# Did you ever read a book so upsetting that you wish you hadn't read it at all? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 22, 2005, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622 "2005-07-22T12:43:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**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:** [July 22, 2005, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/41 "2005-07-22T16:39:42Z")
John Fowles voyeuristic first novel [The Collector](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316290238/qid=1122050336/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-2403895-0855902?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) is pretty darned unpleasant, too. ---
**Author:** ![Elysian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c77e96/32.png) [@Elysian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elysian)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/42 "2005-07-22T16:40:16Z")
_Flowers for Algernon_, couldn’t finish it, it was too disturbing. _The Red Pony_, and _The Black Pearl_, finished both, but couldn’t read them again. ---
**Author:** ![tripthicket](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripthicket/32/297_2.png) [@tripthicket](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tripthicket)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/43 "2005-07-22T16:44:18Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > A short story that will give you nightmares is **Stick Woman** by (I think) Edward Lee. It bothers me that someone imagined this and write it down. ::shudder:: **That’s** the story I was thinking of! I should’ve known **AuntiePam** would have the right title. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/44 "2005-07-22T16:46:17Z")
> [@Dung Beetle](#): > > I really thought about including Hannibal, as well. But I have to admit that if Harris had stayed true to Starling’s character, I could have gotten past the gross stuff. I was angry for days after finishing that. That book was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread. Man, that was a godawful book. Filled me with grrrr for days, it did. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/45 "2005-07-22T16:49:15Z")
Stephen King said he almost regretted writing Pet Cemetery and that he thought it probably shouldn’t be published. I do regret reading it. ---
**Author:** ![Corii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Corii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corii)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/46 "2005-07-22T16:54:26Z")
The Jungle was pretty upsetting at the time I read it, but I don’t regret reading it. Right now I’m putting off reading The Rape of Nanking because I’m worried it will be like that, so I need to wait until I’m in the right frame of mind to deal with it. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/47 "2005-07-22T16:56:57Z")
> [@Kizarvexius](#): > > I was entirely too young to be reading such things when I picked up Joe McGinniss’s [_Fatal Vision_](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0451165667/qid=1122048499/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_ur_2_1/103-6791321-3176664). Had it been fiction, well, that would have been one thing. But seeing as how the murders in question took place shortly before I was born, on the same military base where I was born (Fort Bragg), and involved a father who had been a Green Beret (just like mine)…too creepy. We share birthplaces. Mine was three days before Pearl Harbor. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/48 "2005-07-22T16:59:59Z")
“The Turner Diaries”. It was for a class. I regret that my teacher assigned it to us. (She gave us photocopies of it so we wouldn’t have to spend money to acquire it.) ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/49 "2005-07-22T17:04:14Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > I’ve read many of the books mentioned here and enjoyed them. I must be thick-skinned (or thick-brained). 🙂 Me too! But I’m strangely reluctant to take book recommendations from this thread… ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/50 "2005-07-22T17:16:19Z")
The one that leaps to mind is **Mostly Harmless** by Douglas Adams. I loved the Hitchhikers books up to that point but the last book just ruined the whole series for me. There were so many ways he could have ended things and if it was simply a matter of saying to the rabid fans “There. The characters are dead so there won’t be any more!” that strikes me as a bad approach. He didn’t _have_ to write another book no matter how much people pressed him for it. ---
**Author:** ![Stillwell\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@Stillwell\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stillwell_Angel)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/51 "2005-07-22T17:30:37Z")
I’ve read and enjoyed many books listed here (and plan to look for some of the books listed here that I _haven’t_ read). I really enjoy true crime. My SO is sure I’m in some serial killer suspect database at the FBI from all the gory books I’ve checked out at the library. The only book that comes to mind that seriously disturbed me was **Deadly Innocence** , the story of Paul & Karla Bernardo. Strangely enough, with all the gory details of what they did to their victims, the part that really bugged me was was something she did to a pet. I would post it here but I have no clue how to do spoiler tags. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/52 "2005-07-22T17:33:31Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > “The Turner Diaries”. It was for a class. I regret that my teacher assigned it to us. (She gave us photocopies of it so we wouldn’t have to spend money to acquire it.) I was just thinking that no book had ever disturbed me so much I regretted reading it, and then came upon your post. I read _The Turner Diaries_ online, and was compelled to keep reading. To this day it gives me the creeps, especially since I know there are scary people out there who believe it to be a sort of gospel. Tim McVeigh copied the Murrah Federal building attack straight out of the Turner diaries. The really disturbing thing about it is that it is not that terribly written. Certainly no worse than dozens of other horror or thriller novels out there. ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/53 "2005-07-22T17:36:22Z")
