It could be you didn't have enough life experience to fully appreciate a particular book, or you didn't have the emotional maturity to cope with the content?
Two titles that spring to mind for me are The Swan, a short story by Roald Dahl – at the young age I read this at, I had no idea that this kind of sadism existed in the world. I was utterly horrified.
The other is Z for Zachariah by Robert O'Brien. The insidiousness of the abuse portrayed in the novel, and the peril and creepiness of the protagonist's situation really didn't impact me as it should have, and as it does now when I reflect back on the novel.
by Cabbage_Pizza
21 Comments
The Kite Runner 😭
The Light at the End by John Skipp
Lots of sadistic murders and gay vampire sex.
I read White Lightning by Justin Cartwright when I was 12, purely because it had a babboon on the cover.
Synopsis: “A former soft porn film director, turned motorcycle courier, is summoned to South Africa where his mother is dying – the start of an odyssey backwards into his memories.”
Bleak but I loved it. Still think it was too soon for that big a dose of “adults will disappoint you” though.
Gerald’s Game by Stephen King. I was 9. It was very much not appropriate!
I read quite a few Stephen King books starting at age 8.
Flowers in the attic. Ready when I was 11
Thorn Birds. Loved it, read it twice, too young to get the full ick factor from the main relationship.
Beowulf, by Rosemary Sutcliffe.
Considering it was an adaptation written for kids, she didn’t pull many punches. That said, I was younger than she wrote it for, but either way, the imagery really stuck in my brain and I wound up with months of nightmares about Grendel attacking Heorot in the dark and ripping people’s arms off.
When I was 15, my then-girlfriends mother bought me a copy of 1984. I must have been a very serious teenager.
To this day I’m not sure whether to be grateful or not having read that at such a young and impressionable age. I’ve read it maybe 4 times in my life.
I once saw an interview with the lady who played Julia in the movie (with john hurt) and she rather flippantly said “of course I read the book, as we all do, at 14” in a very educated and posh accent. So perhaps it is regarded as an edgy teenagers book after all.
I read Anna Karenina when i was 9. When i was in high school we had to read it for class and i was like no way i already read it. I didn’t remember a thing xD
*the half brother* – lars saabye christensen. glad I read it when I did (senior year of high school) bc it was very formative. but also it was a Lot. like it genuinely haunts me lmao (more bc it was just kinda strange and surreal, rather than subject matter. I’d be like “oh this is very interesting and complex. but what does it mean!!”)
*if beale street could talk* – james baldwin. read this when I was like. a sophomore in high school. bc I wanted to write a book about ✨prison✨, and this came up in my research. couldn’t fully appreciate it at the time, but it did spark my love for literary fiction. really gotta reread tbh
She’s Come Undone. I hated it and yet I read it two more times?? Ugh. I need to reread it now as an adult.
When I was seven I read “The Room” and related a lot to the main character. Then when I was an adult around the same age as the mom, I watched the movie, and related a lot to her (especially since I’d had some similar life struggles by then).
That was a fucking trip.
I’m glad I read the book so young, because it was such a unique life experience getting to truly feel the story from both the perspectives of a child and a young adult.
Oh man, sooo many … my parents were strict about our TV watching but didn’t seem to notice what I was reading, and I was a very precocious reader who INHALED anything with a plot, and there were all kinds of books everywhere in my home, most of them for adults.
The worst one is probably reading Hiroshima by John Hersey when I was 8. Definitely gave me a few nightmares.
I also read Handmade’s Tale in like 5th grade, though I honestly barely remember the rape parts, I was mostly enthralled by the science fiction elements.
Some graphically illustrated Stephen King novel about a werewolf that fell into my hands in … first grade I think? Shudder …
Clan of the Cave Bear at 9, I definitely remember the rape scene from that!
As a parent of a book worm, I definitely was careful about what he read and at what age!
Hamlet in 7th grade was universally despised by our student body. I think trying to teach Shakespeare that young is actually counterproductive 🤷🏻♀️
When I was in high school and reading Animal Farm, my dad kept saying how much he loved it when he read it when he was in school. So I let him read it after I was done with it.
He finished it a few days later and told me he was surprised to find out that it wasn’t really about animals.
So he probably could have waited a few years to read that one.
*The Great Gatsby*.
To not answer your question, I’m glad I read catch-22 in my teens, and I wish I’d read Infinite Jest at least 15 years before I did
the brothers karamazov at 15
Probably Wifey by Judy Blume. I think I read it when I was around 10 or 11. I loved Judy Blume!
Moby Dick. I just didn’t have the experience at 18 to appreciate what it was up to when it was assigned my senior in HS. I’m glad I tried again in my thirties and was absolutely bowled over with how great it is stem to stern.