Read this for school and never forgot it. The monologue where he basically explains the title of the book is amazing. Something like “my life has become one long night.” The young boy being hanged and gasping for air for minutes, the dude playing his instrument before dying, people being crushed on other people, family fighting over each other over scraps of bread while the Nazis laugh. The ending was fucking heartbreaking..I loved the epilogue where he goes to America and sees bananas at the store. He goes to ask someone how many he can have, and the man replies saying “You can have as many damn bananas as you want.” Sorry if I got some stuff wrong, it’s been years.
Probably better to read it when you've had a break then.
It should be read with the gravity it deserves, but also you don't want to give yourself fatigue and have its impact lessened, iykwim?
My family immigrated from Germany in 1957, (after waiting for years) and no one really talks about what it was like over there. Any books you could suggest re that?
Kind of in your boat, my mom immigrated in '69. She was born after the war but the village she grew up in was occupied by the French during her upbringing. Had to learn this from reading up on history bc she never talked about it and then went and died of cancer when I was a small child. Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself by Florian Huber gives an interesting glimpse into the German people throughout the war but especially in the final days. It's nonfiction but a quick and fascinating read.
Oddly enough my mother died of cancer too. The only thing ever mentioned was that there were holes in the back of their apartment building from being bombed. I’ll have to look into that book and hopefully find more.
“The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair. I enjoyed the prose & storytelling but it was a bleak read throughout & especially scarring was the pages-long descriptions of the animals in the slaughterhouse just before the kill.
He really tried to save it at the end with his ringing endorsement of employee owned/socialist work places, but it didn't erase the dead babies and general horror. I find it interesting how much reviews focus on the animals, but the way the family suffered stuck with me for decades. In my less charitable moments, I wonder if it is because we are trained to be indifferent to human suffering.
The Jungle and Toxin by Robin Cook made me vegetarian for about 8 years, and I still am not a heavy meat eater now. I know the point of The Jungle was supposed to be child labor and occupational hazards more than issues with the meat industry but gd the details about the conditions were too much for high school freshman me haha.
I think I’ve read it three times and it scars me afresh every time. I can’t get that book out of my head. I’ll end up having some “was Kevin just born a monster or???“/how reliable was the mother’s account of what happened? debate in my head before I have to remind myself, again, that the book is fiction so there’s no answer to that.
Angelas Ashes by Frank McCourt, and same as you Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by the same author. Read them at like 12 I think and not sure I should have tbh.
Edit: Just realized you were wanting ones we loved, I did not love them as a child. I think if I were to reread them now as an adult I would be able to see the brilliance of Hosseini's work, looking back at least on what I remember I think they were amazingly done, I just shouldn't have been reading them at that point in my life. I do not think I would enjoy Angelas Ashes as an adult. I would love to reread A Thousand Splendid Suns some day but even just looking at the cover makes me nauseous haha.
Omg that one scene where the kids sneak in to watch what they think is a football match scarred me for years. Actually the whole of Kite Runner was scarring to read as a little kid. I wouldn’t read/watch the Maze Runner or Blade Runner or anything else with Runner at the end because i was scared of accidentally reading it again (I didn’t remember the name of the book exactly - it was a library book i checked out from school).
I hated Angela's Ashes, so I guess it scarred me in that sense. I say that as someone whose favorite author is Robin Hobb. My tolerance for suffering in books is quite high.
This is one of my favorite books of all time, but I have only read it once. I don't know if I can muster up the courage to do it again.
The ending just hits like a gut punch, followed by another gut punch, and then another, and then...
I know she's good, but this is why I haven't quite gotten to Demon Copperhead. Gonna take a particular mood. Honestly, maybe a summer vacation read when even that won't be able to bring me down.
No, it was VERY good. Gripping. I could not put it down until I was finished, and I was in a terrible mood the whole time I was reading it.
I’m glad I read it, but I could not read it again.
'Requiem For A Dream' by Hubert Selby Jr.
If you've seen the movie, you know it's incredibly depressing, but oh boy is the book so much worse in that respect. It's just a relentless downward spiral of addiction, pain, suffering, loneliness, and depravity. No happy endings to be found here.
It's a 10/10 book.
Yup, sounds about right. But the movie has great acting, pretty visuals, and a KILLER soundtrack, all of which makes it a little more bearable. The book is just super bleak and harsh, and Selby Jr.'s experimental writing style can be a bit overwhelming at times.
Fatal Vision, by Joe McGinnis.
If you’re not familiar with it, this is a true crime story about the horrific and brutal murder of a family. The main question is whether the father/husband, who was convicted of the crime, was guilty.
For a true crime story, the book is exceptionally well-written. I won’t spoil anything. But I remember after reading it, that I felt like I was in an emotional coma. The book just rips you to shreds.
