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Reading Challenge: The Ten Most Disturbing Books of All Time
message 51:
by
Jeremy
(new)
Jun 15, 2012 01:21PM
@Jennifer - Good call on the McCabe book! I found some others with the funky Whichbook.net site, too. Dig them sliders!
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@Teawench - sometimes the h2 -- Happy & Horror -- just breaks it all for someone. Sorry the book failed you.
Were we going to do the list as a reading challenge after all?
If others are up for it, I could add "Reading Challenge" to the title and people could mark off the books on the list as they read/rate them. This would force me to read a few books I've been staying away from. :-/
OK. I changed the title of the thread. I'll cross off the books I've read and see about getting to the others, even if I'm scared senseless.
OK. I changed the title of the thread. I'll mark off the ones on the list that I've read, and challenge myself to get to the others. Even though some of them scare me senseless.
I've already sorta started. Gave up on Blindness. The translation was totally unreadable. Then I remembered I have an entire University library at my disposal so I'll see if they have a different one.
Tressa wrote: "David, I love The Ruins.I read The End of Alice but the opposite of what was supposed to happen to the reader happened with me, and I had a disconnect with Alice. Didn't like the ending either."
I don't think you were meant to connect with Alice. At least, to me that didn't seem to be the point. She was significant in the sense that she was the source of the MC's obsession, but she played a very small part in the overall story as a character.
From what I remember, Alice wasn't a minor character. However, the problem is I am getting this book confused with a book about a kidnapped girl who was supposed to elicit feelings in the reader, and the overall story was just blah to me because I didn't feel a connect with her plight. Not that I'm heartless, I just didn't get into the book. I can't remember the name of it and I don't feel like hunting for it.
Tressa wrote: "http://www.popcrunch.com/the-10-most-...What do you think?
10. Blindness
9. Requiem for a Dream
8. Naked Lunch
7. We Need to Talk About Kevin
6. The Road
5. Americ..."
I'm definitely in!
Tressa wrote: "From what I remember, Alice wasn't a minor character. However, the problem is I am getting this book confused with a book about a kidnapped girl who was supposed to elicit feelings in the reader, a..."I know what you mean. I just think we may be thinking of different books. Alice is only in roughly one and a half chapters of The End of Alice, toward the very end. She was not kidnapped. Chappy is the center of the book, as well as the correspondence he has with an unnamed college girl.
I read The End of Alice, but didn't think much of it, obviously. Maybe I was thinking Alice is the college girl. Hell, I don't remember. Living Dead Girl is the other book I was thinking about.
I have read The Girl Next Door and it was horrific. I also picked up The Road from the library today.
Tressa wrote: "http://www.popcrunch.com/the-10-most-...What do you think?
10. Blindness
9. Requiem for a Dream
8. Naked Lunch
7. We Need to Talk About Kevin
6. The Road
5. Americ..."
I'm in... I'm a little distressed realizing that I've already read several of these... :Oo
Blindness
Naked Lunch
The Road
The Girl Next Door
Mod
It made me angry to read it. I would actually walk around thinking about it, angry that he wrote it and angry that I was reading it, and angry at the uncontrollable behavior human beings display in peer groups. But that means Ketchum accomplished his job.
A few that I found very disturbing and, interestingly, none of them are horror.Night
Last Exit to Brooklyn
The Ghost Road (Pat Barker)
I have read a few horror novels that grossed me out, but that is different for me. I just get grossed out and it sort of pulls me out of the story, really. When I say disturbing I mean I was in the story and it was having an effect on me as I was reading it and afterwards.
I have deliberately avoided reading The Girl Next Door because I know that book would disturb me. It is the harm to kids aspect that I really can't handle so I just avoid it. I could have read it before I had children, but now I will just pass on it.
Mod
It is so hard for me to read or watch anything about people being abused and debased. There was a clip on the news yesterday about a school bus monitor being berated by some school kids and she ended up crying. The assclowns filmed it. I wouldn't watch it. I hate the cruelty that comes out in people when they're in packs. Such animals.
Charlene wrote: "Tressa, I hear you and agree that must mean that Ketchum did his job and did it well. I've been waffling on getting this book for quite a while now. Now that I've got it, I will probably waffle abo..."Charlene, I've read Ketchum's The Girl next Door twice. This book stays with you for a loooong time. Let me know what you think when you read it.
I have read Ketchum's as well and was sick. At first I have didn't realize it was based on a true story and when I found out I really wasn't sure how I felt. It was a jumble of feelings. Anger, revulsion, sadness you name it I had it. Not a story for weak stomachs or hearts.I am currently listening to The Road and I have yet to come upon anything disturbing. Not even as bad as Night of the Living Dead. I'm on CD 3 of 6 so if it is going to get disturbing it needs to come on.
