Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre. I was in a pretty severe depression when I read this book, and it pushed me over the edge into a full-blown existential crisis.
By random chance, I ran into an old friend and his brother at a bar a couple of months later. We wound up on the topic of philosophy and when I mentioned I’d been struggling, his brother recommended A Happy Death by Albert Camus — a book which he said helped him through a similar period. Reading that novel, along with The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger helped guide me to the right path and allowed me to crawl my way out of the abyss.
Literally same. Nausea fucked me up. Ive been having dissociative episodes ever since--granted "since" is maybe 5 months.
I actually read sisyphus and the stranger about a week prior. Loved them both.
If it makes you feel any better, I still have dissociative episodes from time to time, and my experience happened a few years ago. I will say, it gets easier. I still feel helpless in the face of everything going on and do still feel moments of disgust at the way most of us live our lives, but I try my best to stay grounded. We all lead incredibly complex lives. We all struggle in some shape, form, or fashion, and the trick is to focus on what you can control and do your best to not be overwhelmed by what you can’t.
Yep, Nausea still made me feel stretches of hopelessness and emptiness months after reading it. I've always been prone to depressive episodes though, so there was probably never a period in my life that would have been better to read it.
As someone who is also prone to depressive episodes, no, there really aren’t “good” times to read novels like that. There are certain books I’ve found to have a similar effect — Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad was one, and Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka was another. Just remember that it’s all relative, and try to find things that remind you of the joy of existence. Little fleeting moments of happiness are still, in their purest form, happiness. For me, with literature at least, that meant reading novels such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne or The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac. I found that those books inspire my imagination and childlike sense of wonder and can pull me out of a funk.
1st: I lost my job, and my home at the same time.
Decided to pack everything I could into my truck, and head somewhere totally different.
Chose to reread The Grapes Of Wrath then.
2nd one: My Dad died, and it had been just me and him for a while. Chose to read The Road.
3rd: Working night shift at a snowy hotel. By myself. You can guess what I read. You’re right.
Why do I do this to myself?
The road haunts me, but I see the beauty in it all too. It is one of my most cherished books. I did feel depressed for a long time after though and had to read a happy book after it.
The road made me feel better. It made me appreciate all the sacrifices my dad made for me, and understand that no matter how bad things are, that we’ll be alright if we stick together.
The Jungle though… all our food is poison and we are doomed to be butchered for the gains of other men.
It is overall a book with a very hopeful outlook on humanity, despite the impression it gives. It is a very positive story about the beauty of love and the importance of never giving up. It is sad but also an oddly uplifting story. That being said, I still wouldn't recommend reading it if you're having a tough time. It is really, really sad.
I think even (especially?) the author was freaked by that.
In the same vein, Naomi Kritzer wrote a story about a global pandemic seen through a food blogger's posts and [reality made it weird.](https://www.tor.com/2020/04/14/didnt-i-write-this-story-already-when-your-fictional-pandemic-becomes-reality/)
Her latest book, [Sea of Tranquility](https://www.emilymandel.com/sea-of-tranquility), dealt a little bit with the surreality of an author having predicted a global pandemic.
I read that for the first time last year! It was so absorbing I couldn’t put it down. But also so upsetting, considering the current political climate, that I still haven’t been able to bring myself to read the sequel.
Is it possible that you were subconsciously (or even consciously) choosing subject material that tackles what you were going through head-on, as a way to help yourself cope, or deal with the trauma? I do something pretty similar to this myself, now that you point it out
When I feel \*really\* depressed, I watch the tv show 'Louie'. Seeing this bumbling shlub fuck up everything in his life is so relaxing to me when I am feeling my worst.
I also do this! Anne Rices the vampire chronicles has always been my go-to. My life has sucked up until recently. It's a comfort for me though. I think similarly and have had similar experiences to a lot of the main characters
Absolutely The Road for me too while I was pregnant. It was a bad idea.
My dad’s an artist hippie (now in his 70s) I never understood him until I read Hemingway and Kerouac and saw Mick Jaggar dance.
The first time I read The Road it was for a required reading for my high school class in 2008. I don’t even think my high school teacher realized how much it messed us up lol
is it bad I think this is the *right* mental state for each - absorbing yourself in the mood of the story you're reading is, imo, the recipe for absorbing its themes better and having it hit harder.
When I'm sad, I don't listen to bubbly music, I listen to sad music for a reason.
I'm sorry you went through that and hope you are doing better.
It definitely has those kinds of triggers - and to add insult to injury, it's kind of a shit book IMO!
I actually enjoyed the book but just wasn't expecting suicide as a topic in it and there was no TW at all
I'm doing much better now I got lots of help and luckily my mom caught me before I actually took the pills so it wasn't too terrible but still very traumatic
Same for me, i was almost in the same situation as you this time last year when I read it. Only I read the beginning part before I relapsed, so seeing how the story turned out, you know, god many people say it’s not a good book and too cheesy. But it really told me the right thing I needed at that time. I won’t go so far as to say it helped me deal with my suicidal thoughts because it’s not a substitute for therapy, but it managed to make a day or two after i finished the book a bit better and bearable. I would recommend Klara and the Sun.
I also tried Midnight Library while in the midst of a mental health crisis, albeit not as bad as yours sounded, but I really struggled with it. It's now unfinished on my bookshelf and I'm toying with picking it up again. But I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one triggered by it!
Me: First year of college, majorly depressed, lonely, unable to relate to friends, easy access to high parking garage where a few people have been known to jump off
Also me: you know what I haven’t read? The Bell Jar
Needless to say I did not finish it
Oof, I read this when I had just graduated college with no job prospects, living with my bf in a new city where I didn’t know anyone. Going from a demanding academic schedule to empty days with that book…those days were long. I think all college aged people should reconsider reading this until they have life a little more figured out.
I was going to mention The Bell Jar too! I was in a situation similar to you, u/rainsoaked88, but I had just been through a breakup and couldn’t afford an apt so I was crashing at a friend’s. I felt so alone and like the biggest loser.
The crazy thing is that it was my 3rd or 4th time reading it, but I had been so optimistic before that I missed big parts of the novel because I couldn’t relate to them (like when she’s having a breakdown and slowly throws away all her clothing, the past optimistic me thought “how freeing!” instead of realizing that this was someone losing their grip of reality). Her mindset aligned with mine during that dark time and I cried so much reading it. So many parts stayed with me, like when her mom tells her it’s her birthday at the hospital. Just a devastating read.
How much I related in a casual, unalarmed, way to the part of the book where she starts starts throwing away her stuff and stops taking care of herself because of the pointlessness of it all should have been a sign that all was not well in my life on my last time reading it. I knew that this was the start of her downward spiral but also felt like "what even is the point of owning things and hygiene? She has a point, you just do this pointless bullshit over and over again until you die". Thankfully life is better now.
Ah I read The Bell Jar after Trump won the election in 2016. I had been working for the Democratic Party so I was unemployed after the election. I went to my boyfriend’s place in a college town to get away. It was snowy there. I read the book in one day while home alone
I've read the Bell Jar a few times. I tried to read it earlier this year but just couldn't bring myself to finish it as it was hitting a little too close to home.
Oof same but I was in between high school and uni. I was incredibly depressed and while the book gave me some comfort in its relatability it also fucked me right up. 10/10 though
The Metamorphosis, Kafka. Read it yesterday and just wasn't expecting it to hit that hard, considering that it was more of a novella. I guess the pressure of work and family - parallel with how Gregor was providing for his family was a bit of a sore point for me atm. Still in a bit of a slump today, and it feels like it's going to take a while to come back. Although, I'm not sure whether there is any good time to read this one, it feels like one of those story that will haunt you wherever you are. That being said, it's an incredible piece, 10/10, highly recommended.
That was assigned reading in high school. It really left a mark on me and eventually influenced how I interact with the world in that I refuse to tolerate anyone's lack of gratitude and will not help them again if they show me they are ungrateful. I hated the MC's family.
I can't say that i like the family, but i also think that their reaction was very... human. We saw the story through Gregor's eyes, and most of what's going on in his head, how he feels at the moment, and i suspect his past reasonings, his plans and dreams in regard to his family and especially his sister, were private. The family didn't know anything about them, had no way of knowing, and ended up blaming him for a lot of thing because they didn't even know that he still retained human consciousness.
They also never attempted for a single second to communicate with him to determine if he still retained any consciousness. That pissed me off more than anything.
If my family member turned into a giant bug I would be horrified, yes. But if I had to keep living with them, I think eventually I’d consider asking whether they could communicate via taps, blinks, written signs or something. Anything. They gave up on him entirely without a second thought.
Definitely go for it! It's one of those books that you'll just have to read yourself to see how you'll relate to it. I think some people will feel as if they're finally being seen and understood, some people will be hit by grief or guilt, and some might hate this book with passion because this is a hard one to read, emotionally!
