# Books you read when you were young that absolutely shocked/disturbed you **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 24, 2001, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184 "2001-04-24T20:35:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2001, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/201 "2001-09-02T14:52:18Z")
This looks like an excellent candidate for our new forum, _Cafe Society_. See you there! ---
**Author:** ![That\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@That\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Girl)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/202 "2001-09-05T03:09:00Z")
I was pretty upset after reading a book called “You Are All Sanpaku”, which means in Japanese that you have whites showing below your irises. He made out like it was a sign of major illness, and recommended massive changes in your diet, like eating nearly all brown rice for a few months. When I discussed it with someone, though, they quickly pointed out that he was describing Western eyes as sicklier than Japanese because they were more open. So basically, he was just using racial stereotyping. ---
**Author:** ![Tenebras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@Tenebras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenebras)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2001, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/203 "2001-09-06T22:05:44Z")
Haven’t seen this one up yet, but _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ by Robert Heinlein. I used to read a lot of science fiction when I was a kid, and Heinlein is king. Also the two short stories The Man Who Sold the Moon and Requiem. And isn’t Requiem a cool word? Ben ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2001, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/204 "2001-09-07T02:57:39Z")
Along the same lines as _The Exorcist_ and other such scary stuff is _The Other_, a very strange book with a surprise ending. But the ones that disturbed me the most were about war, because unlike the horror stuff, this can and has happened to millions and millions. **Hiroshima** was right up there, but the most disturbing to me was **All Quiet on the Western Front** which, for those who haven’t read it yet, is a German soldier’s story of World War One. Mind bending. You get done with it and you get sick at the mere mention of the word war. The other thing is: was Hitler really in the same war and of the same blood as the author of this novel, Erich Maria Remarque? Doesn’t seem possible. ---
**Author:** ![DarkPrince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce73a5/32.png) [@DarkPrince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarkPrince)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2001, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/205 "2001-09-07T05:51:29Z")
I remember reading a bunch of John Bellairs(sp?) books sometime during elementry school. I forget the name of the book, but I couldn’t sleep for days after reading this part where this monster/thing in a hooded robe with tentacles instead of arms grabs a dog and sucks all the meat and flesh from its head. You never really find out how, it just put the dogs head up under its hood… brrrrrrr… ---
**Author:** ![John487](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@John487](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John487)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2001, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/206 "2001-09-09T08:56:52Z")
one book that grosses me out until this day is the “book of morman.” what a world-class piece-of-trash that is. ---
**Author:** ![TroubleAgain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2001, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/207 "2001-09-09T18:13:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by invisibleOLDlady \* > \*\*The first Stephen King book I ever read was given to me then by my mom just to shut me up. “The Dead Zone”. He’s been my favorite author ever since. \*\* I am not a huge King fan, but that’s my favorite book of his. However, I was \*horribly[/] disturbed by the scene where the guy kicks the dog to death. I still can’t read that part and will skip over it every time I re-read the story. I can’t stand stories of cruelty to animals (somehow, I have no problem reading serial killer novels, etc…?) I was very disturbed as a child by MOST of the Bradbury I read, and I HATED the fact that The Lottery was set on my birthday! :eek: I’d have to second many of the stories I’ve seen here. ---
**Author:** ![TroubleAgain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2001, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/208 "2001-09-09T18:27:27Z")
(\*&^%())\_&% coding error! Shows how disturbed I am thinking about all these stories! ---
