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Thoughts Most Disturbing Book(s) You've Ever Read?

hydroazuanacaine said:
Dark Spring by unica zurn.

there's wanton use of a bb gun in a.m. homes's The End of Alice.
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I really enjoyed The End of Alice! I thought the focus on a female paedophile was an interesting perspective. I'd be interested in reading similar books, but there is literally no way to look up or ask about "books about [female]/paedophiles" whithout looking SUPER sucking sus. I've looked up some of Homes' other books, but they don't seem to be on the same level. Are any of there other books disturbing in nature?
 
Pumpkin2021 said:
Anything written by Stephen King. I have always loved his books but I find them very disturbing. The man has an unrivaled imagination, for sure, but I find his books very daunting.
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I love Stephen King, but his books are much more mainstream than disturbing (to me). I do remember reading Dreamcatcher as a kid and being scared to sit on the toilet lol.
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
I love Stephen King, but his books are much more mainstream than disturbing (to me). I do remember reading Dreamcatcher as a kid and being scared to sit on the toilet lol.
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Exactly ! That toothpick in the mouth guy was freakin out every time that lid started shaking. Just re-watched that the other day. Never read the book though.

Started reading King in the 80's and kept up with him until around 2006. Started to be almost able to predict the outcomes of his books as he never really changed his style much. I am always amazed at his ability to imagine all sorts of scenarios. I guess I thought they were disturbing because I could imagine it all happening in real life.

When you first read a Bachmann book ( and didn't know it was King ) how many chapters did it take you to realize it was him ( if you did ). I had him pegged at halfway through the book because of the words he used and the way he describes things. He is for sure one of a kind. I have about 10 of his hardbacks in my library.

My all time favorite is The Stand with second choice being The Gunslinger series.
 
December Flower said:
If you like Blatty, you might like Thomas Harris :)
Love his Hannibal books. Very disturbing at times. Also very un-Christian :D
Psychological Horror.



C'mon his older stuff is good. The Long Walk, Shining, even in the 80s he still wrote amazing books, like It.

Not horror per se, but Dark Tower, at least the first 5 books are grand.

He definitely has his moments, he just got lazy in the 90s and since.
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When it comes to horror, Stephen King is as close to modern classic/contemporary literature as it gets! lol.

C'mon, though, some of his books (especially older ones) are excellent and original stories. I think they have been ripped off and copied so many times over that they lose that magic for people, but usually they came first.
I mean:
Carrie
The Stand
It
Misery
Pet Sematary
The Long Walk
The Green Mile

Just those off the top of my head are some there's no way you can say are trash.

Now if you wanna discuss Lisey's Story...I've tried three times and never made it half-way through.
 
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Pumpkin2021 said:
Exactly ! That toothpick in the mouth guy was freakin out every time that lid started shaking. Just re-watched that the other day. Never read the book though.

Started reading King in the 80's and kept up with him until around 2006. Started to be almost able to predict the outcomes of his books as he never really changed his style much. I am always amazed at his ability to imagine all sorts of scenarios. I guess I thought they were disturbing because I could imagine it all happening in real life.

When you first read a Bachmann book ( and didn't know it was King ) how many chapters did it take you to realize it was him ( if you did ). I had him pegged at halfway through the book because of the words he used and the way he describes things. He is for sure one of a kind. I have about 10 of his hardbacks in my library.

My all time favorite is The Stand with second choice being The Gunslinger series.
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Most people (including King himself) say that it [Dreamcatcher] is one of his worst but I actually REALLY liked it. The book is much better than the movie (not that the movie is awful, Morgan Freeman's huge crazy eyebrows included). I re-read it about a year ago and still really enjoyed it.

I was born in '96 so by the time I started reading King/Bachman in 2005ish the secret had already been public knowledge for a long time. It would have been cool to have NOT known, though. I've often wondered if I would've been able to clock it.
Which book was it you were reading when you guessed?

He definitely has some disturbing shit in there and the "real" stuff is more disturbing to me, too. Like I said about the depictions of Spinal Meningitis in Pet Sematary. I found the hate-crime of Adrian Mellon in It quite disturbing, too. I remember in a couple different books there was some heavy racist bullying that was hard to read.

I take it you much prefer his fantasy stuff to straight-up horror then? Have you read the The Talisman and Black House duology that he co-wrote with Peter Straub? That's very fantasy-centric and I definitely think you'd like it if you like the Dark Tower books. A lot of it is set in the same (Universe? Dimension?) as Gunslinger.
The Talisman is good but Black House is amazing. It's like 700 pages and I read it in one day.

So hard to pick a favourite!
In no particular order, I'd say:
1) Misery
2) It
3) Carrie
4) The Long Walk
5) The Shining
6) The Stand
7) The Institute
8 ) Dreamcatcher
9) Desperation
10) Rose Madder
 
6am-64-14m said:
Not sure it has been mentioned yet but I would have to say The Exorcist. By far the most disturbing read for a youngin brought up in a christian house-hold.
Problem is... when I saw the movie I fell in love with linda blair and started worshiping the devil. :ROFLMAO: Now I bow to nada.
Ahhhhhhhhhh what we do for love.
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I bet you fantasized about being that crucifix of hers, huh? Dirty dawg.
 
