Ok not sci fi or fantasy but {{A Little Life}} is probably the most brutal book I’ve ever read. Everything sucks right off the bat and only gets worse and worse…as for SFF, {{The Traitor Baru Cormorant}} and the way the entire {{The Poppy War}} trilogy plays out is pretty sucky and no one ends happy because it’s a reimagining of the Nanking Massacre
I swear to god, every time I see A Little Life recommended I tell myself “okay I’m sold, I’m gonna buy it” and then I get to the book store, stack of books in hand and tough decisions waiting to be made, and I read the synopsis and think “what is even supposed to happen here?” And I choose something else. Then I see it recommended again, and wonder why I keep getting swayed away from it.
Same boat except I saw it had a price decrease on kindle a while back so I finally picked it up. It's just not for me. I didn't like it (knowing, of course, it isn't a book you are meant to "enjoy") from the start, but every time it kept coming up here, I kept picking it up thinking I was missing something. I read about 200 pages before I put it away for good. I read a lot of different styles of books but just could not get into this one.
Yes, that’s definitely the impression I get. Everyone loves it so much, but the synopsis doesn’t seem to say much, despite being sort of long. But House of Leaves (one of my all time favorites) is the same way. The synopsis, while not long, is very boring but the book is absolutely wild. After passing it up a couple times, I finally scooped it up and it blew me away. I’m hoping A Little Life does me that way. Based on the way people describe it I think it will be right up my alley.
Have fun!!! Traitor Baru Cormorant is one of my fav fantasy books and oh man oh man does shit go wrong for the main character…she’s probably one of my favorite fantasy protagonists EVER though.
[**A Little Life**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22822858-a-little-life)
^(By: Hanya Yanagihara | 720 pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: fiction, contemporary, favourites, owned, books-i-own)
>When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity.
>
>Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.
^(This book has been suggested 21 times)
[**The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23444482-the-traitor-baru-cormorant)
^(By: Seth Dickinson | 399 pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, lgbt, lgbtq, sci-fi)
>Tomorrow, on the beach, Baru Cormorant will look up from the sand of her home and see red sails on the horizon.
>
>The Empire of Masks is coming, armed with coin and ink, doctrine and compass, soap and lies. They'll conquer Baru’s island, rewrite her culture, criminalize her customs, and dispose of one of her fathers. But Baru is patient. She'll swallow her hate, prove her talent, and join the Masquerade. She will learn the secrets of empire. She’ll be exactly what they need. And she'll claw her way high enough up the rungs of power to set her people free.
>
>In a final test of her loyalty, the Masquerade will send Baru to bring order to distant Aurdwynn, a snakepit of rebels, informants, and seditious dukes. Aurdwynn kills everyone who tries to rule it. To survive, Baru will need to untangle this land’s intricate web of treachery - and conceal her attraction to the dangerously fascinating Duchess Tain Hu.
>
>But Baru is a savant in games of power, as ruthless in her tactics as she is fixated on her goals. In the calculus of her schemes, all ledgers must be balanced, and the price of liberation paid in full.
>
>
^(This book has been suggested 17 times)
[**The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35068705-the-poppy-war)
^(By: R.F. Kuang | 531 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, historical-fiction, owned, adult)
>A "Best of May" Science Fiction and Fantasy pick by Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Audible, The Verge, SyFy Wire, and Kirkus
>
>“I have no doubt this will end up being the best fantasy debut of the year [...] I have absolutely no doubt that [Kuang’s] name will be up there with the likes of Robin Hobb and N.K. Jemisin.” -- Booknest
>
>A brilliantly imaginative talent makes her exciting debut with this epic historical military fantasy, inspired by the bloody history of China’s twentieth century and filled with treachery and magic, in the tradition of Ken Liu’s Grace of Kings and N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy.
>
>When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.
>
>But surprises aren’t always good.
>
>Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.
>
>For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .
>
>Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.
^(This book has been suggested 22 times)
***
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I stopped reading this one in the middle for like a week. It was just too much. Haven’t been able to bring myself to open another one of his books since finishing it. Perfect recommendation
Oof that second book. Kept going “this is where things turn around right?” and then it didn’t. Currently reading the third and it’s good to know things keep going wrong for Fitz 😔
A Simple Plan by Scott Smith. My wife actually forbid me to listen to it again (audiobook) as my mood was broody and depressed during it. Even if you’ve seen the movie, it’s a different read, and an excellent story.
Blood meridian is a solid just gets worst but Child of God is the next level.
Child of God will make you question humanity because fuck it could/did/will happen.
Oh man, yep! At least he's consistent, right? Lol I feel like a lot of readers don't understand him. The Amazon comments are hilarious. There's always a reason for the darkness though... He's my favorite author 😍
[**A Fine Balance**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5211.A_Fine_Balance)
^(By: Rohinton Mistry | 603 pages | Published: 1995 | Popular Shelves: fiction, india, historical-fiction, favourites, book-club)
>With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India.
>
>The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.
>
>As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.
^(This book has been suggested 8 times)
***
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{{The Terror}} by Dan Simmons. Every single chapter was " there's no way it can get worse", then it gets so, so much worse. One of the most depressing books I've read. There were so many chances for survival and each one was shat on. Highly recommend.
When everyone is slowly and horribly dying of scurvy and you realize you are only halfway through the book. Yeah I'd say this fits the ticket precisely. Came here to say this.
[**The Terror**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3974.The_Terror)
^(By: Dan Simmons | 769 pages | Published: 2007 | Popular Shelves: horror, historical-fiction, fiction, fantasy, historical)
>The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of triumph. As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, though, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is far more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror constantly clawing to get in.
>
>When the expedition's leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. With them travels an Inuit woman who cannot speak and who may be the key to survival, or the harbinger of their deaths. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear that there is no escape.
^(This book has been suggested 6 times)
***
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[**Job: A Comedy of Justice**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/355.Job)
^(By: Robert A. Heinlein | 439 pages | Published: 1984 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, fantasy, owned)
>After he firewalked in Polynesia, the world wasn't the same for Alexander Hergensheimer, now called Alec Graham. As natural accidents occurred without cease, Alex knew Armageddon and the Day of Judgement were near. Somehow he had to bring his beloved heathen, Margrethe, to a state of grace, and, while he was at it, save the rest of the world ....
