# The most depressing novel you ever read **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 6, 2016, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209 "2016-09-06T18:27:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Moris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moris/32/2846_2.png) [@Moris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moris)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/181 "2016-09-14T13:18:04Z")
_The Brave_ by Gregory McDonald. I think I will never finish that book. Just take a look at the [reviews](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/484528.The_Brave). ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/182 "2016-09-14T13:58:09Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > This was probably related to the apparent fact that girls in Panem do not menstruate. :dubious: That would actually be rather consistent with the starvation level diets implied in the poorer Districts. Even Katnis who is probably getting more protein than most people because she hunts isn’t getting a lot of the high-fat factory farm protein that have helped pushed the onset of menses age down so low in the West. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/183 "2016-09-14T13:58:41Z")
_Silas Marner_. I can’t remember anything about it except that it was as unrelentingly grim as it was boring. ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/184 "2016-09-15T03:40:05Z")
I can’t actually recall the title of the book that depressed me enough to quit reading it, but it was about two people who stumble across a plane wreck (?) and a huge amount of presumably drug money in cash. people start killing each other for possession of the cash. I believe there was a movie made of this, but I just couldn’t keep reading after the killings started to snowball. Just nope, nope, nope. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/185 "2016-09-15T03:45:23Z")
> [@Cub\_Mistress](#): > > I can’t actually recall the title of the book that depressed me enough to quit reading it, but it was about two people who stumble across a plane wreck (?) and a huge amount of presumably drug money in cash. people start killing each other for possession of the cash. I believe there was a movie made of this, but I just couldn’t keep reading after the killings started to snowball. Just nope, nope, nope. A Simple Plan? ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/186 "2016-09-15T03:50:15Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > A Simple Plan? THAT’S IT! Dear God, I hated that book, as evidenced by the fact I blocked out its title. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/187 "2016-09-15T04:40:15Z")
As a stand-alone book, I have to go with an obvious, and already mentioned, choice: **The Road**. Probably amplified by reading it as a young father. Close second would be **A Map of the World** , by Jane Hamilton. Probably amplified, now that I think of it, by reading it when I was a young father… ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/188 "2016-09-15T05:01:55Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > That would actually be rather consistent with the starvation level diets implied in the poorer Districts. Even Katnis who is probably getting more protein than most people because she hunts isn’t getting a lot of the high-fat factory farm protein that have helped pushed the onset of menses age down so low in the West. That hadn’t occurred to me! That’s a possibility. However, I didn’t really notice the apparent lack of menstrual cycles until Katniss mentions in the 2nd book that the boys and men had no beard growth in the arena, but didn’t address anything about periods, which I found peculiar in a book written by a woman. I don’t remember anything about menstruation in the “Divergent” book either. Didn’t read any of the follow-ups, however. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/189 "2016-09-15T09:32:45Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > _Silas Marner_. I can’t remember anything about it except that it was as unrelentingly grim as it was boring. We had to read that in school. Has anyone voluntarily plowed through that unrelenting tedium? When it was written, did it immediately go into the arsenal of sadistic English teachers? ---
**Author:** ![koufax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7ea924/32.png) [@koufax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koufax)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/190 "2016-09-15T17:04:56Z")
> [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > The first book that popped into my head was Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. yup!! ---
**Author:** ![Pixel\_Dent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@Pixel\_Dent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixel_Dent)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/191 "2016-09-15T17:52:10Z")
Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler So dark but so good. Couldn’t put it down. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/192 "2016-09-15T18:45:20Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > We had to read that in school. Has anyone voluntarily plowed through that unrelenting tedium? I did. After I graduated college (where one of my majors was English) I decided to read some “classics” that I hadn’t read in school. Silas Marner has the virtue of being a lot shorter than some of them. Not one of the better ones, though. ---
**Author:** ![DummyGladHands](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DummyGladHands](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DummyGladHands)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/193 "2016-09-15T20:27:22Z")
I was traveling thru Greece and Turkey while reading Angela’s Ashes. Reading it filtered my observations so that all I could see was the poverty in those countries. Just finished The Fault in Our Stars. So damn depressed now I need a Carl Hiaasen book or something to fix me. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2016, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/194 "2016-09-16T18:55:18Z")
**The Trial** by Franz Kafka. He packs it chock full of meaningless bureaucracy to make a point. You thought waiting in line at the DMV was bad… ---
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/195 "2016-09-16T23:58:24Z")
“Sarah’s Key” and “The Book Thief.” “The Book Thief” for the win. I am a very fast reader. But I put off reading the last of “The Book Thief” for two weeks because I knew how devastating it would be. And it was. ---
**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:** [September 17, 2016, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/196 "2016-09-17T01:34:52Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > I’ll go with “An American Tragedy” by Theodore Dreiser. The depressing part for me was that at each step, the protagonist kept making things worse and worse and worse not because he’s an evil man, but because he’s weak. I found that really sad, much more than grimdark books like “The Road”. I’ll second Dreiser, except mine is “Sister Carrie”. It’s a very sad, focused depressing…Hurstwood’s decline and end and Carrie’s complete indifference to anything other than her comfort and ambition just threw a pall over everything for me for weeks. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/197 "2016-09-17T02:40:24Z")
> [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](#): > > “Sarah’s Key” and “The Book Thief.” “The Book Thief” for the win. I am a very fast reader. But I put off reading the last of “The Book Thief” for two weeks because I knew how devastating it would be. And it was. I have heard that both books are very good. I have not seen the movie “The Book Thief” but I heard that it wasn’t very good; I have seen “Sarah’s Key” and it wasn’t either. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/198 "2016-09-17T02:52:07Z")
I was just thinking about this thread the other day, after I watched the well made but depressing-ass film _The Claim_. Looking it up, turns out it is loosely based on yet another Thomas Hardy novel ( _The Mayor of Canterbridge_, which I happily never read ). Fucking Thomas Hardy, again. Somehow I hope in life he was one of those irritatingly cheery people, always upbeat and optimistic. But looking at his portraits, I kinda doubt it ;). ---
**Author:** ![fighting\_ignorant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ac8455/32.png) [@fighting\_ignorant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fighting_ignorant)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/199 "2016-09-17T02:58:35Z")
Beautiful Boy by David Sheff about having a meth addict son AND Tweak by Nic Sheff, the son I read them both back to back. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/200 "2016-09-17T03:09:53Z")
Bleak fucking House [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209.md?page=11)