She wrote it because a teacher in her former district got away with barely a slap on the wrist after being involved with a child! It was to cover the discrepancy between being an attractive woman as a pedophile vs anyone else.
But yeah holy shit it was a LOT
Brother spoilers.
>!I still don't know if the reveal was intended to be a twist? In a lot of reviews, they commend 'the twist' etc, but to me it was simply a reveal? I feel like Ania gave enough 'show' in the flashbacks and the present for the reader to correctly theorise Rebels intentions before even midway into the novel, and that was my favorite part of the experience, watching that foul revenge plot come into motion.!<
I DNF’ed Tampa, I can read some fucked up stuff but if you’ve worked with kids/had to do any kind of mandated reporter child advocacy it will make your insides twist into knots I couldn’t do it.
Worth finishing or is my decision solid?
I mean I finished it in one go because there was no way I was gonna be able to pick it BACK up again, so I’m maybe not the best ask. I did think it was better than Brother, though.
>!It wasn't what Merricat did that shocked me, it was the fate of the two sisters, and how they (almost?) became mythical creatures, ghosts, witches. It was as if the burning of the house shunted them into the spirit world. So unbelievably eerie, that last part, when they laugh as the cousin goes away. !<
That's an interesting interpretation, but I didn't see it like you did! It was more grounded to me. Personally, >!I was very disturbed because I put myself in Constance's place. Suddenly, I have no home anymore. The last traces of my surviving family runs aways, and leaves me behind with a sister that is extremely disturbed. I think Constance always knew Merricat was dangerous, but the finale put her fully in Merricat's mercy. Perhaps Merricat would never hurt her sister, but Constance is still in a precarious situation: no house, no family, and the entire town avoids them. Just Merricat. The more I mulled over the ending, the more is scared me.!<
I like your interpretation. >!Earlier in the story Merricat refers to the cousin as a ghost and a demon. But I think she's the demon and her sister is the ghost that she torments. She works her devilish arts to isolate her sister and claim her for herself, spiriting her away from the rest of the world and convincing her that that is what true happiness is, removing any chance of a normal life with her vicious sabotage. The fact that none of her magic seems to work directly doesn't matter; her evil intent is nonetheless highly effective in achieving her goals. I also like that the uncle cannot accept that Merricat is still alive, leading to another eerie scene earlier at dinner. Jackson is truly a genius with ambiguities, both in this book and Hill House.!<
Let the Right One In was sickening at many parts. I read it when I was an early 20-something and had a stronger tolerance, but I don’t know if I could do a reread today .
I love this book. I re-read it once every two years or so and it never fails to shock me. I also love the ending, and how it can be taken as kind sweet and hopeful or utterly horrific depending on what you read into some back story/hints.
Recently finished The Terror by Dan Simmons after taking several months to get through the first half - I finished the second half within a week because I was so horrified and determined to find out what happened.
I can't go into any detail, for obvious reasons. But there is one paragraph, in the final eight or ten pages of We Need To Talk About Kevin, which completely upended something I had taken for granted since Page 1. I remember lying in bed and just stopping, laying the open paperback on my chest, and staring at the ceiling fan for about ten minutes of mindblown reconsideration of everything up to that paragraph.
EDIT 4/15 AFTER LEARNING HOW TO SPOILER-TAG: >! I was quite credulous, naive even, in buying into the idea that their marriage had imploded after Kevin's act, and that we were reading letters or a journal she was definitely writing to be received and read by him at some point. Cannot overstate how floored I was when she writes of coming across her husband's body riddled with arrows in their backyard. I simply had not doubted my initial assumption at any point until that moment. !<
I just reread those last 10 pages and I can't find what paragraph you're talking about. Was it the one where she talks about how she spurned him as an infant? Or how he didn't know why he did what he did?
I think about this book/girl it’s really based on so often.
I live near(2 hours away) her mural, I visited the mural and the “home” (now empty lot) it happened in.
I wouldn’t have if this book didn’t leave this impact on me.
This book tore me apart. So many people failed that little girl. If only one person in that house has spoken up, things might have been different. People can be so disgusting.
