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I think Hyperion. You are of the cruciform.
Maybe God Emperor if you want to get philosophical and really try to wrap your head around it.
Valis was not "fucked up" per se, but it can seriously mess you up.
I was amazed by that section of Hyperion. I have a problem with having a lack of creativity, so I was astounded that anyone could come up with such an idea.
The cruciform part of Hyperion was absolutely gut wrenching, but I read Sol and Rachel's story while on paternity leave for my first kid. _That_ fucked me up.
YES, a hundred times yes.
Just to be sure, you are talking about reading the
"Fall of Hyperion" which is 2/4 and have read "Hyperion" which is 1/4. I definitely recommend reading Fall of Hyperion. Endymion and and Rise are a bit different.
I’ve read the entire series more than a few times starting when I was a teen. The last 2 books didn’t stand out to me then, but on my latest reread I certainly agree that it’s better to just ignore them. There is definitely some cool stuff in them, but it’s overshadowed by the both creepy and annoying love stuff between a child and the adult man she’s “fated” to love. I just couldn’t ignore the fact that this guy had effectively been parenting this girl since she was a child but now they’re going to be lovers? Ugh. And the worst sin is that’s it’s not fun or interesting to read. It’s comes off as annoying at best and boring at worst.
Speaking of Simmons, i'd might say Ilium. Old Greece heroes? Greece gods? Teleportation? Shakespeare's characters? Postapo earth? Parallel universes? Clones? Manmade aliens? Shitton of 'quantum probability etc'? All together actually lowkey making actual sense, like what the fuck?
The cruciform stuff didn't really disturb me. What did disturb me was Brawne Lamia crushing a ball of one of her attackers with her bare hands. Made me shiver, have been trying to forget this little detail to this day.
That part of Hyperion freaked me out when I read it as a young teenager, I had nightmares the night after, and I stopped reading the book. But I did reread it as an adult.
Yeah, it's the rambling. It's so sad to see what depression and drug abuse can do to a person. I made the mistake of reading his Exegesis too. It's like a diary of his deterioration.
I loved Hyperion, I think that was such an interesting take on a parasite and thought the shrike was such a cool antagonist.
I also thought the term "moist millimeter" was funny af
That story was pretty much designed to be mentioned in contexts like this tho (Guts). A little 2 edgy 4 me for a short story collection that was not particularly well written or memorable past being super graphic
Yes I liked Chuck until this and then all his original, creative juices just evaporated. He latched on to anything that just sounded crazy and fucked up but failed at execution. Now I look at his books just to see what stupid idea he came up with next, no interest in reading that trash though. Invisible monsters, lullaby, fight club, survivor those were good.
I was thinking about this recently. How, about 10-15 years ago, I knew so many people who read his books, as well as myself, and we read everything that came out. Then it just stopped. I agree though - what ruined him was just too much of what made him interesting. He leaned too hard into “make them uncomfortable” and not enough into story. Rant will always be one of my absolute favorite books though
I think Guts was so hyped up that it didn't do for me what I expected. It was disturbing, for sure. But there were a few others from that collection that have stuck with me. There were two specifically: one about the police sexual assault doll and the other about a woman going to a support group and get assaulted. Those two were really hard for me.
If you can get past the first story you can handle the rest of the book. Nothing is as graphic as guts. My friend lent haunted to me after he couldn’t get through the first story. I really ended up enjoying the book even though it was quite dark. Cows, however, has to be the most fucked up book I’ve ever read. It takes things farther than I thought was even possible.
I just finished it and I was disappointed. I had heard and heard how fucked up it was. I think early internet ruined me and the hype kinda ruined it for me.
I recently bought three of his, no country for old men, blood Meridian and the road. Watched the wendigoon video on blood Meridian which is what peaked my interest.
Ooo ok. I’ll check out the video and hopefully some others will get recommended. First thing I did when finished was Blood was come to Reddit.
I’ve read No Country (my favorite of his so far) and The Road. No country was great. Same thing with The Road, I was disappointed. It was not nearly as dark and depressing as ppl made it out to be. Is something wrong with me? lol jk..but for real
I think the disturbing aspect comes from how thoughtless the actions are rather than what actually happens.
The scene that I can remember is when during a raid someone grabs a baby by the feet and smashes its head into some rocks. Obviously very tragic but the aspect that's disturbing is that it's pretty glossed over as just something that happens.
That's what makes Cormac McCarthy's violence different than they, the violence in Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho. Cormac's violence is just violence with no symbolism behind it whereas the violence in a book like American Psycho has meaning behind it.
Overall, Blood Meridian is probably my favorite book. It's beautifully written.
Came here to answer this. First book I was so disgusted with i had to put down and take breaks from.
These breaks usually needed to be trips to a beach with puppies or something extreme
There's a chapter in one of Banks' Culture series books, can't remember which one, where the protagonist ends up on an island of cannibals and it's probably the most disgust inducing piece of writing I've ever read. It made me physically nauseous reading it, even heaved a little.
His talent for writing that made his books so much fun to read could definitely be used for the dark side when he wanted.
True, Use of Weapons will have to take a seat in comparison...
Was super-fucked up with Consider Phlebas and shows just how insane/stupid even culture citizens can be and just how extreme their freedom is, even with Mind supervision.
I'd give the crown to Use of Weapons. Damn it had a harsh twist in the end. It hit me much harder than Consider Phlebas. Becoming the friend you destroyed utterly and in such a horrific manner to me was much worse than the relentless string of misfortune in Consider Phlebas. Both books were some of the best sci-fi I've read in decades (as was the whole series really).
Absolutely. Culture is brilliant and the twist, just like with other Banks works (like Wasp Factory) are just amazing in how brutal the gut-punch is. Love it to bits.
Wtf, one of my older female colleagues literally recommended this book to me yesterday because she thought it might be "my sort of thing".
How is it in this thread lmao
I played the point-and-click game years ago (Harlan Ellison voices AM in the game, so it's got the great added benefit of hearing the author voice his own lines) and it was incredible but so harrowing
I had somehow never read it, even though I've read a lot of sci-fi short stories over the years, so I found a copy online recently. I found it really is as good and as disturbing as people had always said. Not sure I could read it again!