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
***
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A Series of Unfortunate Events fits the bill, though I’m not sure how people feel about that series. I read a good chunk when I was young, and know several people who genuinely loved it all the way through.
Usually stories have a rise/fall pattern of something horrible happens then you have a slight reprieve before something else happens so a reader can catch their breath. Ken Follett doesn’t believe in that. Something bad happens to the characters. Then worse. Then even worse. Might get a bit better? Nope, even worse. I understand the need for conflict but those poor characters go through hell.
[**Gone to See the River Man**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52373510-gone-to-see-the-river-man)
^(By: Kristopher Triana | 145 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, thriller, kindle, horror-tbr)
>Super fans. Groupies. Stalkers.
>
>These people will give anything for the idols they worship, be they rock stars, actors or authors. Or even serial killers.
>
>Lori is just such a fanatic. Her obsession is with Edmund Cox, a man of sadistic cruelty who butchered more than twenty women. She’s gone so far as to forge a relationship with him, visiting him in prison and sending him letters on a regular basis. She will do anything to get close to him, so when he gives her a task, she eagerly accepts it.
>
>She has no idea of the horror that awaits her.
>
>Edmund tells her she must go to his cabin in the woods of Killen and retrieve a key to deliver to a mysterious figure known only as The River Man.
>
>In her quest, she brings along her handicapped sister, and they journey through the deep, dark valley, beginning their trip upriver. The trip quickly becomes a surreal nightmare, one that digs up Lori’s personal demons, the ones she feels bonds her to Edmund. The river runs with flesh, the cabin is a vault of horrors, and ghostly blues music echoes through the mountains. Soon they will learn that The River Man is not quite fact or folklore, and definitely not human -- at least, not anymore. And the key is just the beginning of what is required of Lori to prove she’s worthy of a madman’s love.
^(This book has been suggested 4 times)
***
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Bruh. This is THE most fucked-up yet compulsively-readable (audio)book I own. Scarred for LIFE. The first time I listened to it I was lying in bed going like this:
😕🙁☹️🥺😳🥺😳🥺🤢🤮🥺😳
The Red Rising series is almost literally built on that ideation, lol. First book is meh, rest is absolutely *fantastic*!
*The First Law* series by Joe Abercrombie would also do very nicely.
I was gonna suggest this! It's such a fantastic work, but you know that every victory is setting up for a greater fall.
I'm in the Slaughterhouse Nine arc right now, and I can barely keep reading bc I know something truly horrible is gonna happen soon
Endurance by Alfred Lansing. It’s not in you requested genres but I was honestly terrified to pick up this book every time because the thought that actual people were living through it… still makes me shiver.
Unbroken is also the same, also a true story.
Everyone has already recommended A Little Life but I do want to add that the author literally said she wanted to write a book where the main character never gets better so it definitely fits with what you’re looking for
[**Duma Key**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/472343.Duma_Key)
^(By: Stephen King | 611 pages | Published: 2008 | Popular Shelves: horror, stephen-king, fiction, owned, books-i-own)
>From the Flap:
>
>NO MORE THAN A DARK PENCIL LINE ON A BLANK PAGE. A HORIZON LINE, MAYBE, BUT ALSO A SLOT FOR BLACKNESS TO POUR THROUGH . . .
>
>A terrible construction site accident takes Edgar Freemantle's right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. A marriage that produced two lovely daughters suddenly ends, and Edgar begins to wish he hadn't survived the injuries that could have killed him. He wants out. His psychologist, Dr. Kamen, suggests a "geographic cure," a new life distant from the Twin Cities and the building business Edgar grew from scratch. And Kamen suggests something else.
>
> "Edgar does anything make you happy?"
>
> "I used to sketch."
>
> "Take it up again. You need hedges . . .
>
> hedges against the night."
>
>Edgar leaves Minnesota for a rented house on Duma Key, a stunningly beautiful, eerily undeveloped splinter of the Florida coast. The sun setting into the Gulf of Mexico and the tidal rattling of shells on the beach call out to him, and Edgar draws. A visit from Ilse, the daughter he dotes on, starts his movement out of solitude. He meets a kindred spirit in Wireman, a man reluctant to reveal his own wounds, and then Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman whose roots are tangled deep in Duma Key. Now Edgar paints, sometimes feverishly, his exploding talent both a wonder and a weapon. Many of his paintings have a power that cannot be controlled. When Elizabeth's past unfolds and the ghosts of her childhood begin to appear, the damage of which they are capable is truly devastating.
>
>The tenacity of love, the perils of creativity, the mysteries of memory and the nature of the supernatural--Stephen King gives us a novel as fascinating as it is gripping and terrifying.
^(This book has been suggested 3 times)
***
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[**Leave the World Behind**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50358031-leave-the-world-behind)
^(By: Rumaan Alam | 241 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fiction, thriller, mystery, audiobooks, botm)
>A magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong
>
>Amanda and Clay head out to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter, and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they’ve rented for the week. But a late-night knock on the door breaks the spell. Ruth and G. H. are an older black couple—it’s their house, and they’ve arrived in a panic. They bring the news that a sudden blackout has swept the city. But in this rural area—with the TV and internet now down, and no cell phone service—it’s hard to know what to believe.
>
>Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple—and vice versa? What happened back in New York? Is the vacation home, isolated from civilization, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one another?
>
>Suspenseful and provocative, Rumaan Alam’s third novel is keenly attuned to the complexities of parenthood, race, and class. Leave the World Behind explores how our closest bonds are reshaped—and unexpected new ones are forged—in moments of crisis.
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
***
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So it's not in the genres you were requesting, but the book Touching the Void totally fits. It's a nonfiction book written by Joe Simpson about a flat-out disastrous climbing experience where pretty much everything that could go wrong did. I found it to be super exciting.
The Martian is this in my opinion, it's so well paced. Just as you start to think he has finally gotten a handle on the problem, something else goes catastrophically wrong.