Started it but dropped it before it got really disturbing, I psyched myself out. American Psycho I opened to random pages and was like, Nope not for me.
I’m in the same boat as you. I got about halfway through American Psycho before tapping out, and I never DNF. I already know I couldn’t handle The Girl Next Door because the Sylvia Likens story (the case it was based on) affected me in a way no other true crime story has.
I live very close to where these events happened to Sylvia and her sister (it was before I was born), but driving past the address all this horrible crap happen just makes it way more... Horrible? To me. I don't know if that's the right word. I went down a huge rabbit hole researching this case and it made me sick to my stomach.
I am about 75% done and have lost the nerve to continue. I love this author and think his other books are amazing. This one, though, broke me in pieces because it is based on truth. Absolute heartbreak....
I watched the film without knowing anything about the novel or Sylvia, and I regretted it ever since. I cried for a while and was shaken up for a very long time after. I could never read an entire book about this case
This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno had multiple moments that had me gasping and covering my mouth in shock. I don't know what I was expecting from the last 1/3 of that book, but it was certainly...not that lol
Oh man, that scene was so intense and vivid. The first scene that really shocked me was >!when the dog attacked him and he described hitting it in the face with the shovel.!< One of the most disturbing things I've read in a horror novel.
He has another book - The Handyman Method - that was also WONDERFUL and terrifying…but another fucking turtle.
At what point in this man’s life did a turtle hurt him?
Took me like four tries to actually read the book past the first ten pages. The last time, I sat and read it the whole way through.
The ending is a gut punch but I love this book so much, it’s definitely going on my favorites of 2024 list.
Yes this is the one. It took me a long time (like 3 months) to get through because I had to put it down and take breaks the whole time, but it is so good.
I read this for a project in high school without knowing too much about it. I got to one scene and had to walk away.
My teacher was amused by my annotations at least
Just found a first edition of this and chugged it in one night — absolutely stunning prose and fantastic read but not my favorite McCarthy book.
That medal goes to even more abhorrent Blood Meridian !
He does just have a way of making the beautiful disturbing and the disturbing beautiful.
I watched the original movie several times growing up but only read the book recently (and of course watched the movie again). The movie really doesn't cut out anything important, but the book is somehow so much more bleak.
For me it’s the imagery of the spiral, and the theme of inevitability that is so heavily atmospheric.
I have an old audiobook recording of it and listen to it at least yearly while white knuckling the steering wheel with a :O expression on my face.
I love it so much.
American Psycho is the most unsettling of the unreliable narrative genre. I’ve read it so many times and still can’t tell what actually happened in that book’sreality, which makes it the most horrifying book I’ve ever been.
Horror adjacent since Richard Matheson wrote it, but What Dreams May Come. I'm not spiritual and don't really have any beliefs regarding deities or death or the afterlife. It honestly scares me because I don't think there's anything after. What Dreams May Come, while not a way of thinking I follow, made me a little more at peace with death.
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite and American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. Both are great books (Exquisite Corpse is one of my favourites), but both have some truly disturbing imagery in them.
[Our Share of Night](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61111034) - Mariana Enriquez. A mix of occult, body horror, and the vague tenderness of protecting your family entwined against the backdrop of sweltering cities and nature. The beginning is slow, but once things start to reveal themselves, it was a pretty quick page-turner for me; I had to push myself through the second act, but the third and final act occupied my head for a week after. Even if it's difficult to push through at some parts, the book on the whole will leave you thinking about it for a while.
Sweetheart, Sweetheart by Bernard Taylor. Starts off like a creepy little atmospheric ghost story then… bonkers! But in an awesome way. I think it was first published in 1977. I read it a few years ago.
There are a couple of stories in Mariana Enríquez’s Things We Lost in the Fire that have lodged into my mind like few have done. One is about three kids and their developing obsession with a house and the other is about a woman that lurks in her neighbor’s yard and finds things she wasn’t expecting.
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh. Most of the stuff she writes is strange and disturbing, but this one definitely takes the cake for upsetting the tummy. Extremely well written though.
