Viewing 37 posts - 41 through 77 (of 77 total)
  • What books have turned your stomach?
  • Rich_s
    Full Member

    +345 for American Psycho. Got about 3/4 through and just asked myself “why am I reading this?”

    It’s the only book I’ve ever read I was repulsed by to the point of not finishing.

    I did wonder what the point of it was, so I read a synopsis to save me the effort.

    CountZero
    Full Member

    Surface Detail was probably worse (and it’s such a different book I’ve only just realised it’s the same author!).

    Never read The Wasp Factory, but I have read Surface Detail, and all his other SF books, and I’m struggling to think of anything in that book that might cause that sort of reaction.
    I can imagine JG Ballard’s book ‘Crash’ being a challenging read for some folks, and, while I’ve never got around to reading his book ‘The Atrocity Exhibition’, just the title and knowing what ‘Crash’ is about might prove off-putting to some readers.
    I don’t think I’ve ever read anything bad enough to turn my stomach, though.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    Intrusion by Ken Macleod, has a moment that unsettled me so much that I just put it down and stopped reading it for a couple of weeks. I think partly because usually his novels are a big warm hug, for me, and partly because it’s an absolute masterclass in taking you by surprise, then makes it worse by not actually describing what happens. I reckon he spent years watching his mate Iain Banks being grotesque and went “Nah, watch this”

    Irony- Wasp Factory never bothered me at all, even what happened to eric.

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    Harry_the_Spider
    Full Member

    I gave up on Surface Detail about a third of the way through. Nothing to do with shock value, I just found it boring.

    DezB
    Free Member

    American Psycho. Got about 3/4 through and just asked myself “why am I reading this?”

    It’s the only book I’ve ever read I was repulsed by to the point of not finishing

    Loved American Psycho – as far as I remember, very much a reflection of it’s time. I tried to read another of his – “Glamorama” and ended up throwing it across the room it was so bad.

    Bimbler
    Free Member

    Don’t wish to be seen as an edgelord or anything but American Psycho was funny and too contrived to shock (read it on release, so I’m not thinking about the movie)

    But yeah, The Road, think about on a weekly basis.

    aP
    Free Member

    Most of Stewart Home’s books such as C**t and Slow Death
    Simon Strong’s A259 Multiplex Bomb “Outrage” has some pretty hairy stuff in it.

    finbar
    Free Member

    Bits of Wetlands by Charlotte Roche are quite icky.

    I enjoyed American Psycho a lot. The part where Patrick beats the tramp to death stuck with me the most I think (really powerful in the musical version with Matt Smith from Dr Who too). And for some reason the part where he eats dry oatmeal.

    DezB
    Free Member

    Don’t wish to be seen as an edgelord or anything but American Psycho was funny

    You won’t, it was. 😉

    fingerbang
    Free Member

    The collector

    I’ve not read it but serial killers Leonard lake and Charles Ng loved it so much they killed entire families in homage to it

    fingerbang
    Free Member

    Another vote for blood meridian, imagery of Indians raping dying men who they’d just scalped and vultures pecking at dead children

    gavinpearce
    Free Member

    The tattooist of Auschwitz. Still unbelievable to me that this happened in the lifetime of my parents. Harrowing.

    Stevet1
    Free Member

    If we’re including non-fiction – The Knights of Bushido.
    Amazing what depths a human being is capable of.

    Jakester
    Free Member

    ‘Crash’ by JG Ballard. Was reading a lot of his earlier short stories and post apocalyptic fiction at the time (the Drowned Worlds stuff etc) as a young teen (13, 14 or so) and thought “oh, look, another JG Ballard book”.

    It was quite the eye-opener.

    BadlyWiredDog
    Full Member

    The Bond by Simon McCartney his ordeal climbing in Alaska.

    Yeah, that was quite hard reading. Also another climbing book called Jagged Red Line by Nick Williams. I’m not sure either ‘turned my stomach’ exactly, but there’s a sort of almost unbearable, visceral sadness that’s quite common in mountaineering literature.

    I’ve never really understood the attraction of reading true-life atrocity stuff or the fictional equivalents.

    natrix
    Free Member

    The bit in Aquarium by Victor Suvorov, (the autobiography of a Russian spy) where he describes Oleg Pekovsky being slowly fed feet first into a crematorium furnace. I used to see Suvorov about where I worked and it always made me feel a bit queasy…………….

