I recently finished a few books that felt entertaining but forgettable, and now I’m looking for something that genuinely leaves an impact. Recommend me a book that absolutely destroyed you emotionally or mentally in the best way. Any genre is welcome—fiction, psychological, philosophical, horror, anything unforgettable.
by sakin_malik
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Piranesi is unforgettable.
But I couldn’t say it destroyed me. I wasn’t traumatised at all.
It’s just very good.
The Crossing – Cormac McCarthy
Not Really by Stefan Eberhard, but only if you mean by “destroy” that it changed my life…
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Tomorrow Will Be Different – Sarah McBride
When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanithi
*The books that destroyed me*:
1. Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter
2. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
3. We Used to live here by Marcus Kliewer
*The books that have stayed with me after years of reading them*
1. ‘Night Circus’ and ‘Starless Sea’ by Erin Morgenstern
2. ‘Jonathan Stroud and Mr Norrell’ and ‘Piranesi’ by Sussana Clarke
The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. It’s published as a single volume.
The outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Connie Willis’s *Doomsday Book*. British researcher timetravels back in time to the 13 hundreds and experiences a small country manorhouse during the Black Death. Truly devastating. Or go on and actually read Victor Hugo’s *Les Miserable. Also if you read Cormac McCarthy’s* A Child of God*, you’ll never, ever be the same again.* That book should come with some sort of waiver. See you on the other side.