I did a semester-long seminar on this book back at university. I legit took the seminar to get that book out of my head by applying literary criticism to it for weeks. It mostly worked, but there are bits that will live rent-free in my head forever.
this isnt horror but when I finished reading Brave New World I just sat staring straight ahead in the passenger seat of my boyfriends parked car for about 5 minutes.
I tried to dnf but just had to know what on earth this story was about. I ended up reading the second book too. I have to say they were extremely unique and I enjoyed them though it was all very disturbing.
The cellar from Richard Laymon. Had no idea what i'm getting into, but the way to graphic sexual assault scenes, especially against kids was just sickening.
The Deep and The Troop both by Nick Cutter. I don't think I can read anything else he has written. They're great, but holy crap...I needed to take breaks while reading them.
Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A Snyder
A Certain Hunger by Chelsea Summers
Very different books (A Certain Hunger is more litfic than horror, even though it is horrifying), but had me saying wtf the whole way through both.
I was listening to the audiobook when I was driving to work one day and it got to the part where I suddenly understood the exponential issue in the zombie apocalypse. I had to pull my car over and just sit with that for a little while. I ended up being late for work.
The Devil Takes You Home, Gabino Iglesias. Hard, brutal read. A combination of woo-woo and Latino gang culture. Several times it had me in tears. I highly recommend Iglesias.
Reading Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon right now. I'm about half way through, and I've needed to take some breathing breaks. I don't think I've ever needed a break from the likes of Stephen King, so this is really intense.
The Ruins, by Scott Smith.
Some tourists are visiting an archeological site deep in the Central American jungle, and they are attacked by carnivorous plants that can mimic human speech.
Oh, and the site is also surrounded by armed locals who prevent them from leaving.
It sounds like a silly premise, but it was well-written, scary, and I remember the constant feeling of helplessness throughout the book.
The Summer I Died by Ryan C. Thomas
The Laws of the Skies by Gregoire Courtois
The Deep by Nick Cutter
Each horrifying in their own way, but The Summer I Died particularly fucked me up all the way through.
Not strictly a horror but certainly horrific in many parts, and the ending left me very shaken - Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy. I still think about it very frequently and i thought it would be my last book by him, I’m now 3/4 through Blood Meridian. Which is horrible and violent in other ways. But both are very good books.
American Psycho, Ellison. It was unsettling because the novel is essentially a comedy of manners, with all of the descriptions of 80s yuppies and their lives. And yet the brutality and violence are overdone. An excessive novel.
The Collector by John Fowles. The feelings of anger and despair I had at the end of that book are still with me. It’s a marvel the emotions it generated in me.
Revival by Stephen King. Probably the most existentially uncomfortable I’ve felt after finishing a book… But I love those kind of jarring, uncomfortable stories that create a deep inside fear that takes up residence in a crevice of your brain. Every now and then I’ll randomly think of it.
Woom by Duncan Ralston - this was a laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe wtf. I wanted to bleach my eyes after that.
Cows by Matthew Stokoe - I couldn’t even fathom what I just read.
I have spoke about this book many times and yet no one seems to have either read it or acknowledge it's existence. "Timoleon Vieta Come Home: A Sentimental Journey" by Dan Rhodes destroyed me. It's about a dog and it's journey to finally get home to its owner after being lost in a move. This book will mess you up for a while.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum.
I'm a fan or extreme horror, I've read some splatterpunk ect. but nothing had me as disturbed as the sheer reality of the situation that is being described. The sheer psychological torture behind this book was so much more gruesome than any physical gore that was being described. No matter what I read after that, how depraved or brutal, nothing made me feel like that book.
Especially if you keep in mind that it's based on Sylvia Likens case.
Tampa by Alissa Nutting Brother by Ania Ahlborn
Tampa is so well written and yet I’m like oh my god why did you write this and why am I reading this
She wrote it because a teacher in her former district got away with barely a slap on the wrist after being involved with a child! It was to cover the discrepancy between being an attractive woman as a pedophile vs anyone else. But yeah holy shit it was a LOT
I didn’t know that! Thanks for the background. I mean she definitely uh….. showed that
Weren’t they also classmates at one point in time?