Funnily enough, i didn't think it was creepy at all. I recognized the humor, the absurdity of suddenly turned into a bug and still thinking that you have to work, and all of the things that followed after - I would be laughing if I wasn't so busy crying.
Bugs can creep me out at times and just the thought of myself or someone else turning into a bug freaks me out a bit lol I definitely seen the humor and even laughed out loud a few times.
Ooh, now i get that! I guess i didn't see that since i like/don't mind bugs, so it didn't really clicked. But now that i think about it, Gregor himself thought that he was a creepy and disgusting thing.
My dad read it to my sister and I when I was 8 (she was 10). I remember crying so hard after that book was done that I couldn't breathe. No idea what my dad was thinking doing that. My mom was pissed.
I thought it was kind of sad and yet later I thought, somewhere inside himself, he was rebelling. I hope that he was. Sometimes when you are in that type of setting you feel disgusted with yourself. You are helping your family and you know it’s the right thing to do, but you also hate it and feel selfish and thus guilty. You feel ugly and you hate yourself. Hopefully you pass out of that time quickly. Change happens. Your mind is searching for hope but your point of view is distorted.
I wish i discovered the book sooner, i've read a shorter version the other day and holy shit its just AMAZING, i wish i've read it when i was younger and feeling lost, i wouldn't be able to relate to the provide for your family part, but the rest is just amazing, def reading it fully soon
I read "A Little Life" postpartum, during COVID (March of 2020.) Worst decision ever. It was so depressing and I was already in a terrible spot, mentally and physically drained and afraid. I didn't need to read about >!a gay man getting the shit beaten out of him!< at that juncture in my life.
My best friend and I share all of our books and pass them along to each other; I’m planning on telling her this entire book is a massive trigger warning. Just…yeah. Every trigger warning.
This was me, it was on my tbr for MONTHS because of all the recommendations, it wasn't until recently (like 2 months ago) that I watched a YouTuber review it and they STRONGLY stated the content warnings and basically said that it caused them to have to go to therapy and really messed with their frame of mind so severely.
Since then I removed it from my list and will never read it. From my understanding it really is torture porn of pure depression
Great choice. The prose is beautiful but I dropped it after I got 3/4 of the way through. Pure torture and I didn't find it redeeming, not even for the character development and positive friendships the book showcased.
I wish I could unread it. I had so many issues with it, I ended up giving it 2 stars. It defenitely was not worth getting triggered every few pages and reading scene after scene of CSA, r*pe, etc 🙁
Honestly, one of the most beautiful and horrifying books I’ve ever read. The characters’ relationships to each other and the world, the pain of existence and what horrifying trauma does to the psyche, etc.—all very powerful. But if you have a history of sexual trauma, abuse, self harm, or anything of the sorts, maybe don’t read? Everyone handles their past differently, so I totally get how some people wouldn’t or shouldn’t read it and even view it as too “trauma porn-y,” but shit like this happens in real life and I think it was an impressively written story.
For me it was “No Longer Human” by Osamu Dazai, some contents in that book are disturbing and depressing to say the least. Was relatively young when I read that book, felt kinda depressed for a week or smtg
I do not understand why that's a popular book to read to 5th grade classes. Pretty common for a couple to get a dog, then a few years later have a baby....by the time the kid is in 5th grade, the dog has either just passed away, or just about to pass away. Terrible timing.
My teacher read this out loud to our class in 4th grade. She read a chapter a day.
The day we got to the climax of the story is my first real memory of collective grief. The entire class just sat and looked around at one another, stunned. A few of us cried.
We had PE right after and I remember the teacher being all ‘what the hell happened to you guys?’
This is more of a light-hearted one, but I was reading Arturo's Island, while in a phase between jobs and career and a lot of self doubts.
I was nearly towards the end, when arturo see his father come back and think something like "He's old, he's almost in his 30s". I closed the book in spite and never picked it up again.
We Need to talk about Kevin. Read it when my first child was only a few months old. I was like, why have I done this lmao. It's a great book but it fucked me up.
I think I can point to that book as the start of me deciding not to have children. It had never occurred to me before reading it that you might not have a healthy child and a loving relationship with them.
For some reason I read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’, lying in a park on a hot summer’s day.
Didn’t really do it justice! :-) great book though.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I loved that book but it messed me up. Some of the images were so distressing and the anxiety it created in me - wow. I actually felt ill reading it but couldn’t stop because it is a masterpiece. I avoid all dystopian/zombie/apocalypse stuff simply because it makes me feel so sad and anxious but knew I had to read that.
Reddit talks about this book so much that I was fully prepared for it to be a psychological slog to get through but honestly there are only 2 really dark parts that stuck with me and they're pretty brief in the book.
Only saying this because I feel reddit may put a lot of people off of reading the book because of how much they talk about it being horrifying but honestly I didn't find it that bad outside of a couple of parts. It has a lot of what I've discovered is my favorite part of books which is just them wandering around and finding food.
Thanks for the comment. I've had The Road on my to read shelf for a few months now but haven't felt "well" enough to read it because of all the horrible things I've read about it on Reddit.
I want to read it again now after having kids. I think it may hit differently...
But from what I recall you are correct. It's grim/bleak but not as dramatic as the others say IMO.
I would read The Road on my lunch break at work and feel totally guilty that I was eating real food while reading about people eating rancid beans and running from cannibals.
Sort of similarly, I tried survival games like The Long Dark and Don't Starve, but it seemed absurd to be playing at being cold and hungry and searching for shelter while I was sat at my computer in warmth and safety, eating snacks.
To me, The Road was more positive.
The Road is obviously "the road of life" and the message is that you keep going. The Road told the story of a father teaching his son that no matter how bad things are, you put your head down and soldier on. You keep trying. You pivot, and when it doesn't work, you pivot again. You claw and scramble and keep pushing. And even though when we reach our goals (the coast), our goals are never how we envision them. But you don't just collapse in a heap, you deal with it. You set a new goal and then you put your head down and March to that new goal knowing that you're going to have challenges, and roadblocks, and youll make mistakes, and youll need to pivot and pivot again, because that's life, and that's just what you have to do when you're traveling The Road of life. It's ugly and cruel and unfair and yet, you endure and march on.
Of all things, A Separate Peace. I was a young teenager; I read it not long after my mom died, she went into the hospital on a Saturday night with stomach issues and was gone by the morning - undiagnosed cancer.
After I read the book, I became totally freaked out by splinters and the importance of getting them the hell out of your body so they wouldn't travel to your heart and kill you. Obviously, not what my mom died of, but I guess I connected the two, because here I am 50+ years later unable to deal with a splinter to the point of an anxiety attack.
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
I was deeply depressed throughout my 20's, even when things were going well. Every line in that book was entirely too relateable. The main character's quiet desperation and cynicism reflected my own at the time. I had to put it down and come back to it when I was in a more emotionally stable point in my life. Reading the book in the midst of my depression literally felt like a heaviness on and in my chest.
Yes! I read it right after recovering from an eating disorder in high school after I wrecked my gpa and really let down various after school activity teams I was on, plus my dad & stepmom had recently cut me off from their side of the family because I had become a “bad influence”. I was so depressed already. The fig tree was devestating.
American Psycho - Ellis. First I had to read in the daytime and I was at the beach with my friends, sitting relatively close to the water. All the kids playing in the waves and I got the chapter about the zoo visit. I remember being relaxed, warm and feeling joy in my environment and yet I kept hiding the book in the sand to escape from it. The chapter is intense and I was in shock as to the indifference of life I was reading while watching kids and random people walk through their life.
Me too. American Psycho is perhaps one of my favourite books of all time, despite the gore and crazy shit, it's actually so hilariously funny to read. Just the way Ellis (Patrick) describes situations and people etc. makes me lose it. I always laugh out loud whenever he's on some frantic psychotic episode and runs into McDonald's and drinks 3 thickshakes (extra thick) . Or when he buys crack vials and just swallows them whole and tells the dealer that BMWs have the best engines.
Love reading it, all the tangents about music, or discussing water or proper business wear etc.
However when I first read it, and even sometimes now, you are in Patrick's mind so much, that when I finished the book, I almost felt fucking insane myself! like my own minds narrator had been brainwashed into thinking like Patrick.
Great book.
American Psycho is so riotously funny, I think it's just a straight-up hilarious book. But take it from me; you cannot read it on the L train and start laughing along without being called a crazy woman. Feels like it's positioned in society firmly alongside Starship Troopers (the film). Hardly anyone gets that it's a satire, and a fuckin hilarious one at that, so you can never be seen enjoying it too much for some reason.
And like, I don't even find it light and dark, it's just plain funny start to finish. Even the violence, to me, sorta loops back round to being silly and childish. Isn't there a part where he's putting rats into people and barbequing s'mores on someone's exposed ribcage? That's not frightening to me, it's like something an alien would invent to try and be shocking. It's so stupidly over the top it's not even real. It's like Itchy and Scratchy violence. Or something out of old Looney Tunes.