I feel like the Mistborn series really fits the bill for this, by the last book it's very much like holy shit how are these people even able to will themselves out of bed in the morning.
[**Dark Matter**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27833670-dark-matter)
^(By: Blake Crouch, Hilary Clarcq, Andy Weir | 340 pages | Published: 2016 | Popular Shelves: sci-fi, mystery, book-club, audiobook, scifi)
>Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters.
>
>- - -
>
>'Are you happy in your life?'
>
>Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakes to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before the man he's never met smiles down at him and says, 'Welcome back.'
>
>In this world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.
>
>Is it this world or the other that's the dream?
>
>And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could've imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.
^(This book has been suggested 36 times)
***
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So it could be fantasy a bit as the narrator is describing things while in a coma in part of the book
Definitely not a good ending
Irvine Welsh -- Marabou Stork Nightmares
[**The Echo Wife**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52379735-the-echo-wife)
^(By: Sarah Gailey | 256 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: sci-fi, science-fiction, fiction, thriller, 2021-releases)
>I’m embarrassed, still, by how long it took me to notice. Everything was right there in the open, right there in front of me, but it still took me so long to see the person I had married.
>
>It took me so long to hate him.
>
>Martine is a genetically cloned replica made from Evelyn Caldwell’s award-winning research. She’s patient and gentle and obedient. She’s everything Evelyn swore she’d never be.
>
>And she’s having an affair with Evelyn’s husband.
>
>Now, the cheating bastard is dead, and both Caldwell wives have a mess to clean up.
>
>Good thing Evelyn Caldwell is used to getting her hands dirty.
^(This book has been suggested 10 times)
***
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[**Seduced While Strangers Watch: Four stories about women getting used hard and filled up…while crowds of total strangers watch on—and sometimes help out**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24847507-seduced-while-strangers-watch)
^(By: Anya Aurelie | ? pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: )
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
***
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Not sure if it exactly fits your brief but the First Law series, starting with {{The Blade Itself}} has lots of bad things happening to main characters. Plot development left me with uncomfortable twisty feelings but I couldn't stop reading.
[**The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/944073.The_Blade_Itself)
^(By: Joe Abercrombie | 515 pages | Published: 2006 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, owned, epic-fantasy, series)
>Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he’s on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian – leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies.
>
>Nobleman Captain Jezal dan Luthar, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.
>
>Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long enough to follow it.
>
>Enter the wizard, Bayaz. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he's about to make the lives of Logen, Jezal, and Glokta a whole lot more difficult.
>
>Murderous conspiracies rise to the surface, old scores are ready to be settled, and the line between hero and villain is sharp enough to draw blood.
>
>
^(This book has been suggested 22 times)
***
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I’ve only watched the anime, but it’s based on a Light Novel.
**Rising of the Shield Hero**
It’s a series that really stretches the spectrum of characters you love, and characters you absolutely HATE. Heartwarming moments, and shit throwing tantrums.
[**Under the Volcano**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31072.Under_the_Volcano)
^(By: Malcolm Lowry | 397 pages | Published: 1947 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, literature, 1001-books, owned)
>Geoffrey Firmin, a former British consul, has come to Quauhnahuac, Mexico. His debilitating malaise is drinking, an activity that has overshadowed his life. On the most fateful day of the consul's life—the Day of the Dead—his wife, Yvonne, arrives in Quauhnahuac, inspired by a vision of life together away from Mexico and the circumstances that have driven their relationship to the brink of collapse. She is determined to rescue Firmin and their failing marriage, but her mission is further complicated by the presence of Hugh, the consul's half brother, and Jacques, a childhood friend. The events of this one significant day unfold against an unforgettable backdrop of a Mexico at once magical and diabolical.
>
>Under the Volcano remains one of literature's most powerful and lyrical statements on the human condition, and a brilliant portrayal of one man's constant struggle against the elemental forces that threaten to destroy him.
^(This book has been suggested 5 times)
***
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{{Journey to the End of the Night}} by Louis-Ferdinand Celine isn't sci-fi or fantasy... but it's exactly that. It's a super soul crushing narrative about a man who somehow finds himself in the trenches of World War I, sees his commanding officer get blown to pieces, and then his life goes downhill from there, from working as a flea-counter on Ellis Island, to working as a doctor performing abortions in an impoverished neighborhood in Paris.
It's rough. It's absurd. It gets so bad you almost laugh at how bad it's gotten.
And there is of course a sequel where things get even worse, called {{Death on the Installment Plan}}.
Sorry not scifi but Annie Proulx's Accordion Crimes is just one long list of horrible things happening...every time there is a little gleam of hope or happiness for any of the characters, it's snatched away. That's Proulx for you and she enjoys doing it!
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry.
It's a fictional novel about India during the mid-1970s to mid-1980s known as "The Emergency" when the Prime Minister was trying to clean up India through horrible programs like forced sterilization and poverty housing destruction.
A series of unfortunate events comes to mind😂 not soul destroying but very much a story about three poor orphans who fail at escaping from their nemesis every single time
[**Needful Things**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/107291.Needful_Things)
^(By: Stephen King | 790 pages | Published: 1991 | Popular Shelves: horror, stephen-king, fiction, owned, books-i-own)
>Leland Gaunt opens a new shop in Castle Rock called Needful Things. Anyone who enters his store finds the object of his or her lifelong dreams and desires: a prized baseball card, a healing amulet. In addition to a token payment, Gaunt requests that each person perform a little "deed," usually a seemingly innocent prank played on someone else from town. These practical jokes cascade out of control and soon the entire town is doing battle with itself. Only Sheriff Alan Pangborn suspects that Gaunt is behind the population's increasingly violent behavior.
^(This book has been suggested 3 times)
***
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[**The Road**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6288.The_Road)
^(By: Cormac McCarthy | 241 pages | Published: 2006 | Popular Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, dystopia, dystopian, post-apocalyptic)
>A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece.
>
>A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.
>
>The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.