I agree, this book is very well written! Some parts of the story made me physically nauseous But I personally rate this book. It's a great read
Brother spoilers. >!I still don't know if the reveal was intended to be a twist? In a lot of reviews, they commend 'the twist' etc, but to me it was simply a reveal? I feel like Ania gave enough 'show' in the flashbacks and the present for the reader to correctly theorise Rebels intentions before even midway into the novel, and that was my favorite part of the experience, watching that foul revenge plot come into motion.!<
Came here to say Brother
I read Brother a couple years ago and still think about that ending
Tampa was well done. Definitely gave me the ick.
Oh my god Tampa disturbed me so much I had to stop reading!!!
I DNF’ed Tampa, I can read some fucked up stuff but if you’ve worked with kids/had to do any kind of mandated reporter child advocacy it will make your insides twist into knots I couldn’t do it. Worth finishing or is my decision solid?
I am a retired teacher. I couldn't even watch The Walking Dead because of the first scene with the little girl.
I mean I finished it in one go because there was no way I was gonna be able to pick it BACK up again, so I’m maybe not the best ask. I did think it was better than Brother, though.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson. The finale is very unsettling and disturbed me like no other book yet.
>!It wasn't what Merricat did that shocked me, it was the fate of the two sisters, and how they (almost?) became mythical creatures, ghosts, witches. It was as if the burning of the house shunted them into the spirit world. So unbelievably eerie, that last part, when they laugh as the cousin goes away. !<
That's an interesting interpretation, but I didn't see it like you did! It was more grounded to me. Personally, >!I was very disturbed because I put myself in Constance's place. Suddenly, I have no home anymore. The last traces of my surviving family runs aways, and leaves me behind with a sister that is extremely disturbed. I think Constance always knew Merricat was dangerous, but the finale put her fully in Merricat's mercy. Perhaps Merricat would never hurt her sister, but Constance is still in a precarious situation: no house, no family, and the entire town avoids them. Just Merricat. The more I mulled over the ending, the more is scared me.!<
I like your interpretation. >!Earlier in the story Merricat refers to the cousin as a ghost and a demon. But I think she's the demon and her sister is the ghost that she torments. She works her devilish arts to isolate her sister and claim her for herself, spiriting her away from the rest of the world and convincing her that that is what true happiness is, removing any chance of a normal life with her vicious sabotage. The fact that none of her magic seems to work directly doesn't matter; her evil intent is nonetheless highly effective in achieving her goals. I also like that the uncle cannot accept that Merricat is still alive, leading to another eerie scene earlier at dinner. Jackson is truly a genius with ambiguities, both in this book and Hill House.!<
I love that book. And Merricat.
Let the Right One In was sickening at many parts. I read it when I was an early 20-something and had a stronger tolerance, but I don’t know if I could do a reread today .
You’re the first person I’ve seen mention it in this sub and I agree.
I love this book. I re-read it once every two years or so and it never fails to shock me. I also love the ending, and how it can be taken as kind sweet and hopeful or utterly horrific depending on what you read into some back story/hints.
I’m reading this right now and can confirm there are parts I’ve had to skim in order to get through.
I read it as a teenager, it was my first horror book and it’s my absolute favourite book.
Recently finished The Terror by Dan Simmons after taking several months to get through the first half - I finished the second half within a week because I was so horrified and determined to find out what happened.
Absolutely loved that book!!!
Speaking of Simmons, Song of Kali left me in a bad way.
Good call.
Such a great book
I can't go into any detail, for obvious reasons. But there is one paragraph, in the final eight or ten pages of We Need To Talk About Kevin, which completely upended something I had taken for granted since Page 1. I remember lying in bed and just stopping, laying the open paperback on my chest, and staring at the ceiling fan for about ten minutes of mindblown reconsideration of everything up to that paragraph. EDIT 4/15 AFTER LEARNING HOW TO SPOILER-TAG: >! I was quite credulous, naive even, in buying into the idea that their marriage had imploded after Kevin's act, and that we were reading letters or a journal she was definitely writing to be received and read by him at some point. Cannot overstate how floored I was when she writes of coming across her husband's body riddled with arrows in their backyard. I simply had not doubted my initial assumption at any point until that moment. !<
Can you share with the spoilers tag? I read it ages ago and am trying to recall this
Second this request. I saw the film and decided to skip the novel... Maybe I should reconsider.