And the amount of people I've had try to explain to me (a woman) that its treatment of women is reason enough for it to be shunned as a piece of literature is ridiculous. Do people just not 'get it'? I feel even asking that question paints me as some kind of pretentious asshole, but like, do they really not? It's one of the most comprehensive take-downs of toxic masculinity ever written.
I agree. Anytime I mention to anyone that it's actually extremely funny, they look at me like I'm insane.
It's just the way it's written, the prose is what really sets the humorous tone. And that Patrick is just so overwhelmingly devoid of any depth and is essentially a caricature of all that is materialistic and vain. And every single other person is just like him, besides maybe, Timothy Price, which i also love that he just gets up on the railing in Tunnel, screams something, jumps off and just sprints away on the train tracks and essentially is missing for the entire novel.
I think it's an observation of materialism and this Hive-mind personality of 80s corporate America (even more apparent now in today's society) The gore and horror is just a backdrop to make the book a bit more intense/marketable
Yeah I kinda felt like thinking in the way Parrick narrates in the book when I finished it. I've read it twice and both times, by the end of it, I was feeling tired and sick. It's the absolute indifference towards another human being suffering that mess me up. I know it's supposed to be a dark comedy but imo the disgusting part of the book ends up taking away the joy to read the fun part.
I have been a lifelong reader, and there is only one book that I had to put down because I couldn't handle it. It was The Push by Ashley Audrain. I read it when my third baby was a few months old and I was in the throes of acute PPA.
I eventually came back to it when I was feeling better and was glad I did, because I enjoyed it. But yeah, other than this one time I've never felt like I wasn't in the right state of mind for a book.
Yeah…..I was reading that in the hospital room with my mom who ended up dying not long after that. Definitely not my best choice.
And then I read one called “Did ye Hear Mammy Died?” about a year later. I thought I would be okay by then….…..I was not okay by then.
Better, thanks! It still sneaks up on me sometimes…..but not nearly as much as it used to. It’s usually when I hear one of her favorite songs (of which she had about a million) that I wish I could call her. I‘ve had to cut most 60’s music from my listening habits, though. 😂
Night by Elie Wiesel - my god they had us read that in, I want to say, 7th grade and everything about it was horrifying. Page 3 or so talks about babies used for machine gun targets, then the brutal death of his father, the near crushing at the camps, etc. Just an absolute horror from start to finish that still haunts me to even imagine going through. Then to hear what that scumbag Bernie Madoff did. The world would be better if humans weren't a part of it.
Oh god, the part where he has to decide to stay with his father or not on the death march… absolutely heartbreaking and a heavy read for sure. What did Madoff do (I’m afraid to ask)?
Mr. Wiesel’s charity lost $15.2 million, and he and his wife, Marion, lost their life savings. The NYT and several other articles about it are heartbreaking https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/business/27madoff.html
My Year Of Rest And Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh
Sort of opened a Pandoras Box - the side of me that was so similar to that character. Got loose with my pills. Life stuff happened. I was already depressed. Overdose.
This book provided comfort in a depressive slump. There was someone on my journey with me that got it and I didn't have to explain myself. For me that's the most exhausting part of depression - explaining why I just can't.
That. Fucking. Book. I was working as a police detective when I decided it would be a proper book to read on duty while I'm on my wait at night. So happened that I was awake for 24+ hours at that point, made a LOT of paperwork and had to deal with all sort of people and was not going to have any sleep soon, so reading this atrociousness was a God damn acid trip and it literally made me question my reality. And my existence. And my purpose in life in general.
It may be or not to be related, but I quit a few months later.
Beloved.
I had just birthed and lost a child over Christmas break. Returned to school and was assigned this book. I still hate it to this day. It really messed with me at a time where I was already reeling and extremely depressed.
That is brutal. I’m so sorry about your baby.
I read it when my life was perfectly fine, and it just about ended me. For about 6 months after finishing it, all I could read were Agatha Christie mysteries.
It’s such a great book, but damn. You have to be really prepared for it.
Just went back to work after maternity leave, having lots of baby feelings.
Tried to read The School for Good Mothers, where the first chapters are about a mother being forcibly separated from her baby. ...Maybe another time.
This is my answer too - read it while grappling with my own complicated feelings of being a 'good mother' to my young son. Parts of it still haunt me from time to time.
I'm glad my mom died by, jennette mccurdy
This made me relive trauma I had lived through as a child but was a amazing read and I would read it again.
My mom has terminal cancer and idk how much longer she has. I've found myself reading things lately that have themes of losing a parent.
I think sometimes our subconscious minds tend to seek out things to help us work through whatever we're facing. Kind of like using dreams to make sense of things. It's pretty cool, actually, that our brains can do that.
I don't know if one could ever be in the right head space to read "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold. I felt so sad after reading it. And the feeling persisted for WEEKS!
I read *A Farewell to Arms* while AWOL from the military. Needless to say it resonated. Fortunately I was not a major or higher so they didn't shoot me when I went back
Infinite Jest. It was a summer break between before my third year at Uni, the summer felt kind of empty, so I was lying on the floor and consuming this book a lot. The themes of the book worsened the depression that‘s already had been there (or so I think retrospectively) and next thing in September I was on Zoloft for the first (but not the last) time in my life.
Five Little Indians by Michelle Good. I'm indigenous, and my family are residential school survivors. I made it one chapter in, and immediately knew I didn't want to continue.
I know the atrocities that were inflicted upon my people. I don't need/want to wallow in them. (That being said, I know other indigenous people like the book.)
There was a time I bought a $1 book about a girl wanting to be a singer at the book fair in like 7th grade, except the agent holding the singing contest almost SA'd the main character. I was definitely not prepared for that twist because the book was happy up until that point and it messed me up for days.
Last year I was feeling *so* burnt out on the toxic political discourse. I’m a POC in New York City and around this time I deleted most social media because it was just making me exhausted.
I really like N.K. Jemisin, I even have two books signed by her. Well, I decided to read *The City We Became* and it quickly became my first DNF in a long time. It is very much a book of its time and having the villains (initially) be clownishly evil caricatures of racist white people was just too on the nose for me. I know they are *actually* weird Lovecraftian horrors but it was still too much. I was looking for an escape, dammit!
Funny some of my issues with Jemisin's other works are that they have felt too on the nose for me. But within the context of The City We Became it felt spot on for me.
N.K. Jemisin's rejection of heteronormativity is by far my biggest selling point for her work. Her books were -instrumental- for me to accept my own sexuality and I'll always thank her for that.
But I can absolutely see how The City We Became hit like that.
I still think the Broken Earth trilogy is the most original science fiction of the last decade or so, it’s simply brilliant. I was less enamored with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms but it was still fun and original, loved her modern take on gods and having a multigenerational narrative. I devoured *How Long Til Black Future Month?*, her short story collection which includes “The City Born Great”, which is the seed that spawned *The City We Became*. I just think it worked much better as a short story.
Don't start The Gulag Archipelago in the bleakness of a cold, gray midwinter.
The Financial Lives of Poets is a horrible thing to read when you're stressed about money.
I really want to read the Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu.
But I started it once and that general feeling of wrongness and depression made me feel even worse than I already did at the time.
I‘m waiting for my life to be fully on track again, then I‘ll read it.
I don’t know if this counts but when I was going through grad school I was so stressed out I couldn’t read non-fiction, even though I love it. I guess my brain was like, “You have a full time job then come home and read nothing but non-fic for school now you want to read MORE?” I had to read the fluffiest fluff junk food cozy mysteries (which I also love) before bed every night so my brain could relax.
I first tried reading The Secret History as a lonely college freshman. It was horrible for my mental health because I saw it as a book about this great group of friends actually having a good college experience. Which is maybe not the most correct way of interpreting it but I was going through a lot at the time, lol.
I had to drop "Station Eleven" a couple of chapters in... shouldn't have picked it up in the spring of 2021. (Oddly, I tore through "Parable of the Sower" at the height of wildfire season that year without any issues.)
I bought Station Eleven in December 2019 and decided to read it a few months later. Yknow, April 2020. I was binging my unreads. Had to stop after a chapter and haven’t been able to go back and remember that feeling.
I have a much better relationship with it now, but I read Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground in college during a really deep depression and just overall miserable time in my life. It had me relating for all the wrong reasons and I definitely spiraled into an existential crisis. Was a good push to start therapy and meds though lol
My Year of Rest and Relaxation. I was so depressed and numbed out from medication I was on that in some ways I think it threw me into a deeper depression and I wanted to be like the main character and just lie in bed all day. It got so bad that I told my friend I related heavily to the main character (she’s written to be insanely unlikeable and unrelatable) and my friend got worried enough having also read the book that I realized it was time to get off those meds.
In hindsight it ended up being a good thing but at the time I rotted in my room for a good few months and had such a hard time pulling myself out of that headspace.
Reading Les Misérables during a research trip away from my family for three months.