    BillOddie
    Full Member

    Brexit: What The Hell Happens Now? by Ian Dunt

    Every awful thing outlined as a “might happen” has actually happened…

    sarawak
    Free Member

    The bit in Aquarium by Victor Suvorov, (the autobiography of a Russian spy) where he describes Oleg Pekovsky being slowly fed feet first into a crematorium furnace. I used to see Suvorov about where I worked and it always made me feel a bit queasy…………….

    Can’t remember the book but I read about Chang Kai Shek feeding his “victims” into the furnaces of steam engines. Once they heard a loud crack they knew the heads had exploded. Gruesome.

    Penkovsky’s fate was apparently filmed and the film was shown to KGB recruits as a warning…

    StuF
    Full Member

    Urban Grimshaw was pretty tough reading when you realise it’s a true story, not so much from a gore pov but the lack of hope for these kids.

    And the description of one scene in one of the Hannibal Lector books where a guy got thrown out of a building window was pretty grim.

    martinhutch
    Full Member

    Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

    and

    el_boufador
    Full Member

    The road for me, too. It’s excellent though.

    loughor
    Free Member

    @badlywireddog .. oh thanks I’ll look for the Williams book ! Simon is the most mild-mannered 60 something you’re ever likely to meet

    thehustler
    Free Member

    Sean Hutson the Assassin…..page 147 in particular

    failedengineer
    Full Member

    Just remembered another – Atrocity Week. About rich westerners hunting tribesmen in Southern Africa from helicopters.

    rossburton
    Free Member

    I skipped about four pages of American Psycho, I think it was the part with the drill. But it was a bit forced: The Wasp Factory was more mentally troubling.

    toby1
    Full Member

    +1’s for Maribou stork nightmares and Haunted (I gave up after the pool story, too much!)

    No mention of Filth? After that I decided I wasn’t going to read any more of IW’s books, it was grim!

    senorj
    Full Member

    Bury my heart at wounded knee +1000
    It was the first book that politicised me. My dad didn’t want me to read it when I first found it in his collection, I snuck it out at 14. Bastds.
    Due a re read tbh.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Couple of the Jo Nesbo novels have thrilled/freaked med out in equal measures. Snowman and another one where a metal star was found in the throats of victims.

    Spoiler:
    , but it’s all in the first few pages
    Leopold’s apple, and it’s in the mouth (well, in the head really, not much of a spoiler given the opening chapter).

    He does come up with some imaginative ways to kill people, but I don’t remember finding them particularly hard to read. I seem to remember he write’s like a 15 certificate film, there’s all the build up but cut’s to another shot just as it get’s horrific and leaves it to your imagination.

    e.g. the first chapter of leopolds apple, you don’t know what’s going on, just like the victim. It’s not even massively scary, just the feeling of being trapped. Then it happens, and there’s just a bit of confusion, no sense of pain etc. It’s not until a few chapters later that you find out how she died.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Ohhhh, spoiler and /spoiler in square brackets works in the new forum!

    All that’s in the first few pages so not really a spoiler though.

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Never let me go.

    johndoh
    Free Member

    Re-reading Birdsong at the moment and some parts of that turn my stomach (mainly because they are based broadly around things that actually happened*).

    *And I don’t mean the saucy bits with Isabelle in France before the war, I mean the descriptions of men slowly dying after gas attacks etc in the trenches.

    DezB
    Free Member

    No mention of Filth?

    Another very funny book.

    Houns
    Full Member

    I’ve only read the Fred West wiki page, that was more than enough for me 😣

    bungle
    Full Member

    High Life: Matthew Stokoe

    “Soaked in such graphic detail that the pages smell, Matthew Stokoe’s High Life is the sickest revision of the California crime novel, ever”

    I like a bit of noir but..

    funkmasterp
    Full Member

    This is a great ‘books to avoid’ thread. Probably get flamed by some but J G Ballard books I’ve attempted have all been very boring. I like the ideas, but the execution is lacking. J G Dullard. I agree with The Road, a very well written novel that stays with you long after reading.

    sarawak
    Free Member

    I’ve only read the Fred West wiki page, that was more than enough for me 😣

    Programme about Fred Westabout to start on ITV.

    CountZero
    Full Member

    I think the only book that I’ve found challenging is ‘A Feast Unknown’, by Philip Jose Farmer; while it didn’t actually revolt me, it gets pretty nasty in places.

Viewing 37 posts - 41 through 77 (of 77 total)

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