Talisman and Black House are 2 of the 10 in my collection. I was born in 1958 and read my first King book in 1973. It was The Shining and I was hooked from that first book.

I realized Bachmann was King while I was reading The Long Walk. His descriptive adjectives are unique and I picked up on him about halfway through. Thought I was nuts at first cause I couldn't figure out why King would need a pseudonym.

Liseys Story written after his accident? Thought the painkillers he was on affected his writing. Could be wrong.

Desperation was very good and I have that one. His other one that mirrored where all the vehicles had deathrays and stuff was too silly.

All time favorites are The Shining, Duma Key, Misery and The Stand.
 
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MsDiz said:
Flowers in the attic - V C Andrews is one that I was pretty disturbed by.
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Indeed. I read that in the 90's and those kids being locked up like that and the whole way the Author described their plight was disturbing? When the two oldest conceived a child I was blown away. I believe this book is a classic.

I have read some wild and crazy, but good, stories in my life and I hope to read more.
 
Pumpkin2021 said:
Indeed. I read that in the 90's and those kids being locked up like that and the whole way the Author described their plight was disturbing? When the two oldest conceived a child I was blown away. I believe this book is a classic.

I have read some wild and crazy, but good, stories in my life and I hope to read more.
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There was a film a well, i always prefer the book version though. It was pretty horrid.
 
Pumpkin2021 said:
Talisman and Black House are 2 of the 10 in my collection. I was born in 1958 and read my first King book in 1973. It was The Shining and I was hooked from that first book.

I realized Bachmann was King while I was reading The Long Walk. His descriptive adjectives are unique and I picked up on him about halfway through. Thought I was nuts at first cause I couldn't figure out why King would need a pseudonym.

Liseys Story written after his accident? Thought the painkillers he was on affected his writing. Could be wrong.

Desperation was very good and I have that one. His other one that mirrored where all the vehicles had deathrays and stuff was too silly.

All time favorites are The Shining, Duma Key, Misery and The Stand.
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But The Shining was written in 1978? lol.
Actually, his first book (Carrie) wasn't published until '74 :/

Yeah, The Regulators (published as a "lost Richard Bachman book") didn't stand up to Desperation at all. Was really disappointed as I read Desperation first.
Liseys Story was 2007 (well, published in '07). I think that was a few years after his accident. It was the type of book he had been wanting to write for YEARS but knew it wasn't what his fans wanted. He was right. It was shit.
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
But The Shining was written in 1978? lol.
Actually, his first book (Carrie) wasn't published until '74 :/

Yeah, The Regulators (published as a "lost Richard Bachman book") didn't stand up to Desperation at all. Was really disappointed as I read Desperation first.
Liseys Story was 2007 (well, published in '07). I think that was a few years after his accident. It was the type of book he had been wanting to write for YEARS but knew it wasn't what his fans wanted. He was right. It was shit.
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LOL. Took a wild ass guess on the year I read it as I thought I was in 9th grade when I read it. That would have been 1973. Graduated in '76. That means I was 20 years old when I read it and I swear I was younger but alas I wasn't.

The Regulators....yep. Overall probably my least favorite. That and The Tommyknockers. Just couldn't jive with that one either.
 
chinup said:
In the nonfiction section....

The great war for civilisation (the title is ironic, the point is how uncivilised it is) by Robert Fisk, a longtime middle east correspondent. This is a modern history of this region.

I was sitting next to an Iraqi girl at work while reading this, she had had to give birth unassisted at home due to curfews following the invasion. She got so fucking bored of me apologising to her every day while I was reading it.

In nonfiction I have to say, loads of people seem to find the wasp factory disturbing but I did not. I read Last exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr as a teen and I remember it being disturbing, may reread to see if I still find it so.
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I liked The Wasp Factory but agree with you. There was nothing disturbing in that book. If you enjoyed it, The Bridge, Canal Dreams, Walking on Glass and Complicity are all very good by the same author, especially that last one.
 
nickbor34 said:
I wanted to know about literary taxes. Are there taxes on the sale of web books or texts? I recently found some cool books https://freebooksummary.com/category/the-deerslayer that can't be found on the web. These are unique scans that I received in a book reviewer with copyright notes. This is a cool option for book lovers' auction.
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Isn't *everything* you buy taxed, to some degree? I think The U.S. is the only country in the word where YOU have to figure it out before buying something, though. That's weird.

For Americans that I just confused: In other countries (I THINK all but the U.S., but there MAY be others) the price on the product is what you pay, the tax is included in that price.

Either way, 99% of the ebooks I get are either KindleUnlimited or downloaded for free from "e-libraries" like Libgen or Z-Library.
For writers I REALLY like, I do buy the hardcover as soon as a new book comes out (Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Lee Child, Irvine Welsh...a few others).
 
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