I remember literally threatening my high school English teacher if she EVER assigned me another John Steinbeck book! Twenty years later I still can’t read his books. Joyce Carol Oates is another one I can’t read. She just drains me with her hopelessness. I think I read The Shining to late: I thought it was stupid and boring. And twisted little s**t that I am/was I ENJOYED Sybil! Went around pretending to have mulitiple personalities for years…
The one that threw me for a loop recently was The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh… I totally didn’t see the suicide or the shooting coming…
I had a similar experience with Watership Down.
Aaaaaaagh.
When I was 7 or 8 I read this story (I believe it was a novel, but not sure) about this rat who was owned by a sadistic teenage boy who tortured various animals in unusual ways. It was told from the rat’s point of view, he was the only animal the boy didn’t kill. I remember a part where it describes the boy taping the paws of several young kittens to a cookie sheet and baking them alive in the oven to see which lived longer. The rat was a bit deranged too, he talked about how the boy every now and then put a female rat in his cage and he knew the boy wanted them to mate, but the narrator rat would always kill and eat the female rat instead. I’d like to know the name of this book if anyone remembers it, but I haven’t had any luck and I have asked around a lot. There is a somewhat similar book that people occasionally think is it, but it’s not, it’s about lab animals and is more surreal. Anyway, it freaked me out a bit.
I also read a comic book when I was really little where there is a plague from outer space that is killing of humanity. When people got infected they would quickly grow this purple stuff over their body and then crumble away. There was this beautiful and brilliant female scientist who was trying to find a cure but she had no luck. She says something about how she would sell her soul for a cure, and the Devil shows up to take her up on the offer, but there was a catch, he would give her the cure but then IMMEDIATELY take her to Hell, so she wouldn’t be able to implement the cure. She tells him to come back later and she would take him up on the offer. The Devil comes back, gives her the cure and then tells her she’s gotta come with him now. The scientist then reveals she has a clone, who I guess overheard the cure too (I can’t remember all the details, it doesn’t make much sense now) and the Devil can take one of them, but not both, and one of them will use the cure to get rid of the plague. Anyway, after reading that I had nightmares about catching that plague and watching my arm turn into freaky bubbly gunk and then crumbling away, and I was also EXTREMELY afraid that I would accidentally make a deal with the Devil, thinking that even if I thought the words to the agreement he could take me.
If anyone wants a good read, please pick up “The Deathbird Stories” by Harlan Ellison. The man is a true master. You’ve got to respect a book that tells you not to read it alone. Any other favorites???
My father taught me to read at a very early age. I took to it like a duck takes to water. He never discouraged me from reading anything; at most, he would simply ask, “Are you sure? That might be a little advanced for you?” And of course, I then absolutely had to read whatever it was.
He just smiled when I picked up The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James at about age 5. I had the shakes and the drizzling shits for a week, but I read that book from cover to cover. There was one story (I can’t remember the title) about a guy who comes to stay in a castle, goes down to the library and sits down reading a book. The dog comes in and lies down next to his chair and he absentmindly dangles one hand over and starts petting the dog for a while until it gets up and leaves. He then finds out that the castle doesn’t have a dog - something keeps killing them…Aaarrgghhh…still gives me the shivers.
And let’s not forget the absolute best horror short story in the English language, The Monkey’s Paw. That one really sent me to bed in a cold sweat.
Ones I remember were actually kids (or young adults) books:
A Wind in the Door - Madeleine L’Engle. I loved ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ and it was very creepy, but the scene in AWITD with the fake Mr. Jenkins turning into an Echtroi and screaming into some tear in the sky gave me the heebiest of all possible jeebies.
Just a Dog - author unknown. The adventures of a dog, and it was pleasant enough, but eventually got into some incredibly sad and awful parts with terrible owners and the threat of euthanasia. Pretty unsettling for a kid.
Wuss time - there is a young child’s book (perhaps by Dr. Suess?) about a green pair of pants that could walk on its own. Although I only vaguely remember it, my mother used to tell me that it absolutely terrified me. I’m guessing that I must have been 3 or 4.
I can’t believe that nobody else has mentioned “The Child Buyer” by Hersey! Come ON now! It didn’t scare me like a horror book, but it was very disturbing for a geek.
OH GOD YES! I had that book and it did creep me the hell out. As did a Dr. Seuss book no one but me has ever heard of, “I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew”.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Legomancer *
**
Were they never had troubles, at least very few…
Do know that one, but it did not scare me.
