# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![Hamadryad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6de8d8/32.png) [@Hamadryad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamadryad)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2001, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/61 "2001-04-26T16:15:22Z")
[blatant hijack] Ukelele Ike, I apologize. I plead long and faithful service, youth and inexperience, and a complete lack of coffee this morning. (And I would have taken this to email, but he doesn’t have it displayed.) [/blatant hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2001, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/62 "2001-04-26T19:00:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RM Mentock \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Roachman \* > > **The Godfather: What the hell, he’s screwing the bride !** > > OK, it has been awhile since I read the book, and Godfather I and Godfather II both came from parts of the original book, but remind me–which part is this? \*\* I suspect the reference is to one of the opening scenes of the book (and the first movie), the big wedding of the Corleone sister. After the wedding, when the guests are enjoying the food and entertainment, Sonny Corleone slips upstairs and is shagging the bridesmaid Lucy. ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2001, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/63 "2001-04-26T20:28:47Z")
Another vote for _Bridge to Terabithia_. Some friends and I were discussing a similar point - What was the first book you remember reading in which one of the main characters died? Everyone was settling on _Lord of the Flies_, which I hadn’t read because I was in another school district that year. So I mentioned Terabithia, and my friend Lisa looked at me wide-eyed and said “Oh, my god…I completely forgot about that one. Wow. I cried for two days.” Some other disturbances: Since we’re on a Bradbury kick, howzabout his short story “The Veldt”? The virtual reality system that comes to life? Here’s one that I doubt anyone will have read - my rather eccentric 10th-grade English teacher assigned it: _The Execution of Mayor Yin, and Other Stories from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution_. It’s still [available](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0253202310/qid%3D988316390/107-4750188-7347731), I’m happy to see. IIRC, the author (Chen Jo-Hsi) had emigrated from China, but actually _returned to the mainland_ during the Cultural Revoluiton in a fit of patriotic fervor. In '75 or '76 she narrowly escaped to HK, and from there went to Canada. Her stories are an odd mixture of grotesque, horrifying, and occasionally funny. One, “Chairman Mao Is A Rotten Egg,” details the inquisition that results when a four-year-old boy yells the title phrase in school. Another, whose title I forget, portrays a neighborhood rumored to be on the motorcade route for Nixon’s visit. The authorities forbid the neighborhood from hanging their wash, since that might give Nixon the (correct) impression that Chinese people were too poor to have clothes dryers. ---
**Author:** ![Falcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/49beb7/32.png) [@Falcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falcon)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2001, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/64 "2001-04-26T20:32:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jayjay \* > \*\*A massively disturbing Bradbury story is “The October Game”. It’s online at [this site](http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/INOFANT/BRADBURY/october.txt). I have to warn you, it’s not truly gory or explicit, but it’s very disturbing. > > jayjay \*\* GAH! Okay, I’m going to be creeped out for the next half hour…thanks a LOT, jayjay! ---
**Author:** ![Yumanite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b487fb/32.png) [@Yumanite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumanite)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2001, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/65 "2001-04-26T21:04:41Z")
I just remembered – I was pretty disturbed when I read Robinson Jeffer’s “The Roan Stallion”. It’s a long poem about a woman who sort of falls in love with a horse – I haven’t read it in a long time, even though I really love Jeffers. It’s probably time to reread it. ---
**Author:** ![Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2001, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/66 "2001-04-26T21:09:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by xtnjohnson \* > \*\* > Her stories are an odd mixture of grotesque, horrifying, and occasionally funny. One, “Chairman Mao Is A Rotten Egg,” details the inquisition that results when a four-year-old boy yells the title phrase in school. > \*\* Crikey- I’m glad I found out about this book now rather than when I was six… BTW, let me rehash an old “ID this book” thread: When I was about 10-12 or so (1980) I got a book of horror stories for children. This was a collection, not an anthology (IIRC,) although I think it was one of those children’s books where the author isn’t actually named. I found it to be enormously disturbing. Some of the stories: - a patchwork monkey comes to life, and anyone injured by it slowly turns into a patchwork monkey - a boy meets an old man in his neighborhood who owns a box containing a cockatrice, which they unleash. (Yeah, THAT was a good idea…) - a guy invents a machine that gives you the ability to fly, and he and his son or nephew go flying around in the clouds at night, only to find a floating squid monster that lives in the clouds - a girl opens her neighbor’s mail and finds a tiny, embryonic creature which she throws away in disgust. Light makes the creature grow larger, so it ends up chasing her around the house getting bigger and bigger. - I also have vague memories of a picture of a big Bush-baby like creature with huge eyes, but I don’t remember the story associated with it. This book really, really scared me as a child, and I’d like to try to find it again, but I can’t remember the title to save my life. Has anyone heard of it? -Ben ---
**Author:** ![blanx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f04885/32.png) [@blanx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blanx)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2001, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/67 "2001-04-26T21:13:01Z")
another vote for All Summer in a Day here… I remember reading it on a gloomy February day in Michigan, just before we had the “draw the sun from memory” contest in my elementary school, and having a momentary thought of “what happens if the sun never comes back?” ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2001, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/68 "2001-04-26T21:59:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Falcon \* > \*\* > GAH! Okay, I’m going to be creeped out for the next half hour…thanks a LOT, jayjay! \*\* I warned you… I have to admit that I’ve read that story **once**. I have never more than glanced at the pages/websites since. Even when I went to find the URL, I no more than read the first paragraph to validate that it was, in fact, the correct story. This story is… _shudder_ jayjay ---
**Author:** ![Fionn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2001, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/69 "2001-04-26T22:15:53Z")
I got the three volumes of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series in elementary school. I’m really glad-they were a good introduction to folktales and urban legends. The only story that really scared me was a generic vampire-creeps-through-the-window with frightening illustrations. The illustrations are positively disturbing. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2001, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/70 "2001-04-26T22:38:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jayjay \* > \*\*A massively disturbing Bradbury story is “The October Game”. It’s online at [this site](http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/INOFANT/BRADBURY/october.txt). I have to warn you, it’s not truly gory or explicit, but it’s very disturbing. > > jayjay \*\* Eeewwwwww…thanks for the link, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2001, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/71 "2001-04-26T22:44:20Z")
Two things spring to mind: **Domain** by James Herbert. Better-than-usual-quality shlock horror; modern day London gets destroyed in a surprise nuclear attack, and the few survivors find that the local rat population has some nasty human-flesh-eating ideas. The multiple PoV storytelling is very disturbing, since you know that half of the people are going to end up (with their families) as so much irradiated rat meat. **Pig’s Dinner** was a short story by another shlock horror writer, Graham Masterton (generally a clinically revolting writer!), from a collection called **Flights of Fear**. It’s about a farm worker who witnesses a friend accidentally chewed up by some kind of immense farm machinery (a grinder/slicer/dicer animal feed funnel kind of thing). The friend, as he’s slowly chopped up, claims to feel no pain. Later, the narrator is attacked by one of the boars he tends, and is horrifically wounded. Rather than live the rest of his life without a leg and genitals, he decides to take the painless way out his friend recommended – but discovers that the grinder is not nearly as pleasant (or quick) an experience as he’d been led to believe. Utterly repellent. ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2001, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/72 "2001-04-26T22:51:54Z")
I remember “The October Game” – I had a choral director who read it to us in class every year on Halloween. Of course, it’s not all that effective when you know the ending, and those of us who were four-year choir students (like me) ended up hearing it several times. (As a side note, I was in _The Sound of Music_ my junior year of high school, and aforementioned choral director was (of course) always the music director for the spring musical. At the end of the first number [first in the stage version, anyway], when all the nuns are supposed to call out “Maria! Where’s Maria?” and so forth, he once cracked everyone up at one rehearsal by ominiously intoning the final line of “The October Game.” :D) Anyway… Not a freak-out, exactly, but I had _Dandelion Wine_ inflicted on me in sixth grade. Soured me on Bradbury for good (though I’ll admit to enjoying _The Martian Chronicles_). (Of course, Bradbury is probably responsible for all sorts of trauma. I also remember being freaked out by “The Veldt,” and that one story in _The Martian Chronicles_ about the automatic house still gives me the willies.) I remember being quite depressed by _My Brother Sam is Dead_ – can’t remember the author’s name. Sure, we saw it coming, but still… I was also freaked out by Asimov’s rather obscure short story “Rain, Rain, Go Away” (it’s in _Buy Jupiter_). I’ll blow the ending because really, it’s not all that good a story: the Sakkaro family moves in next door to our protagonists, and they seem to be a perfectly normal family, except that they’re afraid of water. Protagonists find out why when they get caught in the rain after an outing at an amusement park – they’re made of sugar. The image of melting people (outside of the Wicked Witch of the West, I guess) really disturbed me, though (unlike a lot of this stuff) I don’t get creeped out thinking about it anymore. **Medievalist2** – I also hated junior high English but went on to major in it…in fact, I’ll be studying it in grad school next year. And I too had to suffer through “The Pearl” in seventh grade. Also, I must second the recommendation of _A Canticle for Leibowitz_ – one of my favorites. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Creaky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e68b1a/32.png) [@Creaky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Creaky)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2001, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/73 "2001-04-27T04:24:09Z")
