Books that have stayed with you.

[FrostyChocolateMilkshake]

Currently reading a book called Unravelling Oliver and I already know it will stay with me; the writing is fantastic but the subject matter is surrounding domestic violence. A powerful read so far.

Another book was The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. Based on the murder of Sylvia Likens in the 1960s (don't Google if you are easily upset).

So AIBU to ask, what is a book that has stayed with you and why?

Any recommendations (I enjoy controversial books in particular) would be greatly appreciated too.

Birdsong

The Book Thief

My Absolute Darling. It's disturbing as hell (it features child abuse) but I loved it so much. As soon as I finished I flicked back and read the last few chapters again, I didn't want it to end.

My favourite Ishiguro is Remains of the Day. I found it so moving.

Bridge to Terabithia. That one stayed with me for a long time.

Anne Frank's Diary (I know that isn't the proper title, I can never remember it). One of those books where you have to sit in silence for a while after finishing it.

Number the Stars. I read this to my class every year. It's a children's book but a solid read for adults too.

Touching the Void by Joe Simpson - incredible story of survival against the odds.

Where the crawdads sing - only read it last year but god I loved it

Leaving time by Jodi Picoult

A child called It (and the rest of the series.) by Dave Pelzer. It was an awful true story of a child suffering abuse at the hands of his mother.

Also read Flowers if the Attic, a pp mentioned it above.

Behind closed doors by BA Paris

Total fiction but the menace in it is unreal. Really shook me up

The Light We Lost by Jill Santapolo

www.amazon.co.uk/Born-Survivors-Wendy-Holden/dp/0751557412?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Born Survivors by Wendy Holden followed a story of three pregnant ladies in concentration camps. I couldn’t even fathom being pregnant in these horrendous circumstances the book is amazing

[quote LindaCartersBun]@BurningBenches

YY to Never Let Me Go. His writing in general stays with me. I don’t actually enjoy reading Ishiguro’s books...they’re uncomfortable and his writing style is disarming and weird. But he is a powerful writer and anything I’ve ever read by him stays with me.

@Youreatragedystartingtohappen

God, I think a generation of girls were traumatised bu reading Flowers in the Attic! It’s stayed with me too, and I sometimes think I should re-read them (probably really shite writing to older minds?) but I’m almost too scared to. So uncomfortable and sad and heart wrenching. Well, it was to teenage me anyway![/quote]
I re-read the original Flowers in the Attic recently. It's still quite disturbing but I got distracted by the endless references to girls' knickers and children wetting themselves.

The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell stayed with me for the similar reasons. Maybe it is a startling commentary on the utter banality of evil, but why that needs so many descriptions of people going to the toilet, I don't know.

Twopence to Cross the Mersey.
Mum read it then passed it on to me and I’ve re-read it many times.
The suffering she endured due to the situation and at her parents hands, the determination to make something of herself, its inspirational.

We need to talk about Kevin.
Awful and brilliant. It still haunts me.

A little life
Middlemarch
Brideshead revisited I read in my mid teens and as it’s essentially about how adult life is a disappointment its never really left me.

A lot of books over the years, but a few:

Where it Stops, Nobody Knows by Amy Ehrlich - YA novel about a girl living an itinerant life with her single mother, travelling from place to place. You slowly work out what's going on, and when you get there it's a proper gut punch.

The Dark is Rising/The Grey King - the two best in Susan Cooper's sequence of fantasy novels; both carry a real sense of menace.

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles - devoured this as a teenager; both the love story and the modernist structure; still love it and it introduced me to Matthew Arnold's poetry.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark - your inspirational teacher has feet of clay but she'll leave her mark on you anyway, and you will use what she taught you. My favourite book.

Oh and Into Thin Air.
I cannot begin to imagine how terrified they must have been

Burial Rites - Hannah Kent
An incredible read. Set in 19th century Iceland about a woman sentenced to death. Sounds grim, and my goodness it is. But it is also about the power of hope and the friendships of women. Incredible. Please everyone read it!

Into the Darkest Corner about a woman escaping a controlling and abusive relationship.

The Day we Disappeared which is hard to describe without giving anything away.

The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom and the book I always mention on book threads, A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier: a lyrical, magical rite of passage novel that I fell in love with and have re-read possibly 10 or even 15 times. I've given copies to several friends, all of whom have loved it.

Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy). Possibly the saddest book I have ever read, but it also made me angry.

The Wasp Factory (not for good reason)

All Quiet On The Western Front

Under The Skin

Gilead and Home (if read back to back)

The Bone Clocks

The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August

Tess

Last Exit to Brooklyn

The First Day on the Somme by Martin Middlebrook. Does exactly as the title suggests. Will stay with me forever

I wish it hadn't stayed with me tbh

Three Men in a Boat
Gray’s Anatomy
Sagittarius Rising ( Arthur Lewis )
To Kill a Mockingbird

Last Exit to Brooklyn. Jesus my eyes were bleeding.

The end of the affair (Grahame greene) Cry every time I read the last page. Every. Bloody. Time

The Giant under the Snow. Scary kids book!

A Dark Adapted Eye (Barbara Vine). So evocative of the era.

Harry Potter. Can't help but love Harry Potter