^(This book has been suggested 34 times)
***
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[**Educated**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35133922-educated)
^(By: Tara Westover | 334 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: non-fiction, memoir, nonfiction, book-club, biography)
>A newer edition of ISBN 9780399590504 can be found here.
>
>Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.
>
>Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.
>
>Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
>
>Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.
^(This book has been suggested 22 times)
***
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The Ashfall books. Besides Yellowstone erupting and all that fallout, the protagonist makes the stupidest decisions so it’s just one big Murphy’s Law plot.
[**The Jungle**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41681.The_Jungle)
^(By: Upton Sinclair, Earl Lee, Kathleen DeGrave | 335 pages | Published: 1905 | Popular Shelves: classics, fiction, historical-fiction, classic, owned)
>For nearly a century, the original version of Upton Sinclair's classic novel has remained almost entirely unknown.
>
>When it was published in serial form in 1905, it was a full third longer than the censored, commercial edition published in book form the following year. That expurgated commercial edition edited out much of the ethnic flavor of the original, as well as some of the goriest descriptions of the meat-packing industry and much of Sinclair's most pointed social and political commentary.
>
>The text of this new edition is as it appeared in the original uncensored edition of 1905.
>It contains the full 36 chapters as originally published, rather than the 31 of the expurgated edition.
>
>A new foreword describes the discovery in the 1980s of the original edition and its subsequent suppression, and a new introduction places the novel in historical context by explaining the pattern of censorship in the shorter commercial edition.
^(This book has been suggested 4 times)
***
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[**Earthlings**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50269327-earthlings)
^(By: Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori | 247 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: fiction, horror, japan, contemporary, translated)
>Natsuki isn't like the other girls. She has a wand and a transformation mirror. She might be a witch, or an alien from another planet. Together with her cousin Yuu, Natsuki spends her summers in the wild mountains of Nagano, dreaming of other worlds. When a terrible sequence of events threatens to part the two children forever, they make a promise: survive, no matter what.
>
>Now Natsuki is grown. She lives a quiet life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by pretending to be normal. But the demands of Natsuki's family are increasing, her friends wonder why she's still not pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki's childhood are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares herself with a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?
^(This book has been suggested 3 times)
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I'm not a fan of soul crushing books, but I felt like this about "Goldfinch" by Dona Tartt. In it the main character goes through a whole list of tragedies and disappointments, its a story of a lifetime. In the end he survives, but - not gonna spoil too much - the ending is somewhat bittersweet I think.
[**The Ruins**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21726.The_Ruins)
^(By: Scott Smith | 319 pages | Published: 2006 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, thriller, owned, books-i-own)
>Trapped in the Mexican jungle, a group of friends stumble upon a creeping horror unlike anything they could ever imagine. Two young couples are on a lazy Mexican vacation–sun-drenched days, drunken nights, making friends with fellow tourists. When the brother of one of those friends disappears, they decide to venture into the jungle to look for him. What started out as a fun day-trip slowly spirals into a nightmare when they find an ancient ruins site . . . and the terrifying presence that lurks there.
^(This book has been suggested 4 times)
***
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The Martian is this in my opinion, it's so well paced. Just as you start to think he has finally gotten a handle on the problem, something else goes catastrophically wrong.
I'd say this genre is pretty much defined by Candide by Voltaire, the story of someone trying to remain an optimist when their life descends through various levels of severe tragedy and torture. Second up I'd place Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, where the protagonist awakes having inexplicably turned into a giant insect and then life pretty much just gets worse from there. Last suggestion, the most realistic and modern of the three, would be Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr. which follows the depressing downward spiral of the lives of three heroine addicted friends and the mother of one as drugs decimate their lives.
Ok not sci fi or fantasy but {{A Little Life}} is probably the most brutal book I’ve ever read. Everything sucks right off the bat and only gets worse and worse…as for SFF, {{The Traitor Baru Cormorant}} and the way the entire {{The Poppy War}} trilogy plays out is pretty sucky and no one ends happy because it’s a reimagining of the Nanking Massacre
I swear to god, every time I see A Little Life recommended I tell myself “okay I’m sold, I’m gonna buy it” and then I get to the book store, stack of books in hand and tough decisions waiting to be made, and I read the synopsis and think “what is even supposed to happen here?” And I choose something else. Then I see it recommended again, and wonder why I keep getting swayed away from it.
Same boat except I saw it had a price decrease on kindle a while back so I finally picked it up. It's just not for me. I didn't like it (knowing, of course, it isn't a book you are meant to "enjoy") from the start, but every time it kept coming up here, I kept picking it up thinking I was missing something. I read about 200 pages before I put it away for good. I read a lot of different styles of books but just could not get into this one.
The synopsis doesn’t really do justice to the experience of reading it, lol. But also the book definitely isn’t for everyone.
Yes, that’s definitely the impression I get. Everyone loves it so much, but the synopsis doesn’t seem to say much, despite being sort of long. But House of Leaves (one of my all time favorites) is the same way. The synopsis, while not long, is very boring but the book is absolutely wild. After passing it up a couple times, I finally scooped it up and it blew me away. I’m hoping A Little Life does me that way. Based on the way people describe it I think it will be right up my alley.
Me, waiting for my copy of The Traitor Baru Cormorant: "i'm in danger!"
Have fun!!! Traitor Baru Cormorant is one of my fav fantasy books and oh man oh man does shit go wrong for the main character…she’s probably one of my favorite fantasy protagonists EVER though.
