So my boyfriend has decided to try to get into reading but his tastes are a bit… Outside my wheelhouse. He loves darker books; Brave New World, Lolita, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde, and the works of Junji Ito. He doesn’t like happy endings, and is explicitly looking for: horror, bleakness, and struggling characters. He wants to feel uncomfortable, but compelled to continue despite that. He’s also looking more for stand-alone books, though duoligies or trilogies are okay (anything beyond that is a no-go).
He also explicitly doesn’t want anything with explicit romance. He finds it poorly done in a lot of what he’s read.
He’s also already read Berserk, Magical Girl.net, Magical Girl Apocalypse, and other dark manga.
by Soulwolf2010
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The Beach by Alex Garland
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
{{A Short Stay in Hell}}
{{I Who Have Never Known Men}}
Tender is the Flesh
My Dark Vanessa
I suggest this book a lot but Hunger by Knut Hamsun is pretty up there in terms of disturbing books. The nameless protagonist slowly descends into madness due to hunger caused by extreme poverty. The reader spends the whole book inside the protagonist’s head. It’s a masterpiece and one of the or maybe even the first psychological novel(s). It has also one of my favourite first sentences and deffo no happy ending (quite contrary it gets worse and worse for the protagonists over the whole plot with just enough glimpses of light that lead the reader to believe there might be good times ahead).
The Reapers are the Angels
The Passage
Song of Kali
the story of “O” he will love it
The Collector by John Fowles
We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Tampa by Alissa Nutting
The Virgin Suicides
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau
Sounds like your bf is into more gothic, thriller-ish type stuff!
ETA: soz for the format – on mobile
*Blindness* by Saramago
The Devil in the White City
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca
A Lush and Seething Hell by John Hornor Jacob’s
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
Anything by S L Shelton.