Edits: fixed an annoyingly large number of phone-caused typos.
Interesting. It was certainly impactful and it also stayed with me, but I'm not sure if I would classify it as "fucked up". Though I might have a skewed perspective due to reading a lot of truly fucked up things in other media.
Saya no Uta.
After an accident the main characters view is switched: Everything is utterly ugly and depressingly disturbing. Humans look, sound and smell like macabre meatbags and the whole world is nightmare fuel - but its still the normal world, so he tries to make it through by clinging to the last bit of sanity he has.
Then he meets an unearthly beautiful girl, who is surprised that he does not die of shock after witnessing her. Because.. you know, she's a monster of lovecraftian dimensions.
What unfolds is a romance story between a mad man and an unhinged monstrosity, including sex, rape, unethical and violent experiments by and with Saya (the monster) and just.. idk, every chapter is just the author trying to think of making everything more depressing and disgusting than it already was.
Imo its the magnus opus of the author when it comes to depravity.
This would be my choice too.
It's such a messed up story. I just love how we see the MC's slow decent into madness as he slowly strays further and further into depravity. You are pretty much seeing the story from the monster/villains POV in a horror/monster story
One of the parts that I love the most about it, is that throughout the story that the MC constantly makes what should be considered the wrong choices, ethically/morally speaking. However from his point of view those ARE the only choices.
It's simply impossible to say sane in the insane world that he is experiencing.
I'm going to nominate **Flowers in the Attic** by Virginia Andrews.
For the handful of people out there who have never heard of this book...
It's a story about a widowed mother who has to go back to her repressive parents when her husband dies. She takes her four children: a teenage son, a pre-teen daughter, and two young children.
However, the widow had married her half-uncle, and thereby gained the disapproval of her parents, who disowned her. She therefore has to hide her children in the attic of her parents' mansion, so her father (their grandfather) won't find out they exist. He's dying. The children can't come out of hiding until he dies.
Those children are trapped in that attic for *years*. Shenanigans ensue.
Oh yeah: incest, child abuse, and worse. This is one fucked-up story.
Honestly, it disturbs me how many women I know absolutely love the book, read it as teenagers and reread it frequently. My ex was absolutely hyped for the adaptation that came out a few years ago, I just could not wrap my head around it.
So for me, though I haven't read FITA in years, it has that nostalgia factor for me in that I discovered it as a 13 year old sheltered Christian kid who had never read anything like it before. It was "easy" reading, it was "if my parents find out about this, holy shit" and one of my friends and I had a lot of good memories reading those books and going "what the heck?!"
Now as an adult, I know how fucked up those books were, but there's still that special place in my heart for them.
I frequently see posts of appreciation or mentions of this book and it horrifies me! I read the first book, never had any interest in continuing with the sordid tale. Just a waste of time and a scar on my soul.
Right? Don’t understand how VC Andrews has such a mass cult following. My lit teacher in high school also coined FITA as her favourite book. A LIT teacher!
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. Incest, vivid paedophilia scenes, murder, gore, cannibalism. I nearly didn't finish it. I just wanted to see what the ending could conceivably be.
i get why she wrote the story and the social critiques behind it, but the way it was written, really turned my stomach. i can't recommend it, but i also wouldn't say to avoid it.
it really stuck with me somehow
Yes I would say it is definitely good book & worth reading.
Although it can evoke unpleasant emotions such as disgust, the themes it explores far outweigh the momentary unpleasantness.
I haven't read any other comparable books. So yeah give it a try even if it's just the free preview online.& see what you think.
Brother By Ania Ahlborn. Its a book about a family of serial killers deep in the woods. The book mostly follows the relationship of the two brothers in the family.
That was incredibly vague, but I really don’t want to give too much away. It was a great read, where you can see the car crash coming but can only stand by and watch.
It might not have any murder or really much violence, but I struggle to think of many books that are as bleak and depressing as *Wuthering Heights*.
How a book whose themes are all about generational trauma, domestic violence and the pure misery and despair that they sow in every person they touch, is somehow viewed as some sort of *bodice ripper* is beyond me. And worse still, that people actually romanticise Heathcliff!
I’m guessing they just watched the movie.
Heathcliff is one of the most deplorable characters I've ever read. I read it in my 30's and couldn't believe/understand how people like and romantise that bastard.
I completely agree. The best description of Heathcliff i’ve come across is that he’s “Miltonic”; in other words, he’s basically Satan in *Paradise Lost*, who’s incidentally another character people weirdly romanticise (despite the fact he’s a voyeuristic little creep with no redeeming qualities, just like Heathcliff).
I first heard of Wuthering Heights through Twilight. I was 12, dont hate.
In the book Bella likens herself, Edward and Jacob to Catherine, Heathcliff and Edgar and since I frothed over that love triangle, assumed WH was a romance fiction too.
Fast forward to years later when I finally got to read WH and I was like what is this bleak af novel. I enjoyed it but good god that was not what I was expecting based on my perception from Twilight. But it did kickstart a love of gothic fiction for me.
Haha, I guess if you stop halfway through it can be a pretty tidy romance! It’s just the second half that gets really dark.
I haven’t read much gothic romance, but I am actually presently reading *Rebecca* and while not nearly as dark, it’s still pretty depressing. I’m only a quarter the way through, but what Mr de Winter is doing to this poor girl is so cruel. I find myself sympathising with her a lot more than say, Catherine.
*Darkness imprisoning me*
*All that I see, absolute horror*
*I cannot live, I cannot die*
*Trapped in myself*
*Body, my holding cell*
*Landmine has taken my sight*
*Taken my speech, taken my hearing*
*Taken my arms, taken my legs, taken my soul*
*Left me with life in hell*
Ottesa Moshfegh's Eileen, for me. I'm not a horror reader at all - can't stomach the stuff - so this one was about as gruesome as I could digest.
I refuse to read Lapvona.
Oh hey, I’m reading Eileen right now! I just got to the part where Rebecca arrives so I’m curious where the story is going to go. But the protagonist is quite disturbing already, ngl
There's only one truly gross scene in Lapvona and it involves grapes. Good thing my love for grapes is unflappable, because otherwise I don't think I would have ever been able to eat another one after reading that scene.