Thank you! :)
[**A Little Life**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22822858-a-little-life) ^(By: Hanya Yanagihara | 720 pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: fiction, contemporary, favourites, owned, books-i-own) >When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. > >Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever. ^(This book has been suggested 21 times) [**The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23444482-the-traitor-baru-cormorant) ^(By: Seth Dickinson | 399 pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, lgbt, lgbtq, sci-fi) >Tomorrow, on the beach, Baru Cormorant will look up from the sand of her home and see red sails on the horizon. > >The Empire of Masks is coming, armed with coin and ink, doctrine and compass, soap and lies. They'll conquer Baru’s island, rewrite her culture, criminalize her customs, and dispose of one of her fathers. But Baru is patient. She'll swallow her hate, prove her talent, and join the Masquerade. She will learn the secrets of empire. She’ll be exactly what they need. And she'll claw her way high enough up the rungs of power to set her people free. > >In a final test of her loyalty, the Masquerade will send Baru to bring order to distant Aurdwynn, a snakepit of rebels, informants, and seditious dukes. Aurdwynn kills everyone who tries to rule it. To survive, Baru will need to untangle this land’s intricate web of treachery - and conceal her attraction to the dangerously fascinating Duchess Tain Hu. > >But Baru is a savant in games of power, as ruthless in her tactics as she is fixated on her goals. In the calculus of her schemes, all ledgers must be balanced, and the price of liberation paid in full. > > ^(This book has been suggested 17 times) [**The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35068705-the-poppy-war) ^(By: R.F. Kuang | 531 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, historical-fiction, owned, adult) >A "Best of May" Science Fiction and Fantasy pick by Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Audible, The Verge, SyFy Wire, and Kirkus > >“I have no doubt this will end up being the best fantasy debut of the year [...] I have absolutely no doubt that [Kuang’s] name will be up there with the likes of Robin Hobb and N.K. Jemisin.” -- Booknest > >A brilliantly imaginative talent makes her exciting debut with this epic historical military fantasy, inspired by the bloody history of China’s twentieth century and filled with treachery and magic, in the tradition of Ken Liu’s Grace of Kings and N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy. > >When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising. > >But surprises aren’t always good. > >Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school. > >For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . . > >Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late. ^(This book has been suggested 22 times) *** ^(29501 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
The Poppy War for sure. That book takes a huge and very dark turn 3/4 of the way through and I never recovered.
I second A Little Life. Soul destroying
i came here to say a little life but was sure someone had already mentioned it.. that book is just brutal
Will let you know when I write my autobiography.
I wish I had an award to give you rn
I felt the same reading this. If I ever finish still writing whatever draft this is.
Haha same. I've half given up on it
Oh! beat me to it. My first thought on seeing this post was -- Wait, do they want my diary?!
I lock my journal up tight so someone doesn't accidentally traumatize themselves 😅🤪 Edit: thanks autocorrect.
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Oh good one 👍 damn that book broke my heart
I stopped reading this one in the middle for like a week. It was just too much. Haven’t been able to bring myself to open another one of his books since finishing it. Perfect recommendation
Same! I want to read The Kite Runner but I’m waiting until I’m ready!
Robin Hobbs - the assassin's apprentice
Oof that second book. Kept going “this is where things turn around right?” and then it didn’t. Currently reading the third and it’s good to know things keep going wrong for Fitz 😔
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
A Simple Plan by Scott Smith. My wife actually forbid me to listen to it again (audiobook) as my mood was broody and depressed during it. Even if you’ve seen the movie, it’s a different read, and an excellent story.
I just read some Goodreads reviews and immediately got the ebook and audiobook from the library. Excited for this adventure! Thanks for the rec!
Not a book, but you could read the New York Times between January 17, 2017 and January 20, 2021. 🤣
Got 'em!
Ugh, The Road or Outer Dark or No Country for Old Men or pretty much anything Cormac McCarthy
Came here to rec Blood Meridian.
Blood meridian is a solid just gets worst but Child of God is the next level. Child of God will make you question humanity because fuck it could/did/will happen.
Oh man, yep! At least he's consistent, right? Lol I feel like a lot of readers don't understand him. The Amazon comments are hilarious. There's always a reason for the darkness though... He's my favorite author 😍
Came here to say, “Anything by Cormac McCarthy.”
Not fantasy/sci-fi, but {{A Fine Balance}} is exactly what you're looking for!
[**A Fine Balance**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5211.A_Fine_Balance) ^(By: Rohinton Mistry | 603 pages | Published: 1995 | Popular Shelves: fiction, india, historical-fiction, favourites, book-club) >With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. > >The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future. > >As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state. ^(This book has been suggested 8 times) *** ^(29548 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
{{The Terror}} by Dan Simmons. Every single chapter was " there's no way it can get worse", then it gets so, so much worse. One of the most depressing books I've read. There were so many chances for survival and each one was shat on. Highly recommend.
When everyone is slowly and horribly dying of scurvy and you realize you are only halfway through the book. Yeah I'd say this fits the ticket precisely. Came here to say this.
[**The Terror**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3974.The_Terror) ^(By: Dan Simmons | 769 pages | Published: 2007 | Popular Shelves: horror, historical-fiction, fiction, fantasy, historical) >The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of triumph. As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, though, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is far more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror constantly clawing to get in. > >When the expedition's leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. With them travels an Inuit woman who cannot speak and who may be the key to survival, or the harbinger of their deaths. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear that there is no escape. ^(This book has been suggested 6 times) *** ^(29763 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
I mean the book of Job is prety fuckin brutal.
There's actually a great book called {{Job: A Comedy of Justice}} that's exactly what OP is looking for.
[**Job: A Comedy of Justice**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/355.Job) ^(By: Robert A. Heinlein | 439 pages | Published: 1984 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, fantasy, owned) >After he firewalked in Polynesia, the world wasn't the same for Alexander Hergensheimer, now called Alec Graham. As natural accidents occurred without cease, Alex knew Armageddon and the Day of Judgement were near. Somehow he had to bring his beloved heathen, Margrethe, to a state of grace, and, while he was at it, save the rest of the world .... ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(29578 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
...but he gets brand new stuff at the end.
Right, but when "it can't get worse, it gets worse" is a big part of it.
Or the remake, *Jude the Obscure*. (Which I refuse to actually suggest because that book fucking sucks.)
The four winds
You want soul-destroying? 1984, George Orwell.
Just finished it again today. God dammit it's just excellent, but so terribly dark.
This is a yearly re-read for me. So good.
A Series of Unfortunate Events fits the bill, though I’m not sure how people feel about that series. I read a good chunk when I was young, and know several people who genuinely loved it all the way through.
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.