When I was nine, I read a fictional children’s book about a young Confederate soldier’s adventures during the War Between the States called (appropriately) _Johnny Reb_, by Merritt Parmalee Allen. There was a spectacularly gory bit depicting the goings-on in a field hospital after a battle. Piles of fly-blown, freshly-amputated limbs figured largely in that chapter. I was also, however, fascinated. Didn’t stop me from finishing the book, but I had to take time out to go throw up. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2001, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/74 "2001-04-27T04:43:15Z")
Hey Pepper! A book of some of the most horrifying H.P. Lovecraft stories, given to me when I was in 4th grade. Think about it - a 4th grader reading _The Haunter of the Dark_ and _The Shadow Over Innsmouth_. :eek: Oh yes - _The House on the Borderland_ by William Hope Hodgson. Another book guaranteed to make a 4th-grader wake up at night screaming, because the pig-monsters are coming up through the basement… (shudder) ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2001, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/75 "2001-04-27T05:12:51Z")
> [@](#): > > Hi Pepper! Ahh!!! SHE LIVES!!! 😛 I have to agree about “Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark”. One story in particular gave me the creeps. It was about the guy who was dragged by something until his he burned up, and then later the protagonist goes back to that place where the other guy got dragged away. And the protagonist sees the guy, only it’s _a pile of ashes!_ Yeah, yeah, I know. Not very scary, but I was in 2nd grade at the time. Anyway, I came across that book in BestBuy a few months ago, and I had to buy it, just for old times sake. The stories are silly, but the pictures are still very disturbing I’ve read a lot of the stories and books mentioned in this thread, many before I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and none of them really bothered me at all. Weird… ---
**Author:** ![dzray](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@dzray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzray)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2001, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/76 "2001-04-27T15:46:18Z")
> [@](#): > > When I was about 10-12 or so (1980) I got a book of horror stories for children. This was a collection, not an anthology (IIRC,) although I think it was one of those children’s books where the author isn’t actually named. I found it to be enormously disturbing. “Baleful Beasts and Eerie Creatures” by Andre Norton. This one scared me so bad as a young lad that I threw the book away! I found it again a few years ago at my local library, and it still packs quite a punch even for an adult reader. The “patchwork monkey” story has a killer ending. ---
**Author:** ![shell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/46a35a/32.png) [@shell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shell)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2001, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/77 "2001-04-27T16:33:10Z")
When I was about nine I read a (long) short story called _The Willows_… nothing like being in broad daylight with several people nearby and **still** having the liver scared out of me. Around the same time I managed to get my hands on _Medea_ and a couple of books featuring the work of Frieda Khalo and H. Bosch, both of which I suspect of not only scarring me for life but also seriously twisting my appreciation for art. Around the age of 12 I started reading a lot of non-fiction and science fiction. To this day I still can’t finish _Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee_, way too disturbing. John Brunner’s _The Sheep Look Up_, _Stand On Zanzibar_, and _The Shockwave Rider_ managed to insidiously weird me out. ---
**Author:** ![PublicBlast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/779978/32.png) [@PublicBlast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PublicBlast)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2001, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/78 "2001-04-27T16:36:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ballybay \* > \*\*I got the three volumes of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series in elementary school. [snip] The illustrations are positively disturbing. > \*\* Aiiiiiiiiieeeeeee–you had to go and remind me. The stories ranged from vaguely creepy to silly, but the **pictures** in those books. They still give me the shivers. Remember the story “The Thing”? Dumb story–but the corpse-like charcoal sketch that went with it…eeeugh. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2001, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/79 "2001-04-27T17:31:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by AkashJ \* > **but the pictures in those books** Yeah, by Stephen Gammell. He’s great. If you want to see him doing something less grisly, try Cynthia Rylant’s THE RELATIVES CAME, a Caldecott Honor book from 1985. Charming. ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2001, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184/80 "2001-04-27T17:36:54Z")
The two books that got to me when I was younger were _The Ox Bow Incident_by Walter Van Tilburg Clark and _Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge_ by Ambrose Bierce. Don’t know exactly why, they were just depressing I suppose. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-when-you-were-young-that-absolutely-shocked-disturbed-you/63184.md?page=5)