> [@Corii](#): > > Right now I’m putting off reading The Rape of Nanking because I’m worried it will be like that, so I need to wait until I’m in the right frame of mind to deal with it. It is disturbing but a very important and fascinating book. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/54 "2005-07-22T17:54:21Z")
Well, **FriarTed** --to each his own. \ Caldwell is no literary genuis. If his is supposed to be the best of Rapture fiction…I’ll save myself a whole mess o’ time by not bothering with the rest. (not that I was going to read them anyway.) Uh, enjoy, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/55 "2005-07-22T17:54:58Z")
Ooh yeah. Any post-apocalyptic story that doesn’t end on an upswing, at least to my point of view, is something I wish I never read. Stephen King’s short story “The End Of The Whole Mess”, in which severe Alzheimer’s is induced in nearly the entire population of the world comes to mind. Recently I read Jan Heglund’s _Into the Forest_, because someone recommended it in a recent thread about apocalyptic stories. Two orphaned sisters, 18 and 19 years of age, live on in their house following a worldwide breakdown of civilization and communication, which is only vaguely described. It’s heartbreaking to see these women give up all their dreams and values of the past, and not at least try to keep the old things alive. Things go from bad to worse; an acquaintance finds them and invites them to go East with him, where things are supposedly getting up and running, but they refuse; then the older sister gets raped by a predator after their stock of gasoline–and gets pregnant. Immediately thereafter comes a gratuitous sex scene – **between the sisters!!!**. A year or so later, the baby has arrived. Finally in the end, the sisters decide to burn down their house using the gasoline, after which they propose to live in a giant redwood stump. The younger sister, goes in for a last look around before they throw in the burning branch. She pauses by her father’s many books, which had meant a great deal to her. She had been headed for Harvard by the way. She decides she can only manager to carry three books, one for each of them. All the rest must burn. She didn’t stop to think she could have made a couple of trips to the stump, instead of just giving up. What if that damn kid grows up and actually likes to read? He’ll just have that one frigging book, because his idiot mother and aunt burned the rest. I hope he likes that one book a lot. With everyone outside the house, the older sister throws in the burning branch and they watch it burn. The older sister, a ballet dancer who hoped to audition for the SF Ballet, dances by the light of their burning house. Can I say fuck in this forum? Because I feel an urgent need to. It’s vitally important that the word fuck be said. Fuck, fuck, fuck.. I got rid of the book today; I dumped it behind the Good Will. ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/56 "2005-07-22T17:57:10Z")
> [@LoganDear](#): > > Another one: _Stiff_ by Mary Roach. Yikes! One chapter (about what happens to a body after it dies) actually made me feel nauseous. But it was very interesting. > . There are no books I’d like to erase completely, but there are sections of this book that give information on things I’d really have been more comfortable never knowing happened, particularly The parts where the author talks about older (19th century) experimentation for transplants freaked me out a little, especially the puppy head grafted onto an adult dog and the puppy head basically acted like a regular puppy except it couldn’t bark. Also, the monkey-head transplant. It saddened me a bit when the monkey tried to eat but really couldn’t b/c they never connected it’s esophogus However, I did really enjoy the book, those were just some disturbing images. The stuff about the DEAD bodies didn’t disturb me, because they were already dead and couldn’t feel anything. It did also make me consider donating my body to science when I die, I might end up doing some pretty cool stuff. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/57 "2005-07-22T18:03:36Z")
Call me a pansy, but I regretted reading _North Dallas Forty_. Pissed me off what happened to that sexy lady and the farmhand. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/58 "2005-07-22T18:07:18Z")
I started to read _American Psycho_, but I found it so disturbing that I couldn’t finish it. A friend who did not know that I was a rape survivor had recommended the book; she told me that it was a satire. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/59 "2005-07-22T18:11:05Z")
> [@Shayna](#): > > _[The Case of Lucy Bending](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0399127240/qid=1122048366/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-7779432-3528105?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)_, by Lawrence Sanders. His books in general, but particularly the “Deadly Sins” ones, are creepy enough, but this one was over-the-top disturbing, culminating in > > a 9-year-old girl being shot to death while on her knees giving head to a grown man. > > Vile, disgusting trash. You know, this one really surprised me. I enjoyed his McNally mystery series, so I thought I’d check out his other books. It’s like he poured all his nastiness into his non-McNally books. I didn’t finish _Lucy Bending_ because it seemed like everyone was having sex with everyone else, including the kids. There was another book of his, and I can’t remember the title, and in the first chapter The college-bound daughter beds down with her father like it’s old hat to her. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622/60 "2005-07-22T18:15:32Z")
**spectre** --I’ll bet money that she chose the Bible, no? I liked your spoiler box. Well done! Sounds like I can give that book a miss, too. Yay! I am freeing up time here like a mother f… 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-read-a-book-so-upsetting-that-you-wish-you-hadnt-read-it-at-all/313622.md?page=4)