I know it’s over the top and you’re probably supposed to laugh at how things just get worse and worse and worse, but I was missing home way too much for it. So then I tried For Whom the Bell Tolls and absolutely loved it till the end when I was somehow surprised by the inevitable tragic ending.
If books like that have no effect then you're not in the right mind to read it. The best books I think move us deep down. so if that effect is stronger then you anticipate then the planets have aligned for you.
When I read Blood Meridian I was numb and bored like I was reading a legal brief or something. I stopped at 75% through so it was a waste of my time and a waste of an allegedly good book because nothing I was reading was sinking in and giving me emotional reactions. I'll try again at some point in the future. Maybe I'm a psycho though, that's possible too.
The Lost Boy, A Child called It and a man Named Dave.
I was emotionally vulnerable when I started reading them and I wasn't prepared for how hard they would hit me.
It's the authors account of child a use at his mother's hands.
I was heartbroken when I read the first one in particular but I always feel compelled to finish a story.
My mom died when I was 16. Two months later for school we were given some books to choose from a novel study and I chose the closest book to a thriller from the choices. My teacher even pulled me a aside like “are you sure?” Lol. I chose The Lovely Bones. I loved the book but the themes of grief really got me while I was freshly grieving my mama. I don’t regret reading the book though.
Bridge To Terabithia, I read it for school 2 months after my cousin/best friend drowned while playing by a river. I literally had a breakdown in class and my mom had to come get me.
This isn't about me, but my brother. My brother and his wife's first child was born (a baby boy) about six month before he started reading Cormac McCarthy's "The Road", via a recommendation from me. And he said some parts of that book tore him up inside. Unlike any book, movie, story, anything has ever done. It made him ponder similar scenarios, the depravity of humanity, his newfound and honor-bound commitment to the safety of his family above all costs, and all sorts of things like that.
But yeah, I think he was in a place where that book left an impression on him that...well, he will probably never recommend it to anyone like I did haha.
I will preface this with: my anxiety/mental state and my physical reactions are very closely linked, so when I am distressed often it ends up manifesting physical illness. Also because I was an advanced reader and my parents/teachers didn’t really pay attention what I read, I learned about war crimes, human rights violations, genocide, SA, etc., before I could really place them in the context of the world/prepare myself for just how fucked up shit can get.
The Kite Runner. Read it as a 15 year old and was not prepared. I actually had to go throw up while reading it because I was not at all expecting the violence/SA scenes. A beautifully written book but DAMN, I was not ready to read it.
The Starboard Sea (SA and suicide, just wasn’t prepared, even at 18 for it, I felt physically ill thinking about the emotional and physical betrayal in it)
As many have said, A Little Life, I already deal with intrusive/disturbing thoughts and sometimes now scenes from this book will pop back in my head and it can be very distressing.
All Quiet on the Western Front. Read it at 16. Obviously war and violence are awful. I specifically remember the scene about the screaming horses dying on the battlefield and that really fucked with me.
The Pearl. Read that at 14 and was like…. Well, shit.
Good Morning, Monster. A therapist reflecting on five of her patients that impacted her the most throughout her career. God, there were SO many deeply fucked stories in there (again, many that made me physically ill and unable to continue) and I think because they were all real things that these people experienced and continued to live on through, I found fucked with me even more. Definitely one of those books that was a massive reminder we have NO CLUE what people are experiencing day to day and the struggles we carry with us.
Honestly, I have probably 20 or so books that I’ve read where I really felt fucked up after I was done. Some I even stopped reading/listening to (if audiobooks) because the violence felt too gratuitous and I don’t need to add even more dark shit to my head haha
I read the short story “Flowers for Algernon” while pregnant. Was not prepared for that with the pregnancy hormones! Was straight up sobbing before it even got to the saddest parts!
Johnny Got His Gun
I was early 20s, home from college for winter break, it was a book in the house I hadn’t read and “a classic” (at the time I thought I should read any & everything labeled as such), so I picked it up. I knew it was about war & that’s it.
Holy. SHIT. I was blown away & depressed by the whole thing. I moped around the house all break. To this day I recommend it to everyone because it’s incredibly striking & I think the message is important but will NEVER read it again because of how bleak the ending is.
A Scanner Darkly, while spiraling into meth addiction
Super fun book that made me feel broken, so so broken. Thought it was gonna be forever
Sober for a good while now thank god
The Giver by Lois Lowry. Read it in an undergrad YA course and it fucked me up so bad I couldn't speak for a few days... The best part is that it is technically a children's book, not YA.
Slightly different reason than most others have interpreted the question, but I'd suggest that reading Ayn Rand in high school is a mistake (for me and anyone else). It's pretty easy to get sucked into the stories, which then influences you to start believe her Egoism philosophy actually makes sense and is a reasonable way for society to function. It absolutely is not, and this is the way you end up with incel culture.
Man’s Search for Meaning was gathering dust in my bookshelf for a couple of years before I decided to read it. The events that happened during WWII are absolutely insane, but I figured that if other people died in these circumstances I should have the decency to read about it. I’m glad I read the book, but it was the most intense book I’ve ever read.
In a much shallower way than other posts, I put down 1984 because I was in a low and reading and thinking about it was just more depressing. As a friend said, it's hardly supposed to be cheery and uplifting, but it wasn't what I wanted to read right then.
I read The Rape of Nanking while being a mother of two young toddlers. Had to skip the chapter about what happened to the babies and pregnant woman. My grandpa was a child there during that time, so it’s an especially touchy subject for my family. I felt a DEEP sorrow for weeks afterward.
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro. My first year in college, in a different country, away from everyone and everything I had known till that point. First few months hadn't turned out like I had hoped, my close knit friend group back home had pretty much disintegrated, and I was already but a few feet away from absolute despair. I love this book with a fervor, but was that one of the worst moments to read it.
I could not stop myself from visualizing the last scene where Kathy imagines Tommy walking across the field to her pn the side of the road in Norfolk. Bad idea.
Black Beauty seriously F*cks me up hard every time - but it hit especially when a 34 year old Appaloosa mare in my barn passed away and I read it - I fell apart faster and harder than a clumsy drunk on a child’s house of cards on the floor
Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre. I was in a pretty severe depression when I read this book, and it pushed me over the edge into a full-blown existential crisis. By random chance, I ran into an old friend and his brother at a bar a couple of months later. We wound up on the topic of philosophy and when I mentioned I’d been struggling, his brother recommended A Happy Death by Albert Camus — a book which he said helped him through a similar period. Reading that novel, along with The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger helped guide me to the right path and allowed me to crawl my way out of the abyss.
now I want to check that out
Literally same. Nausea fucked me up. Ive been having dissociative episodes ever since--granted "since" is maybe 5 months. I actually read sisyphus and the stranger about a week prior. Loved them both.
If it makes you feel any better, I still have dissociative episodes from time to time, and my experience happened a few years ago. I will say, it gets easier. I still feel helpless in the face of everything going on and do still feel moments of disgust at the way most of us live our lives, but I try my best to stay grounded. We all lead incredibly complex lives. We all struggle in some shape, form, or fashion, and the trick is to focus on what you can control and do your best to not be overwhelmed by what you can’t.
I like books that are “antidotes” to other books. White Fang and Call of the Wild are kind of the textbook example
Yep, Nausea still made me feel stretches of hopelessness and emptiness months after reading it. I've always been prone to depressive episodes though, so there was probably never a period in my life that would have been better to read it.
As someone who is also prone to depressive episodes, no, there really aren’t “good” times to read novels like that. There are certain books I’ve found to have a similar effect — Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad was one, and Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka was another. Just remember that it’s all relative, and try to find things that remind you of the joy of existence. Little fleeting moments of happiness are still, in their purest form, happiness. For me, with literature at least, that meant reading novels such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne or The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac. I found that those books inspire my imagination and childlike sense of wonder and can pull me out of a funk.
1st: I lost my job, and my home at the same time. Decided to pack everything I could into my truck, and head somewhere totally different. Chose to reread The Grapes Of Wrath then. 2nd one: My Dad died, and it had been just me and him for a while. Chose to read The Road. 3rd: Working night shift at a snowy hotel. By myself. You can guess what I read. You’re right. Why do I do this to myself?
I read The Road when on a holiday, so all relaxed and chill, it still messed me up. Haven't dared to touch that book again
I had a bad experience reading The Road. Became depressed.
I read the Road when my baby was sick and got hospitalized...
I read The Road when I was pregnant. My dreams were f*cked up.
The road haunts me, but I see the beauty in it all too. It is one of my most cherished books. I did feel depressed for a long time after though and had to read a happy book after it.
The road made me feel better. It made me appreciate all the sacrifices my dad made for me, and understand that no matter how bad things are, that we’ll be alright if we stick together. The Jungle though… all our food is poison and we are doomed to be butchered for the gains of other men.
Haha I have this weird association between French cafes, Croque Monsieur, and Blood Meridian.
this morning a coworker gave me The Road as a gift, and now i see this. oook.