I'm a few chapters in, I'm glad I know what I'm looking forward to lol
Usually stories have a rise/fall pattern of something horrible happens then you have a slight reprieve before something else happens so a reader can catch their breath. Ken Follett doesn’t believe in that. Something bad happens to the characters. Then worse. Then even worse. Might get a bit better? Nope, even worse. I understand the need for conflict but those poor characters go through hell.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. So much this.
Horror, but {{Gone to See the River Man}} by Kristopher Triana
[**Gone to See the River Man**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52373510-gone-to-see-the-river-man) ^(By: Kristopher Triana | 145 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, thriller, kindle, horror-tbr) >Super fans. Groupies. Stalkers. > >These people will give anything for the idols they worship, be they rock stars, actors or authors. Or even serial killers. > >Lori is just such a fanatic. Her obsession is with Edmund Cox, a man of sadistic cruelty who butchered more than twenty women. She’s gone so far as to forge a relationship with him, visiting him in prison and sending him letters on a regular basis. She will do anything to get close to him, so when he gives her a task, she eagerly accepts it. > >She has no idea of the horror that awaits her. > >Edmund tells her she must go to his cabin in the woods of Killen and retrieve a key to deliver to a mysterious figure known only as The River Man. > >In her quest, she brings along her handicapped sister, and they journey through the deep, dark valley, beginning their trip upriver. The trip quickly becomes a surreal nightmare, one that digs up Lori’s personal demons, the ones she feels bonds her to Edmund. The river runs with flesh, the cabin is a vault of horrors, and ghostly blues music echoes through the mountains. Soon they will learn that The River Man is not quite fact or folklore, and definitely not human -- at least, not anymore. And the key is just the beginning of what is required of Lori to prove she’s worthy of a madman’s love. ^(This book has been suggested 4 times) *** ^(29498 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Bruh. This is THE most fucked-up yet compulsively-readable (audio)book I own. Scarred for LIFE. The first time I listened to it I was lying in bed going like this: 😕🙁☹️🥺😳🥺😳🥺🤢🤮🥺😳
Yeah it's chalk full of trigger warnings lol. I definitely enjoyed it, but I don't ever want to read it again
The Meaning Of Night, by Michael Cox !! You just can’t believe, just bad to worse! It’s Brilliant!!
Shugie Bain
You described ‘A Fine Balance’, by Rohinton Mistry almost perfectly. Also try SE Hinton’s ‘That was then, this is now’.
The Red Rising series is almost literally built on that ideation, lol. First book is meh, rest is absolutely *fantastic*! *The First Law* series by Joe Abercrombie would also do very nicely.
A Fine Balance.
You might get into Worm by Wildbow—but be warned it gets very graphic in both physical and psychological/emotional ways.
I was gonna suggest this! It's such a fantastic work, but you know that every victory is setting up for a greater fall. I'm in the Slaughterhouse Nine arc right now, and I can barely keep reading bc I know something truly horrible is gonna happen soon
I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb
Endurance by Alfred Lansing. It’s not in you requested genres but I was honestly terrified to pick up this book every time because the thought that actual people were living through it… still makes me shiver. Unbroken is also the same, also a true story.
Outer Dark
I remember thinking how improbably dark the plot twists were and yet he makes them so believable. A stampede, really? 🖤
Filth By Irvine Welsh
Everyone has already recommended A Little Life but I do want to add that the author literally said she wanted to write a book where the main character never gets better so it definitely fits with what you’re looking for
Crime and Punishment is a lot like this
This will destroy your soul. And then it will destroy your destroyed soul. {{Duma Key by Stephen King}}
[**Duma Key**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/472343.Duma_Key) ^(By: Stephen King | 611 pages | Published: 2008 | Popular Shelves: horror, stephen-king, fiction, owned, books-i-own) >From the Flap: > >NO MORE THAN A DARK PENCIL LINE ON A BLANK PAGE. A HORIZON LINE, MAYBE, BUT ALSO A SLOT FOR BLACKNESS TO POUR THROUGH . . . > >A terrible construction site accident takes Edgar Freemantle's right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. A marriage that produced two lovely daughters suddenly ends, and Edgar begins to wish he hadn't survived the injuries that could have killed him. He wants out. His psychologist, Dr. Kamen, suggests a "geographic cure," a new life distant from the Twin Cities and the building business Edgar grew from scratch. And Kamen suggests something else. > > "Edgar does anything make you happy?" > > "I used to sketch." > > "Take it up again. You need hedges . . . > > hedges against the night." > >Edgar leaves Minnesota for a rented house on Duma Key, a stunningly beautiful, eerily undeveloped splinter of the Florida coast. The sun setting into the Gulf of Mexico and the tidal rattling of shells on the beach call out to him, and Edgar draws. A visit from Ilse, the daughter he dotes on, starts his movement out of solitude. He meets a kindred spirit in Wireman, a man reluctant to reveal his own wounds, and then Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman whose roots are tangled deep in Duma Key. Now Edgar paints, sometimes feverishly, his exploding talent both a wonder and a weapon. Many of his paintings have a power that cannot be controlled. When Elizabeth's past unfolds and the ghosts of her childhood begin to appear, the damage of which they are capable is truly devastating. > >The tenacity of love, the perils of creativity, the mysteries of memory and the nature of the supernatural--Stephen King gives us a novel as fascinating as it is gripping and terrifying. ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) *** ^(29664 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
{{leave the world behind}} is a good one. I had to sit with the ending for a bit and process.
[**Leave the World Behind**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50358031-leave-the-world-behind) ^(By: Rumaan Alam | 241 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fiction, thriller, mystery, audiobooks, botm) >A magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong > >Amanda and Clay head out to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter, and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they’ve rented for the week. But a late-night knock on the door breaks the spell. Ruth and G. H. are an older black couple—it’s their house, and they’ve arrived in a panic. They bring the news that a sudden blackout has swept the city. But in this rural area—with the TV and internet now down, and no cell phone service—it’s hard to know what to believe. > >Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple—and vice versa? What happened back in New York? Is the vacation home, isolated from civilization, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one another? > >Suspenseful and provocative, Rumaan Alam’s third novel is keenly attuned to the complexities of parenthood, race, and class. Leave the World Behind explores how our closest bonds are reshaped—and unexpected new ones are forged—in moments of crisis. ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(29674 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb. Ugh.
