Everyone these days seems to be reading You by Caroline Kepnes. Reading it and praising it. And this book…I just can’t read it. I tried. I picked up the audiobook and began to listen, but it wasn’t long before I had to turn it off. I tried the print version, thinking perhaps it was just the audio. Nope. I shut the book. In the end, the narrator was just too disturbing for me to continue.
I admit, I’m kind of a wuss when it comes to certain kinds of disturbing books. I can handle something like Lolita just fine, when I know others have the same squeamish reaction I had to You. But some books are just too much for me. Even when I really want to read them. Like Sandra Brannan’s Liv Bergen mysteries. I love Brannan – she’s an awesome person and I’m super happy to have met her at BEA in 2010 – but every time I’ve tried to read through the first in that series, I’m so disturbed that I have to put it away. Brannan, like Kepnes, just writes so frickin’ well that the creep-factor shudders right through me!
This is totally a recommendation of both the above books, btw, even if I can’t make it through them…
Do y’all have books that are just NO!!! books for you, because they’re disturbing or something similar? What are your creep-boundaries?
The Zen Leaf 
I see you, Amanda. When it comes to fiction, I read all kinds of books. But, self-help books creep me out. 😉 Like I couldn’t handle ‘Men Are From Mars…’ 🙂
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I can’t do most self-help either, though I ended up loving the Marie Kondo tidying stuff that is on fire right now!
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Well, I couldn’t get through Lolita… That book creeped me out. lol
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I know a LOT of people who feel like that!
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I remember reading Wetlands by Charlotte Roche and I just felt icky the whole way through. Same thing with Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk. I don’t know how I got through both of those, but never again! Surprisingly, Lolita never bugged me, maybe because it didn’t seem like much happened outside of the narrator’s head? I have seen You at the library so I might have to try it one of these days!
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I don’t think I could ever get through anything by Palahniuk. Or Brent Ellis Easton. Heh.
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I also couldn’t get through Room. Non-consensual/violent sex scenes are quite triggering/traumatizing for me. It’s a deal breaker if children or animals are abused/killed.
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Totally makes sense. I have dealbreakers that are traumatizing to me, too, though they’re kind of odd, and not the same as the disturbing factor from these books.
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I have to be honest, I don’t think I’ve actually ever put a book down because it was too much. Not that I can remember anyway. I know when I was reading Lolita last month there were a few times I thought to myself, ‘This is making me feel funny. I’m not sure I’m going to get through this’ but I pushed through. I actually haven’t heard of You until now so maybe I’ll give it a go sometime.
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I have a pretty weak stomach for certain things, heh…
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I can’t do anything with violence to animals. I feel the same way about TV shows. Also have issues with descriptions of violence towards women, or detailed descriptions of murder/mutilation/torture. Just can’t.
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I can’t do torture either. Extreme vomiting is right out, too.
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Me neither! There’s a scene in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life that I have to skip every time.
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Honestly, my NO books are ones involving adultery as instigated by the female in the relationship. When a girl will do anything to sleep with a married man, I just cannot read about it. Give me the grossest, most disturbing passage in the world, and I have no problems. A woman sleeping with another woman’s man? NOPE!
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We all have our things, right? There are certainly characters and behaviors that completely turn me off, too.
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