Too disturbing to finish?

[Julie]

I remember reading Columbine by David Cullen and reaching a point where the hate and vitriol of the young killers just became too horrifying. So I suppose it isn't surprising that I've reached that point in Sue Klebold's moving account of her son's role in the Columbine killings A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy, only this time I'm overwhelmed by the idea that your beloved child, a child you thought you intimately knew, could commit such an unspeakable act. I'm at the point where Sue Klebold is viewing the so-called Basement Tapes and realizes that yes, her son, her baby really was responsible. I was so overwhelmed that I couldn't continue. Have you ever read something so disturbing that you just couldn't finish?

[Deb]

I remember being glad that I was listening to Immaculée Ilibagiza's book about the Rwandan genocide because that meant I only had to deal with it 15 minutes at a time. That way I could leave the chilling scenes of people chanting "kill them, kill them, kill them all" behind at the point when it was all just about too much.
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust

[Julie]

Deb wrote: "I remember being glad that I was listening to Immaculée Ilibagiza's book about the Rwandan genocide because that meant I only had to deal with it 15 minutes at a time. That way I could leave the ch..."

I did go back to A Mother's Reckoning and finished it. It really was very disturbing but by the end I was utterly convinced that the Klebolds did a wonderful job parenting the child they thought they had.

[Abigail]

I tried reading a book by Robert Liparulo called Germ, but I didn't get very far into it. As I remember it, it was a fiction book about someone using biological weapons to kill people. His descriptions of the things that these weapons would do to people were so graphic that they made me feel a bit sick and I just couldn't go on with the book. I still shudder a bit thinking about it and it was years ago that I tried reading it.

[Julie]

Abigail wrote: "I tried reading a book by Robert Liparulo called Germ, but I didn't get very far into it. As I remember it, it was a fiction book about someone using biological weapons to kill people. His descript..."

Oh, I definitely agree about the graphicness - is that a word? - being a game changer in my reading. I can handle things being alluded to ("the body was dismembered") or even a clinical description ("the arm was severed below the elbow joint") but if blood, gore, screaming, axes getting stuck in arm gristle, etc. are involved then I might skim, skip, or return the book!

[Deb]

Abigail wrote: "I tried reading a book by Robert Liparulo called Germ, but I didn't get very far into it. As I remember it, it was a fiction book about someone using biological weapons to kill people. His descript..."

I've tried reading a Liparulo before too and I was also disturbed by his graphic images--like crumbs floating on top of blood after the killer made a sandwich. He's pretty over the top and the surprising thing was that this was from a Christian publisher.

[Deb]

Right after I had my second-born, in 1972, I began to read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. As I held my sweet baby safely in my arms, I could not read about massacres and atrocities, and other mothers, even so long ago, losing their babies to what needn't have been. A book that needed to be written, but to this day, I have not reopened it.