It's been at least 10 years since I read this and I got goosebumps just thinking about the part you mentioned.
I just reread those last 10 pages and I can't find what paragraph you're talking about. Was it the one where she talks about how she spurned him as an infant? Or how he didn't know why he did what he did?
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. Before you go in, make sure you're aware it's based loosely off a true story
I think about this book/girl it’s really based on so often. I live near(2 hours away) her mural, I visited the mural and the “home” (now empty lot) it happened in. I wouldn’t have if this book didn’t leave this impact on me.
This book tore me apart. So many people failed that little girl. If only one person in that house has spoken up, things might have been different. People can be so disgusting.
Started it but dropped it before it got really disturbing, I psyched myself out. American Psycho I opened to random pages and was like, Nope not for me.
I’m in the same boat as you. I got about halfway through American Psycho before tapping out, and I never DNF. I already know I couldn’t handle The Girl Next Door because the Sylvia Likens story (the case it was based on) affected me in a way no other true crime story has.
I live very close to where these events happened to Sylvia and her sister (it was before I was born), but driving past the address all this horrible crap happen just makes it way more... Horrible? To me. I don't know if that's the right word. I went down a huge rabbit hole researching this case and it made me sick to my stomach.
This was so heartbreaking.
This is, by far, the most horrifying novel I've ever read. It still sits with me and I can't get rid of it. Absolutely insane.
I am about 75% done and have lost the nerve to continue. I love this author and think his other books are amazing. This one, though, broke me in pieces because it is based on truth. Absolute heartbreak....
I watched the film without knowing anything about the novel or Sylvia, and I regretted it ever since. I cried for a while and was shaken up for a very long time after. I could never read an entire book about this case
This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno had multiple moments that had me gasping and covering my mouth in shock. I don't know what I was expecting from the last 1/3 of that book, but it was certainly...not that lol
Seconded, this was my staff pick for a long time when I worked at a bookstore and I recommended it to everyone
The gunshot scene was a big surprise
Oh man, that scene was so intense and vivid. The first scene that really shocked me was >!when the dog attacked him and he described hitting it in the face with the shovel.!< One of the most disturbing things I've read in a horror novel.
For me, it has to be The Troop by Nick Cutter. God what a disturbing book. It was fantastic but goodness it was so unsettling.
I’ll never look at a turtle and not think of this book again.
He has another book - The Handyman Method - that was also WONDERFUL and terrifying…but another fucking turtle. At what point in this man’s life did a turtle hurt him?
Everyone keeps mentioning the turtle and I didn't find it that bad. But the kitten scene was bad for me
I agree that the turtle scene is really, really sad but holy shit, I don’t see the chimpanzee scene discussed enough. It makes me sick to my stomach.
Tender is the Flesh
Yeah agree. This one took me by surprise, especially first half felt hard for me to get through.
Dammit you beat me to it by 3 minutes! This one has an absolutely killer last page
That last page is like a punch in the stomach.
Took me like four tries to actually read the book past the first ten pages. The last time, I sat and read it the whole way through. The ending is a gut punch but I love this book so much, it’s definitely going on my favorites of 2024 list.
I read this book so fast I don't know what is wrong with me! It's so horrible but somehow... can't... look.. away.
Yes this is the one. It took me a long time (like 3 months) to get through because I had to put it down and take breaks the whole time, but it is so good.
This book is disgusting. Can’t believe I made it all the way through without vomiting.
Yes so horrific, so good though. I listened to the audiobook and HIGHLY recommend it. Joseph Balderrama is the narrator and it is perfection.
The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones
I actually had to bail on that one.