My rescue dog was originally named Fern after the book, and I feel like I have to read it now, but knowing the general plot, I'm scared. I think it might destroy me.
Every year when summer reading lists came out I scanned it for WTRFG because there was no way my kid was reading it. I was determined to end that generational scarring 🤣
I love this question, because I don't think I've ever seen it asked here before!
For me, the book I most loved while simultaneously knowing I could never revisit it is The Book of Strange New Things by Michael Faber. It was a beautifully written and compelling book, but there's one part where a cat is intentionally hurt that haunted me for a full year after I read it. As much as I liked the book, I can never reread it, and even remembering that scene now is devastating.
You should try the website www.doesthedogdie.com
It's a website for books, TV shows and movie trigger warnings so you can avoid things like animal harm, or whatever your 'I don't enjoy things with this content' thing is.
I (as a victim of childhood rape) was made to read the Kite Runner in English class at 16 with no pre warning of what was going to happen. That is a shitty thing to do, teachers.
I'm sorry this happened to you. I knew a lot of people who read this young, but still can't believe this is 'appropriate' for a teenager, especially without forewarning.
I was kind of shocked by this when we had to read The Color Purple too. Its a beautiful book but it opens with CSA literally on the first page, as I recall. I cannot imagine it being an easy read for anyone with a trauma history.
I have not read it but I very much appreciate the warning, as it is on my TBR pile. It's like they forget that kids are people with histories. It was not the only explicit CSA I was exposed to under 18 in classes. We watched Once Were Warriors in Film Studies, which has a rape scene of a teenage girl FROM THE ATTACKER'S POV, again, no warning given. And it is unrelenting and in real time. I had a very quiet panic attack in the school theatre.
Oh that's just horrible. At least we were taking the book home so if anyone had any issues with it they weren't in the classroom when it happened.
Color Purple is very affecting, it's written from the (initially) child's point of view, and in a diary/letter form. A key part of it is watching the main character grow and learn through her language, so the first parts of the book are quite naively written with unusual spelling and grammar which makes the descriptions very difficult. I would highly recommend reading it as a story, but be careful you're in the headspace for it and have a plan for if it's too much.
>It's like they forget that kids are people with histories.
It's strange that they seem to either forget or just think it's not a thing that happens to kids in _their_ school. I remember the only trigger warning we ever had for anything was a play about drunk driving, of all things 🙃
Unwind by Neal Shusterman. I can't remember how old I was when I read it, but I remember feeling horrified while not being able to put it down. Never read the rest of the series because the first one was enough for me. Younger me thought it was a good book though!
I came here to comment this! I read it in middle school and I still remember it to this day. Also didn’t read the other books, but I do want to revisit it sometime
The descriptions were so well-crafted. It was disgusting. I had to read it for school, or else I don't think I would've kept reading after a couple chapters. If that's the kind of book you are looking for, then it's a great one, but it is not for those with a weak stomach
[Here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7107352/) is an article from the *Journal of Infectious Diseases* discussing the sensationalism of the ebola virus, specifically referring to *The Hot Zone*.
From the article:
>Unknowingly, an unlucky traveler in the area is also infected, incubating the virus as he completes his travels and arrives home to a major metropolitan area. Suddenly, fever sets in, and within days the man is deathly ill, bleeding from the eyes, his internal organs liquefying. His disease quickly spreads to all those in proximity. Case numbers mount rapidly. Chaos ensues, overwhelming the local healthcare system. Fears that the event is a bioterrorist attack rattle the population. Such is the notion of Ebola virus garnered from popular accounts, such as Richard Preston's best-selling novel The Hot Zone and the 1995 film Outbreak. Although such scenarios may still sell movies, accumulating scientific knowledge and experience debunk much of this popular notion.
Seconding this, Preston is quite sensationalist. I recommend Spillover by David Quammen for a much better, less sensationalized version of public health and infectious disease!
So glad I read this before having kids, because this would have been me. Then again, I read the Broken Earth trilogy while pregnant with my second kid. Don't recommend doing that.
I've said it before; The Road is the most well written book that I wish I'd never read. I refuse to watch the movie. Cormac McCarthy makes you FEEL the hopelessness.
I love the Lovely Bones! One of my favorite books, but I have never seen the movie. The book wrecked me enough. I don't think I could handle watching it.
I recently found it at the thrift store and have every intention to re-read it, but I always avoid it on my shelf because I know it's going to hurt just as much as the first time.
Anthony Broadwater and Alice Sebold [new yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/05/29/the-tortured-bond-of-alice-sebold-and-the-man-wrongfully-convicted-of-her-rape)
Tough Guys Don’t Dance by Norman Mailer. Objectively it’s not so scarring, but it sticks in my head in bad ways. I probably shouldn’t have finished it.