Mod
Why would you be angry at Ketchum?
He obviously was disturbed enough by it that he needed to vent it.
And, like it or not, awareness of what these animals are capable of is our only means of protecting the innocent.
It's not an easy knowledge, and I wish in my heart it wasn't true, but evil wins when we hide from it.
Mod
Dianne, I definitely will let you know.
Jon Recluse wrote: "Why would you be angry at Ketchum?..."Can't explain it. He did such a good job the book really got to me and made me face things I didn't want to face; it jangled my nerves. I've had the same kind of response to a director who left me an emotional heap. Like, yeah, while I applaud you for that great movie, you really put me through hell.
Along the lines of what Jon is saying, that there is an importance in writing and reading disturbing books that reveal truths about human nature, I find "Night" to be so disturbing because even if you try to classify it as a harrowing first person account of events that happened in Nazi Germany years before most of us were even born, the truth of the matter is that those types of things happened later in China, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and in Africa during our lifetimes and are still happening today. It is still "night;" the dawn still hasn't come.
Mod
Nicely put, Chris.
I agree completely with The Girl Next Door by Ketchum as being #1 on the list. I'd also throw in Steven Shrewsbury's Hawg.
I wish I could say that I thought of it, but I didn't. I am paraphrasing an absolutely brilliant review of Night written by Bird Brian.http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16...
And continuing with your thought from the earlier post. We need to read disturbing books because maybe they will disturb us enough to do something about the very thing that disturbs us so much, whether it is cruelty, injustice, or victimization of the helpless. Otherwise society is only three classes of people: the victimizers, the victims, and the indifferent.
Mod
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16...
And continui..."
Exactly, Chris.
The simple fact that the material disturbs us is a credit to our humanity.
Acting on that horror, focusing it, and turning it against those that create it is the only way we will keep our humanity and evolve.
There can be no mercy for those who act without thought or remorse, who take pleasure from pain.
Like a rabid animal, they must be put down.
Chris wrote: "We need to read disturbing books because maybe they will disturb us enough to do something about the very thing that disturbs us so much, whether it is cruelty, injustice, or victimization of the helpless. Otherwise society is only three classes of people: the victimizers, the victims, and the indifferent. ..."Totally agree. It's because I sometimes force myself to read books like Night or Bastard Out of Carolina or The Girl Next Door that I can be so affected by these kinds of stories. Being an avid reader has made me view the world in different ways and be more forgiving (and sometimes not) about the old "there but for the grace of God" predicaments people in society find themselves in.
I have been flamed in the past for confessing that I was angry at Ketchum for The Girl Next Door, but, eh, fuck it. If people don't understand, that's their problem.
Mod
Once you explained it, Tressa, I saw where you were coming from.
What is "flamed"?
My "fuck it" was aimed at the people in the past, not anyone currently in this discussion.Flaming someone is to attack or jump on someone in a forum because of a difference of opinion. I like to think that we don't do that around here, although I will have issues with any jerk who doesn't grovel at the feet of The Summer I Died, The Pilo Family Circus, or The Cannibal Within. :-D
Mod
Flaming someone is to attack or jump on someone in a forum because of a difference of opinion. I like to ..."
I know, Tressa.
Oh, thanks.
Uh, oh........ :P
Tressa wrote: "My "fuck it" was aimed at the people in the past, not anyone currently in this discussion.Flaming someone is to attack or jump on someone in a forum because of a difference of opinion. I like to ..."
I still need to read all three of those. I should just buy them or at least ILL them.
11811 wrote: "I still need to read all three of those. I should just buy them or at least ILL them. ..."I can't remember if I initially had to ILL these books, but now I own them.
Charlene and Teawench, I just deleted two posts by you two that I'm assuming contained spoilers.
No problem. I think I caught it before too many people saw it. Sorry that Teawench did. Anyone reading this, please be courteous and don't spoil movies or books. It's usually done by accident, still, it hurts, lol.
I'll just have to do my darndest to forget. Vodka should help. :-)
Teawench wrote: "I'll just have to do my darndest to forget. Vodka should help. :-)"Vodka will never fail you.
We could knock you over the head with something. Know what? I've already forgotten. It's good to be old with a poor memory.
Mod
11811, Game of Thrones. I think you hid your spoiler, but I didn't!
lol, I was just exaggerating my short term memory issues. I think your spoiler was actually on the cover of Entertainment Weekly for that shocking episode. I still can't believe they had the balls to do that.
Mod
My bad. I hate when I see spoilers for things I haven't read yet. I guess I just wasn't thinking.
Now I will wait for Jon to come and make a comment. : )
Horror Aficionados
Books mentioned in this topic
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders (other topics)The Summer I Died (other topics)
The Girls He Adored (other topics)
Off Season (other topics)
American Psycho (other topics)
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