I’m in the mood for something genuinely heavy and emotionally devastating. Not just “sad” but the kind of book that leaves you empty for a while after finishing it.
Open to any genre as long as it’s well written. I like stories with loneliness, hopelessness, tragedy, or characters slowly falling apart. Psychological stuff is good too.
by CortezCraig
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No Longer Human, by Osamu Dazai
Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Mosfegh. At first I was all “oh haha another unlikable protagonist, she’s so silly” to just staring at the wall for a full 30 minutes after finishing.
*Ice* by Anna Kavan.
A super dark and bleak work of climate and dystopian fiction (and that’s just scratching the surface).
The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The only book I’ve ever regretted reading.
‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy.
A great novel but my gosh is it bleak.
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr.
Nickel boys by Colson Whitehead
Tender is the Flesh
Butcher – Joyce Carol Oates
A fine balance – Rohinton Mistry
Secret History by Donna Tartt
Lord Foul’s Bane, continued with the rest of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.
Breathe, Joyce Carol Oates
Seconded for A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. Seriously, you can stop looking, this is the book.
Requiem for a Dream
I’m probably basing this more on the movie, since I saw that first, so it’s a little hard to judge the book by itself. People regularly describe it as the greatest book you only want to see once.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
Chain-Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
I haven’t had a chance to read it yet myself, but I was recommended “The Girl Next Door” by Jack Ketchum recently. I’m told that one is pretty brutal.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel. The main charachter is a Jesuit priest who goes on the first human expedition to meet aliens, it starts with him post-trip as a shell of himself and you find out how he was completely psychologically destroyed by the experience
Journey to the end of the night by Céline. Go on, cheer yourself up with this little number
Hymn California, Adam Gnade
Kokoro, Natsume Soseki
Them, Joyce Carol Oates
If this is a man – Primo Levi
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
1984 … especially if you read the appendix
Although The Handmaid’s Tale is right up there for bleakness
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. It’s not really “dark” but is so sad and heart wrenching at every single turn.
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, read it in middle school and still remember it as the most depressing book. Les Miserables is also up there, plenty of strife and devastation to go around.
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
IBM and the Holocaust. Every new detail sliced at my hope for humanity
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
We Burned So Bright by T.J. Klune
House of Stairs by William Sleator
Masters of Death by Richard Rhodes. Nonfiction and goes into the psychology of the Einsatzgruppen in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust. Definitely not a “pick me up” sort of book.
Pet Sematery by Stephen King would be my fiction pick.
OK, I guess this is cheating. These are short stories.
But in each case they are presenting some of the darkest dystopias I’ve ever come across
The first five SF horror-, the last fantasy horror APOCALYPSE. The most devastating, heartrending, bleak, and original end-of-the-world stories ever. I have never forgotten them; just absolutely brilliant gems.
Get ready to be unsettled for life!😳
Del Rey, Lester. “The Keepers of the House.” In *Black Cat Weekly #4,* 316–331. Cabin John, MD: Wildside Press, 2021. [A 1956 masterpiece about “after apocalypse” when our furry companions on this planet wander in the solitude]
Davidson, Avram. “The Certificate.” In *THE AVRAM DAVIDSON TREASURY*, edited by Robert Silverberg, 123–135. New York: Tor Books, 1998. [The original story was published in 1959 and honestly I’m puzzled why it’s not famous. It’s set in an earth that’s been occupied for a long time by aliens and it’s a perfect mood piece about humans who have lost all hope].
“A Desperate Calculus” by Gregory Branford in *Armageddons*, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. New York: Ace, 1999. [SF Viral/biohorror]
“A Message to the King of Brobdingnag” by Richard Cowper. *The Tithonian Factor and Other Stories.* London: Gollancz, 1984. [Environmental SF Horror]
“The Screwfly Solution” by Racoona Sheldon — pen name for Dr. Alice Sheldon, who often wrote under her other famous pen name of “James Tiptree, Jr.” *Her Smoke Rose Up Forever*. San Francisco: Tachyon Publications, 2004. [Invasion/viral SF horror–I believe this had an influence on *BUGONIA*]
“After the Last Elf is Dead” by Harry Turtledove. *Counting Up, Counting Down.* New York: Del Rey Books, 2002. [Fantasy horror, a terrifying take on *Lord of the Rings*]
The River is Waiting – Wally Lamb
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart. I loved it but it was heartbreaking.
The Doomsday Book is up there.
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski. I got about 2/3 of the way through and had to dnf. Misery porn set in ww2.
A Little Life
Basically every trigger warning going, you think it might eventually turn a corner but nope, just 750 pages of depression
Night by Elie Wiesel is a holocaust survivor story. The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang is about the Nanking massacre. Both are non fiction books which I read to be more informed. I have read thousands of horror, fiction and true crime stories but nothing has been as devastating as these two books. Reading either one will change your perspective forever.
Fall on You Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald — Historical literary fiction. Beautiful, brilliant and made me want to puke and die. Content warnings for >! child sexual assault, rape, suicide, and death of an infant. !<