College Students! discussion

I agree with Jess. After watching Precious I don't think I'd be able to read Push since we all know that books can deeper into the story and reveal parts that were not shown in the movie.

Johnny Got His Gun wouldn't be disturbing, but it does make you rethink about life and the world. Which is a good thing in my opinion.

Several of the short stories packaged with I Am Legend are out there.

I totally agree with Haunted and Flowers in the Attic! I erased them from my memory until I read this thread. I'm gonna throw in Crime and Punishment and Native Son both about people who murder from the murderer's perspective. Creepy.

Just because of the content, The Kindness of Strangers really disturbed me. Especially because it is such a HUGE problem. After reading it, I did a bunch of research, and the things that are going on with child pornography are ASTOUNDING! There are some websites that can LEGALLY post photos of naked children (b/c they don't meet the legal requirement for pornography), even thought they're on websites with names that make their disgusting purpose obvious.


I know people who've read this book, and just didn't like it at all (some b/c of the difficult content, others b/c they didn't like the writing). But, as hard as it was to read, I think of it as a favorite. It really opened my eyes. I wish the general public was more up in arms about this...

Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs by Elissa Wall, most definitely.

Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho was also strange to me, but that could be because I read it early in high school. I'll have to do a re-read soon.

I've been wanting to read both of those!

Kayla wrote: "Of all the books that I have read two have truly disturbed me. And I love horror and the strange but these book contained an element that I found to disturbing. Both main characters committed inces..."

Pretty much ALL of V.C. Andrews books have incest, lol. I read a ton of her stuff (most of which is written by a ghostwriter, as she died ages ago) when I was 9 or 10 (they belonged to my older sister, and I thought they were great, mostly because they were the biggest books I'd read at that point.. They also made me feel very grown up). Crazy stuff!

Wow, V.C. Andrews really does have a thing for incest. I'm still surprised that they had Flowers in the Attic in my Jr. High library.

The new stuff is utter crap, because she isn't the one writing it. I love V.C. Andrews, but her ghostwriter does a terrible job. It's crazy, because the only ones she actually wrote were the Flowers in the Attic series, My Sweet Audrina, and the Cutler series (Heaven, Dark Angel, Fallen Hearts, etc.) Everything else after that was written by the ghostwriter.

I remember The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane scared me to death when I was a new reader. I remember seeing it on my father's bookshelf when I was nine, and it was so incredibly enticing. It is still one of my favorites but it's well overdue for a reread. Other than that, I couldn't finish reading Running With Scissors (One of the very few books I couldn't finish. Nothing much comes to mind otherwise.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy, to the point where I couldn't read it at night haha!

House of Leaves

oh my gosh. I thought it was supposed to be "scary," but really it just screws with your mind. very disturbing... i think i lost a lot of sleep reading that book

I'm in the middle of House of Leaves right now, and I feel like I shouldn't be reading it when I'm alone. I get too freaked out!

For me it would have to be Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk & Naked Lunch: The Restored Text by William S. Burroughs. Those two novel were very disturbing and erry. Another disturbing read was American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis :0~

I agree with everyone who said The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Also, Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim. I read it when I was 14 and I still think about it every so often (7 years later).

I would have to say The Bell Jar disturbed me the most so far. This is mainly because it hit kinda close to home for me since I was taking a year off from school when I read it and the character was expressing thoughts that had crossed my mind at the time... it was very disconcerting...

Kelsey wrote: "I'm in the middle of House of Leaves right now, and I feel like I shouldn't be reading it when I'm alone. I get too freaked out!"

I did the same thing! Normally I read at night with a lamp, but I kept my room completely lit up while reading that book lol!

I would have to say Kisscut by Karin Slaughter and The Devil of Nanking by Mo Hayder.Both are very disturbing.

Just thought of another one:Lost Boys. I wouldn't say that it disturbed me exactly, but it shook me up quite a bit. I think I pulled out one of my old favorite books to reread (comfort food for the soul) and had cup of hot chocolate after finished it.

I definitely agree with Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk.
I don't think I would be able to keep that book in my house/room.

Oh dear, I was intending to bring The Road along with me on holiday to read in hotel rooms at night... I think I might have to rethink that now.