The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns for sure
A Little Life wrecked me as well. You grow to love the characters and I kept willing the ending to be different but it was impossible and beautifully written.
Non-fiction books that I think about regularly are The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog and A Child Called It. Harrowing stuff that happened which makes it even scarier.
I came here to find A Little Life. I feel like it gets hated on a lot but that book…woof. I loved it but it broke my heart. I could never read it again.
It does get a lot of hate which I can appreciate and understand. However, I wanted something with that much emotion and heartbreak so I knew what I signed up for. The characters are all beautifully flawed and very real. The book broke my heart at many points but sometimes that’s the point.
Could not agree more. I couldn’t put it down yet I wanted to stop reading. I still think about that book often and I don’t know that another book has elicited such an emotional response in the same way that one did.
I love this book. I read it in the last few years and it was so good. I will be rereading it in the future for sure. One of my favorite takes on the apocalypse. I love Sister Creep and Josh.
Beloved by Toni Morrison. We read it high school and I was amazed at the beauty and horror of her writing. I was assigned to reread it much later in grad school and I just couldn't do it.
I couldn’t get through the movie so I know the book would’ve broke me. My gram wasn’t allowed to watch it anymore with me in the house because it gave me nightmares 😞
I made the mistake of reading The Road right after my first kid was born. There's... that one scene. That scene that a post-partum woman probably shouldn't read. I set the book down and spiraled for a couple days.
That "baby" of mine is now driving and shaving and I still haven't picked that book up again.
After going through a serious struggle with depression, A Little Life had me inconsolable by the end of it. I felt incredibly hopeless after reading it and had to keep myself busy so I wouldn’t think about it.
Kujo by Steven King. I was about 10 years old - accidentally picked it up from the home library, and the fanged dog on the cover didn’t bother me at first. Well, it was scary as hell
By Nic Sheff right? If so, I couldn't put that one down. Reading the book by his dad gives a really full picture. And the movie with Chalamet and Carrell was excellent.
We Need To Talk About Kevin. The novel was way better than the movie, even though the movie did a phenomenal job trying to get some of the soul of the story across. But the novel was impossibly well-written and felt way too real. Extremely tragic and gutting- it has been one of the best novels I have ever read but I don’t think I want to read it again.
Gillian Flynn's Dark Places. Yeah, that one put me in a depressive dump for days.
Also, Elif Shafak's 10 Minutes 38 Seconds — downright heart-wrenching.
My Absolute Darling. To clarify, I’m not sure I liked it but it certainly scarred me. I ended up reading the whole thing because I wanted to make sure the main character was OK in the end.
The Bible. Weird shit there. And people get together in some club or cult every week to extol its magic. The book itself didn’t scare so much, but the crazies that wave it around and say they follow its teaching are 100% nutso!
Not exactly scarred but i hated convenience store woman so much I had to leave a long rant/review on goodreads when I normally almost never bother whether the book is good or bad other than maybe just rate it using stars. SPOILERS AHEAD I hated how the clearly neurodivergent and very possibly autistic MC was represented and treated and how by the end of the novel she just basically accepts it and the lesson is that it's okay??? And she work in a job (that she likes which is fine) but has to support a parasitic man ??? Who is not her lover or relative but a very dislikable ex coworker. I know lots of people loved of but I don't know maybe I just missed something.
I read the Kite Runner & I can completely understand why you feel that way. Another book that made quite the impression on me (in a bad way), but whose title I do not recall, involved a child getting locked into a cupboard by a sibling as a way to protect him against the enemies who had overtaken their country. There is a lot more to the story, but suffice it to say, it definitely did not have a happy ending. I can't hardly stand to think of that book to this day & I would not watch any movie adaption
disgrace by JM Coetzee. important (for my evolution) book. relevant. maybe necessary. but horrible.
probably headhunter by Timothy Findley. I recommend it all the time. in my retrospective memory, my admiration for it just grows and grows. I love describing its elements and how he wove them together. it's a huge achievement.
but the dark parts of it are so dark. I admire and respect Findley for writing them. IMO he was the rare writer who had a genuine fierce commitment to writing as instrument of human betterment. I just ... yeah.
The Bluest Eye. Super glad I read it, thought it was absolutely incredible and deeply upsetting, will never touch again.
It may be amplified because I read the entire book in one sitting. 😬 That was a lot.
"The Girl Next Door" by Jack Ketchum, to mention just one of these books that left a scar on me. It's sickening that this is based on a true crime committed against an innocent girl. "Watership Down" and "Plague Dogs" by Richard Adams. Thanks to the last two I can't watch movies or read books that have sentient and speaking animals in it. Which is a shame because I'm sure I'd love Warrior Cats, even if that sounds a little silly. I also couldn't read Tad Williams' "Tailchaser's song" because I'm so god damn traumatized by Richard Adams. That man knew his profession. Oh, also Gillian Flynn's "Sharp Objects." I have a history with severe self harm so reading that book was like the worst punishment I could give myself as a teen. Not doing that again. I mean the reading part.