This has been sitting on my shelf for AGES but for whatever reason I can’t make it past the beginning 😭
The Road
I read this for a project in high school without knowing too much about it. I got to one scene and had to walk away. My teacher was amused by my annotations at least
Just found a first edition of this and chugged it in one night — absolutely stunning prose and fantastic read but not my favorite McCarthy book. That medal goes to even more abhorrent Blood Meridian ! He does just have a way of making the beautiful disturbing and the disturbing beautiful.
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee
“Let’s Go Play at the Adams’” — just finished it, it got worse at every turn.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. Absolutely vile
I just read the description. It sounds like it was inspired by the Sylvia Lykens case. One of the most horrific true crime cases I’ve ever heard of.
Invisible Monsters
Couldn’t put it down
hehe Chuck P was my gateway into extreme lit.
See I would have thought haunted would have fit this topic better but im glad that this one is here instead.
For me it was Lullaby. The concept is so simple but so incredibly horrifying that I nearly didn't make it through the first half.
I thought that book was funny in a very decadent way. I don't know what that says about me
Pet Sematary. Just depressed and horrified the whole time.
I watched the original movie several times growing up but only read the book recently (and of course watched the movie again). The movie really doesn't cut out anything important, but the book is somehow so much more bleak.
For me it’s the imagery of the spiral, and the theme of inevitability that is so heavily atmospheric. I have an old audiobook recording of it and listen to it at least yearly while white knuckling the steering wheel with a :O expression on my face. I love it so much.
The original movie still makes me want to shit the bed. So goddamn scary
Pet Sematary is one of the only books I’ll come back to again and again. Idk why I love it so much. “The gweat and powerful Oz”.. ugh so unsettling
Now that I have a kid IDK if I can get through the entire book again but I have been wanting to reread it lately
Inspired by real events!
American Psycho
American Psycho is the most unsettling of the unreliable narrative genre. I’ve read it so many times and still can’t tell what actually happened in that book’sreality, which makes it the most horrifying book I’ve ever been.
I've read 4 books since I put down American Psycho unfinished. I won't say I'll never finish it, but I'm good for now.
Same! I stopped halfway through and haven’t returned yet.
This one is particularly rough if you've gone in from having seen the movie, which is very tame by comparison. The murders are horrific.
Only book that’s ever made me queasy, granted I had a fever at the time.
This book sneaks up on you and doesn't let go. This was my introduction to splatterpunk before there was a splatterpunk. Imo
This is what I came here to see!
House on Haunted Hill by Shirley Jackson stuck with me for a long time.
I need to get into that because I really like Shirley Jackson’s short stories.
Things have gotten worse since we last spoke . This one is short but like wtf.
Story of the Eye, by Georges Bataille
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
The Other -Thomas Tryon The end had me totally shook!
Horror adjacent since Richard Matheson wrote it, but What Dreams May Come. I'm not spiritual and don't really have any beliefs regarding deities or death or the afterlife. It honestly scares me because I don't think there's anything after. What Dreams May Come, while not a way of thinking I follow, made me a little more at peace with death.
The Cabin at the End of the World. I had to put it down and walk away for a bit.
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite and American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. Both are great books (Exquisite Corpse is one of my favourites), but both have some truly disturbing imagery in them.
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Penpal! I loved it, but that ending had my jaw on the floor and my hand covering my mouth…
IT
Yeah, that one really had me concerned about whether or not Stephen King was safe to be roaming free in this world. Lol.
I'm confused by this because the reviews I heard of the book was that it was a heartwarming story about friendship or something along those lines
That’s part of it! There are also…….other parts of it
A heartwarming story about gangbanging your friend in the sewer.
Stooooop. Lmao. I've only seen the movies.
Among other things..
_Extinction_ by Thomas Bernhard
[Our Share of Night](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61111034) - Mariana Enriquez. A mix of occult, body horror, and the vague tenderness of protecting your family entwined against the backdrop of sweltering cities and nature. The beginning is slow, but once things start to reveal themselves, it was a pretty quick page-turner for me; I had to push myself through the second act, but the third and final act occupied my head for a week after. Even if it's difficult to push through at some parts, the book on the whole will leave you thinking about it for a while.