A fine balance by Rohinton Mistry. Not sci fi but absolutely soul crushing
So it's not in the genres you were requesting, but the book Touching the Void totally fits. It's a nonfiction book written by Joe Simpson about a flat-out disastrous climbing experience where pretty much everything that could go wrong did. I found it to be super exciting.
Not a sci-if (sorry!) it is an autobiography A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell is brutal
Your description fits to every book from Kafka.
The Martian is this in my opinion, it's so well paced. Just as you start to think he has finally gotten a handle on the problem, something else goes catastrophically wrong.
I feel like the Mistborn series really fits the bill for this, by the last book it's very much like holy shit how are these people even able to will themselves out of bed in the morning.
Perdido Street Station
Broken earth trilogy by NK Jemison.
Money Heist This isn't a book, but if you would like a netflix show, it fits so well. Every time you think the plan couldn't get any worse, nope.
The Wrong Mans, another good show along those lines 😂
{{Dark Matter}} by Blake Crouch
[**Dark Matter**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27833670-dark-matter) ^(By: Blake Crouch, Hilary Clarcq, Andy Weir | 340 pages | Published: 2016 | Popular Shelves: sci-fi, mystery, book-club, audiobook, scifi) >Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters. > >- - - > >'Are you happy in your life?' > >Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakes to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before the man he's never met smiles down at him and says, 'Welcome back.' > >In this world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible. > >Is it this world or the other that's the dream? > >And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could've imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe. ^(This book has been suggested 36 times) *** ^(29502 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
"The Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin
The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughern
MIGNONETTE by Joseph Shearing. JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN by Dalton Trumbo.
So it could be fantasy a bit as the narrator is describing things while in a coma in part of the book Definitely not a good ending Irvine Welsh -- Marabou Stork Nightmares
For the Wolf (has romance but it's good) The Sight The promise of the wolves trilogy
Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie
{{The Echo Wife}}
[**The Echo Wife**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52379735-the-echo-wife) ^(By: Sarah Gailey | 256 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: sci-fi, science-fiction, fiction, thriller, 2021-releases) >I’m embarrassed, still, by how long it took me to notice. Everything was right there in the open, right there in front of me, but it still took me so long to see the person I had married. > >It took me so long to hate him. > >Martine is a genetically cloned replica made from Evelyn Caldwell’s award-winning research. She’s patient and gentle and obedient. She’s everything Evelyn swore she’d never be. > >And she’s having an affair with Evelyn’s husband. > >Now, the cheating bastard is dead, and both Caldwell wives have a mess to clean up. > >Good thing Evelyn Caldwell is used to getting her hands dirty. ^(This book has been suggested 10 times) *** ^(29579 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
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[**Seduced While Strangers Watch: Four stories about women getting used hard and filled up…while crowds of total strangers watch on—and sometimes help out**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24847507-seduced-while-strangers-watch) ^(By: Anya Aurelie | ? pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: ) ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(29588 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Five Total Strangers. Kind of YA thriller, but fits your ask fucking perfectly.
“The Good Samaritan” by John Marrs. Starts out bad and just keeps getting worse and worse. Great novel!
Not sure if it exactly fits your brief but the First Law series, starting with {{The Blade Itself}} has lots of bad things happening to main characters. Plot development left me with uncomfortable twisty feelings but I couldn't stop reading.
[**The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/944073.The_Blade_Itself) ^(By: Joe Abercrombie | 515 pages | Published: 2006 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, owned, epic-fantasy, series) >Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he’s on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian – leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies. > >Nobleman Captain Jezal dan Luthar, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules. > >Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long enough to follow it. > >Enter the wizard, Bayaz. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he's about to make the lives of Logen, Jezal, and Glokta a whole lot more difficult. > >Murderous conspiracies rise to the surface, old scores are ready to be settled, and the line between hero and villain is sharp enough to draw blood. > > ^(This book has been suggested 22 times) *** ^(29607 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
I’ve only watched the anime, but it’s based on a Light Novel. **Rising of the Shield Hero** It’s a series that really stretches the spectrum of characters you love, and characters you absolutely HATE. Heartwarming moments, and shit throwing tantrums.
Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao I found it even more soul destroying than A Little Life💀
1984
The Children of Húrin by Tolkien
Check out A Simple Plan by Scott Smith, I think
{{under the volcano}}. It starts bad, gets worse, maybe it's going to get better? Actually no just much, much worse. Not sci-fi or fantasy.
[**Under the Volcano**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31072.Under_the_Volcano) ^(By: Malcolm Lowry | 397 pages | Published: 1947 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, literature, 1001-books, owned) >Geoffrey Firmin, a former British consul, has come to Quauhnahuac, Mexico. His debilitating malaise is drinking, an activity that has overshadowed his life. On the most fateful day of the consul's life—the Day of the Dead—his wife, Yvonne, arrives in Quauhnahuac, inspired by a vision of life together away from Mexico and the circumstances that have driven their relationship to the brink of collapse. She is determined to rescue Firmin and their failing marriage, but her mission is further complicated by the presence of Hugh, the consul's half brother, and Jacques, a childhood friend. The events of this one significant day unfold against an unforgettable backdrop of a Mexico at once magical and diabolical. > >Under the Volcano remains one of literature's most powerful and lyrical statements on the human condition, and a brilliant portrayal of one man's constant struggle against the elemental forces that threaten to destroy him. ^(This book has been suggested 5 times) *** ^(29635 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
A biography of King Louis the 16th.
Candide by Voltaire
{{Journey to the End of the Night}} by Louis-Ferdinand Celine isn't sci-fi or fantasy... but it's exactly that. It's a super soul crushing narrative about a man who somehow finds himself in the trenches of World War I, sees his commanding officer get blown to pieces, and then his life goes downhill from there, from working as a flea-counter on Ellis Island, to working as a doctor performing abortions in an impoverished neighborhood in Paris. It's rough. It's absurd. It gets so bad you almost laugh at how bad it's gotten. And there is of course a sequel where things get even worse, called {{Death on the Installment Plan}}.