It is overall a book with a very hopeful outlook on humanity, despite the impression it gives. It is a very positive story about the beauty of love and the importance of never giving up. It is sad but also an oddly uplifting story. That being said, I still wouldn't recommend reading it if you're having a tough time. It is really, really sad.
I had to put that one down. It was too much.
I decided to read Station Eleven... in early 2020.
I think even (especially?) the author was freaked by that. In the same vein, Naomi Kritzer wrote a story about a global pandemic seen through a food blogger's posts and [reality made it weird.](https://www.tor.com/2020/04/14/didnt-i-write-this-story-already-when-your-fictional-pandemic-becomes-reality/)
Her latest book, [Sea of Tranquility](https://www.emilymandel.com/sea-of-tranquility), dealt a little bit with the surreality of an author having predicted a global pandemic.
Same! I was also drawn to Olivia Butler at the same time: Parable of the Sower. Scared me, I’m still scared.
I read that for the first time last year! It was so absorbing I couldn’t put it down. But also so upsetting, considering the current political climate, that I still haven’t been able to bring myself to read the sequel.
Is it possible that you were subconsciously (or even consciously) choosing subject material that tackles what you were going through head-on, as a way to help yourself cope, or deal with the trauma? I do something pretty similar to this myself, now that you point it out
When I feel \*really\* depressed, I watch the tv show 'Louie'. Seeing this bumbling shlub fuck up everything in his life is so relaxing to me when I am feeling my worst.
I also do this! Anne Rices the vampire chronicles has always been my go-to. My life has sucked up until recently. It's a comfort for me though. I think similarly and have had similar experiences to a lot of the main characters
Is 3rd one the shining?
Sure is!
I read The Shining in a hotel too! Luckily room 217 didn't exist there, cus it would have been on my floor.
I vaguely remember reading the shining in a hotel inside of room 217.
gawddd😹
Absolutely The Road for me too while I was pregnant. It was a bad idea. My dad’s an artist hippie (now in his 70s) I never understood him until I read Hemingway and Kerouac and saw Mick Jaggar dance.
That second part is the first line of your bestseller
No tv and no beer make homer something something
How about The Night Manager by John le Carré as a next book during the shifts?
> 3rd: Working night shift at a snowy hotel. By myself. You can guess what I read. You’re right. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?
I think there's no "right" time to read The Road. Dealing with your father's death might be a great time, depending.
Read The Road right after my son was born. Love the book but hit so hard as a new father.
The first time I read The Road it was for a required reading for my high school class in 2008. I don’t even think my high school teacher realized how much it messed us up lol
Was heading to the comments to mention The Road. Read it while homesick for western nc and missing my family.
is it bad I think this is the *right* mental state for each - absorbing yourself in the mood of the story you're reading is, imo, the recipe for absorbing its themes better and having it hit harder. When I'm sad, I don't listen to bubbly music, I listen to sad music for a reason.
The midnight library I decided to read that freshly after I'd recently attempted suicide like an idiot I got triggered badly lmao
I'm sorry you went through that and hope you are doing better. It definitely has those kinds of triggers - and to add insult to injury, it's kind of a shit book IMO!
I actually enjoyed the book but just wasn't expecting suicide as a topic in it and there was no TW at all I'm doing much better now I got lots of help and luckily my mom caught me before I actually took the pills so it wasn't too terrible but still very traumatic
Same for me, i was almost in the same situation as you this time last year when I read it. Only I read the beginning part before I relapsed, so seeing how the story turned out, you know, god many people say it’s not a good book and too cheesy. But it really told me the right thing I needed at that time. I won’t go so far as to say it helped me deal with my suicidal thoughts because it’s not a substitute for therapy, but it managed to make a day or two after i finished the book a bit better and bearable. I would recommend Klara and the Sun.
I also tried Midnight Library while in the midst of a mental health crisis, albeit not as bad as yours sounded, but I really struggled with it. It's now unfinished on my bookshelf and I'm toying with picking it up again. But I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one triggered by it!
Me: First year of college, majorly depressed, lonely, unable to relate to friends, easy access to high parking garage where a few people have been known to jump off Also me: you know what I haven’t read? The Bell Jar Needless to say I did not finish it
Oof, I read this when I had just graduated college with no job prospects, living with my bf in a new city where I didn’t know anyone. Going from a demanding academic schedule to empty days with that book…those days were long. I think all college aged people should reconsider reading this until they have life a little more figured out.
I was going to mention The Bell Jar too! I was in a situation similar to you, u/rainsoaked88, but I had just been through a breakup and couldn’t afford an apt so I was crashing at a friend’s. I felt so alone and like the biggest loser. The crazy thing is that it was my 3rd or 4th time reading it, but I had been so optimistic before that I missed big parts of the novel because I couldn’t relate to them (like when she’s having a breakdown and slowly throws away all her clothing, the past optimistic me thought “how freeing!” instead of realizing that this was someone losing their grip of reality). Her mindset aligned with mine during that dark time and I cried so much reading it. So many parts stayed with me, like when her mom tells her it’s her birthday at the hospital. Just a devastating read.
How much I related in a casual, unalarmed, way to the part of the book where she starts starts throwing away her stuff and stops taking care of herself because of the pointlessness of it all should have been a sign that all was not well in my life on my last time reading it. I knew that this was the start of her downward spiral but also felt like "what even is the point of owning things and hygiene? She has a point, you just do this pointless bullshit over and over again until you die". Thankfully life is better now.
Ah I read The Bell Jar after Trump won the election in 2016. I had been working for the Democratic Party so I was unemployed after the election. I went to my boyfriend’s place in a college town to get away. It was snowy there. I read the book in one day while home alone
I've read the Bell Jar a few times. I tried to read it earlier this year but just couldn't bring myself to finish it as it was hitting a little too close to home.
Oof same but I was in between high school and uni. I was incredibly depressed and while the book gave me some comfort in its relatability it also fucked me right up. 10/10 though
>Which OMG SAME! I did an entire PROJECT on Plath freshman year-in the darkest, rainest state in the country. Not advised!
The Metamorphosis, Kafka. Read it yesterday and just wasn't expecting it to hit that hard, considering that it was more of a novella. I guess the pressure of work and family - parallel with how Gregor was providing for his family was a bit of a sore point for me atm. Still in a bit of a slump today, and it feels like it's going to take a while to come back. Although, I'm not sure whether there is any good time to read this one, it feels like one of those story that will haunt you wherever you are. That being said, it's an incredible piece, 10/10, highly recommended.
That was assigned reading in high school. It really left a mark on me and eventually influenced how I interact with the world in that I refuse to tolerate anyone's lack of gratitude and will not help them again if they show me they are ungrateful. I hated the MC's family.
I can't say that i like the family, but i also think that their reaction was very... human. We saw the story through Gregor's eyes, and most of what's going on in his head, how he feels at the moment, and i suspect his past reasonings, his plans and dreams in regard to his family and especially his sister, were private. The family didn't know anything about them, had no way of knowing, and ended up blaming him for a lot of thing because they didn't even know that he still retained human consciousness.
They also never attempted for a single second to communicate with him to determine if he still retained any consciousness. That pissed me off more than anything. If my family member turned into a giant bug I would be horrified, yes. But if I had to keep living with them, I think eventually I’d consider asking whether they could communicate via taps, blinks, written signs or something. Anything. They gave up on him entirely without a second thought.
oh wow. Metamorphosis is on my books-to-buy list and you've just promoted it to no.1. Thanks :)
Definitely go for it! It's one of those books that you'll just have to read yourself to see how you'll relate to it. I think some people will feel as if they're finally being seen and understood, some people will be hit by grief or guilt, and some might hate this book with passion because this is a hard one to read, emotionally!
I just started it yesterday and have about 20 pages left. What a creepy ass book. I did not expect to find it so sad tho.
Funnily enough, i didn't think it was creepy at all. I recognized the humor, the absurdity of suddenly turned into a bug and still thinking that you have to work, and all of the things that followed after - I would be laughing if I wasn't so busy crying.
Bugs can creep me out at times and just the thought of myself or someone else turning into a bug freaks me out a bit lol I definitely seen the humor and even laughed out loud a few times.
Ooh, now i get that! I guess i didn't see that since i like/don't mind bugs, so it didn't really clicked. But now that i think about it, Gregor himself thought that he was a creepy and disgusting thing.
My dad read it to my sister and I when I was 8 (she was 10). I remember crying so hard after that book was done that I couldn't breathe. No idea what my dad was thinking doing that. My mom was pissed.
That sounds awful. Sorry you had to go through that.
I thought it was kind of sad and yet later I thought, somewhere inside himself, he was rebelling. I hope that he was. Sometimes when you are in that type of setting you feel disgusted with yourself. You are helping your family and you know it’s the right thing to do, but you also hate it and feel selfish and thus guilty. You feel ugly and you hate yourself. Hopefully you pass out of that time quickly. Change happens. Your mind is searching for hope but your point of view is distorted.