I am not sure if anyone has read In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin but it was the most disturbing book I've ever read and it was extremely difficult for me to finish this book.
I am a Pakistani and in this book Mueenuddin who is a Pakistani author has tried to reveal the complexities of Pakistani class and culture and I felt that Mueenuddin's Pakistan is ONLY dark, depressing and bleak. Throughout the book, he has showed characters which are corrupt and are involved in cruel machinations. And he has completely ignored the bright and beautiful side. Therefore, as a Pakistani, it was the most disturbing book I've ever read.

Sonja wrote: "I would have to say The Bell Jar disturbed me the most so far. This is mainly because it hit kinda close to home for me since I was taking a year off from school when I read it and the ..."

I agree with Sonja. Although now one of my alltime favourite books, the first time I read The Bell Jar I found it disturbing as it was quite "close to home" for me at the time. I always seem to forget how disturbing it is to me until I pick it up to re-read.

A Fine Balance. A friend and I read that book together for a school assignment and we both felt the tragedy of it stole a little piece of our souls in the end.

Amanda wrote: "I couldn't read Tick Tock by Dean Koontz without the lights on and all of my stuffed animals put away. That book was creepy!"

I had heard a lot of hype about Dean Koontz, and I found a book of his called "False Memory" at the thrift store, so I picked it up. That book scared the crap out of me. I usually don't finish books because they're boring and such, but after getting about halfway through, I was nearly in tears I was so freaked out, and just couldn't read anymore. Since then, I've stayed far far away from his books. They're just psychologically disturbing.

I haven't been totally spooked by any book before. I suggest the Odd Thomas books if you want to read a Koontz that isn't too scary, but then again, it may come accross different to you than to me. I also though Breathless was pretty good by him. I am reading Frankenstein (by Dean Koontz not the classic) right now, and that is the most disturbed I have been by his writing, but so far it is a really interesting read.

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk was completely disturbing. Each story got worse as the narrators tried to one-up each other. The cannibalism was probably the worst bit.

I haven't ready any real disturbing books, but Brave New World Revisited was kind of strange.

Eh. I'm scared to read "In Cold Blood". I did some research on the family that was murdered, and it just freaked me out. I'm always afraid someone is going to break into my home, anyway; I don't think reading a book about a robbery gone horribly bad is going to help that :).

Meh. I didn't think that The Road or The Kite Runner were very disturbing at all. I though that The Road was actually pretty boring. But then, dystopian fiction is one of my favorite genres. The Kite Runner was too bad to be disturbing in any way other than the "Why am I wasting my time on this book?" kind of way.

I don't think I've ever been truly creeped out by a book before. I've read some pretty tame horror (Steven Kind, etc), as well as sci-fi and various dystopian books, but I've stayed away from Red Dragon and other really scary things like that. Maybe that's why I've never been really scared by a book before.

On the other hand, I found Watchmen to be truly disturbing, disgusting, upsetting, and just plain wrong, though not in a scary way. I hated every character in the book, and I was absolutely appalled by the way it treated rape (and women and misogyny in general really). I hated the movie, so I read the book to see if it was any better, and it turns out that it was actually worse. Go figure.

For vicious vines that eat through the skin, The Ruins by Scott B. Smith definitely takes the cake for a book that is "disturbing."

I agree about the Ruins, once they get on your skin... you're doomed. The guy cutting them out was just bleh. x.x

I still have nightmares about "In Search of Adam" - Caroline Smailes. I was going to sell it but I felt so bad for the person I was going to sell it to... I decided to hold on to it... to take one more copy off the market.

I haven't come across anything too disturbing, but The Book of Lost Things is one that came close, though it's not what I really call disturbing.

And now I feel a little wary from all the comments about Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted. I just got my copy a few days ago and haven't got the chance to read it but now I'm a bit nervous. Is it really that bad?

Natasha wrote: "I still have nightmares about "In Search of Adam" - Caroline Smailes. I was going to sell it but I felt so bad for the person I was going to sell it to... I decided to hold on to it... to take one ..."
Haha, that's pretty funny.

Jessica wrote: "I agree about the Ruins, once they get on your skin... you're doomed. The guy cutting them out was just bleh. x.x"
Ugh, yeah! And the thing that sucks the most is you want to keep reading but you kind of want to skip the part but then feel like you're cheating yourself. You want the book in all its goriness. It's a catch 22.

Natasha wrote: "I still have nightmares about "In Search of Adam" - Caroline Smailes. I was going to sell it but I felt so bad for the person I was going to sell it to... I decided to hold on to it... to take one ..."
Haha, that's pretty funny.

