Heart Wrenching/Disturbing Books?

[danlo]

Ur-Vile and others have discussed Flowers for Algernon in The Waymeet, truly a deeply heart wrenching book.

Here are a few of mine,

A Seperate Peace
Johnny Got His Gun
Death be not Proud
Lord of the Flies

additions?

[duchess of malfi]

War in Heaven by David Zindell perhaps wrenched my heart like no other book ever has...

extreme spoiler!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spoiler

When a certain little child died, it hurt me so much I cannot bear to even discuss it.

[danlo]

Well, if we're including Sci-Fi/Fantasy then The Wounded Land is up there too!

[duchess of malfi]

1984 is not heart rending, but it certainly gave me nightmares. So for me, at least, it was disturbing.

[Brinn]

Into Thin Air by John Krakauer.

[FizbansTalking_Hat]

Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

[Byrn]

Where the Red Fern Grows.
A boy and his dogs......I still tear up nearly 20 years after I first read it.

[Furls Fire]

okay..don't laugh, but I cried when I read Old Yeller. Of course, I was only 11 at the time. But, what a sad story. Poor Yeller

The Wounded Land devastated me. I remember being so MAD at SRD for what he did to the Land. No other book has made me cry more than that one.

[Byrn]

I find it odd people were mad at SRD for the Sun-bane. All my anger was directed at Foul.

[danlo]

Into Thin Air is supposed to be awesome! I think a movie based on that book is coming soon. Want a really sad dog story? Read The Bar-Sinister.

[CovenantJr]

1984 is not heart rending, but it certainly gave me nightmares. So for me, at least, it was disturbing.

Yes.

I find it odd people were mad at SRD for the Sun-bane. All my anger was directed at Foul.

Yes.

[danlo]

Byrn are you talking about A Boy and His Dog-the post-nuke Ellison classic?

[FizbansTalking_Hat]

Hmm, isn't it interesting that dog books are almost always sad and heart warming.

Homeward Bound
Where the Red Fer Grows
Old Yellar

Somethign about a young boy and his dog that just gets to the fuzziness inside all of us. Cheers.

[Loredoctor]

1984 is not heart rending, but it certainly gave me nightmares. So for me, at least, it was disturbing.

Yes, but it is a GREAT book. I know a lady who hates it so much (because it disturbs her) that she refuses to talk about it.

Fizban, Wuthering Heights is sad. Excellent book, but disturbing.

I may add Fevre Dream, because the last chapter almost had me in tears.

[danlo]

Homeward Bound
Where the Red Fern Grows
Old Yellar

Oh Yeah! Well White Fang and Call of the Wild made cry all the time too when I was a kid--even the damm Disney movie made me cry.

Like a Boy and His Dog (and of course A Canticle For Liebowitz) there's another classic post-nuke book that's incredibly moving, Earth Abides by George R. Stewart (it's and old, old book but very good)

[Eugen Razvan]

Earth Abides is fantastic! I've always thought you have good taste, Mr D.

[danlo]

[Nav]

The end of Iain M. Banks' Use fo Weapons was deeply uinsettling, and pretty much turns the way you feel about the rest of the book on its head.

Also in one of the books of Elizabeth Moon's Serrano Legacy is uncharacteristically dark, when one of the characters is captured by space-rednecks (it's a lot scarier than it sounds) and has her vocal cords removed, amongst other evils.

[Chrysalis]

A Child Called It- I found that quite disturbing-especially in the style it was written -never was able to bring myself to read the next two in the set.

There have been a few more recently in this vein such as The Kid by Kevin Lewis, Slave by Mende Nazer and Sickened by Julie Gregory. The ones about bad cases of abuse in one form or another tend to get to me much more and disturb me.

[FizbansTalking_Hat]

There is a whole series of books following the childhood of Dave Pelzer, the book you mentioned is the first and perhaps the most disturbing, but if you read the others, you see the results and the effects of that trauma on Dave as he grows up without having a stable family to fall back on.

I picked up that book in an airport once whlie I was traveling and I was crying on the plane it was so sad. Taht is one of the worst books I've ever read, not in style, but just depressing and sad, really gets you going. Cheers though, it is something worth reading, everyone should read it to get a better understanding of what an abused child goes through, must be crazy and difficult as hell.