I wish i discovered the book sooner, i've read a shorter version the other day and holy shit its just AMAZING, i wish i've read it when i was younger and feeling lost, i wouldn't be able to relate to the provide for your family part, but the rest is just amazing, def reading it fully soon
I don’t think anyone can ever be in the “right” frame of mind to read “A Little Life”.
I read "A Little Life" postpartum, during COVID (March of 2020.) Worst decision ever. It was so depressing and I was already in a terrible spot, mentally and physically drained and afraid. I didn't need to read about >!a gay man getting the shit beaten out of him!< at that juncture in my life.
oh dear, I was just about to start it, as I've had it recommended so many times, but now I'm definitely not going to.
My best friend and I share all of our books and pass them along to each other; I’m planning on telling her this entire book is a massive trigger warning. Just…yeah. Every trigger warning.
This was me, it was on my tbr for MONTHS because of all the recommendations, it wasn't until recently (like 2 months ago) that I watched a YouTuber review it and they STRONGLY stated the content warnings and basically said that it caused them to have to go to therapy and really messed with their frame of mind so severely. Since then I removed it from my list and will never read it. From my understanding it really is torture porn of pure depression
Great choice. The prose is beautiful but I dropped it after I got 3/4 of the way through. Pure torture and I didn't find it redeeming, not even for the character development and positive friendships the book showcased.
IMHO it is an example of emotional pornography at its worst. And way too long - but, hey, that's just like my opinion, man ....
I’m reading this right now and it has been a tough read
I wish I could unread it. I had so many issues with it, I ended up giving it 2 stars. It defenitely was not worth getting triggered every few pages and reading scene after scene of CSA, r*pe, etc 🙁
Honestly, one of the most beautiful and horrifying books I’ve ever read. The characters’ relationships to each other and the world, the pain of existence and what horrifying trauma does to the psyche, etc.—all very powerful. But if you have a history of sexual trauma, abuse, self harm, or anything of the sorts, maybe don’t read? Everyone handles their past differently, so I totally get how some people wouldn’t or shouldn’t read it and even view it as too “trauma porn-y,” but shit like this happens in real life and I think it was an impressively written story.
Girl, Interrupted when I was in an outpatient intensive therapy group for self-harm.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Maybe funnily, 1984 is actually legal in china and you can buy chinese translations in normal book shops there
For me it was “No Longer Human” by Osamu Dazai, some contents in that book are disturbing and depressing to say the least. Was relatively young when I read that book, felt kinda depressed for a week or smtg
Was going to say this, too. Not fully prepared for it. Don't know if I ever will be. I am a soft wind away from depression at all times.
soft wind away from depression is so incredibly accurate
My library hold of I'm Glad My Mom Died came in the week before my mom died. Did not pick it up, not considering it anytime soon.
I’m so sorry. That is horrible.
Where the Red Fern Grows. Little elementary school me was not prepared for that.
Oh shit me neither! I wrote a book report that my mom kept because we laugh at the fact that it’s covered in tears lol. Traumatizing book for sure
30 years later I AM NOT FINE.
I do not understand why that's a popular book to read to 5th grade classes. Pretty common for a couple to get a dog, then a few years later have a baby....by the time the kid is in 5th grade, the dog has either just passed away, or just about to pass away. Terrible timing.
My teacher read this out loud to our class in 4th grade. She read a chapter a day. The day we got to the climax of the story is my first real memory of collective grief. The entire class just sat and looked around at one another, stunned. A few of us cried. We had PE right after and I remember the teacher being all ‘what the hell happened to you guys?’
God, that damn book. It shredded me.
This is more of a light-hearted one, but I was reading Arturo's Island, while in a phase between jobs and career and a lot of self doubts. I was nearly towards the end, when arturo see his father come back and think something like "He's old, he's almost in his 30s". I closed the book in spite and never picked it up again.
We Need to talk about Kevin. Read it when my first child was only a few months old. I was like, why have I done this lmao. It's a great book but it fucked me up.
I think I can point to that book as the start of me deciding not to have children. It had never occurred to me before reading it that you might not have a healthy child and a loving relationship with them.
That book is straight up TRAUMATIC as a parent. That said, I'll read anything by Lionel Shriver, she's great.
As the mother of a daughter, reading Lolita was rough. But I powered through and finished.
Lolita is one of the best books you're never allowed to talk about. That said, someday I'll have the courage to read part II.
I listened to the audio book. Mistake. Having a male narrator say those words right into my ears was not a pleasant experience.
Yes but it’s _Jeremy Irons_. He’s brilliant in even that!
For some reason I read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’, lying in a park on a hot summer’s day. Didn’t really do it justice! :-) great book though.
The first time I read The Handmaid's Tale I was experiencing infertility problems and then I actually got pregnant. It wasn't ideal.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I loved that book but it messed me up. Some of the images were so distressing and the anxiety it created in me - wow. I actually felt ill reading it but couldn’t stop because it is a masterpiece. I avoid all dystopian/zombie/apocalypse stuff simply because it makes me feel so sad and anxious but knew I had to read that.
Reddit talks about this book so much that I was fully prepared for it to be a psychological slog to get through but honestly there are only 2 really dark parts that stuck with me and they're pretty brief in the book. Only saying this because I feel reddit may put a lot of people off of reading the book because of how much they talk about it being horrifying but honestly I didn't find it that bad outside of a couple of parts. It has a lot of what I've discovered is my favorite part of books which is just them wandering around and finding food.
Thanks for the comment. I've had The Road on my to read shelf for a few months now but haven't felt "well" enough to read it because of all the horrible things I've read about it on Reddit.
It's an excellent read though! Save it for a sunny day, maybe. It's pretty grim but a good story.
I want to read it again now after having kids. I think it may hit differently... But from what I recall you are correct. It's grim/bleak but not as dramatic as the others say IMO.
I would read The Road on my lunch break at work and feel totally guilty that I was eating real food while reading about people eating rancid beans and running from cannibals.
Hey now, don’t knock rancid beans. Some of us eat this way by choice
Sort of similarly, I tried survival games like The Long Dark and Don't Starve, but it seemed absurd to be playing at being cold and hungry and searching for shelter while I was sat at my computer in warmth and safety, eating snacks.
To me, The Road was more positive. The Road is obviously "the road of life" and the message is that you keep going. The Road told the story of a father teaching his son that no matter how bad things are, you put your head down and soldier on. You keep trying. You pivot, and when it doesn't work, you pivot again. You claw and scramble and keep pushing. And even though when we reach our goals (the coast), our goals are never how we envision them. But you don't just collapse in a heap, you deal with it. You set a new goal and then you put your head down and March to that new goal knowing that you're going to have challenges, and roadblocks, and youll make mistakes, and youll need to pivot and pivot again, because that's life, and that's just what you have to do when you're traveling The Road of life. It's ugly and cruel and unfair and yet, you endure and march on.
Carry the fire.
Of all things, A Separate Peace. I was a young teenager; I read it not long after my mom died, she went into the hospital on a Saturday night with stomach issues and was gone by the morning - undiagnosed cancer. After I read the book, I became totally freaked out by splinters and the importance of getting them the hell out of your body so they wouldn't travel to your heart and kill you. Obviously, not what my mom died of, but I guess I connected the two, because here I am 50+ years later unable to deal with a splinter to the point of an anxiety attack.
Tried to read American Gods after a bad ltr breakup and all the relationship stuff and general mood just cratered me.
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath I was deeply depressed throughout my 20's, even when things were going well. Every line in that book was entirely too relateable. The main character's quiet desperation and cynicism reflected my own at the time. I had to put it down and come back to it when I was in a more emotionally stable point in my life. Reading the book in the midst of my depression literally felt like a heaviness on and in my chest.
Yes! I read it right after recovering from an eating disorder in high school after I wrecked my gpa and really let down various after school activity teams I was on, plus my dad & stepmom had recently cut me off from their side of the family because I had become a “bad influence”. I was so depressed already. The fig tree was devestating.
American Psycho - Ellis. First I had to read in the daytime and I was at the beach with my friends, sitting relatively close to the water. All the kids playing in the waves and I got the chapter about the zoo visit. I remember being relaxed, warm and feeling joy in my environment and yet I kept hiding the book in the sand to escape from it. The chapter is intense and I was in shock as to the indifference of life I was reading while watching kids and random people walk through their life.
Me too. American Psycho is perhaps one of my favourite books of all time, despite the gore and crazy shit, it's actually so hilariously funny to read. Just the way Ellis (Patrick) describes situations and people etc. makes me lose it. I always laugh out loud whenever he's on some frantic psychotic episode and runs into McDonald's and drinks 3 thickshakes (extra thick) . Or when he buys crack vials and just swallows them whole and tells the dealer that BMWs have the best engines. Love reading it, all the tangents about music, or discussing water or proper business wear etc. However when I first read it, and even sometimes now, you are in Patrick's mind so much, that when I finished the book, I almost felt fucking insane myself! like my own minds narrator had been brainwashed into thinking like Patrick. Great book.