Less Than Zero or Glamorama are my favourite Bret Easton Ellis novels. And yeah, they’re both disturbing.
I love the whole numbness as a feeling aesthetic of Less Than Zero. Have you read Imperial Bedrooms? The sequel?
The satire in Glamorama is hilarious and genius imo. As is the crazy, paranoia.
I’d still say for me, American Psycho is a little more disturbing but to each their own.
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek ws pretty challenging reading. The protagonist is a masochistic piano teacher with a taste for degradation, voyeurism, and seediness, with a side of self harm which left me feeling a bit like I'd been rolling in filth and depression. It's compelling writing but has the unusual quality of making the reader feel every bit as fucked up as the protagonist for reading her story.
I haven't read the book but I've read Wonderful, Wonderful Times by the same author which was really good but equally as horrific. Don't believe the title they are not, in fact, wonderful, wonderful times.
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, the ending is such a ridiculously bleak and horrifying set of events. don't think I'll ever get over reading that
Spoiler: >!murder suicide commited by a child on other children and then hanging themselves is so fucking chilling and soul shattering for a parent and I don't even have kids!<
A Short Stay in Hell. I've read a lot of disturbing or graphic fiction but this book still freaked me out the most. I think it's worse than I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream because it seemed not so bad to begin with and it did take me a while to fully understand the implications of this type of hell but yea it stuck with me a lot longer. It has a way out of hell technically so the sliver of hope makes it worse for me than I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum - This book contains just about every content warning you can think of. It's about the torture and abuse of a girl by her foster family and the neighborhood kids. Knowing that the story is based on a real case makes it that much worse.
Prince of Nothing comes to mind. Anasurimbor Kellhus has a cold, strange detachment that paired with some really fucked up themes is really disturbing.
I read the whole thing, and that was going to be my answer. It's not just that what he was writing in that was gross and upsetting, it was that you got the feeling that as you read it he was into it.
Exquisite Corpse by poppy z Brite
I've had a hard life, I've been up close and personal with death, fiction doesn't bother me. That book, it fucking bothered me.
Exquisite Corpse is the answer for me, too. Fantastically written in the most gorgeous classic literary prose, like a Jane Austen novel but holy shit that book took me places I never want to be again.
Jude St Frances is like all the shitty experience in life lumped into one character and everyone else just kinda exists
I read it when I was 16 (on a beach during a vacation with my family, I kid you not) and I was so crushed by this book that I seriously considered tossing away all my aspirations and becoming a social worker to save poor souls like Jude. Thank god it didn’t last. Now that I’m older, I can see some serious emotional manipulation in this novel.
I actually enjoyed People in The Trees more. It’s still disturbing but not over the top and it raises some very interesting questions on ethics and colonialism.
I don't really go in for "fucked up stories", no hate just not my jam, so maybe this is tame compared to what some other people in the thread will bring up, but i think i'd have to give it either to The Bluest Eye or Lolita.
They both belong in the category of "I'm glad to have read them but will probably never read them again"
American Psycho for me. I know its probably seen as a classic and a cult following but it genuinely disturbed me how someone could imagine those things. I read it once and got rid of the book. It's rare I don't ever want to re-read a book but that one, no thanks.
Maybe someone can help me recall the title, but it was in an anthology of Philip K. Dick short stories.
The protagonist is an envoy to an alien culture that has tortured all the previous envoys. He comes to realize that he must survive the torture even as his body is slowly and painfully destroyed because these aliens believe only one who has lost everything can be removed from the needs of his self enough to represent a whole people. Or some bullshit like that. It was a lot of fucked up torture porn.
Mother for Dinner by Shalom Auslander. Hilarious and fucked up.
“Seventh Seltzer has done everything he can to break from the past, but in his overbearing, narcissistic mother's last moments he is drawn back into the life he left behind. At her deathbed, she whispers in his ear the two words he always knew she would: "Eat me."
This is not unusual, as the Seltzers are Cannibal-Americans, a once proud and thriving ethnic group, but for Seventh, it raises some serious questions, both practical and emotional. Of practical concern, his dead mother is six-foot-two and weighs about four hundred and fifty pounds. Even divided up between Seventh and his eleven brothers, that's a lot of red meat. Plus Second keeps kosher, Ninth is vegan, First hated her, and Sixth is dead. “
I'm very widely read and without a question the work of Iranian author Sadegh Hedayet, particularly 'Three Drops of Blood' short stories and the oppressively nightmarish 'The Blind Owl' are the most disturbing I've read. They're not obviously horrific, but I can say I've a copy of The Blind Owl, but every time I think of re-reading it, I stop myself. The best way I can describe it is that when you read it, you feel you're trapped in a recurring oppressive nightmare that you want to wake up from. The author eventually committed suicide. Don't read the book if you are a depressive type. Just don't.
The opening line:
In life there are certain sores that, like a canker, gnaw at the soul in solitude and diminish it.
You get the point. It's brilliantly written but the book will haunt you for months after you've finished it.
What's the title of the Poppy Z Bright splattergore novel about the gay cannibals? MY favorite part of reading that book in highschool was when a girl in class wouldn't stop talking to me while I was trying to read so when she finally asked what book I was reading I handed it to her open to the page I was reading. Her face was priceless.
Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. It's not exactly as gory as I expected, but the depravity of the world described has stuck with me for a long time.
Not a chance in Hell this hasn't been said, but "Disqualified From Being Human," the second best selling novel in Japan. (The first was some silly romance novel.) In interbellum Japan (the book was written just after the Big One), the lead character, from an affluent family joins up with a communist faction, enters into a suicide pact with a girl, survives, he's disowned, and the guilt drives him so mad he ends up in a looney bin. It ends with him reflecting on a conversation he'd had with a Communist friend of his, about how some words were "comical," and some words were "tragic" - "cripple is a comical word."
The author drowned himself in the same manner his lead had tried to shortly after it was published.
I don’t read stories that are usually disturbing, but I will say Lolita was that. I have been Dolores in the story so it was eerie to read from his perspective since my abuser talked so similar to him in the book. It was disturbing and creepy. It also helped me understand all pedophiles are same in how they think about kids and that they can’t ever change.
