Books that disturb you?

[TheMasterNotMargarita]

I don't mean books that are obviously horror genre or thriller type or misery-lit.
I just finished A Handmaid's Tales and it gave me the heebie jeebies. Everyone under the regime having their place. Not knowing who you could talk to about anything. Chilling.

I was also quite freaked out by The Midwich Cuckoos and scared myself with Rebecca.

Any others had a similar effect on you?

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry - it's mostly about two Dalit tailors in 70s India and their struggles to survive and realise their dreams against the political turmoil of the day. Because I know it's all based on real-life events, it's haunted me ever since.

The swan by Roald Dahl. Was at the front of the wonderful story of Henry Sugar (which is also an odd read). The cruelty is heartbreaking. It's the only short story of several (I think there were 5 or 7) that I can actually remember reading. I think I would have been around 8 or 9 at the time.

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I started reading "we have to talk about Kevin" when I was pregnant. It remains the only book I have ever thrown in the bin, I only got about a quarter of the way in.
My offering is "the camera killer" by Thomas Glavinic, really strange but good

The Collector by John Fowles is very disturbing. Never Let Me Go is one of those novels that haunts you for days after you finish it. American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis is horrifying. Lord of the Flies is one of the most frightening books I've ever read - those boys are 12 years old!

Behind Closed Doors by BA Paris first book in ages I had a dream over

314 The Widowsfield Trilogy by A.R. Wise. Spooky but good story. Kind of a groundhog day type story.

Quite a few... Arms and the Girl by Stevie Davis, The Book of Dave by Will Self, In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster, Cats Eye by Margaret Atwood, The Long Walk by Stephen King as Richard Bachman and lots more. People often seem to recommend books that disturb me!

'Then' by Julie Myerson. Could never read it again. ~shiver~

That book unsettled me Filibustering whenever I drive up the M3 and see the sign for Camberley and all the towns it was set in I remember it.

"Me before you" by JoJo Moyes disturbed me aswell. I cried buckets, and it stuck with me for a while.

Asking for it by Louise O'Neill. I read this cover to cover in a few hours and it horrified me. And it's based on true stories. It was the most disturbing thing I've read since American Psycho.

Out of Breath by Julie Myerson

DodoRevival I picked up Let's Go Play At The Addams at the library years ago. I read the blurb, flicked through the first chapter, standing up by the library shelf. Decided not to get it out, but turned to the last chapter and skim read it.I can still remember feeling sick and faint and having to find a chair to sit down. Horrendous.

Room by Emma Donoghue. Very unsettling and unbearably tense in places. Also Station 11 (Emily St John Mandel) which is a dystopian novel about US society after a devastating plague.

I have a pretty rubbish memory, and can barely remember a book the day after finishing it. I read both of these a couple of years ago, and still have that unsettled feeling about them both.

Yes, Cats eye and King of the castle by Margaret Atwood and Susan hill respectively. Both about bullying. Stayed with me, still do, because of the theme. Really upsetting.

CrispMonster I have Asking for it on my wishlist.
I read Only ever yours by the same author and found it disturbing too. It's very much a take on The handmaids tale.

were the wild things are really scare my son

Was going to come on to say The Collector too, really creepy!

YY to The Collector and A Fine Balance. And Handmaid's Tale - glad I read them all but buggered if I'm going to read them again!

Has anyone read Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child?

Another one disturbed by "We need to talk about Kevin" I would be able to read it again though.

Three books that I can't face ever re-reading now are:
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones

Kite Runner had me in pieces on honeymoon as it was so relentlessly awful for one of main characters and in part triggered thoughts of the abuse a close male friend suffered.

Cement Garden was disturbing on first read when at uni in my early twenties. Read it a couple of years ago after having children and is even darker now I'm a parent.

Mr Pip was another honeymoon read (recommended by the same friend who recommended Kite Runner) - rape and slaughter.

If you like creepy and disturbing try Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger, We Have Always Lived in The Castle by Shirley Jackson and A Quiet Belief in Angels by R J Ellory.

Another recommendation for Only Ever Mine by Louise O Neill - fascinating and disturbing, one I know I'll re-read time and again.

The Wasp Factory, A Little Life and Beloved by Toni Morrison made me cry for days.

The Book of Daniel by E L Doctrow. A fictionalised account of the Rosenberg executions in the 1960s, told from from the viewpoint of their children.

elQuintoConyo I've read The Fifth Child, and found it really upsetting. I wasn't really sure what Doris Lessing was trying to say; was it a comment on middle class conformity, or the treatment of children with special needs at the time, or was Ben really some kind of evolutionary throw-back
monster?

Another vote here for The Collector as a disturbing book. Much more so than some of his other work.

The Girl on the Landing was very unsettling too, I've only read it once and that's probably enough.

If 1984 is on anyone's list and you want more, try We by Evgeny Zamyatin - the 1930(ish) Soviet book that inspired Orwell. It's as cheery as it sounds.