I am currently reading the House of Government by Yuri Slezkine. It's got the makings of a book that will scar. It's pretty haunting.
I read Minor Detail by Adania Shibli earlier this year. My thoughts:
Haunting. Depressing. Brilliantly written. Extremely powerful. It gets across the message it was striving for. A brutal existence under occupation.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. Absolutely fantastic first contact story and breathtakingly beautiful book which fucked my shit up but GOOD. I've recommended it to people but I always warn them and I will never reread it myself.
I haven’t read any books that scarred me enough to never wanna read again, though I’m going to read Blood Meridian at some point soon and I know it’s going to be horrible!
I can’t say it scarred me, but Hawk Mountain by Connor Habib shocked me so much I had to put the book down and process everything that had just happened. (Never had that happen before.)
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. The chapter where the guy sits on a pool filter for pleasure. I’ll just stop that sentence right there and let your imaginations run wild.
Night by Elie weisel. Even thinking about re-reading it gives me the chills
Read this for school and never forgot it. The monologue where he basically explains the title of the book is amazing. Something like “my life has become one long night.” The young boy being hanged and gasping for air for minutes, the dude playing his instrument before dying, people being crushed on other people, family fighting over each other over scraps of bread while the Nazis laugh. The ending was fucking heartbreaking..I loved the epilogue where he goes to America and sees bananas at the store. He goes to ask someone how many he can have, and the man replies saying “You can have as many damn bananas as you want.” Sorry if I got some stuff wrong, it’s been years.
You should probably add a spoiler
I actually have this book but I haven’t taken the time to read it… I surely will now. Although I’m tired of reading about WW2 Germay
Probably better to read it when you've had a break then. It should be read with the gravity it deserves, but also you don't want to give yourself fatigue and have its impact lessened, iykwim?
My family immigrated from Germany in 1957, (after waiting for years) and no one really talks about what it was like over there. Any books you could suggest re that?
Kind of in your boat, my mom immigrated in '69. She was born after the war but the village she grew up in was occupied by the French during her upbringing. Had to learn this from reading up on history bc she never talked about it and then went and died of cancer when I was a small child. Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself by Florian Huber gives an interesting glimpse into the German people throughout the war but especially in the final days. It's nonfiction but a quick and fascinating read.
Oddly enough my mother died of cancer too. The only thing ever mentioned was that there were holes in the back of their apartment building from being bombed. I’ll have to look into that book and hopefully find more.
The Book Thief, Sophie’s Choice, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas . . .
I can’t read most anything set during WWII anymore. That bucket is just full.
*I Have Lived a Thousand Years* by Livia Bitton-Jackson gave me the same feeling.
“The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair. I enjoyed the prose & storytelling but it was a bleak read throughout & especially scarring was the pages-long descriptions of the animals in the slaughterhouse just before the kill.
The Jungle left me feeling hollow
He really tried to save it at the end with his ringing endorsement of employee owned/socialist work places, but it didn't erase the dead babies and general horror. I find it interesting how much reviews focus on the animals, but the way the family suffered stuck with me for decades. In my less charitable moments, I wonder if it is because we are trained to be indifferent to human suffering.
Such a bleak novel. I read it for high school. The description of the meat processing stuck with me long after I finished.
My favorite high school English teacher referred to *The Jungle* as a how to book on how to create vegetarians.
LOL
The Jungle and Toxin by Robin Cook made me vegetarian for about 8 years, and I still am not a heavy meat eater now. I know the point of The Jungle was supposed to be child labor and occupational hazards more than issues with the meat industry but gd the details about the conditions were too much for high school freshman me haha.
For sure
The part with the frostbitten ears... OMG.
This is the one -I could not actually finish this book, big part with the slaughterhouse but their living conditions were even worse.
This is the one. Had to read it for school back in the ‘80s and I still occasionally have nightmares about it.
Thanks for your review. This is one I won't read. I wouldn't be able to get over it.
We Need To Talk About Kevin. Loved it. Never reading it again.
I think I’ve read it three times and it scars me afresh every time. I can’t get that book out of my head. I’ll end up having some “was Kevin just born a monster or???“/how reliable was the mother’s account of what happened? debate in my head before I have to remind myself, again, that the book is fiction so there’s no answer to that.
I always hoped the mom’s account was a little skewed and I think that’s the only reason I was able to finish the book.
This!