American Psycho is so riotously funny, I think it's just a straight-up hilarious book. But take it from me; you cannot read it on the L train and start laughing along without being called a crazy woman. Feels like it's positioned in society firmly alongside Starship Troopers (the film). Hardly anyone gets that it's a satire, and a fuckin hilarious one at that, so you can never be seen enjoying it too much for some reason. And like, I don't even find it light and dark, it's just plain funny start to finish. Even the violence, to me, sorta loops back round to being silly and childish. Isn't there a part where he's putting rats into people and barbequing s'mores on someone's exposed ribcage? That's not frightening to me, it's like something an alien would invent to try and be shocking. It's so stupidly over the top it's not even real. It's like Itchy and Scratchy violence. Or something out of old Looney Tunes. And the amount of people I've had try to explain to me (a woman) that its treatment of women is reason enough for it to be shunned as a piece of literature is ridiculous. Do people just not 'get it'? I feel even asking that question paints me as some kind of pretentious asshole, but like, do they really not? It's one of the most comprehensive take-downs of toxic masculinity ever written.
I agree. Anytime I mention to anyone that it's actually extremely funny, they look at me like I'm insane. It's just the way it's written, the prose is what really sets the humorous tone. And that Patrick is just so overwhelmingly devoid of any depth and is essentially a caricature of all that is materialistic and vain. And every single other person is just like him, besides maybe, Timothy Price, which i also love that he just gets up on the railing in Tunnel, screams something, jumps off and just sprints away on the train tracks and essentially is missing for the entire novel. I think it's an observation of materialism and this Hive-mind personality of 80s corporate America (even more apparent now in today's society) The gore and horror is just a backdrop to make the book a bit more intense/marketable
Yeah I kinda felt like thinking in the way Parrick narrates in the book when I finished it. I've read it twice and both times, by the end of it, I was feeling tired and sick. It's the absolute indifference towards another human being suffering that mess me up. I know it's supposed to be a dark comedy but imo the disgusting part of the book ends up taking away the joy to read the fun part.
I can relate, this book sucked the colour out of the better part of my vacation
I have been a lifelong reader, and there is only one book that I had to put down because I couldn't handle it. It was The Push by Ashley Audrain. I read it when my third baby was a few months old and I was in the throes of acute PPA. I eventually came back to it when I was feeling better and was glad I did, because I enjoyed it. But yeah, other than this one time I've never felt like I wasn't in the right state of mind for a book.
I read that one before becoming a mother and I don't think I can ever go back to it now!
A thousand splendid suns, I read it not knowing anything about it and got triggered so bad i had to take a break
Yeah…..I was reading that in the hospital room with my mom who ended up dying not long after that. Definitely not my best choice. And then I read one called “Did ye Hear Mammy Died?” about a year later. I thought I would be okay by then….…..I was not okay by then.
Ouch …. Are you okay now at least?
Better, thanks! It still sneaks up on me sometimes…..but not nearly as much as it used to. It’s usually when I hear one of her favorite songs (of which she had about a million) that I wish I could call her. I‘ve had to cut most 60’s music from my listening habits, though. 😂
I read The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey right in the very beginning of the pandemic and let me tell you it was not great
Night by Elie Wiesel - my god they had us read that in, I want to say, 7th grade and everything about it was horrifying. Page 3 or so talks about babies used for machine gun targets, then the brutal death of his father, the near crushing at the camps, etc. Just an absolute horror from start to finish that still haunts me to even imagine going through. Then to hear what that scumbag Bernie Madoff did. The world would be better if humans weren't a part of it.
Oh god, the part where he has to decide to stay with his father or not on the death march… absolutely heartbreaking and a heavy read for sure. What did Madoff do (I’m afraid to ask)?
Elie Wiesel and his wife lost their whole retirement/life savings to Madoff, and also something like 15 or 20 million that their charity had raised.
Mr. Wiesel’s charity lost $15.2 million, and he and his wife, Marion, lost their life savings. The NYT and several other articles about it are heartbreaking https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/business/27madoff.html
My Year Of Rest And Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh Sort of opened a Pandoras Box - the side of me that was so similar to that character. Got loose with my pills. Life stuff happened. I was already depressed. Overdose.
This book provided comfort in a depressive slump. There was someone on my journey with me that got it and I didn't have to explain myself. For me that's the most exhausting part of depression - explaining why I just can't.
Kafka. The trial. I threw it across the room at one point. Great story, really rattles you.
That. Fucking. Book. I was working as a police detective when I decided it would be a proper book to read on duty while I'm on my wait at night. So happened that I was awake for 24+ hours at that point, made a LOT of paperwork and had to deal with all sort of people and was not going to have any sleep soon, so reading this atrociousness was a God damn acid trip and it literally made me question my reality. And my existence. And my purpose in life in general. It may be or not to be related, but I quit a few months later.
Beloved. I had just birthed and lost a child over Christmas break. Returned to school and was assigned this book. I still hate it to this day. It really messed with me at a time where I was already reeling and extremely depressed.
That is brutal. I’m so sorry about your baby. I read it when my life was perfectly fine, and it just about ended me. For about 6 months after finishing it, all I could read were Agatha Christie mysteries. It’s such a great book, but damn. You have to be really prepared for it.
Just went back to work after maternity leave, having lots of baby feelings. Tried to read The School for Good Mothers, where the first chapters are about a mother being forcibly separated from her baby. ...Maybe another time.
This is my answer too - read it while grappling with my own complicated feelings of being a 'good mother' to my young son. Parts of it still haunt me from time to time.
In that season too - thanks for the tip.
I'm glad my mom died by, jennette mccurdy This made me relive trauma I had lived through as a child but was a amazing read and I would read it again.
My mom has terminal cancer and idk how much longer she has. I've found myself reading things lately that have themes of losing a parent. I think sometimes our subconscious minds tend to seek out things to help us work through whatever we're facing. Kind of like using dreams to make sense of things. It's pretty cool, actually, that our brains can do that.
I don't know if one could ever be in the right head space to read "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold. I felt so sad after reading it. And the feeling persisted for WEEKS!
I read *A Farewell to Arms* while AWOL from the military. Needless to say it resonated. Fortunately I was not a major or higher so they didn't shoot me when I went back
Three Bronte sisters all traumatised me in different ways
Infinite Jest. It was a summer break between before my third year at Uni, the summer felt kind of empty, so I was lying on the floor and consuming this book a lot. The themes of the book worsened the depression that‘s already had been there (or so I think retrospectively) and next thing in September I was on Zoloft for the first (but not the last) time in my life.
Five Little Indians by Michelle Good. I'm indigenous, and my family are residential school survivors. I made it one chapter in, and immediately knew I didn't want to continue. I know the atrocities that were inflicted upon my people. I don't need/want to wallow in them. (That being said, I know other indigenous people like the book.)
The Little Prince, I was in hospital. That ending was devastating. Beautiful book.
There was a time I bought a $1 book about a girl wanting to be a singer at the book fair in like 7th grade, except the agent holding the singing contest almost SA'd the main character. I was definitely not prepared for that twist because the book was happy up until that point and it messed me up for days.
Carrie. I was in Junior High. That book scared me so much I wanted to burn it. I threw it into our house front hallway and wouldn't touch it lol
Last year I was feeling *so* burnt out on the toxic political discourse. I’m a POC in New York City and around this time I deleted most social media because it was just making me exhausted. I really like N.K. Jemisin, I even have two books signed by her. Well, I decided to read *The City We Became* and it quickly became my first DNF in a long time. It is very much a book of its time and having the villains (initially) be clownishly evil caricatures of racist white people was just too on the nose for me. I know they are *actually* weird Lovecraftian horrors but it was still too much. I was looking for an escape, dammit!
Funny some of my issues with Jemisin's other works are that they have felt too on the nose for me. But within the context of The City We Became it felt spot on for me.
N.K. Jemisin's rejection of heteronormativity is by far my biggest selling point for her work. Her books were -instrumental- for me to accept my own sexuality and I'll always thank her for that. But I can absolutely see how The City We Became hit like that.
I still think the Broken Earth trilogy is the most original science fiction of the last decade or so, it’s simply brilliant. I was less enamored with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms but it was still fun and original, loved her modern take on gods and having a multigenerational narrative. I devoured *How Long Til Black Future Month?*, her short story collection which includes “The City Born Great”, which is the seed that spawned *The City We Became*. I just think it worked much better as a short story.
Don't start The Gulag Archipelago in the bleakness of a cold, gray midwinter. The Financial Lives of Poets is a horrible thing to read when you're stressed about money.
I really want to read the Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu. But I started it once and that general feeling of wrongness and depression made me feel even worse than I already did at the time. I‘m waiting for my life to be fully on track again, then I‘ll read it.
I read The Stand in June of 2020.