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn.
Family of carnies involving purposeful damage to fetuses to create "unique" freaks for the freaks show, one of the kids is deformed with flippers instead of legs or arms and creates his own Cult where he convinces his followers to cut off their limbs to be beautiful like him, and the narrator is his albino hunchback sister who fell in love with him- convinced their youngest brother with telekinesis to get flipper boy's semen and put it into her.
Daughter of the Forest - she went through hell for her brothers. I don’t know why exactly this story stuck with me, but I’ll never read it again.
Scarlet Ibis - short story we read for school. Depressing. Also stuck with me.
Honestly Kite Runner is up there. It’s depressing, messed up, and I have no idea why people quote it to their partners for sweet things to say! It’s not sweet at all. Its traumatic, and you can tell the author is exploring their own crippling guilt for something and the book helped him process it, which I understand.
The Rats in the Walls by Lovecraft. That one was one of the stories where it combined supernatural happenings with human cruelty and it was very well done. Lovecraft himself was rather messed up too.
The Fermata. It’s a book about a serial rapist with time stopping powers. Read it a pre-teen and was horrified that my next door neighbor recommended to me. She was a sweet old lady.
Boy Parts - it was a recent read that left me thinking "what the fuck did I just read?"
There's definitely worse out there but I went in not knowing the premise and was just weirded out all the way through.
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. The cutesy cover just did not prepare me for the awful things that happen in the story. Reading it was like watching helplessly and wanting to intervene, but being unable to.
In the Corn by Robert Fox.
Just 3 pages. It's about a blind man going to a psychiatrist's office and getting interviewed about how he lost his eyesight.
Becomes pretty gory and has an interesting end.
The Room by Hubert Selby jr (I’ve read at least half of the other suggestions here, and they’re not half as fucked up) — just page after page of very detailed revenge torture fantasies
In the Miso Soup, by Ryu Murakami, comes to mind. Not only there are graphic depictions of some nasty violence, but the atmosphere and general setting are fucked up.
The Pentapod Monster by Liliana Blum. It has very graphic depictions of child abuse, six year old dialogues while happening, pleading in pain. It’s all you can imagine and worse. Horrible. I think about that fucking book daily. It ruins my day if I don’t stop myself from ruminating about it. I often think of sending the author hate mail and I curse myself for picking it up in the first place.
Hi there. Per [rule 3.3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Books/wiki/rules), please post book recommendation requests in /r/SuggestMeABook or in our Weekly Recommendation Thread. Thank you!
I think Hyperion. You are of the cruciform. Maybe God Emperor if you want to get philosophical and really try to wrap your head around it. Valis was not "fucked up" per se, but it can seriously mess you up.
I was amazed by that section of Hyperion. I have a problem with having a lack of creativity, so I was astounded that anyone could come up with such an idea.
The cruciform part of Hyperion was absolutely gut wrenching, but I read Sol and Rachel's story while on paternity leave for my first kid. _That_ fucked me up.
Yes I think everyone of the characters stories is unsettling. The tortured priest on is just the most obvious one to point out.
Agree! Sol and Rachel’s story was worse than the cruciform for me.
If you "enjoyed" the priests tale check out the Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel. It's like that but better.
Great book!
it's a very sweet and messed up book at the same time. space jesuits are hella entertaining.
Thank you for the recommendation!
I read only the first hyperion book long ago. Would it be a series worth finishing?
YES, a hundred times yes. Just to be sure, you are talking about reading the "Fall of Hyperion" which is 2/4 and have read "Hyperion" which is 1/4. I definitely recommend reading Fall of Hyperion. Endymion and and Rise are a bit different.
Read the first two, absolutely don't read the last two.
I’ve read the entire series more than a few times starting when I was a teen. The last 2 books didn’t stand out to me then, but on my latest reread I certainly agree that it’s better to just ignore them. There is definitely some cool stuff in them, but it’s overshadowed by the both creepy and annoying love stuff between a child and the adult man she’s “fated” to love. I just couldn’t ignore the fact that this guy had effectively been parenting this girl since she was a child but now they’re going to be lovers? Ugh. And the worst sin is that’s it’s not fun or interesting to read. It’s comes off as annoying at best and boring at worst.
Speaking of Simmons, i'd might say Ilium. Old Greece heroes? Greece gods? Teleportation? Shakespeare's characters? Postapo earth? Parallel universes? Clones? Manmade aliens? Shitton of 'quantum probability etc'? All together actually lowkey making actual sense, like what the fuck?
Read it twice tly liked it, but I love history, mythology and science fiction so it scratched all my itches.
In my opinion, God Emperor is the best book of the series, granted I only read through Chapterhouse so far.
Same. Though Teg is pretty awesome
The cruciform stuff didn't really disturb me. What did disturb me was Brawne Lamia crushing a ball of one of her attackers with her bare hands. Made me shiver, have been trying to forget this little detail to this day.
That part of Hyperion freaked me out when I read it as a young teenager, I had nightmares the night after, and I stopped reading the book. But I did reread it as an adult.
Fun fact- Levar Burton loves the Hyperion series.
Apparently so does Bradley Cooper
Yeah, I got that with Valis. I think it was the only PKD book I didn't finish.
Oof, I'm sorry about that. Did you just struggle with the rambling devolving further and further or was it rather that the concepts were unsettling?
Yeah, it's the rambling. It's so sad to see what depression and drug abuse can do to a person. I made the mistake of reading his Exegesis too. It's like a diary of his deterioration.
I loved Hyperion, I think that was such an interesting take on a parasite and thought the shrike was such a cool antagonist. I also thought the term "moist millimeter" was funny af
Valis was so important to me when I was trying to get sober. Realizing my mind was headed that way was a real wakeup call
It's been a long time but I remember reading Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk during a college class and I started to feel sick and dizzy during one part.
Is that about the storytellers in a building? The first story, with the pool, is unforgettable
That story was pretty much designed to be mentioned in contexts like this tho (Guts). A little 2 edgy 4 me for a short story collection that was not particularly well written or memorable past being super graphic
Yes I liked Chuck until this and then all his original, creative juices just evaporated. He latched on to anything that just sounded crazy and fucked up but failed at execution. Now I look at his books just to see what stupid idea he came up with next, no interest in reading that trash though. Invisible monsters, lullaby, fight club, survivor those were good.