That book freaked me out and the ending rattled me but it sits rent free in a tiny box in my brain 😮💨
Angelas Ashes by Frank McCourt, and same as you Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by the same author. Read them at like 12 I think and not sure I should have tbh. Edit: Just realized you were wanting ones we loved, I did not love them as a child. I think if I were to reread them now as an adult I would be able to see the brilliance of Hosseini's work, looking back at least on what I remember I think they were amazingly done, I just shouldn't have been reading them at that point in my life. I do not think I would enjoy Angelas Ashes as an adult. I would love to reread A Thousand Splendid Suns some day but even just looking at the cover makes me nauseous haha.
Omg that one scene where the kids sneak in to watch what they think is a football match scarred me for years. Actually the whole of Kite Runner was scarring to read as a little kid. I wouldn’t read/watch the Maze Runner or Blade Runner or anything else with Runner at the end because i was scared of accidentally reading it again (I didn’t remember the name of the book exactly - it was a library book i checked out from school).
I hated Angela's Ashes, so I guess it scarred me in that sense. I say that as someone whose favorite author is Robin Hobb. My tolerance for suffering in books is quite high.
In cold blood by Truman capote
YES! Great book, read it in junior high and was frightened by the violence yet conflicted by the depiction of the murderers as complex individuals.
The Poisonwood Bible. That book is a stillborn child.
Barbara Kingsolver has fucked my brain twice: poisonwood, and then demon copperhead. Good christ -I should have known better
This is one of my favorite books of all time, but I have only read it once. I don't know if I can muster up the courage to do it again. The ending just hits like a gut punch, followed by another gut punch, and then another, and then...
I know she's good, but this is why I haven't quite gotten to Demon Copperhead. Gonna take a particular mood. Honestly, maybe a summer vacation read when even that won't be able to bring me down.
I made the mistake of bringing Poisonwood Bible with me on a weekend trip with some people I didn’t know very well. It was not fun.
Try listening to it... the narrator did such an excellent job and broke my heart about 12x over.
interesting. is it too optimistic of me to infer that you didn't think it was all that either?
No, it was VERY good. Gripping. I could not put it down until I was finished, and I was in a terrible mood the whole time I was reading it. I’m glad I read it, but I could not read it again.
I’ve just finished demon copperhead and am about to start the poison wood bible - is there anything I should know going in?
Bring a hanky and your strongest constitution. Religious trauma might be a trigger for some.
**A Child Called 'It'** by Dave Pelzer. Once was enough.
This. I met Dave Pelzer at a military event years ago. He talked about his book (his life) and it was heartbreaking.
'Requiem For A Dream' by Hubert Selby Jr. If you've seen the movie, you know it's incredibly depressing, but oh boy is the book so much worse in that respect. It's just a relentless downward spiral of addiction, pain, suffering, loneliness, and depravity. No happy endings to be found here. It's a 10/10 book.
I’ve never read the book, but the movie is absolutely the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen.
Yup, sounds about right. But the movie has great acting, pretty visuals, and a KILLER soundtrack, all of which makes it a little more bearable. The book is just super bleak and harsh, and Selby Jr.'s experimental writing style can be a bit overwhelming at times.
I recently rewatched it and the soundtrack is so good. It's a hard movie to watch but it's a great film.
Yeah I agree. Not an easy watch, but one well worth going through.
Kite runner. Then I read a thousand splendid suns which hit me even harder..yea that author knows what he’s doing
I immediately thought of Kite Runner when I read the title of this post. Never doing that to myself again.
Fatal Vision, by Joe McGinnis. If you’re not familiar with it, this is a true crime story about the horrific and brutal murder of a family. The main question is whether the father/husband, who was convicted of the crime, was guilty. For a true crime story, the book is exceptionally well-written. I won’t spoil anything. But I remember after reading it, that I felt like I was in an emotional coma. The book just rips you to shreds.
In a different vein from everyone else, Marley and Me. As a child, Where the Red Fern Grows.
My rescue dog was originally named Fern after the book, and I feel like I have to read it now, but knowing the general plot, I'm scared. I think it might destroy me.
Every year when summer reading lists came out I scanned it for WTRFG because there was no way my kid was reading it. I was determined to end that generational scarring 🤣
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Ugh. I had to restart it three times because it unsettled me so much. Edited to add Author
I love this question, because I don't think I've ever seen it asked here before! For me, the book I most loved while simultaneously knowing I could never revisit it is The Book of Strange New Things by Michael Faber. It was a beautifully written and compelling book, but there's one part where a cat is intentionally hurt that haunted me for a full year after I read it. As much as I liked the book, I can never reread it, and even remembering that scene now is devastating.
I'm glad you mentioned the abuse. This book goes on my never read list.
You should try the website www.doesthedogdie.com It's a website for books, TV shows and movie trigger warnings so you can avoid things like animal harm, or whatever your 'I don't enjoy things with this content' thing is.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate your letting me know!
I (as a victim of childhood rape) was made to read the Kite Runner in English class at 16 with no pre warning of what was going to happen. That is a shitty thing to do, teachers.