I agree with a few books already mentioned…1984 and definetely every book written by Robert Cormier. They used to terrify me, but somehow I would always take the next one out the library as well. Apart from being frightening they were also very good.
One I read as a child, I forgot the title, but I think it was written by Robert Swindells. It was classified for the 14-16 age group, I was about 12. It was about a post-nuclear world kind of story. Basically a group of survivors are trying to hold onto at least a semblance of civilisation. Their hopes are re-kindled by one of the women getting pregnant. Then the brother of the main character who is a little kid says " look at this butterfly". Do to nuclear fall out it has three wings…,No need to even describe what happened to the baby of the pregnant woman. I will never forget that very ominous butterfly.
One I read more recently and managed to thouroughly rattle me is “Blindness” by Portugese writer Saramago. Recommended, but utterly grim.
I was freaked out by 'Salem’s Lot–the description of how the vampires would scratch on the window to be let in really really stuck with me. Ugh.
Three books that come to mind are the Bible, particularly the more gruesome tales in the Old Testament, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Of Mice and Men.
Here’s another particularly grim one that’s tough to forget, and was especially disturbing during the more fractious times of the Cold War:
Level 7 by Mordecai Lee.
Level 7 is, of course, the deepest of the various subrterranean shelters to protect an unidentified nation’s populace from the nuclear inferno. It is reserved for the offensive arm of the nation’s military. So early in the book, you have the humbling pleasure of realizing where in the hierarchy you will fall, and what type of shelter you get. Ouch.
Then, Not only do you get to enjoy accompanying the narrator during the final fatal nuclear showdown (and he is even the one that gets to PUSH The Button), but you also tag along while he enters a dysfunctional relationship, has a nervous breakdown, and THEN, just for laughs, follow along on the radio as the upper levels, one by one, die off. From lack of food, lack of oxygen, radiation, or just terminal heebie-jeebies? The Narrator DOESN"T EVEN CARE!
Finally, follow along as the Narrator makes his last, incoherent journal entries, misspellings and all. Then…silence.
Tough medicine, even for the incurably pessimistic.
Wow - Solla Sollew. I’d forgotten. “Now my troubles are going to have trouble with me!” Kinda dark for a 4 year old. And I too was freaked out by the green pants. I just re-read that lately - my mom was cleaning out her closets and had ran across all the Seuss we used to read. It’s still a little unsettling.
My biggie - Pet Sematary. The part where the girl mentions the dead hospital worker (is his name Ray?) being discorporated…oooh {shivers}. Freaky book. None of the other King books have messed with me that much. Maybe my second reading of The Shining comes close.
All these others you’ve mentioned sound good…Gotta run to the library!
Snicks
I wasn’t so young when I chanced upon this one, but I nominate the Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. I actually only read about three quarters of it before putting it down for good. Well-written and grotesquely fascinating and I don’t recommend it at all.
Last book that freaked me out was “House of Leaves”. It’s a book about a guy writing a book that’s a movie about a family who finds their house has “grown” a closet. And the closet keeps growing. The story was really good, but what freaked me out was the way the story kept jumping around, even on the same page, and when I got to the end and decided to re-read it, I found chapters I must have missed the first time…either that, or the book is growing <AARRGGHH>
I just finished this book, and I found myself struggling to find the will to continue with it as I read the middle bits about the ‘barter’ system that the blind men had engineered. The end was uplifting, though, and was well worth the effort of reaching it, I thought.
Felicia’s Journey (warning: spoiler) and most other books written from the point of view of murdererers (except for Crime and Punishment) disconcert me, mostly because I don’t like having those kind of thoughts in my head, even if they’re not my own.
Sometime around the 6th grade, in the midst of my AD&D phase, I read Hobgoblin by John Coyne. In the book, a young boy is playing a D&D-type game, but he slowly gets suspicious that the monsters in his game are real and present in his own world. I had nightmares about that book for a month.
Also in the 6th grade, I attempted to read both of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson. I made it halfway throught The One Tree, when Covenant’s utter despair got the best of me and my lack of emotional intelligence couldn’t take it anymore. Incidentally, I reread the series later in life and again 2 years ago and consider it a landmark in the realm of Fantasy writing, so much of which is pure crap nowadays. (don’t ge me started on terry goodkind, please. barf.)