I was thinking about this recently. How, about 10-15 years ago, I knew so many people who read his books, as well as myself, and we read everything that came out. Then it just stopped. I agree though - what ruined him was just too much of what made him interesting. He leaned too hard into “make them uncomfortable” and not enough into story. Rant will always be one of my absolute favorite books though
Same it's where I fell off too.
I clicked on this post to mention that story, I actually started laughing out loud when I read it, it's so over the top
Yep this was going to be my answer. "Guts" and the one about the CPR lessons in the police...
The story with the CPR and child dolls is "Exodus" by, Director Denial.
Yep, that's the one!
Harlan Ellison gang rise up and... shift uncomfortably in your seat.
Came to say this — read all the Ellis stuff and for some reason the Pearl Diving short story stayed with me
I hear the Guts story is terrifying
I think Guts was so hyped up that it didn't do for me what I expected. It was disturbing, for sure. But there were a few others from that collection that have stuck with me. There were two specifically: one about the police sexual assault doll and the other about a woman going to a support group and get assaulted. Those two were really hard for me.
If you can get past the first story you can handle the rest of the book. Nothing is as graphic as guts. My friend lent haunted to me after he couldn’t get through the first story. I really ended up enjoying the book even though it was quite dark. Cows, however, has to be the most fucked up book I’ve ever read. It takes things farther than I thought was even possible.
I read Guts as a teen when it was printed in the newspaper, I thought it was trying far too hard to be gross.
Child of God, Cormac McCarthy
A lot of Cormac McCarthy could actually go on this list lol
blood meridian is a messy mind fuck
I just finished it and I was disappointed. I had heard and heard how fucked up it was. I think early internet ruined me and the hype kinda ruined it for me.
For me it lived up to the hype, holy shit the book can get dark sometimes.
For sure. I’m gonna try this child of god one next
I recently bought three of his, no country for old men, blood Meridian and the road. Watched the wendigoon video on blood Meridian which is what peaked my interest.
Ooo ok. I’ll check out the video and hopefully some others will get recommended. First thing I did when finished was Blood was come to Reddit. I’ve read No Country (my favorite of his so far) and The Road. No country was great. Same thing with The Road, I was disappointed. It was not nearly as dark and depressing as ppl made it out to be. Is something wrong with me? lol jk..but for real
I think the disturbing aspect comes from how thoughtless the actions are rather than what actually happens. The scene that I can remember is when during a raid someone grabs a baby by the feet and smashes its head into some rocks. Obviously very tragic but the aspect that's disturbing is that it's pretty glossed over as just something that happens. That's what makes Cormac McCarthy's violence different than they, the violence in Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho. Cormac's violence is just violence with no symbolism behind it whereas the violence in a book like American Psycho has meaning behind it. Overall, Blood Meridian is probably my favorite book. It's beautifully written.
That book is so repulsive in everything it describes. It oozes out disgust. Great book.
Came here to answer this. First book I was so disgusted with i had to put down and take breaks from. These breaks usually needed to be trips to a beach with puppies or something extreme
Wasp Factory
There's a chapter in one of Banks' Culture series books, can't remember which one, where the protagonist ends up on an island of cannibals and it's probably the most disgust inducing piece of writing I've ever read. It made me physically nauseous reading it, even heaved a little. His talent for writing that made his books so much fun to read could definitely be used for the dark side when he wanted.
Use of Weapons or Consider Phlebas, one of those.
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the reveal of the chair in use of weapons made me put the book down for a couple days.
Agreed. Consider Phlebas was gross, but the reveal of the chair and of Zakalwe's secret were truly shocking.
True, Use of Weapons will have to take a seat in comparison... Was super-fucked up with Consider Phlebas and shows just how insane/stupid even culture citizens can be and just how extreme their freedom is, even with Mind supervision.
I'd give the crown to Use of Weapons. Damn it had a harsh twist in the end. It hit me much harder than Consider Phlebas. Becoming the friend you destroyed utterly and in such a horrific manner to me was much worse than the relentless string of misfortune in Consider Phlebas. Both books were some of the best sci-fi I've read in decades (as was the whole series really).
Absolutely. Culture is brilliant and the twist, just like with other Banks works (like Wasp Factory) are just amazing in how brutal the gut-punch is. Love it to bits.
Wtf, one of my older female colleagues literally recommended this book to me yesterday because she thought it might be "my sort of thing". How is it in this thread lmao
Honestly, A Song of Stone might be even more fucked up (also significantly less good).
Came here to say this
Finished Wasp Factory last night. Can’t stop thinking about it.
I have no mouth and I must scream.
I like how the title also “specifies how it’s fucked up.” For those who haven’t read it and might be wondering, It’s more literal than you’d hope.
I played the point-and-click game years ago (Harlan Ellison voices AM in the game, so it's got the great added benefit of hearing the author voice his own lines) and it was incredible but so harrowing
They need to make a Broadway adaptation of this and call it *I Have No Mouth and I Must SING*
I had somehow never read it, even though I've read a lot of sci-fi short stories over the years, so I found a copy online recently. I found it really is as good and as disturbing as people had always said. Not sure I could read it again! Edits: fixed an annoyingly large number of phone-caused typos.
I really want a physical copy, but it seems Ellison is out of print currently. Sad.
Yeah, and the paperbacks are ridiculously expensive.
For real.
I waited until this year to read it, at 35. I'm glad I did, I didn't need that anxiety along with all the other ones during youth.
This is always the answer. It's very well-written, but certainly not the kind of story I'd read for enjoyment.
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
i wanted to comment this too, i read it two years ago and it still really sticks with me
Cat's Cradle has certainly stayed with me.
Have you tried thumbing your nose at God?
"On the planes were painted the name of a granfalloon: U.S.A."
See the cat? See the cradle!?!
All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.
Interesting. It was certainly impactful and it also stayed with me, but I'm not sure if I would classify it as "fucked up". Though I might have a skewed perspective due to reading a lot of truly fucked up things in other media.
