--it disturbed me so much that I didn't want to inflict it on anyone else.


I'm with you there, too! I did finish it, but I haven't had the heart to ever read any of PZB's books since, no matter how much I trust the rec of the friend who gives it to me. Just awful.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

Jorja Tabu said:


> purplepen79 said:
> 
> 
> > However, Poppy Z Brite's _Exquisite Corpse _ ended up in my trashcan, only half-read. I never throw dead-tree books away, either--if I don't like them for some reason, I pass them along to someone who I think will. Not EC though--it disturbed me so much that I didn't want to inflict it on anyone else.
> ...


Poppy Z Brite stopped writing horror quite some time ago. He has actually retired for now from writing, is transgendered and is now living as Billy Martin. Starting in somewhere in the late 90's, he still wrote about New Orleans, but the Horror and Goth aspects were gone and were replaced by a wry sense of humor. Some of this 'newer' stuff is really quite good ....

Now, all that said, I can see where his earlier works - and especially _Exquisite Corpse_ - could put someone off his books permanently. I was a fan of his early horror and found it disturbing but fascinating ... BUT I usually re-read my favorite authors and I cannot re-read Corpse simply because I know what's coming.


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## SadieSForsythe (Feb 13, 2012)

I must be a little off, some of my favorite books are on this list. While E. Wiesle's _Night _was certainly heart rending, it also moved me beyond words. Plus, he is an exceptional writer. Mary Doria Russell's books (_The Sparrow_ and _Children of God_) top my favorites list, as does _Silence of the Lambs_. I sooo wanted to be Starling when I was young. To answer the initial question of what I found most disturbing, it would have to be _Lolita_. I just felt dirty at the end of it, and it was hard to get to the end.


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## Jorja Tabu (Feb 6, 2012)

LOL That's almost too perfect--_Lolita _is one of my favorite books of all time (unreliable narrators...I can't help myself, it's brilliant) but it is also horrifically disturbing.

I should say I think all of the above books are amazing... Just disturbing. The truth is often disturbing, as seen in depictions of the darker side of human nature in almost every book listed, fiction or non-fiction. I'm a mush! I write romance 

I knew PZB was trans, and I'd heard he was retiring from writing; I didn't know he'd switched to humor or his name. I'm still gun-shy, but who knows? Maybe I'll give him another go.


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## mistyd107 (May 22, 2009)

As I Die, Lying by Scott Nicholson


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## yogini2 (Oct 27, 2008)

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.  I couldn't finish it.  I took it outside and burned it.  Some things you just don't need in your head.


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

Geoffrey said:


> Poppy Z Brite stopped writing horror quite some time ago. He has actually retired for now from writing, is transgendered and is now living as Billy Martin. Starting in somewhere in the late 90's, he still wrote about New Orleans, but the Horror and Goth aspects were gone and were replaced by a wry sense of humor. Some of this 'newer' stuff is really quite good ....
> 
> Now, all that said, I can see where his earlier works - and especially _Exquisite Corpse_ - could put someone off his books permanently. I was a fan of his early horror and found it disturbing but fascinating ... BUT I usually re-read my favorite authors and I cannot re-read Corpse simply because I know what's coming.


Thanks for the information--I didn't know all of that and may have to check out his later books. Like Jorja, I never picked anything else of his after EQ.


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

Dawn McCullough White said:


> Also in *On Writing* by Stephen King, the beginning memoir where he talks about having his eardrum lanced... I read that one night when I was having dinner alone with my 5 yr old son, he ran off to play and there I was at the table finishing up my dinner and I thought, "well, alone time woohoo, I'm going to do some reading!" And I read that scene. My stomach did a complete flip-flop. Eww, just eww...


I'd forgotten that scene--poor little Stevie. It makes my ear hurt just thinking about it. That's one of my favorite writing books, but that part gives me ear pain and goosebumps every time I read it.


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## Nell Gavin (Jul 3, 2010)

I've learned that I cannot read books where children die from stupid, preventable accidents. They freak me out, and I can never finish them. 

I also can't stand news stories where babies were left in the car in the summer - especially the one where Dad forgot to stop at daycare on the way to work, and then ran out of the office screaming at the top of his lungs at 11am (baby died), or Mom backs over the toddler with her SUV. Or Grandma accidentally kills the sick child with expired antibiotics. That appears to be the only threshold I can never, ever cross over. It's like I close my eyes, cover my ears, and shout "La la la!" 

So I found Lolita very disturbing, and also Slammerkin. I finished both of them, but my skin crawled.


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## NS (Jul 8, 2011)

DYB said:


> We're talking fiction, right? I guess it'd be "The Girl Next Door." In fact, I didn't finish it.


Off springs also is his book, right? I did find it very disturbing and I do like disturbing books. That one was too much even for me.


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## MartinStanley72 (May 17, 2011)

_American Psycho_ by Bret Easton Ellis; _Beasts of No Nation_ by Uzodinma Iweala; and _Blood Meridian_ by Cormac McCarthy, although pretty much every book in James Ellroy's LA Quartet and David Peace's Red Riding Quartet are disturbing in one way or another.


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## Elizabeth Black (Apr 8, 2011)

The most disturbing book for me was "Hiroshima". I second "American Psycho" although I think that book was trying too hard to be disturbing. 

I've read true accounts of child abuse and child murders and they're always very upsetting. I am most disturbed over cats or kittens being killed. I couldn't watch movies or read books that included that kind of mindless killing because I get upset. I can't even read news of animal cruelty for the same reason.


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## EStoops (Oct 24, 2011)

I'm not sure which disturbing you were looking for, but "The Book of the Nine Ides" gave me the skin creeps so badly I had to put it down. For a horror fan, this might be just the thing but man, I don't even like thinking about it now.


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## Nell Gavin (Jul 3, 2010)

Elizabeth Black said:


> The most disturbing book for me was "Hiroshima".


I forgot about Hiroshima. It was required reading for religion class when I was in high school (they also made us sit through film clips of the Nazis bulldozing corpses into ditches - it was a pretty powerful religion class. They liked to burn holes in our consciousness, and they liked to make us cry.) The imagery haunted me for years and years. I read it again a few years ago, just for closure, I think.


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## JD_Richard (Feb 22, 2012)

1. Stephen King's _It_, which succeeded at being the horror that it was likely designed to be.
2. Gustave Flaubert's _Madame Bovary_--I was way too young to read this as a high school junior. The lifeless ennui scared the crap out of me. It's worse that the book was on an advanced placement list in a class taught by a man that was later arrested as a pedo.
3. Stephenie Meyer's _Twilight_. That first book and original construct of venom as the lifeblood for a family whose tree is incapable of branching--taken together with Krakauer's _Under the Banner of Heaven_ (non-fiction, since autopsy reports were mentioned)--is an insidious mind job!


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