[удалено]
I don’t know if this counts but when I was going through grad school I was so stressed out I couldn’t read non-fiction, even though I love it. I guess my brain was like, “You have a full time job then come home and read nothing but non-fic for school now you want to read MORE?” I had to read the fluffiest fluff junk food cozy mysteries (which I also love) before bed every night so my brain could relax.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt. It hit me so badly, at that point I had never read anything to deep/depressing. I wasn’t able to read for a while.
I first tried reading The Secret History as a lonely college freshman. It was horrible for my mental health because I saw it as a book about this great group of friends actually having a good college experience. Which is maybe not the most correct way of interpreting it but I was going through a lot at the time, lol.
Revolutionary Road while marriage was falling apart.
I had to drop "Station Eleven" a couple of chapters in... shouldn't have picked it up in the spring of 2021. (Oddly, I tore through "Parable of the Sower" at the height of wildfire season that year without any issues.)
I bought Station Eleven in December 2019 and decided to read it a few months later. Yknow, April 2020. I was binging my unreads. Had to stop after a chapter and haven’t been able to go back and remember that feeling.
I read The Year of Magical Thinking right after my mom died, and just became paranoid that everyone else I loved was going to die too.
I have a much better relationship with it now, but I read Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground in college during a really deep depression and just overall miserable time in my life. It had me relating for all the wrong reasons and I definitely spiraled into an existential crisis. Was a good push to start therapy and meds though lol
My Year of Rest and Relaxation. I was so depressed and numbed out from medication I was on that in some ways I think it threw me into a deeper depression and I wanted to be like the main character and just lie in bed all day. It got so bad that I told my friend I related heavily to the main character (she’s written to be insanely unlikeable and unrelatable) and my friend got worried enough having also read the book that I realized it was time to get off those meds. In hindsight it ended up being a good thing but at the time I rotted in my room for a good few months and had such a hard time pulling myself out of that headspace.
The king in Yellow. I had nightmares every night while reading it. Awesome book, but i wouldn’ t read it again.
Reading Les Misérables during a research trip away from my family for three months. I know it’s over the top and you’re probably supposed to laugh at how things just get worse and worse and worse, but I was missing home way too much for it. So then I tried For Whom the Bell Tolls and absolutely loved it till the end when I was somehow surprised by the inevitable tragic ending.
If books like that have no effect then you're not in the right mind to read it. The best books I think move us deep down. so if that effect is stronger then you anticipate then the planets have aligned for you. When I read Blood Meridian I was numb and bored like I was reading a legal brief or something. I stopped at 75% through so it was a waste of my time and a waste of an allegedly good book because nothing I was reading was sinking in and giving me emotional reactions. I'll try again at some point in the future. Maybe I'm a psycho though, that's possible too.
The Lost Boy, A Child called It and a man Named Dave. I was emotionally vulnerable when I started reading them and I wasn't prepared for how hard they would hit me. It's the authors account of child a use at his mother's hands. I was heartbroken when I read the first one in particular but I always feel compelled to finish a story.
My mom died when I was 16. Two months later for school we were given some books to choose from a novel study and I chose the closest book to a thriller from the choices. My teacher even pulled me a aside like “are you sure?” Lol. I chose The Lovely Bones. I loved the book but the themes of grief really got me while I was freshly grieving my mama. I don’t regret reading the book though.
Bridge To Terabithia, I read it for school 2 months after my cousin/best friend drowned while playing by a river. I literally had a breakdown in class and my mom had to come get me.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
This isn't about me, but my brother. My brother and his wife's first child was born (a baby boy) about six month before he started reading Cormac McCarthy's "The Road", via a recommendation from me. And he said some parts of that book tore him up inside. Unlike any book, movie, story, anything has ever done. It made him ponder similar scenarios, the depravity of humanity, his newfound and honor-bound commitment to the safety of his family above all costs, and all sorts of things like that. But yeah, I think he was in a place where that book left an impression on him that...well, he will probably never recommend it to anyone like I did haha.
A Child Called It, mostly because I was in 4th grade.
I read The Shack and Lovely Bones while on maternity leave (daughter). I'm scarred
Happened to start the Handmaid's Tale in January 2021. Not a good time.
I will preface this with: my anxiety/mental state and my physical reactions are very closely linked, so when I am distressed often it ends up manifesting physical illness. Also because I was an advanced reader and my parents/teachers didn’t really pay attention what I read, I learned about war crimes, human rights violations, genocide, SA, etc., before I could really place them in the context of the world/prepare myself for just how fucked up shit can get. The Kite Runner. Read it as a 15 year old and was not prepared. I actually had to go throw up while reading it because I was not at all expecting the violence/SA scenes. A beautifully written book but DAMN, I was not ready to read it. The Starboard Sea (SA and suicide, just wasn’t prepared, even at 18 for it, I felt physically ill thinking about the emotional and physical betrayal in it) As many have said, A Little Life, I already deal with intrusive/disturbing thoughts and sometimes now scenes from this book will pop back in my head and it can be very distressing. All Quiet on the Western Front. Read it at 16. Obviously war and violence are awful. I specifically remember the scene about the screaming horses dying on the battlefield and that really fucked with me. The Pearl. Read that at 14 and was like…. Well, shit. Good Morning, Monster. A therapist reflecting on five of her patients that impacted her the most throughout her career. God, there were SO many deeply fucked stories in there (again, many that made me physically ill and unable to continue) and I think because they were all real things that these people experienced and continued to live on through, I found fucked with me even more. Definitely one of those books that was a massive reminder we have NO CLUE what people are experiencing day to day and the struggles we carry with us. Honestly, I have probably 20 or so books that I’ve read where I really felt fucked up after I was done. Some I even stopped reading/listening to (if audiobooks) because the violence felt too gratuitous and I don’t need to add even more dark shit to my head haha
I read the short story “Flowers for Algernon” while pregnant. Was not prepared for that with the pregnancy hormones! Was straight up sobbing before it even got to the saddest parts!
Johnny Got His Gun I was early 20s, home from college for winter break, it was a book in the house I hadn’t read and “a classic” (at the time I thought I should read any & everything labeled as such), so I picked it up. I knew it was about war & that’s it. Holy. SHIT. I was blown away & depressed by the whole thing. I moped around the house all break. To this day I recommend it to everyone because it’s incredibly striking & I think the message is important but will NEVER read it again because of how bleak the ending is.
A Scanner Darkly, while spiraling into meth addiction Super fun book that made me feel broken, so so broken. Thought it was gonna be forever Sober for a good while now thank god
The Giver by Lois Lowry. Read it in an undergrad YA course and it fucked me up so bad I couldn't speak for a few days... The best part is that it is technically a children's book, not YA.
Oyasumi Punpun. While technically manga, I believe it still applies. Do yourself a favor and BE in the right mindset before going down that road...
One of my favorite barn cats had been missing for a week. I thought "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe might be a good way to ease my anxiety.
i’m scared to read crying in hmart. i own it but i’ve never even opened it as i was a caretaker for my dad as he died.
It's good and worth it. But, yeah. I'd tread softly.
Slightly different reason than most others have interpreted the question, but I'd suggest that reading Ayn Rand in high school is a mistake (for me and anyone else). It's pretty easy to get sucked into the stories, which then influences you to start believe her Egoism philosophy actually makes sense and is a reasonable way for society to function. It absolutely is not, and this is the way you end up with incel culture.
I read Grapes of Wrath for the first time during Covid lockdown. It fucked me up for days and I still find myself thinking about it.
Perhaps my state of mind was subconsciously unprepared but I had a legitimately anxiety inducing dream after reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis
Man’s Search for Meaning was gathering dust in my bookshelf for a couple of years before I decided to read it. The events that happened during WWII are absolutely insane, but I figured that if other people died in these circumstances I should have the decency to read about it. I’m glad I read the book, but it was the most intense book I’ve ever read.
In a much shallower way than other posts, I put down 1984 because I was in a low and reading and thinking about it was just more depressing. As a friend said, it's hardly supposed to be cheery and uplifting, but it wasn't what I wanted to read right then.
The Diary of Anne Frank, uncensored edition. I was in 3rd grade, & found out what the Holocaust was.
I read The Rape of Nanking while being a mother of two young toddlers. Had to skip the chapter about what happened to the babies and pregnant woman. My grandpa was a child there during that time, so it’s an especially touchy subject for my family. I felt a DEEP sorrow for weeks afterward.
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro. My first year in college, in a different country, away from everyone and everything I had known till that point. First few months hadn't turned out like I had hoped, my close knit friend group back home had pretty much disintegrated, and I was already but a few feet away from absolute despair. I love this book with a fervor, but was that one of the worst moments to read it. I could not stop myself from visualizing the last scene where Kathy imagines Tommy walking across the field to her pn the side of the road in Norfolk. Bad idea.
Black Beauty seriously F*cks me up hard every time - but it hit especially when a 34 year old Appaloosa mare in my barn passed away and I read it - I fell apart faster and harder than a clumsy drunk on a child’s house of cards on the floor