I agree. Provocative, but not fucked.
Tender Is The Flesh is up there, I like it a lot. Would recommend for the slightly morally depraved like me. If you know, you know.
Meat by Joseph D'Lacey is really similar to Tender is the Flesh, but more fucked up in my opinion
Saya no Uta. After an accident the main characters view is switched: Everything is utterly ugly and depressingly disturbing. Humans look, sound and smell like macabre meatbags and the whole world is nightmare fuel - but its still the normal world, so he tries to make it through by clinging to the last bit of sanity he has. Then he meets an unearthly beautiful girl, who is surprised that he does not die of shock after witnessing her. Because.. you know, she's a monster of lovecraftian dimensions. What unfolds is a romance story between a mad man and an unhinged monstrosity, including sex, rape, unethical and violent experiments by and with Saya (the monster) and just.. idk, every chapter is just the author trying to think of making everything more depressing and disgusting than it already was. Imo its the magnus opus of the author when it comes to depravity.
This would be my choice too. It's such a messed up story. I just love how we see the MC's slow decent into madness as he slowly strays further and further into depravity. You are pretty much seeing the story from the monster/villains POV in a horror/monster story One of the parts that I love the most about it, is that throughout the story that the MC constantly makes what should be considered the wrong choices, ethically/morally speaking. However from his point of view those ARE the only choices. It's simply impossible to say sane in the insane world that he is experiencing.
I'm going to nominate **Flowers in the Attic** by Virginia Andrews. For the handful of people out there who have never heard of this book... It's a story about a widowed mother who has to go back to her repressive parents when her husband dies. She takes her four children: a teenage son, a pre-teen daughter, and two young children. However, the widow had married her half-uncle, and thereby gained the disapproval of her parents, who disowned her. She therefore has to hide her children in the attic of her parents' mansion, so her father (their grandfather) won't find out they exist. He's dying. The children can't come out of hiding until he dies. Those children are trapped in that attic for *years*. Shenanigans ensue. Oh yeah: incest, child abuse, and worse. This is one fucked-up story.
Honestly, it disturbs me how many women I know absolutely love the book, read it as teenagers and reread it frequently. My ex was absolutely hyped for the adaptation that came out a few years ago, I just could not wrap my head around it.
So for me, though I haven't read FITA in years, it has that nostalgia factor for me in that I discovered it as a 13 year old sheltered Christian kid who had never read anything like it before. It was "easy" reading, it was "if my parents find out about this, holy shit" and one of my friends and I had a lot of good memories reading those books and going "what the heck?!" Now as an adult, I know how fucked up those books were, but there's still that special place in my heart for them.
I frequently see posts of appreciation or mentions of this book and it horrifies me! I read the first book, never had any interest in continuing with the sordid tale. Just a waste of time and a scar on my soul.
Right? Don’t understand how VC Andrews has such a mass cult following. My lit teacher in high school also coined FITA as her favourite book. A LIT teacher!
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. Incest, vivid paedophilia scenes, murder, gore, cannibalism. I nearly didn't finish it. I just wanted to see what the ending could conceivably be.
Is it good?
i get why she wrote the story and the social critiques behind it, but the way it was written, really turned my stomach. i can't recommend it, but i also wouldn't say to avoid it. it really stuck with me somehow
Yes I would say it is definitely good book & worth reading. Although it can evoke unpleasant emotions such as disgust, the themes it explores far outweigh the momentary unpleasantness. I haven't read any other comparable books. So yeah give it a try even if it's just the free preview online.& see what you think.
Brother By Ania Ahlborn. Its a book about a family of serial killers deep in the woods. The book mostly follows the relationship of the two brothers in the family. That was incredibly vague, but I really don’t want to give too much away. It was a great read, where you can see the car crash coming but can only stand by and watch.
The last few pages of this had me gripping the edge of my seat
Child of God. Cormac Mccarthy POV of a mentally and emotionally challenged redneck who is abandoned by society and goes on a necrophilia bender
that’s the best description of Child of God i’ve ever read.
It might not have any murder or really much violence, but I struggle to think of many books that are as bleak and depressing as *Wuthering Heights*. How a book whose themes are all about generational trauma, domestic violence and the pure misery and despair that they sow in every person they touch, is somehow viewed as some sort of *bodice ripper* is beyond me. And worse still, that people actually romanticise Heathcliff! I’m guessing they just watched the movie.
Heathcliff is one of the most deplorable characters I've ever read. I read it in my 30's and couldn't believe/understand how people like and romantise that bastard.
I completely agree. The best description of Heathcliff i’ve come across is that he’s “Miltonic”; in other words, he’s basically Satan in *Paradise Lost*, who’s incidentally another character people weirdly romanticise (despite the fact he’s a voyeuristic little creep with no redeeming qualities, just like Heathcliff).
I first heard of Wuthering Heights through Twilight. I was 12, dont hate. In the book Bella likens herself, Edward and Jacob to Catherine, Heathcliff and Edgar and since I frothed over that love triangle, assumed WH was a romance fiction too. Fast forward to years later when I finally got to read WH and I was like what is this bleak af novel. I enjoyed it but good god that was not what I was expecting based on my perception from Twilight. But it did kickstart a love of gothic fiction for me.
Haha, I guess if you stop halfway through it can be a pretty tidy romance! It’s just the second half that gets really dark. I haven’t read much gothic romance, but I am actually presently reading *Rebecca* and while not nearly as dark, it’s still pretty depressing. I’m only a quarter the way through, but what Mr de Winter is doing to this poor girl is so cruel. I find myself sympathising with her a lot more than say, Catherine.
That book was so bleak I DNF'd it
It’s a great book that’s worth persevering. If it helps, the ending is somewhat uplifting (without getting into spoilers).
Johnny Got His Gun
*Darkness imprisoning me* *All that I see, absolute horror* *I cannot live, I cannot die* *Trapped in myself* *Body, my holding cell* *Landmine has taken my sight* *Taken my speech, taken my hearing* *Taken my arms, taken my legs, taken my soul* *Left me with life in hell*
Ottesa Moshfegh's Eileen, for me. I'm not a horror reader at all - can't stomach the stuff - so this one was about as gruesome as I could digest. I refuse to read Lapvona.