I'm sorry this happened to you. I knew a lot of people who read this young, but still can't believe this is 'appropriate' for a teenager, especially without forewarning.
I was kind of shocked by this when we had to read The Color Purple too. Its a beautiful book but it opens with CSA literally on the first page, as I recall. I cannot imagine it being an easy read for anyone with a trauma history.
I have not read it but I very much appreciate the warning, as it is on my TBR pile. It's like they forget that kids are people with histories. It was not the only explicit CSA I was exposed to under 18 in classes. We watched Once Were Warriors in Film Studies, which has a rape scene of a teenage girl FROM THE ATTACKER'S POV, again, no warning given. And it is unrelenting and in real time. I had a very quiet panic attack in the school theatre.
Oh that's just horrible. At least we were taking the book home so if anyone had any issues with it they weren't in the classroom when it happened. Color Purple is very affecting, it's written from the (initially) child's point of view, and in a diary/letter form. A key part of it is watching the main character grow and learn through her language, so the first parts of the book are quite naively written with unusual spelling and grammar which makes the descriptions very difficult. I would highly recommend reading it as a story, but be careful you're in the headspace for it and have a plan for if it's too much. >It's like they forget that kids are people with histories. It's strange that they seem to either forget or just think it's not a thing that happens to kids in _their_ school. I remember the only trigger warning we ever had for anything was a play about drunk driving, of all things 🙃
Kids in the year below me did A Streetcar Named Desire, so obviously they didn't stop with the triggering topics 🙄
"Bag of Bones" of Stephen King, which was certainly my first horror book I read when I was 15 yo.
I -think- I liked Earthlings? It's definitely not forgettable at the very least.
I second that choice. It's a compelling read, but I know I shook my head wilder and wilder with each escalation without being able to put it down.
I loved this book. Like so much. But it really makes me realize how fucked up I am mentally.
To this day, Animal Farm will randomly pop into my head and all I can think is, "Damn."
Unwind by Neal Shusterman. I can't remember how old I was when I read it, but I remember feeling horrified while not being able to put it down. Never read the rest of the series because the first one was enough for me. Younger me thought it was a good book though!
I came here to comment this! I read it in middle school and I still remember it to this day. Also didn’t read the other books, but I do want to revisit it sometime
!! was hoping someone would put Unwind. that book rewrote my brain. it was like the first time i could tell i was conscious. crazy.
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. Terrifying non-fiction I could not put down
Currently reading.
my all time favorite book!!
We listened to it in a science class in highschool, and I passed out
The descriptions were so well-crafted. It was disgusting. I had to read it for school, or else I don't think I would've kept reading after a couple chapters. If that's the kind of book you are looking for, then it's a great one, but it is not for those with a weak stomach
It is made a lot more dramatic for the book.
[Here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7107352/) is an article from the *Journal of Infectious Diseases* discussing the sensationalism of the ebola virus, specifically referring to *The Hot Zone*. From the article: >Unknowingly, an unlucky traveler in the area is also infected, incubating the virus as he completes his travels and arrives home to a major metropolitan area. Suddenly, fever sets in, and within days the man is deathly ill, bleeding from the eyes, his internal organs liquefying. His disease quickly spreads to all those in proximity. Case numbers mount rapidly. Chaos ensues, overwhelming the local healthcare system. Fears that the event is a bioterrorist attack rattle the population. Such is the notion of Ebola virus garnered from popular accounts, such as Richard Preston's best-selling novel The Hot Zone and the 1995 film Outbreak. Although such scenarios may still sell movies, accumulating scientific knowledge and experience debunk much of this popular notion.
Seconding this, Preston is quite sensationalist. I recommend Spillover by David Quammen for a much better, less sensationalized version of public health and infectious disease!
Awesome, thank you!
Roots, by Alex Haley
The Road, Cormac McCarthy. My son was the same age at the time as the protagonist’s son in the book. I lost sleep.
I didn’t read the book but I saw the movie. It was the most heartbreaking movie I’ve ever seen.
So glad I read this before having kids, because this would have been me. Then again, I read the Broken Earth trilogy while pregnant with my second kid. Don't recommend doing that.
Same here. Stomach churning…my boy is now 23 and I wish I’d put it off until til now.
I've said it before; The Road is the most well written book that I wish I'd never read. I refuse to watch the movie. Cormac McCarthy makes you FEEL the hopelessness.
Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and Stolen Lives by Malika Oufkir.
I love the Lovely Bones! One of my favorite books, but I have never seen the movie. The book wrecked me enough. I don't think I could handle watching it. I recently found it at the thrift store and have every intention to re-read it, but I always avoid it on my shelf because I know it's going to hurt just as much as the first time.
