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Original poster

Which are the most disturbing books you've read?

38 replies

flamebat · 27/09/2005 15:29

Following on from the film thread, many people said that American Psycho was worse as a book than a film, so wondered about other books.

For me, has got to be American Psycho

I read one as a child all about children who died before being christened or something too which upset me lots... Don't remember the name though - Tilly maybe?

OP posts:
dinosaur · 27/09/2005 15:45

James Kelman - How late it was how late - is that the one zippi?

zippitippitoes · 27/09/2005 15:45

oops it is cement garden isn't it

anyone know the scottish one?

Roobie · 27/09/2005 15:45

Definitely, definitely American Psycho .... hideous, nasty book. I felt almost unclean after reading it!

Original poster
flamebat · 27/09/2005 15:44

I'd forgotten about good old Ian McEwan - that guy has got a worrying imagination.

Cement Garden and The Comfort of Strangers are both bleurgh ones.

OP posts:
zippitippitoes · 27/09/2005 15:44

I'm afraid I go in for acute mental disturbance

jolou1 · 27/09/2005 15:42

Zippi - The fifth Child is by Doris Lessing and is very disturbing indeed. Remember finishing it and wishing I'd never started it!

jolou1 · 27/09/2005 15:41

The Treatment by Mo Hayder...had a little thread about this earlier...I won't even tell you what's so bad about it because it's really, really horrid and might offend someone. Good book though!

zippitippitoes · 27/09/2005 15:41

Ian McEwan Concrete Garden

and various of his short stories

(The) Fifth Child by can't think at the moment

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors Roddy Doyle

Asylum Patrick McGrath

Memories of my ghost brother Heinz Fenkl

Monkey's Uncle, The Dream Mistress Jenny Diski

The Yellow Wallpaper

The Healer Greg Hollingshead

novel wriiten in Glaswegian with a lot of f words by the blind narrator

Nik72 · 27/09/2005 15:37

Definitley American Psycho - deeply disturbing book but I really enjoyed the film, it seemed less "real" than the book somehow.

expatinscotland · 27/09/2005 15:36

Ten Thousand Sorrows by Elizabeth Kim

MrsSpoon · 27/09/2005 15:35

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan, The Vigin Suicides and Middlesex, all distrubing but not in a 'horror' sort of way.

bundle · 27/09/2005 15:32

complicity by iain banks

expatinscotland · 27/09/2005 15:32

Pet Semetary