Well, there is one thing comforting about this thread – at least I’ve got company in being squicked on some of these stories/books. I haven’t seen one yet mentioned that didn’t make me cringe in reminiscence, so rather than relist, I’ll just add a vote overall. I note that most of mine really clobbered me in adolescence, though, not as a young child – not sure why, except maybe senility is setting in early.
The Chocolate War stands out as one I read as an adolescent that bothered me terribly, for much the same reason that Cuckoo’s Nest bothered others. (What, you mean the bad guys are going to win?!) I also recall reading Gone With the Wind at 13 and having to pay a library fine because I got so mad at the ending I hurled the book across the room and broke the spine (which just isn’t something I do.)
There was also the Bradbury tale about a married Martian woman who dreamed so vividly of a man from Earth that her clod of a Martian husband found and killed the guy when he landed. Honorable mentions also go for A Rose for Emily and The Cask of Amontillado. (Try touring catacombs with THAT one in your brain.)
But for sucker punches to the psyche, I’d have to nominate Atlas Shrugged and Brave New World. While I still want to be Dagny Taggart when I grow up, the degradation of society as portrayed in the book still gives me chills today (not to mention the incessant wondering if I would have been lucky enough to get picked to go with Galt). As far as Brave New World goes, I think it hit me harder than 1984 because the strength of that police state in 1984 implied that there were still humans who could think for themselves; Brave New World was the first time I ran up against the idea that people could actually never learn how to think for themselves to begin with. Yike.
P.S. Legomancer, just tell me something. Did you also totally disgrace yourself by bursting into tears in the middle of silent reading class after reading the beginning of Just a Dog…?
When I was about seven or eight, I read a book called “Mr God this is Anna” By Fynn. This little orphan girl is adopted by a young man and his mom, and she goes on to teach him all kind of things and it’s all lovely and then she died impaled on a spiked fence trying to save a cat. Nice.
That one bothered me for ages.
The Snows of Kilamanjaro, while a classic and all that, is not the stuff for an eight year old, either, and it really bothered me. I read all of my parents old literature books before I was ten, and came across some grisly stuff. Poe was just too much to take and kept me awake some nights.
Funny, but the story that makes me shudder to this day was about this little boy who goes on vacation and meets this sweet little girl and her dad. The little girl wears a ribbon around her neck, and the dad a tie. They spend a whole summer together, and then the boy goes back the next summer and knocks on the door, and a woman answers. When he asks for the little girl, the womand has a screaming fit and tells him that five years ago she accidentally decapitated her husband and daughter. It’s weird, but I don’t remember exactly how the feat was accomplished. It was really stupid, but it’s stuck with me.
It’s amazing how grizzly readers can be. I remember a story in my fith grade one about this woman who drowned. A poor sailor found the body, and discovered a fabulous ring on her hand. It described in detail how her dead cold hand had swollen, and the sailor ran to his shed to fetch his saw and sawed the finger with the ring on it right off. They said, forever after the beach was haunted by a white ghost who "waved her bloody stump, wailing “bloody finger, bloody finger.” My little brother and I read that and used to jump at each other in the night and howl “Blooooody fiiiinger!!!” Then we’d giggle like crazy because we were just about scared enough to wet our pants.
I didn’t understand the monkey’s paw the first time I read it at nine or so. I read it again when I was 14, and it slowly dawned on me, and I got sick.
Thank you, unwashed brain, for this:
I agree.
As a young lass working my way through the Newbury Awards list, I was really bothered by Jacob Have I Loved, by [I think] Katherine Paterson. A story of twins, one elder, hardworking, practical, & underappreciated–one younger, lovely and adored & spoiled by all. Elder girl is the narrator, growing up in her sister’s shadow. The title is a Bible quote that bothers her because it ends, IIRC, “Esau have I hated,” which seems to her to exemplify her whole community’s attitude towards her versus her sister; she has no idea why, and it was particularly horrifying to her when she realizes the speaker is God. Her character was incredibly complex; there were no easy answers; the whole book was dark and difficult, and I thought about it for weeks.
I read it when I was old enough to understand the gloom but too young to see the hopeful parts, and so it depressed the shit out of me. Incredible book; I guess I need to go back & read it again. What a great thread!!
Digression into Where the Red Fern Grows:I work for a children’s theater; we did a production of that two years ago and are remounting it this year. I would not have believed I could get misty over a PUPPET’s death, but the woman we had as Little Ann got me every single time I watched her lie down on Old Dan’s grave and die of grief.