**Author:** ![Waldo666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Waldo666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waldo666)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2002, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/209 "2002-03-28T23:35:31Z")
Anyone ever seen “Requiem for a Dream?” I know it’s a movie, but it’s also a book and the two are exactly the same. Anyway, it is about four people: A guy named Harry in his early 20s, his best friend Tyrone, his girlfriend Marion, and his mom Sara. Harry and his best friend are drug dealers. In the end, Harry gets his arm amputated because it was terribly infected from his heroin needle, his girlfriend is emotionally scarred because she performed in a violent sex show for more crack, Tyrone gets beat up in jail because he’s black, Sara gets a closed skull labotomy. There are no heroes or “good guys” in this movie. It sucked. I don’t know how people like my mom or my brother can sit around and watch something like that. Now my brother is in some kind of cult where he and his friends just sit around and watch Requiem for a Dream with the door closed and the lights off. I also think that he’s addicted to heroin.:mad: ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/210 "2002-03-29T00:04:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Corrado \* > \*\*This’ll mark me as a wuss (and a slow reader in comparison, I’m sure), but: > > When I was in third grade, I ordered a book of horror stories from the Scholastic Reader (or whatever that little pamphlet was that got passed out with a good two dozen books you could order through the schools). > > In retrospect, it wasn’t a very _good_ book; upon reading it again years later, I recognized most of the stories as old urban legends and tales oft-told (The Hook, The Girl Who Had Spiders in Her Hair-Do, The Ghost Hitch-hiker, etc.). > > But at the time, the first story of the anthology scared the wildest beejezus out of me. I still remember the ending lines: “Her sister came back into bed, and in relief, she reached up and felt the fur collar that her sister always wore… and then felt the bloody stump of her neck where her head used to be.” Yep, pathetic, overwrought, and kept me awake in absolute, stark terror for the next three nights. It was _years_ before I worked up the nerve to read any of the other stories in that book. \*\* I used to have that book. _Tales for the Midnight Hour_ by J.B. Stamper. The one that bothered me the most was the story about the woman whose who had a black dog that died on the same day as her husband. She had the dog stuffed and once a year she would take the dog to her husband’s grave on the anniversary of their deaths “so they could all be together again.” One year she has her grandson come over to help her carry the dog since she’s not able to pick it up anymore. The grandson hates the dog and at one point tries to burn it with a match. The next day he’s found dead in the exact same way as the grandfather years before and the dog had bloody saliva on its mouth. When I read that, my sister had a black dog. I never liked that dog so you can imagine how scared I was of it after that story entered my head. ---
**Author:** ![Joesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a5b964/32.png) [@Joesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joesus)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/211 "2002-03-29T01:34:23Z")
I am unsure if I missed it (after first two pages I just skimmed for titles) but I would like to Nominate _A Farewell To Arms_ by Hemmingway. Definately depressed the hell out of me when i read it ---
**Author:** ![Daoloth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@Daoloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daoloth)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/212 "2002-03-29T02:24:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by rastahomie \* > \*\*I read _The Catcher in the Rye_ my junior year in high school. I got physically ill at one point, because I so identified with the main character. It was the scene where Holden was remembering playing checkers with a (female) friend of his, and it comes out that she was being molested by her stepfather. It turned my stomach, in part because I knew a couple of girls who were going through the same thing. > > In 7th grade we read _Flowers for Algernon_, and I was brought to tears. > > I’m also reading a disturbing book right now. _She Said YES: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall_. It’s teaching me how **wildly** out of touch I am with today’s teens; and I was a teen just a 15 years ago :eek:. Ugh. And the youth minister asked **me** to help out with the youth group at our church. Double ugh. \*\* Just FYI, the Cassie Bernall story is largely fiction. According to witnesses of her murder, she never mentioned anything about face, and neither did her killer. Her killer (can’t recall which one killed her) simply said “Peekabo” and then shot her before she could respond. However, Eric Harris did ask a girl named Valeen Schnurr if she believed in God, and she said yes. He then asked “why?” and procedeed to shoot her. She survived. \ Right now I