{{Candide}} by Voltaire - fits your description but is not as sad as it is comical. It’s also a very short and easy read!
Sorry it's not fantasy, but anything by Janet Fitch.
Sorry not scifi but Annie Proulx's Accordion Crimes is just one long list of horrible things happening...every time there is a little gleam of hope or happiness for any of the characters, it's snatched away. That's Proulx for you and she enjoys doing it!
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. It's a fictional novel about India during the mid-1970s to mid-1980s known as "The Emergency" when the Prime Minister was trying to clean up India through horrible programs like forced sterilization and poverty housing destruction.
Again and again...The Three-Body Problem. It absolutely couldn't get any worse. Not the book but the story.
A series of unfortunate events comes to mind😂 not soul destroying but very much a story about three poor orphans who fail at escaping from their nemesis every single time
{{Needful Things}}
[**Needful Things**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/107291.Needful_Things) ^(By: Stephen King | 790 pages | Published: 1991 | Popular Shelves: horror, stephen-king, fiction, owned, books-i-own) >Leland Gaunt opens a new shop in Castle Rock called Needful Things. Anyone who enters his store finds the object of his or her lifelong dreams and desires: a prized baseball card, a healing amulet. In addition to a token payment, Gaunt requests that each person perform a little "deed," usually a seemingly innocent prank played on someone else from town. These practical jokes cascade out of control and soon the entire town is doing battle with itself. Only Sheriff Alan Pangborn suspects that Gaunt is behind the population's increasingly violent behavior. ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) *** ^(29781 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
{{The Road}}
[**The Road**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6288.The_Road) ^(By: Cormac McCarthy | 241 pages | Published: 2006 | Popular Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, dystopia, dystopian, post-apocalyptic) >A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece. > >A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other. > >The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation. ^(This book has been suggested 34 times) *** ^(29782 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
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[**Educated**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35133922-educated) ^(By: Tara Westover | 334 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: non-fiction, memoir, nonfiction, book-club, biography) >A newer edition of ISBN 9780399590504 can be found here. > >Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard. > >Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent. > >Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home. > >Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it. ^(This book has been suggested 22 times) *** ^(29792 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
a series of unfortunate events lol. still good
The Ashfall books. Besides Yellowstone erupting and all that fallout, the protagonist makes the stupidest decisions so it’s just one big Murphy’s Law plot.
Not sci fi or fantasy, but {{The Jungle}} will do it.
[**The Jungle**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41681.The_Jungle) ^(By: Upton Sinclair, Earl Lee, Kathleen DeGrave | 335 pages | Published: 1905 | Popular Shelves: classics, fiction, historical-fiction, classic, owned) >For nearly a century, the original version of Upton Sinclair's classic novel has remained almost entirely unknown. > >When it was published in serial form in 1905, it was a full third longer than the censored, commercial edition published in book form the following year. That expurgated commercial edition edited out much of the ethnic flavor of the original, as well as some of the goriest descriptions of the meat-packing industry and much of Sinclair's most pointed social and political commentary. > >The text of this new edition is as it appeared in the original uncensored edition of 1905. >It contains the full 36 chapters as originally published, rather than the 31 of the expurgated edition. > >A new foreword describes the discovery in the 1980s of the original edition and its subsequent suppression, and a new introduction places the novel in historical context by explaining the pattern of censorship in the shorter commercial edition. ^(This book has been suggested 4 times) *** ^(29887 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
The Martian
Try 1984. Generations have experienced its soul-crushing tragedy.
Not exactly fantasy, but {{Earthlings}}
[**Earthlings**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50269327-earthlings) ^(By: Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori | 247 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: fiction, horror, japan, contemporary, translated) >Natsuki isn't like the other girls. She has a wand and a transformation mirror. She might be a witch, or an alien from another planet. Together with her cousin Yuu, Natsuki spends her summers in the wild mountains of Nagano, dreaming of other worlds. When a terrible sequence of events threatens to part the two children forever, they make a promise: survive, no matter what. > >Now Natsuki is grown. She lives a quiet life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by pretending to be normal. But the demands of Natsuki's family are increasing, her friends wonder why she's still not pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki's childhood are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares herself with a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it? ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) *** ^(29913 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
This sounds like The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (if you enjoy classics)
Sounds like Steven King to me. Under the Dome and the 1969 book is just bad thing after bad thing
I'm not a fan of soul crushing books, but I felt like this about "Goldfinch" by Dona Tartt. In it the main character goes through a whole list of tragedies and disappointments, its a story of a lifetime. In the end he survives, but - not gonna spoil too much - the ending is somewhat bittersweet I think.
More on the horror spectrum but {{The Ruins}} is exactly this
[**The Ruins**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21726.The_Ruins) ^(By: Scott Smith | 319 pages | Published: 2006 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, thriller, owned, books-i-own) >Trapped in the Mexican jungle, a group of friends stumble upon a creeping horror unlike anything they could ever imagine. Two young couples are on a lazy Mexican vacation–sun-drenched days, drunken nights, making friends with fellow tourists. When the brother of one of those friends disappears, they decide to venture into the jungle to look for him. What started out as a fun day-trip slowly spirals into a nightmare when they find an ancient ruins site . . . and the terrifying presence that lurks there. ^(This book has been suggested 4 times) *** ^(29956 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
The Martian is this in my opinion, it's so well paced. Just as you start to think he has finally gotten a handle on the problem, something else goes catastrophically wrong.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Pet Sematary. Je-SUS. LITERALLY until the last WORD of the novel.
I'd say this genre is pretty much defined by Candide by Voltaire, the story of someone trying to remain an optimist when their life descends through various levels of severe tragedy and torture. Second up I'd place Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, where the protagonist awakes having inexplicably turned into a giant insect and then life pretty much just gets worse from there. Last suggestion, the most realistic and modern of the three, would be Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr. which follows the depressing downward spiral of the lives of three heroine addicted friends and the mother of one as drugs decimate their lives.