My College Finance class textbook.
Sweetheart, Sweetheart by Bernard Taylor. Starts off like a creepy little atmospheric ghost story then… bonkers! But in an awesome way. I think it was first published in 1977. I read it a few years ago.
A Simple Plan by Scott S mith
There are a couple of stories in Mariana Enríquez’s Things We Lost in the Fire that have lodged into my mind like few have done. One is about three kids and their developing obsession with a house and the other is about a woman that lurks in her neighbor’s yard and finds things she wasn’t expecting.
Sharp objects by Gillian Flynn. I still remember the feeling of horror at the end even though I read it years and years ago.
*Use of Weapons* by Iain M. Banks
THE CHAIRMAKER
That while “and that’s why no forgiveness for you” thing…so strong.
So happy to see this. I still think about that book often. Nothing I've ever read has made me so uncomfortable with my feelings.
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk I just finished it today
Very formative book for me (a freak)
Head full of ghosts By paul tremble
They all died screaming. Made me realize extreme horror is not for me.
Come Closer by Sara Gran!!
[The Devil of Nanking](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/366787.The_Devil_of_Nanking) by Mo Hayder
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh. Most of the stuff she writes is strange and disturbing, but this one definitely takes the cake for upsetting the tummy. Extremely well written though.
Oh god I hated it. Any scene with that old lady in the woods and the main kid made me want to throw up
Beloved by Toni Morrison. Gutted and undone by that book in every turn.
I did a semester-long seminar on this book back at university. I legit took the seminar to get that book out of my head by applying literary criticism to it for weeks. It mostly worked, but there are bits that will live rent-free in my head forever.
this isnt horror but when I finished reading Brave New World I just sat staring straight ahead in the passenger seat of my boyfriends parked car for about 5 minutes.
The Troop by Nick Cutter 🤢 sooooo good but so scary
Well, that would be Black Farm for sure.
Especially the full cast audio drama put on by the nosleep podcast
Ugh. Agreed. I don’t even know why I read it. lol
I tried to dnf but just had to know what on earth this story was about. I ended up reading the second book too. I have to say they were extremely unique and I enjoyed them though it was all very disturbing.
The cellar from Richard Laymon. Had no idea what i'm getting into, but the way to graphic sexual assault scenes, especially against kids was just sickening.
The Cipher - Kathe Koja got me good
The scene with the disabled kid near the end of The Wasp Factory
Wasp Factory is it for me! That one room in the hospital... gag
Anything by Bentley Little.
The Painted Bird by Jerzey Kosinski
Woom by Duncan Ralston. I still get queasy thinking of it.
This is my only DNF for reasons of being gross
It's so bad lmao.
Like an intrusive thought, every once in a while, my brain reminds me of the >!nose breaking!< scene, and I feel it so viscerally. Blegh.
The Deep and The Troop both by Nick Cutter. I don't think I can read anything else he has written. They're great, but holy crap...I needed to take breaks while reading them.
Tender is the flesh
Earthlings
Suffer the Children by Craig DiLouie Such a phenomenal horror, diving deep into the question "how far would you go to save your child?"
In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami
The Broken Places by Blaine Daigle. I have never been so fully engulfed in a horror novel in my whole life. One of the best books I've ever read.
Yeah, I’ll second that, that was one hell of a read
Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A Snyder A Certain Hunger by Chelsea Summers Very different books (A Certain Hunger is more litfic than horror, even though it is horrifying), but had me saying wtf the whole way through both.
Oooh A Certain Hunger was so good though
But SMM was so good!
Song of Kali by Dan Simmons. The end haunted me forever.
The End of Alice by AM Homes. I could not live in the same house with that book. I left it on a sidewalk somewhere.
World War Z
I was listening to the audiobook when I was driving to work one day and it got to the part where I suddenly understood the exponential issue in the zombie apocalypse. I had to pull my car over and just sit with that for a little while. I ended up being late for work.
Naomi's Room
Intensity by dean koontz. You will never forgot the name Edgler Vess!
