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The most disturbing work of fiction that you have ever read


Oblomov

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A Sense of Freedom by Jimmy Boyle. My brother gave it to me to read when I was 17. I found it an exciting, stimulating and thought provoking read. At the time it caused controversy about crime and punishment. No Mean City was very disturbing as it painted a miserable and frightening picture of Glasgow gang culture.

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Can't remember the name of it (or the author), but the story centred around a girl who had gone somewhere else to live or was on holiday, and got mixed up in some mystery about some young girls disappearing. Turns out some pyscho was locking them away to die of starvation - the girl's father dies horribly and she nearly gets locked away alive as well. Ghastly - but what was worse is that I sensed the author had actually enjoyed writing this stuff, made me very very concerned about his(?) state of mind.:lol:

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  • 4 weeks later...

We Need to Talk about Kevin - Lionel Shriver

 

I never would have bought it but it was on a holiday cottage bookshelf and I'd finished my own book.

I don't know if you can say that you enjoyed a book with such a subject matter and when it finally came to the climatic scene .. I read it with one eye shut ... but I really did enjoy her style of writing and thought it was excellent.

 

'Nineteen Eighty Four' disturbed me quite a lot .. I read that last chapter with one eye shut also and skipped bits of it out of sheer fright.

Edited by Echo
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Just remembered another one. The Frumious Bandersnatch by Ed Mcbain. It's got quite good reviews on Amazon, but I found it far too graphic and voyeuristic. Another which I felt that the author was enjoying what he was writing too much.

Edited by honestfi
spelling, reword
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The one that upset me the most was Aztec by Gary Jennings which I read as a teenager. It was so sickening that I got about a third of the way through and could not continue. The book is regarded as a classic, but it was too bloodthirsty for me - even though I am interested in the Mesoamerican peoples and their history.

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I just finish reading Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. (I'm not sure about the author name)

It's a ''realistic'' fiction, but some passages leave you disturb.

Some parts are too horrific and too much detail to read.

I can't even says if I like it or not..

The storyline is interesting, but some parts were unnecessary.

Edited by BooksForLunch
mistakes.. sorry
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I remember being unable to finish The Owl Service by Alan Garner when I was a child. I can't remember now if I was scared or disturbed though.

 

What I do know, is that I have since been disturbed by Weaveworld by Clive Barker.

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Oh dear, I was rather planning to read this at some point! May I ask why it disturbed you?

 

Please don't let me put you off - I'm probably just a wimp:roll: It was a long time ago that I read it and maybe I was just plain scared.

 

It was possibly the juxtaposition of the 'real world' with a dark fantasy world that got to me though. Same with The Owl Service perhaps, now I come to think of it.

 

Go on, read it - I look forward to hearing your verdict!

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Go on, read it - I look forward to hearing your verdict!
Argh, you leave me choiceless! How did you know The BookJumper can fend off anything except a good dare?!

 

It's a deal, then. Just let me hand in my dissertation and I'm on it!

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I've just finished 'Monster Love' by Carol Topolski, some parts of it were so horrific I really had to force myself to get through them :-s

 

I've searched through this whole thread to see if anyone mentioned this book; i found it very disturbing, especially as you read child abuse storylines in the paper like this all the time...

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Well, I've been disturbed by many books (graphic violence or very sad endings) but the one that kind of freaked me out was the FIRST one that freaked me out.

 

A Rose For Emily by William Faulkner.

 

I was so young and naive when I read this and pretending to be more jaded than I actually was. I got to the end of this story and was really disturbed.

 

Let's just say it's one of those stories I never, ever forgot.

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I've searched through this whole thread to see if anyone mentioned this book; i found it very disturbing, especially as you read child abuse storylines in the paper like this all the time...
Monster Love- Carol Topolski

 

Yeah I've read this as well and the darkness of it was completely absorbing- the intense mental and physical connection between the main protagonists was so difficult to comprehend on a certain level and what drives them to the acts of cruelty they perpetrate. On another level though the author makes this behaviour seem so natural within the confines of this relationship and their obsession with each other- extremely clever writing if morally unsettling...

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I remember being unable to finish The Owl Service by Alan Garner when I was a child. I can't remember now if I was scared or disturbed though.

 

I've read it recently ... my OH recommended it as he had loved it as a child. It was very weird .. and quite disturbing and I'm still not sure if I fully understood it

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