After reading Alice Sebold’s “Lucky,” Torneo et al’s “Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption,” and Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, all books concerning rape, I decided to read Epstein survivor Virginia Giuffre’s “Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice”. It’s both beautifully written and the hardest-to-read book I’ve ever read. I teared up reading for the first time ever on chapter 4. I don’t think I can in good conscience recommend it to anyone in real life, and only recommend it to people absolutely sure they’re ready for detailed accounts of physical and sexual abuse, sometimes both at once. I can’t imagine it getting an adaptation that doesn’t break the law. It’s graphic enough that I feel I have to put an NSFW tag on this for even mentioning the book, and the books that you guys will mention.
I hear that “A Little Life”, which is a work a fiction, is also beautifully written and inspires similar feelings.
What other books, fiction or non-fiction, are both excellent and, emotionally speaking, hard to get through?
by CobaltCrusader123
26 Comments
A little life definitely
Even though I love the book I’ll never recommend it to others because it just emotionally destroys you
Rape of Nanjing comes to mind
A Million Little Pieces was rough. Even though it’s kind of been debunked, I read it in high school because I liked the cover and whoa boy I have never forgotten it
Night, Devil in the Grove, Blood Meridian, The Road
The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The story is heartbreaking and difficult; however, if you have kids, finishing the book is almost impossible.
Marabou Stork Nightmares, Irvine Welsh
A story split between the perspective of a man in a coma and retelling his history, often in metaphor, and lots of glaswegian phonetic spelling — which eventually reaches the present, those threads merge and the final part of the book is tough.
The guy has a tough history and the book deals with a fair amount of sexual and non sexual violence – you really want to not like the guy but feel very torn over the hand dealt to him.
Amazing, difficult book – but well worth the effort.
A Little Life sucks; it’s poorly written torture-porn schlock.
Definitely A Little Life, but this sub hates that book so much, often to the point of thinking it should be censored/banned (and watch the downvotes on this comment).
A Child Called It was like the first ever abuse memoir I read. Really terrible shit that kid went through.
Lolita.
Blood Meridian, which is largely based on real people and events
I recall feeling deeply unsettled reading American Psycho because it was so nihilistic and believable. Felt like hanging out in the head of a psychopath for hours.
I still think it’s a good and important book, but I don’t know if I’m going to put it on the reread list anytime soon.
Shuggie Bain
Calculus 103 , made my brain hurt
The Gone series. Very dark, and depressing, but realistic.
Handmaid’s tale
Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule – About Ted Bundy, his crimes and the author’s friendship with him
Happy Like Murderers by Gordon Burn – about Fred and Rose West’s relationship, family and incomprehensibly horrific crimes
Written in Bone – Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind by Dr. Sue Black. She’s a Scottish forensic anthropologist amazing at what she does. In the book she goes by each part of the skeleton and describes how it develops from uterus to death and how they extract information from them in their work. She uses examples from throughout her career and personal life which makes it a really hard read and touches on subjects like r*pe, CSA and abuse. I cried several times reading through it thinking of these poor victims.
It’s a fascinating, educational and heartbreaking read.
A Child Called “It”
My Dark Vanessa!
The Last Girl comes to mind. It was really good, but so difficult to read.
*Just Mercy* by Bryan Stevenson
Gordon Burn, *Happy Like Murders* – written whilst he was a journalist attending Rosemary West’s trial. Extremely well written, but it’s the most punishing book I have ever read. Utter degradation on every page.
Good Morning, Monster was a tough read for me.
Beloved.
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski.
I haven’t read it in a long time but I remember The Lovely Bones being rough to read in high school