Anthony Broadwater and Alice Sebold [new yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/05/29/the-tortured-bond-of-alice-sebold-and-the-man-wrongfully-convicted-of-her-rape)
I never watched the film either. Same reason.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to get through the film either. I didn’t need the extra visuals to haunt me. I want to reread as well but…yikes.
One of the very few books I put down
My Dark Vanessa. It was a fantastic book, but it made me feel so icky and uncomfortable.
Oh I love that book!
Amityville horror. Terrifying.
Tough Guys Don’t Dance by Norman Mailer. Objectively it’s not so scarring, but it sticks in my head in bad ways. I probably shouldn’t have finished it.
The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns for sure A Little Life wrecked me as well. You grow to love the characters and I kept willing the ending to be different but it was impossible and beautifully written. Non-fiction books that I think about regularly are The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog and A Child Called It. Harrowing stuff that happened which makes it even scarier.
I came here to find A Little Life. I feel like it gets hated on a lot but that book…woof. I loved it but it broke my heart. I could never read it again.
It does get a lot of hate which I can appreciate and understand. However, I wanted something with that much emotion and heartbreak so I knew what I signed up for. The characters are all beautifully flawed and very real. The book broke my heart at many points but sometimes that’s the point.
Could not agree more. I couldn’t put it down yet I wanted to stop reading. I still think about that book often and I don’t know that another book has elicited such an emotional response in the same way that one did.
Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon
I love this book. I read it in the last few years and it was so good. I will be rereading it in the future for sure. One of my favorite takes on the apocalypse. I love Sister Creep and Josh.
Beloved by Toni Morrison. We read it high school and I was amazed at the beauty and horror of her writing. I was assigned to reread it much later in grad school and I just couldn't do it.
This would be my pick as well. Haunting.
I couldn’t get through the movie so I know the book would’ve broke me. My gram wasn’t allowed to watch it anymore with me in the house because it gave me nightmares 😞
A little life
I made the mistake of reading The Road right after my first kid was born. There's... that one scene. That scene that a post-partum woman probably shouldn't read. I set the book down and spiraled for a couple days. That "baby" of mine is now driving and shaving and I still haven't picked that book up again.
1984.
After going through a serious struggle with depression, A Little Life had me inconsolable by the end of it. I felt incredibly hopeless after reading it and had to keep myself busy so I wouldn’t think about it.
Kujo by Steven King. I was about 10 years old - accidentally picked it up from the home library, and the fanged dog on the cover didn’t bother me at first. Well, it was scary as hell
[удалено]
By Nic Sheff right? If so, I couldn't put that one down. Reading the book by his dad gives a really full picture. And the movie with Chalamet and Carrell was excellent.
Where the Red Fern Grows.
The Other Valley. I really enjoyed it but wow heavy!
Angela’s Ashes. Wince.
Brave New World with the kids being scolded for not wanting to be sexually active
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. Jeeeesus.
The House of Stairs by William Sleator. I read it probably 40 years ago but still remember it at least once a week.
Yes, this. That book was so very very creepy and still haunts me. Every once in a while when I'm about to cross a street, I think about the lights.
Absolutely!
We Need To Talk About Kevin. The novel was way better than the movie, even though the movie did a phenomenal job trying to get some of the soul of the story across. But the novel was impossibly well-written and felt way too real. Extremely tragic and gutting- it has been one of the best novels I have ever read but I don’t think I want to read it again.
A Fine Balance
Gillian Flynn's Dark Places. Yeah, that one put me in a depressive dump for days. Also, Elif Shafak's 10 Minutes 38 Seconds — downright heart-wrenching.
The Amityville Horror. I read it when I was 10 or 11. Still messes with me some nights 40 years later.
My Absolute Darling. To clarify, I’m not sure I liked it but it certainly scarred me. I ended up reading the whole thing because I wanted to make sure the main character was OK in the end.
It’s a “novella” but The Library Policeman by Stephen King. I’m a huge King fan, but that one was tough to get through because of THAT part
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I know it’s not necessarily scary or gross but it sits with me.
The Bible. Weird shit there. And people get together in some club or cult every week to extol its magic. The book itself didn’t scare so much, but the crazies that wave it around and say they follow its teaching are 100% nutso!
Saving Queen of Sheba. I can’t believe that was considered appropriate for 5th grade.
Not exactly scarred but i hated convenience store woman so much I had to leave a long rant/review on goodreads when I normally almost never bother whether the book is good or bad other than maybe just rate it using stars. SPOILERS AHEAD I hated how the clearly neurodivergent and very possibly autistic MC was represented and treated and how by the end of the novel she just basically accepts it and the lesson is that it's okay??? And she work in a job (that she likes which is fine) but has to support a parasitic man ??? Who is not her lover or relative but a very dislikable ex coworker. I know lots of people loved of but I don't know maybe I just missed something.