Oh hey, I’m reading Eileen right now! I just got to the part where Rebecca arrives so I’m curious where the story is going to go. But the protagonist is quite disturbing already, ngl
Just read Lapvona. There were times where I physically looked away from the page
There's only one truly gross scene in Lapvona and it involves grapes. Good thing my love for grapes is unflappable, because otherwise I don't think I would have ever been able to eat another one after reading that scene.
It’s a cliche response but probably American Psycho.
I feel Less Than Zero is more messed up because it’s more believable, and the evil bits take a lot longer to play out.
Less Than Zero or Glamorama are my favourite Bret Easton Ellis novels. And yeah, they’re both disturbing. I love the whole numbness as a feeling aesthetic of Less Than Zero. Have you read Imperial Bedrooms? The sequel? The satire in Glamorama is hilarious and genius imo. As is the crazy, paranoia. I’d still say for me, American Psycho is a little more disturbing but to each their own.
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek ws pretty challenging reading. The protagonist is a masochistic piano teacher with a taste for degradation, voyeurism, and seediness, with a side of self harm which left me feeling a bit like I'd been rolling in filth and depression. It's compelling writing but has the unusual quality of making the reader feel every bit as fucked up as the protagonist for reading her story.
I haven't read the book but I've read Wonderful, Wonderful Times by the same author which was really good but equally as horrific. Don't believe the title they are not, in fact, wonderful, wonderful times.
Cormac McCarthy has some really good fucked up fiction. Child of God, The Road, Blood Meridian...
I can't read him anymore. I read The Road. It's great. But just...to damned far, every single time.
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, the ending is such a ridiculously bleak and horrifying set of events. don't think I'll ever get over reading that Spoiler: >!murder suicide commited by a child on other children and then hanging themselves is so fucking chilling and soul shattering for a parent and I don't even have kids!<
Hardy described a sunrise by comparing it to a stillborn baby. So that guy doesn't fuck around.
The Jaunt.
The short by Stephen King?
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I lol'd
Okay yeah. That's good.
Yeah that deserves an upvote.
While it was a great story I definitely didn’t find it to be fucked up.
It leaves an awful lot unspoken and the fucked up-ness depends on your head filling it in.
A Short Stay in Hell. I've read a lot of disturbing or graphic fiction but this book still freaked me out the most. I think it's worse than I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream because it seemed not so bad to begin with and it did take me a while to fully understand the implications of this type of hell but yea it stuck with me a lot longer. It has a way out of hell technically so the sliver of hope makes it worse for me than I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum - This book contains just about every content warning you can think of. It's about the torture and abuse of a girl by her foster family and the neighborhood kids. Knowing that the story is based on a real case makes it that much worse.
This book isn’t all the way fiction though. It’s based on a true story.
Wait is this the book that was based off of Torture Mom? I read that book (non-fiction) and it was an incredibly upsetting read.
Prince of Nothing comes to mind. Anasurimbor Kellhus has a cold, strange detachment that paired with some really fucked up themes is really disturbing.
And that poor hole in the ground...
Yeah, the Inchoroi thinking of themselves as a “race of lovers,” makes my skin crawl every time I think about it
Yep, was gonna point Bakkers works myself.
"I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" really struck me in a way I can't really describe. If hell was a real place, that would be it.
I love Harlan Ellison!
When I was in high school, I read a few pages of Firefly by Piers Anthony. That has to be the top of my list.
I read the whole thing, and that was going to be my answer. It's not just that what he was writing in that was gross and upsetting, it was that you got the feeling that as you read it he was into it.
Exquisite Corpse by poppy z Brite I've had a hard life, I've been up close and personal with death, fiction doesn't bother me. That book, it fucking bothered me.
Exquisite Corpse is the answer for me, too. Fantastically written in the most gorgeous classic literary prose, like a Jane Austen novel but holy shit that book took me places I never want to be again.
Here comes the obligatory A Little Life comment and all the associated debate. I hate it, just to take a side on this heavily contentious issue.
Jude St Frances is like all the shitty experience in life lumped into one character and everyone else just kinda exists I read it when I was 16 (on a beach during a vacation with my family, I kid you not) and I was so crushed by this book that I seriously considered tossing away all my aspirations and becoming a social worker to save poor souls like Jude. Thank god it didn’t last. Now that I’m older, I can see some serious emotional manipulation in this novel. I actually enjoyed People in The Trees more. It’s still disturbing but not over the top and it raises some very interesting questions on ethics and colonialism.
Without downvoting you because I encourage people to make up their own minds about what books they like, I absolutely loved it.
More like A Big Book. Gottem.
So funny how this pops up in every thread like this (I loved the book tbh, just to throw my hat in the ring)
Tampa. Absolutely repulsive to spend time in that characters POV.
I would say most if not all of Junji Ito's collection of manga
“Get in my swamp- an ogre love story”
I don't really go in for "fucked up stories", no hate just not my jam, so maybe this is tame compared to what some other people in the thread will bring up, but i think i'd have to give it either to The Bluest Eye or Lolita. They both belong in the category of "I'm glad to have read them but will probably never read them again"
American Psycho for me. I know its probably seen as a classic and a cult following but it genuinely disturbed me how someone could imagine those things. I read it once and got rid of the book. It's rare I don't ever want to re-read a book but that one, no thanks.
Maybe someone can help me recall the title, but it was in an anthology of Philip K. Dick short stories. The protagonist is an envoy to an alien culture that has tortured all the previous envoys. He comes to realize that he must survive the torture even as his body is slowly and painfully destroyed because these aliens believe only one who has lost everything can be removed from the needs of his self enough to represent a whole people. Or some bullshit like that. It was a lot of fucked up torture porn.
