Controversial/unnerving books. Recommendations?

[JasonVoorhees]

Hi all

Been browsing the good old World Wide Web this chilly Saturday evening while my LO is with her dad, and came across an article regarding the most "traumatizing books people have ever read". Basically books that stick with you forever, due to their disturbing content.

I'm an avid reader and pretty bored of mainstream novels. Read a few weird books in my time and recently bought Lolita (a literary classic, so I've heard). WIBU to ask your experiences and/or recommendations?

Looking forward to your replies, hopefully some of you Mumsnetters are as weird as me.

This stayed with me.

And "a child called it" 😥

Monster Love by Carol Topolski - freaked me out for a long time

We need to talk about Kevin (which you may already have read? Lionel Shriver) and the dice man both spring to mind. Must re read Lolita! Read it as teenager so will be v different read this time round. Cement garden by Ian McEwen also.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Chilling but brilliant.

The Black Dahlia by James Elroy.

Thank you all, I appreciate your responses.

Will definitely get Lolita read ASAP.

@Labralion did McCarthy write Child of God? Heard that is quite a hard-hitting read too.

Have you read The Naked Lunch?

I must admit I haven't read it all the way through. Tried to, as a rebellious teen, but obviously wasn't as adventurous as I thought! Maybe a bit mainstream (by which I mean well-known) but might tick the unnerving and disturbing boxes.

Sarah Waters the little stranger

The girl with all the gifts

Station 11 (not a fan of end of the world stuff)

Irvine Welsh Marabou Stork Nightmares

@montanaskies no I haven't but I have heard about it. I must get that one!!

Definitely We Need to Talk About Kevin, as previously mentioned. It was chilling but excellent.

Filth, irvine welsh (The Acid House short stories too)
The wasp factory
Ray Bradbury Farenheit 451 and a few of his short stories such a A sound of Thunder
The Road
The Handmaid's Tale

Probably more. I love underground or dystopian stuff.

I doubt anyone else has read this and I wish I hadn’t. Found it in a charity shop and needed a good lie down afterwards!

Cows - Matthew Stokes
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0987453661/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_YYmlEbDAMT6WK?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Lolita is worth a read. The whole premise is of the unreliable narrator and his distorted vision. Nabakov wants you to feel wholly uncomfortable.

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk.

Life of Pi. I remember being so completely engrossed in its world that I looked up and couldn't understand why there wasnt a tiger on the sofa with me.

Time's Arrow. I mean, I get why it was controversial but I thought it was one of the most astounding books I'd ever read at the time - still think it's underrated for sheer technical complexity. I was reading in a room where football was on the telly and I looked up and wondered why the ball wasnt coming out of the goal instead of going in.

Thank you so much everyone. Really appreciate your responses and you've given me some food for thought!!

The End of Alice A.M. Homes

Bring me no flowers was a hard read, but I was gripped,
The boy who followed his father into auschwitz - horrific

Flowers For Algernon ruined me recently.

Jack ketchum's The girl next door.

Just horrific how it escalates and how susceptible the kids were to adult influence and example.

I came on here to say The Road, I saw the film before reading the book and me and my husband were both depressed for days afterwards.

The Feast of the Goat, Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Edith Grossman. It is the most disturbing book I've ever read (and I've read some truly weird shit)

My favourite is Sleep Pale Sister by Joanne Harris.
Little Darlings - Melanie Golding
The Fifth Child - Doris Lessing
Room
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Puffball - Faye Weldon
A Clockwork Orange
1984

There must be loads more

I came on to say The Road as well, but two of you have already beaten me to it.

Disgrace by j.m. coetzee stayed with me for a very long time.