Jessica wrote: "I agree about the Ruins, once they get on your skin... you're doomed. The guy cutting them out was just bleh. x.x"
Ugh, yeah! And the thing that sucks the most is you want to keep reading but you kind of want to skip the part but then feel like you're cheating yourself. You want the book in all its goriness. It's a catch 22.

Kathleen wrote: "Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs by Elissa Wall, most definitely."

I think pretty much any book written about the FLDS and what life was like for them before escaping is rather disturbing. I have that one on my shelf to read, and I have another, Lost Boy, that I plan on reading, as well. I already read Escape and that one was pretty disturbing. I also agree with The Things They Carried being disturbing, but I really loved that book.

I also found Night, as well as any book about the holocaust that was written by a survivor of it, to be quite disturbing. And, I am still not sure why, but On the Beach really shook me up for a while.

I agree with all of you who said The Road. I think that has to be one of the books that has made me cry the most out of everything I've ever read! So many images just stuck in my head. It broke my heart when the father was telling the son stories about the world before the event, and then realizes that his son never lived in that world and wouldn't even know how to imagine it. I ended up having to race through the book before I saw the movie with my parents, and I finished it maybe ten minutes beforehand in the parking lot of the movie theater, crying my eyes out.

ETA: I'll have to add The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as well. I have never been as revolted by a fictional character as I was by Bjurman (those of you who've read it will know what I'm talking about). One scene in particular left me hyperventilating and almost crying.

I think Komt een vrouw bij de dokter is the most disturbing book I've ever read. It's about a man who's wife is diagnosed with breast cancer, he's not faithful to her (never was, so at least it's sort of redeeming he didn't just cheat on her while she had cancer) and has an affair with a woman while his wife is dying. They have a little girl and I cried when I read the scene in which she and her mother say goodbye (she's euthanised).
It was truly disturbing, on one hand he cheats on her and on the other hand he's truly devastated when she dies and does seem to love her, he just can't manage being faithful somehow. Following the woman's struggle with breast cancer was so sad, I cried many times.

Because no one has said it yet... Goosebumps series :O lol.

Though recently... hmm for disturbing books... I read a lot of psychology nonfiction so... WHISPERS: The Voices of Paranoia is one of them.

All I have to say is.... coke sure makes you see some crazy things leading you to burn your own kid alive.

The Almost Moon is definitely at the top of the list for me. Followed by Blindness, Push, The Executioner's Song, and the beginning of The Beach.

I just finished All Quiet on the Western Front which was alarming the whole way through. I think the part that got me the most was that, even though it was fiction, the author had been on the front lines during WWI and was wounded himself and so I knew that so much of this so-called fiction was real memories. Ugh!

I just finished The 19th Wife, and although it was a work of fiction, I know the author got his information from facts. The idea of forcing teenage girls into marriage and abandoning young boys on the side of the road in the desert was difficult to comprehend. Plus, there were parts in the book that discussed husbands raping their new brides, and that was definitly not something I enjoyed reading.

Also, I read Sybil: The True and Extraordinary Story of a Woman Possessed By Sixteen Separate Personalities a little while ago, and that was pretty disturbing. All these horrible things occured to this girl at the hands of her mother. There were parts where I had to put the book down and come back to it after I took a break. The worst part about it, was that I was fully aware it was true and it had all happened to her. I couldn't just cringe and go, "Okay, it's just a story, keep going." Some scenes really made me uncomfortable, and caused me to squirm in my seat.

alicia- I haven't read that book, but I just read the summary. The part about the LDS (Mormon) church and Brigham Young is not true. The polygamy part is true, but not in the violent way that the summary suggests.

The FLDS church is very different.

Mockingjay The Da Vinci Code

I have read a lot of V.C. Andrews in my middle school years but that was so long ago. Ha. Well, anyways, the most recent book I read that was disturbing was City of Masks: A Cree Black Novel.

Push was def. disturbing!

American Psycho is the most disturbing for me. Honestly, you expect it to be weird and horrible but its just a whole new level *shivers*...i'd still recommend it though :P

False Memories by Dean Koontz - I think psychological horrors are the worse. They're hard to read cause the whole time you want to yell to the character "it's not real!!!". The psychiatrist was so evil and unstoppable...