Is there a book that disturbed you so much that you just wanted to throw it away?

[Josie]

When I was in junior high and high school I was into R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike horror books. Then I started reading Dean Koontz. I will never, ever, ever read The Bad Place by Dean Koontz again. *shudder*

 

[Hoplite]

Catcher in the Rye.

TERRIBLE book, it disturbed me to think people consider it great literature.

 

[Goshin]

Almost anything written by Harlan Ellison.

Brain-bending stuff, worse than LSD.

 

[tryreading]

When I was in junior high and high school I was into R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike horror books. Then I started reading Dean Koontz. I will never, ever, ever read The Bad Place by Dean Koontz again. *shudder*

Don't know why, but this made me think of a book by Peter Straub called Magic Terror. Different, and a little disturbing.

 

[Real Korimyr #9]

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski. If you've read it, you understand.

 

[24107]

the cat in the hat

 

[Slartibartfast]

Pretty much any Hunter S. Thompson book.

 

[MaggieD]

Is there a book that disturbed you so much that you just wanted to throw it away?

Yes, and I did. Fortunately, I won't be able to give it any publicity here as I don't remember the title.

I found the paperback in a motel room garbage can when we were travelling. Took it with us when we left the next day. Looked like an entertaining psychological thriller. The first three pages dealth with a made-very-real psycopath who tortured and killed a dog. I threw it out the window.

As they've found in moviedom, "Never let the dog die."

 

[getagrip]

Hope of the Wicked: The Master Plan to Rule the World by Ted Flynn

This book examines in haunting detail, Secret Societies, Satanic Rituals, Technological Advancements and belief systems that are mind-boggling. Then to discover that a great number of those who practice such beliefs, were/are instruments in the highest levels of the International Banking Cabal, Council on Foreign Relations, United Nations and our own US Government dating back over a century ago.

I remember stumbling on some pages that made me get up and double check the deadbolts to my house.

 

[Mach]

The Stranger - Albert Camus
Love/Hate/intrigued/disgusted

 

[Caine]

War on Christmas by one of those Fox News Guys.

 

[cpwill]

Forged in Fury. I was literally physically sick for days.

 

[Diogenes]

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini describes the lives of three generations of Afghan women under the Taliban. The utter waste of lives and talent is more depressing than a tour of Dachau.

 

[Khayembii Communique]

House of Leaves ****ed with my head for weeks. It's one of my favorites, though, because of it.

 

[spud_meister]

Green eggs and ham, something about it was off.

 

[ecofarm]

Green eggs and ham, something about it was off.

I didn't read the rest of the thread (saw this on 'recent posts'), but I want to note a disturbing book - The Cat in the Hat.

How messed up is this? Some weird stranger comes into a home with a couple of kids and does all kinds of stuff that their parents would not like, despite the kid's many objections. Then he magically cleans it all up and escapes before the parents arrive, with the allusion that the kids will say nothing. He even wears the colors of Santa Claus (another very creepy character).

It's all kids of messed up. What the hell are we desensitizing kids to there?

As a local member of Sig Ep and a fan of simple, funny poetry, I have some reservation about questioning Dr. Suess - but his stuff is largely about re-defining the obvious, pushing unknown, undesired new things and hiding stuff. If it were not directed at kids, it might not disturb me so much (as a rather radical, militant anti-establishment person myself). Perhaps we should burn the books.

Excuse me, but I think Dr. Suess might be fkd up.

 

[Orion]

The Electric Koolaid Acid Test.

 

[spud_meister]

I didn't read the rest of the thread (saw this on 'recent posts'), but I want to note a disturbing book - The Cat in the Hat.

How messed up is this? Some weird stranger comes into a home with a couple of kids and does all kinds of stuff that their parents would not like, despite the kid's many objections. Then he magically cleans it all up and escapes before the parents arrive, with the allusion that the kids will say nothing. He even wears the colors of Santa Claus (another very creepy character).

It's all kids of messed up. What the hell are we desensitizing kids to there?

As a local member of Sig Ep and a fan of simple, funny poetry, I have some reservation about questioning Dr. Suess - but his stuff is largely about re-defining the obvious, pushing unknown, undesired new things and hiding stuff. If it were not directed at kids, it might not disturb me so much (as a rather radical, militant anti-establishment person myself). Perhaps we should burn the books.

Excuse me, but I think Dr. Suess might be fkd up.

You forgot the most disturbing part; Thing One and Thing Two, these two 'things' perform many varieties of mischief, who know what they could be representing in the twisted mind of Dr. Seuss.

 

[ecofarm]

I find the Berenstain Bears to be much more soothing. Especially the bicycle and camping episodes.

Maybe if a religious apocalypse comes, the question will be: "do you like Berenstain Bears or Dr. Suess?" We can probably discern good from evil that simply.

 

[Fiddytree]

Anne Norton-Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire. It was so awfully thought out and written that yes, I wanted to throw it out. However, the library I was renting it from (something like Yale, I think) wouldn't have appreciated it. There was a review I came across later that said for its title "Anne Norton and the “Straussian” Cabal: How Not to Write a Book." It was quite true. That's why I bought the book used sometime later, so I could be reminded of how awful it was on a frequent basis.

 

[William Rea]

Not totally in line with the OP but I read a lot of Graham Masterton books many years ago and won't go back to re-read them now in my more fragile older state!

 

[Josie]

I find the Berenstain Bears to be much more soothing. Especially the bicycle and camping episodes.

Maybe if a religious apocalypse comes, the question will be: "do you like Berenstain Bears or Dr. Suess?" We can probably discern good from evil that simply.

I feel that way about the "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...." books. If you give him a cookie, that damn mouse wants something else, then something else and something else. Ugh. Teaching kids that they're entitled to everything.

 

[Dav]

Green eggs and ham, something about it was off.

Some friends and I were reading through that just recently and decided it was actually an extended sexual metaphor. It wasn't hard to see:
"Would you, could you, on a train?
Would you, could you, in the rain?
Would you, could you, on a boat?
Would you, could you, with a goat (!!!) ?"


On the subject of Dr. Seuss, The Big Butter Battle was apparently supposed to be about how stupid the Cold War was, but ended up just teaching kids about how awesome the Cold War was.


And on the subject of kids' books, The Little Engine that Could just pissed the hell out of me, even when I was little. Freaking arrogant little train, thinks he can do anything.

 

[Josie]

I've always liked Dr. Seuss' message of "A person's a person no matter how small" in Horton Hears a Who.

 

[lizzie]

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini describes the lives of three generations of Afghan women under the Taliban. The utter waste of lives and talent is more depressing than a tour of Dachau.

I loved that one and "The Kite Runner". They were both depressing, but written very realistically with loads of insight into the Afghani culture. I would say the only thing disturbing is the realization of how life really is/ can be in that part of the world, but I thought Hosseini's gift for writing was wonderful, and I'm hoping he writes more books soon.