Last miserable book you read

[whatausername]

What was the last book you read that left you thinking what a miserable story it was?

For me it was Flaubert's The Three Tales. That left me in need of a glass of wine and some comedy.

I loved this book!

I also found "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro to have a sad and kind of hopeless atmosphere running through it

Call me a philistine but I abandoned that a third of the way through after waiting for some thing - anything - to happen.

A thousand splendid suns is one of my favourites!

Just wanted to add that although I found Tartt's The Little Friend the most miserable and unredemptive novel I have ever read, I didn't find it a bad book of course. The opposite. It is amazing. There did seem t be something absent from it -- we need the forward movement of psychological resolution just as we need other kinds of forward movements in novels (finding out whodunnit etc). But the absence of what we need from a novel does create a certain kind of fascination in it. Not sure I could go through that again, though.
I might read The Goldfinch again, to get more of a handle on the very small crums of resolution that she gives us there.

I didn't find The Remains of the Day sad - I guess because the narrative character's protective self-delusion is just about strong enough to retain a fragile sense of meaning and order in his life, weaker at the end but not absent. About the most we can hope for in life, probably.

Just finished Young Mungo I'd say it's worse than Shuggie, at least Shuggie had a bit of humour in it. But both are very bleak. He's a brilliant writer too, hope his next book is a bit more uplifting

Reread Lord of the Flies this year. Brilliant book but dark and uncomfortable at times.

Loved The Poisonwood Bible but yes it's sad, interesting, but sad.

I found The Remains of the Day film so depressing that I could never face the novel!

A Little Life for me too. Unrelentingly grim and I just found it so hard to read. I gave up halfway through after struggling to get even that far as so many people said they loved it. I've enjoyed other books on here like Shuggie Bain and Demon Copperhead because there's a warmth to the characters that had you rooting for them. That was utterly lacking in A Little Life. Genuinely do not understand how anyone could enjoy it.

Agree with all of these. Jude the Obscure was the last Hardy I ever cracked open, after that I said no more. Ishiguro I absolutely love but yes his work is so melancholic. Beautiful, though.

The worst for me is William Trevor. He's a genius writer but even one of his short stories is enough to turn the world grey for a while. And his novels! I had to give The Story of Lucy Gault away after reading it in case I accidentally caught a glimpse of the cover and burst into tears.

I couldn't bring myself to read Hamnet until DS was older than Hamnet was. It just made me feel too sad. Especially as we nearly lost him to cot death as a baby. He's a big strong nearly 14 year old who's taller than I am now, but I still worry about him. It's what parents do, though.

I absolutely agree with you about Bunker Diary. I don’t think I would object to it so strongly if it was marketed as an adult book, but it is specifically aimed at the teen market. It even won the Carnegie Medal, which is kind of the Booker for children’s books. So wrong.

Similar for me. I'd quite enjoyed Never Let Me Go, though I found the lack of medical detail about the donations slightly annoying, but just found The Remains of the Day a bit dull. I suspect if I saw the screen version, with someone else pulling out the nuances for me, I'd be able to engage with it better.

I loved Remains Of The Day, and while I thought Never Let Me Go was very good, I did find it quite weird. I am not sure if I would have finished it if I hadn't seen the TV adaptation first.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.

There are lots of books mentioned on here, eg Demon Copperhead or Remains of the Day, which are sad, even depressing, but , if you’re in the right mood , are a great read because they’re good books and can take you somewhere different. They are in a different category from books which are grim and bad. For me A Little Life falls into the second category. I got nothing from this book except an urgent desire to finish it.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I'm going to take your word re The Little Friend and get rid of it. I loved The Secret History, liked The Goldfinch (if only it had been edited by at least a third) but just know I'm going to be disappointed by TLF.

I must like unrelenting misery as I've liked so many of the books mentioned on this thread. I loved A Fine Balance, A Little Life, The Secret History, Young Mungo, Shuggie Bain, The Poisonwood Bible, Sorrow and Bliss....

The bleakest book but it would be in my all time top 20 (or possibly even top 10) is Giovanni's Room. From the start you know it's going to be sad but it absolutely rips your heart out,

It’s Chicklit & Romcoms all the way, for me!

I love a miserable, dystopian book. Just finished The High House by Jessie Greengrass which was grim

@TattiePants
Honestly TLF made me angry. It sets up a premise it never follows through on, an agonising waste of time. If you coped with Little Life, maybe People In The Trees is more challenging (TW CSA)

I hadn’t realised that it won the Carnegie Medal. Good grief, it’s total misery porn, I will never take the judges of the Carnegie Medal seriously again. I also question the psychological state of anyone who would choose to write a book like that for young people.

The Kite Runner

Also Germinal. Good god.

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah is probably the last miserable book I read.
It was interesting because I didn't really know anything about the history in the story but it was unrelentingly miserable.

@TattiePants Don't be too put off TLF. It is very good. Just not very good at helping you to keep alive a glimmer of hope about your life. Or anybody else's.

@AmadeustheAlpaca Yes, after that I rather lost interest in the Carnegie. It almost always seems to go to YA books, and very often top end ones at that.