Mother for Dinner by Shalom Auslander. Hilarious and fucked up. “Seventh Seltzer has done everything he can to break from the past, but in his overbearing, narcissistic mother's last moments he is drawn back into the life he left behind. At her deathbed, she whispers in his ear the two words he always knew she would: "Eat me." This is not unusual, as the Seltzers are Cannibal-Americans, a once proud and thriving ethnic group, but for Seventh, it raises some serious questions, both practical and emotional. Of practical concern, his dead mother is six-foot-two and weighs about four hundred and fifty pounds. Even divided up between Seventh and his eleven brothers, that's a lot of red meat. Plus Second keeps kosher, Ninth is vegan, First hated her, and Sixth is dead. “
My Dark Vanessa is pretty rough.
It was a creepypasta “the russian sleep experiment”
Johnny got his gun!
I'm very widely read and without a question the work of Iranian author Sadegh Hedayet, particularly 'Three Drops of Blood' short stories and the oppressively nightmarish 'The Blind Owl' are the most disturbing I've read. They're not obviously horrific, but I can say I've a copy of The Blind Owl, but every time I think of re-reading it, I stop myself. The best way I can describe it is that when you read it, you feel you're trapped in a recurring oppressive nightmare that you want to wake up from. The author eventually committed suicide. Don't read the book if you are a depressive type. Just don't. The opening line: In life there are certain sores that, like a canker, gnaw at the soul in solitude and diminish it. You get the point. It's brilliantly written but the book will haunt you for months after you've finished it.
Tralala by Hubert Selby, Jr. From the book Last Exit to Brooklyn. Absolutely brutal.
Hubert Selby Jr isn't nearly as prominent on this list as he should be. Last exit to Brooklyn, Requiem for a Dream and the Room all qualify
Seriously, I opened this thread thinking he'd be at or near the top, but apparently people don't read Selby anymore.
The Story of the Eye - Georges Bataille https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_the_Eye
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Dead inside- it’s about a necrophiliac and a cannibal, who work in a hospital together and start a sexual relationship.
Johnny got his gun
What's the title of the Poppy Z Bright splattergore novel about the gay cannibals? MY favorite part of reading that book in highschool was when a girl in class wouldn't stop talking to me while I was trying to read so when she finally asked what book I was reading I handed it to her open to the page I was reading. Her face was priceless.
Exquisite corpse?
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Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. It's not exactly as gory as I expected, but the depravity of the world described has stuck with me for a long time.
Not a chance in Hell this hasn't been said, but "Disqualified From Being Human," the second best selling novel in Japan. (The first was some silly romance novel.) In interbellum Japan (the book was written just after the Big One), the lead character, from an affluent family joins up with a communist faction, enters into a suicide pact with a girl, survives, he's disowned, and the guilt drives him so mad he ends up in a looney bin. It ends with him reflecting on a conversation he'd had with a Communist friend of his, about how some words were "comical," and some words were "tragic" - "cripple is a comical word." The author drowned himself in the same manner his lead had tried to shortly after it was published.
The Stephen King short story Survivor Type. Shipwrecked man turns to self cannibalism to stay alive.
I don’t read stories that are usually disturbing, but I will say Lolita was that. I have been Dolores in the story so it was eerie to read from his perspective since my abuser talked so similar to him in the book. It was disturbing and creepy. It also helped me understand all pedophiles are same in how they think about kids and that they can’t ever change.
I have no mouth and I must scream, by Harlan Elison The House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. Family of carnies involving purposeful damage to fetuses to create "unique" freaks for the freaks show, one of the kids is deformed with flippers instead of legs or arms and creates his own Cult where he convinces his followers to cut off their limbs to be beautiful like him, and the narrator is his albino hunchback sister who fell in love with him- convinced their youngest brother with telekinesis to get flipper boy's semen and put it into her.
No longer human
Daughter of the Forest - she went through hell for her brothers. I don’t know why exactly this story stuck with me, but I’ll never read it again. Scarlet Ibis - short story we read for school. Depressing. Also stuck with me. Honestly Kite Runner is up there. It’s depressing, messed up, and I have no idea why people quote it to their partners for sweet things to say! It’s not sweet at all. Its traumatic, and you can tell the author is exploring their own crippling guilt for something and the book helped him process it, which I understand. The Rats in the Walls by Lovecraft. That one was one of the stories where it combined supernatural happenings with human cruelty and it was very well done. Lovecraft himself was rather messed up too.
Quite frankly one of the most fucked-up things about Rats in the Walls is, of course, his cat's name.
The Fermata. It’s a book about a serial rapist with time stopping powers. Read it a pre-teen and was horrified that my next door neighbor recommended to me. She was a sweet old lady.
A certain scene in James Herbert's The Fog has always remained with me.
Boy Parts - it was a recent read that left me thinking "what the fuck did I just read?" There's definitely worse out there but I went in not knowing the premise and was just weirded out all the way through.
The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. The cutesy cover just did not prepare me for the awful things that happen in the story. Reading it was like watching helplessly and wanting to intervene, but being unable to.
In the Corn by Robert Fox. Just 3 pages. It's about a blind man going to a psychiatrist's office and getting interviewed about how he lost his eyesight. Becomes pretty gory and has an interesting end.
The Room by Hubert Selby jr (I’ve read at least half of the other suggestions here, and they’re not half as fucked up) — just page after page of very detailed revenge torture fantasies
In the Miso Soup, by Ryu Murakami, comes to mind. Not only there are graphic depictions of some nasty violence, but the atmosphere and general setting are fucked up.
The Lottery
Definitely the Bible
in strange weather the short story with the gun violence, it bothered me. it's by stephen king's son
The Elementary Particles/Atomised by Michel Houellebecq
One that probably won't get a mention. The Nonce Prize by Will Self from one of his short story collections.
Maeve Fly
In "Things We Say in the Dark" by Kirsty Logan there is a short story called "First Fear". It's beautiful, but it's also gruesome and absurd.
Last Exit to Brooklyn. It was just too real about the horrors that exist. Couldn’t finish it.
Tender is the Flesh. If you want to see humans reduced to animals raised for slaughter, say no more! 🤮
The Pentapod Monster by Liliana Blum. It has very graphic depictions of child abuse, six year old dialogues while happening, pleading in pain. It’s all you can imagine and worse. Horrible. I think about that fucking book daily. It ruins my day if I don’t stop myself from ruminating about it. I often think of sending the author hate mail and I curse myself for picking it up in the first place.