What is the most unsettling book you ever read?

[Omega124]

1984. Had to get the elephant out of the room.

 

[GoodGame]

lol the bible amirite?

Oh wait, someone's already done that joke.

Probably "there will come soft rains" or any number of chapters from martian chronicles, or the road. I just started reading the latter and it is already depressing me.

the book of revelations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Atticus]

I assume we're talking about works of fiction. Usually they don't unsettle me, and I'm not sure whether this is the most unsettling, but it's the first one that comes to my mind, namely Jano by Torsti Lehtinen (it would be "Thirst" in English, but hasn't probably been translated).

It's basically quite usual growth novel, but the unsettling part is that it has no catharsis. The protagonist thinks several times that he has found the answer, but always finds out that he hasn't. Lehtinen is an existentialist, and the book brings up some valid points of the movement, and I appreciate it for that, but after reading it I understood that book has to provide hope, even if by being untrue. It wasn't bad book though, as the beginning was quite interesting.

 

[LightSpectra]

The Giver, because prior to reading that book, I had scarcely been aware of how catastrophically poor English literature can be.

 

[Miles Teg]

Honestly? Fire Bringer, a lovely little novel about deer, in the mold of Watership Down. Unfortunately, I was ten years old, hopped up on allergy medicine, and up way too late when I read the ending, which happened to involve a deer that killed a boy and ate his heart. Suffice it to say I didn't sleep much for a while after that.