can’t think of any books that disturbed me, but I’m sure there was one. ---
**Author:** ![MickNickMaggies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/59ef9b/32.png) [@MickNickMaggies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MickNickMaggies)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/213 "2002-03-29T06:44:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TroubleAgain \* > \*\* I was very disturbed as a child by MOST of the Bradbury I read, and I HATED the fact that The Lottery was set on my birthday! :eek: I’d have to second many of the stories I’ve seen here. \*\* Shirley Jackson was asked to change the date- when the story was accepted, the only thing the magazine asked of her was to change the date to the date of the issue itself. She had no problem, so it was changed. There’s a delightful little essay about this and all the hate mail she recieved in a fiction anthology edited by (the late) Charles Boehner. Other than that, my disturbing book was Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I picked that one early. And I still can’t get the “Hellfire” sermon out of my mind when I go to sleep at night. Cyn ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/214 "2002-03-29T07:10:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ukulele Ike \* > \*\*_The Stepford Wives_ was nonfiction? > > Hot DAMN! Sign ME up for one of them robots! \*\* Just be aware that breaking the seal will void your warranty. (I’ve waited several years to use that joke.) ---
**Author:** ![luckyloo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@luckyloo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/luckyloo)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/215 "2002-03-29T12:00:29Z")
I read Bio of a Space Tyrant part 1 by Piers Anthony. I’d read most of his Xanth and Blue Adept series so I wasn’t prepared for this really depressing story. To make it worse, I read it in one sitting. An all nighter at 12 or 13, I think. IIRC, the basic story is about a space ship full of desperate immigrant types. Pirates attack. They kill the men and rape the women. Pirates attack again. They kill the women and rape the children. The main character is forced to cut open his dead girlfriend by the pirates to look for some message hidden inside her. Children set up defenses and enjoy watching animal porn that they find on the ship. Pirates attack again. Kill most of the children. Main character finds sanctuary on a planet. He discovers that the first planet they stopped at would have welcomed them since the immigrants were all bi-lingual (spanish/english). The immigrants just didn’t consider their ability to speak Spanish as a “skill” when they were asked whether or not they had any usefull skills. There’s a lot more that I’ve since forgot (blocked out is more like it ;)), but most of it is just as depressing. Needless to say… I didn’t read any of the rest of the series. I did screw up and read the entire works (at that time) of Clive Barker two summers later. :eek: :eek: :eek: Don’t be fooled boys and girls… Steven King is a boyscout. ---
**Author:** ![booklover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@booklover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booklover)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/216 "2002-03-29T18:36:06Z")
I actually love Bradbury’s slightly disturbing sense of humor, so it’s interesting to see how many people he creeps out! One of my worst has to be **Sounder** , which my second grade teacher read aloud to the class—the graphic description of the dog’s ghost coming back with its face half blown off by the shotgun blast, ohmygod, that gave me nightmares. I also was grossed out by **The Chocolate War** , mainly because of all the throwing-up that goes on in the book (hey, I was nine). Three nameless books that will stick with me forever: -the gory mystery I read that involves Druids/necrophilia where this dead naked woman creeps into bed with this teenage boy -a novel about children surviving nuclear holocaust, complete with graphic descriptions of radiation-induced illnesses -ghost story book about guys living in a house where a man murdered his wife. They know the wife’s ghost is around because she was diabetic and the insulin left over in the fridge is being gradually used up. As an adult, **Pet Sematary** totally creeped me out. ---
