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.

Agree with so many books already mentioned on here.
The Bachman Books
Flowers in the Attic
The Wasp Factory
Lolita
Half of a Yellow Sun

Has anyone mentioned The Grapes of Wrath yet? I read it as a teen and twenty years later I'm still haunted by the ending.

Oh gosh yes A Little Life - fantastic book but the self harming scenes are really REALLY grim .

What a great thread! Really looking forward to getting into some of these recommendations.

My first thought was 'The Torture Garden'. I read it when I was much younger but can still visualise one of the horrific images now. The first part was a heavy read and I remember wondering where it was going and actually whether to keep reading at all.

My goodness, once I reached the second part . . . !! Absolutely horrible depictions of torture, masochism and death. I remember feeling sick to my stomach.

Oh, and another shout here for Crash. I felt pretty disturbed by that one, too.

Station 11 is scary now. Georgian flu...sketchy details.. Eek

Sick Burn Cut - Deran Ludd (Utterly repulsive, I binned it.)
The Night of the Gun - David Carr
The Year of Magical Thinking, Blue Nights - Joan Didion
Salem's Lot, The Stand - Stephen King
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Lord of the Flies - William Golding

The collector by john fowles. Kidnapping before CCTV. Its a great read.

I read one called On Loving Josiah once, that was quite unsettling in parts

Another vote for The Wasp Factory - horrendous

Almost Moon by Alice Sebold - grim as fuck

Oh and How to Murder Your Life is good if you like a drug memoir. The contrast of fashion/makeup/nightlife with self-neglect and psychosis makes for an oddly light but disturbing experience.

Oops and meant to include Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Behind closed doors.
That and 'Room' are the only books I've ever read that I wished I hadn't. Its horrible.
Heavy on coercive control. Don't read the reviews though, they give away too much of the storyline!

Never let me go made me weep for hours.

Love this thread!

Morvern Callar by Alan Warner
A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
I have waited and you have come by Martine McDonagh (I found this very creepy but it's been slated on Amazon reviews )
Thinner by Stephen King
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill
Asking for it by Louise O'Neill

Also as mentioned previously - American Psycho, The Long Walk, Perfume. The Road is on my bedside table, am starting it next. Following with interest!

Ohh, tagging along for the read.

I was reading bits of my ancient copy of The Wasp Factory yesterday and it’s lost none of its bite. Some of it was more nasty than I remember, even.

Have bought the Amanda Coe one ‘recommended’ upthread.

I couldn’t carry on reading Cold Light by Jenn Ashworth, although I like all her other books. There were attitudes in there that I know were not the authors, but I still couldn’t step out of the narrative enough to carry on.

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith.

believable which makes it all the more disturbing

Shrine by James Herbert. Totally disturbing (and I love horror/freaky). You have been warned.

Richard Matheson’s short stories including “I am legend” - forget the films, the novella is so much more disturbing

The Choice by Edith Eger; it's her autobiography of what happened to her during the war. Shocking.

I found The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks very disturbing indeed.

The Lucifer effect (how good people turn evil) Philip Zimbardo. (Not fictional but definitely traumatizing)

PP who mentioned Push by Sapphire - that was good, but I later tried another book she wrote - The Kid - and I couldn't finish it. Really harrowing content describing child abuse.

I couldn't finish American Psycho. I gave it to a friend as I didn't want it in my flat!

So many good ones here - one of my absolute favourites is The Road. I re-read it or watch the film if I need a good snottery cry.

Another vote for the wasp factory

Snuff by chuck palahnuik

Flesh worn stone- I forget the authors name but it's unnerving

So pleased for this threat but can only afford one for now. I am stuck between 3 as they were mentioned the most; The Wasp Factory, Monster Love, Flowers in the Attic. As well as unnerving I am wanting it to be a page turner. Any recommendations as to which one? Apologies at asking a question in someone else's thread.