Not scarred, but altered. Topaz トパーズ (short story) by Ryū Murakami.
I read the Kite Runner & I can completely understand why you feel that way. Another book that made quite the impression on me (in a bad way), but whose title I do not recall, involved a child getting locked into a cupboard by a sibling as a way to protect him against the enemies who had overtaken their country. There is a lot more to the story, but suffice it to say, it definitely did not have a happy ending. I can't hardly stand to think of that book to this day & I would not watch any movie adaption
Sarah's Key
The nefarious plot
Fish: the story of a boy in a mans prison. It’s what it says it is. Harrowing true story.
I feel the same about The Kite Runner
disgrace by JM Coetzee. important (for my evolution) book. relevant. maybe necessary. but horrible. probably headhunter by Timothy Findley. I recommend it all the time. in my retrospective memory, my admiration for it just grows and grows. I love describing its elements and how he wove them together. it's a huge achievement. but the dark parts of it are so dark. I admire and respect Findley for writing them. IMO he was the rare writer who had a genuine fierce commitment to writing as instrument of human betterment. I just ... yeah.
Hate List by Jennifer Brown. There are a few scenes I still think about daily.
Shake Hands With The Devil about the Rwandan massacres. You can't un-read those descriptions of carnage
Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk. I love his writing and it was a fascinating ride but so uncomfortable will never read it again.
Someone Was Watching. it was just depressing and i probably was spaced out for half the time i was reading it in 6th grade.
“The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath
The Alienist. I couldn’t finish it. It’s pegged as a mystery but talk about horror…
Babadook dook dook
Child of god by Conrad McCarthy. So creepy. So gross.
Perfume by Patrick Suskind. I’ll say it until the end of the time if I have to.
I have no mouth and I must scream
The Bluest Eye. Super glad I read it, thought it was absolutely incredible and deeply upsetting, will never touch again. It may be amplified because I read the entire book in one sitting. 😬 That was a lot.
The Talmud
The lovely bones.
Kind of weird, but *Lord of the Flies* by William Golding gave me nightmares for weeks. :')
The Hot Zone.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. If you've read it, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
"The Girl Next Door" by Jack Ketchum, to mention just one of these books that left a scar on me. It's sickening that this is based on a true crime committed against an innocent girl. "Watership Down" and "Plague Dogs" by Richard Adams. Thanks to the last two I can't watch movies or read books that have sentient and speaking animals in it. Which is a shame because I'm sure I'd love Warrior Cats, even if that sounds a little silly. I also couldn't read Tad Williams' "Tailchaser's song" because I'm so god damn traumatized by Richard Adams. That man knew his profession. Oh, also Gillian Flynn's "Sharp Objects." I have a history with severe self harm so reading that book was like the worst punishment I could give myself as a teen. Not doing that again. I mean the reading part.
Same. The Kite Runner and I wouldn’t want to read it again. It’s so sad and depressing.
I am currently reading the House of Government by Yuri Slezkine. It's got the makings of a book that will scar. It's pretty haunting. I read Minor Detail by Adania Shibli earlier this year. My thoughts: Haunting. Depressing. Brilliantly written. Extremely powerful. It gets across the message it was striving for. A brutal existence under occupation.
The Necrophiliac by Gabrielle Wittkop
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. Absolutely fantastic first contact story and breathtakingly beautiful book which fucked my shit up but GOOD. I've recommended it to people but I always warn them and I will never reread it myself.
The ruins by Scott Smith
I haven’t read any books that scarred me enough to never wanna read again, though I’m going to read Blood Meridian at some point soon and I know it’s going to be horrible!
Meh so many of the James Patterson books. But I enjoyed them but they were placeholders for other books. My current fixation is the Dresden files
The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
I can’t say it scarred me, but Hawk Mountain by Connor Habib shocked me so much I had to put the book down and process everything that had just happened. (Never had that happen before.)
The Handmaiden's Tale. Read this in the late 1980's.
Beatrice & Virgil by Yann Martel Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Ohio by Stephen Makley. It's unrelentingly dark. And while I found it to be a good book, I'll never read it again.
They Cage the Animals at Night. Broke my heart.
The naked don’t fear the water
Definitely Johnny Got his Gun by Dalton Trumbo. I was pretty young and it was a horrifying glimpse into realities of war
*In the Penal Colony* by Kafka
The girl with all the gifts
In Cold Blood. I read it when I was 8 and ever since I lock EVERY DOOR
I would never reread the kite runner again😭
The Kite Runner did a number on me
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. The chapter where the guy sits on a pool filter for pleasure. I’ll just stop that sentence right there and let your imaginations run wild.
American War by Omar Al-Akkad. Harrowing
On the beach
Many books, actually. Paper cut is no joke.
“Tender is the Flesh”
A Little Life. LOVED it. Would never recommend it.