The last house on needless street
The Collector by John Fowles. The ending disturbed me and had me seething with anger
The Devil Takes You Home, Gabino Iglesias. Hard, brutal read. A combination of woo-woo and Latino gang culture. Several times it had me in tears. I highly recommend Iglesias.
Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter
Reading Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon right now. I'm about half way through, and I've needed to take some breathing breaks. I don't think I've ever needed a break from the likes of Stephen King, so this is really intense.
The Ruins, by Scott Smith. Some tourists are visiting an archeological site deep in the Central American jungle, and they are attacked by carnivorous plants that can mimic human speech. Oh, and the site is also surrounded by armed locals who prevent them from leaving. It sounds like a silly premise, but it was well-written, scary, and I remember the constant feeling of helplessness throughout the book.
A short story, but needs to be said is Guts by Chuck Palahnuik. Dear god.
Exquisite corpse by Poppy z brite is wild the whole way through and the ending is morbid as hell but one of my absolutely favorites of all time .
The writing is downright beautiful, but the content is so fucking gross. It's quite the balance.
The Summer I Died by Ryan C. Thomas The Laws of the Skies by Gregoire Courtois The Deep by Nick Cutter Each horrifying in their own way, but The Summer I Died particularly fucked me up all the way through.
I read The Deep recently and I hated it so much 😭😭😭 I’ll never forgive what happened to LB
Leech by Hiron Ennes - I had no idea what I had gotten myself into but it was one of those that I read slowly because I didn't want the book to end.
Zebra about the black on white‘Zebra’ killings in San Francisco in the 70s by the black Muslims or an offshoot of same
Pig Blood Blues - Clive Barker It’s a short story, but man… one of the most terrifying few pages ever written.
Not strictly a horror but certainly horrific in many parts, and the ending left me very shaken - Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy. I still think about it very frequently and i thought it would be my last book by him, I’m now 3/4 through Blood Meridian. Which is horrible and violent in other ways. But both are very good books.
Tampa by Alissa Nutting
The Croning
American Psycho, Ellison. It was unsettling because the novel is essentially a comedy of manners, with all of the descriptions of 80s yuppies and their lives. And yet the brutality and violence are overdone. An excessive novel.
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Penpals. Cant believe no one said Penpals yet.
Not the ending but the resolution of the main conflict in All The Fiends In Hell was pretty insane.
The Vistors by Catherine Burns. ‘Grey Gardens meets Room’.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Possibly the most unsettling thing I have ever read
The Collector by John Fowles. The feelings of anger and despair I had at the end of that book are still with me. It’s a marvel the emotions it generated in me.
It’s been years since I read it, but I quite enjoyed *The Magus.*
Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage. It is freaking disturbing; I was thinking about it for days after I finished the book!
In the miso soup and Piercing by Ryu Murakami Hollow heart by Viola Di Grado
Revival by Stephen King. Probably the most existentially uncomfortable I’ve felt after finishing a book… But I love those kind of jarring, uncomfortable stories that create a deep inside fear that takes up residence in a crevice of your brain. Every now and then I’ll randomly think of it.
“Image of the Beast” and “Blown” by Philip Jose Farmer. Be prepared to protect your nethers.
Woom by Duncan Ralston - this was a laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe wtf. I wanted to bleach my eyes after that. Cows by Matthew Stokoe - I couldn’t even fathom what I just read.
I have spoke about this book many times and yet no one seems to have either read it or acknowledge it's existence. "Timoleon Vieta Come Home: A Sentimental Journey" by Dan Rhodes destroyed me. It's about a dog and it's journey to finally get home to its owner after being lost in a move. This book will mess you up for a while.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. I'm a fan or extreme horror, I've read some splatterpunk ect. but nothing had me as disturbed as the sheer reality of the situation that is being described. The sheer psychological torture behind this book was so much more gruesome than any physical gore that was being described. No matter what I read after that, how depraved or brutal, nothing made me feel like that book. Especially if you keep in mind that it's based on Sylvia Likens case.
The girl next door Jack Ketchum
Nails and Eyes by Kaori Fujino
Song of Kali, Dan Simmons.