**Author:** ![Judith\_Prietht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b19c9b/32.png) [@Judith\_Prietht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Judith_Prietht)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/217 "2002-03-29T18:56:40Z")
God, this very thread has creeped me out. There’s been ample mention of **Where the Red Fern Grows** , but it deserves another. I think, like others, it was required reading. I sobbed for hours after reading it, the kind of crying where you can’t barely breathe and keep gulping for air but it just makes the crying hurt even more. My mom asked me what was wrong and I remember being slumped by the side of the bathroom incoherently babbling, “and . . . then . . . the dog . . . is sad . . .” Utterly devastating. And then there was a Wilbur Smith book one of my parents was reading where a guy stepped on a puppy to torture someone else. ☹ **Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark** was the shizznat. I still love it. I had a creepy book called **Always Room For One More** that had something to do with an elevator that crashed and killed everyone on it. There was also the coat hanger abortion scene in Sidney Sheldon’s **The Other Side of Midnight**. Lois Duncan’s young adult series were sometimes a little too adult for me: **Down a Dark Hall** , **I Know What You Did Last Summer** , and **Killing Mr. Griffin** were scaaaary. There was also a really young kids’ book called **The Tailypo** about some guy who cuts the creature’s tail off and maybe eats it and then the Tailypo comes looking for its tail, wandering around the cabin saying "Tailypooo . . . Tailypooo . . . I want my Tailypoooo . . . " I loved it, Mom borrowed it, and to this day I can hear her voice doing the Tailypo’s voice (shudder). I’ll also never forget the oft-neglected Judy Blume book **Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself** as one of my first exposures to the Nazis and the Holocaust. When Sally has all her little play-fantasies about being back in those days, and she mentions the lampshades in the room, uuuuugggghh. ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/218 "2002-03-29T19:44:04Z")
Another vote here for George Orwell’s 1949 novel _ **1984** _. I read it in about 1959 when I was 17. The whole bleak picture stayed with me for a long time, but the book within the book that described how it all came to be was fascinating. The most disturbing things in it for me were the rat scene, and the last four words of the book. The rat scene disturbed me, not so much for the horror of rats gnawing on someone’s face, but the ultimate betrayal when Winston screams, "Do it to _her!_ I tried to tell myself that no horror would be so great as to make me betray someone I loved, but the thought that I might be weak enough to do that really bothered me. Then ending the book with “He loved Big Brother,” left me feeling utterly helpless. Even someone with the courage of Winston Smith could be beaten. Another thing that disturbed me was a short story called _ **The Lottery** _. Some person was selected by lottery to be stoned to death by the whole village. It seemed so senseless, which is why it was so horrible. I don’t remember the name of the author. Anybody? Short stories by Poe, like _ **The Telltale Heart** _ and _ **The Pit and the Pendulum** _ were disturbing, too, but I read them at a fairly young age. “Hello, I must be going.” --Groucho Marx ---
**Author:** ![RiverRunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/977dab/32.png) [@RiverRunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RiverRunner)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/219 "2002-03-29T19:48:47Z")
_Books already mentioned:_ **The Cask of Amontillado** – _For the love of God, Montresor. For the love of God!_ Yow! **’Salem’s Lot** – The child vampires. **the Bradbury story about Venus** – I thought I was the only one in the _world_ who remembered that story! **Flowers for Algernon** – Facing the disintegration of intellect – like perhaps with Alzheimer’s or something – has always been my greatest fear. That story tore me apart. **1984** – Rats on face. 'Nuff said. **The Birds** – One of the few movies ever to give me the willies. **Psycho** was another. **The Monkey’s Paw** – Yow, again. **Of Mice & Men** – My seventh grade Social Studies teacher actually read this aloud to us at the end of class every day, unless someone did something bad enough for him to punish us by skipping it that day. (You didn’t want to be the one to make him do that.) He edited the language, of course, but that didn’t make the ending any easier to take. We were stunned. It was probably one of the best experiences I had in school, though. And I _liked_ school. **The Steadfast Tin Soldier** – Sob! even now. **The Lottery** – complete willies **The Hot Zone** – read as a grown-up. Very frightening. **"It" from some Hitchcock book** – There was only part of this book still whole when I started reading it, but this story was in it. I think “it” accreted around a skeletong and came to life in a swamp or something. And, am I the only one who freaked on the tale about the little goblins in the forest who stared at the light? You know, where the woodsman took them home and then later took them back out into the woods at night . . . “the heebiest of all possible jeebies.” – Legomancer, that was a most excellent phrase. RR ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/220 "2002-03-29T19:53:50Z")
Oops! _ **The Lottery** _ is by Shirley Jackson. That’s what I get for not reading the entire thread before I posted. I got thru about page 3. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184.md?page=12)