Like, which book messed you up mentally because you were not in the right space to read it?
For me, A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway was it. It’s still one of my favorite books, but the first time I read it, the message stuck with me way too much and I became convinced for years to come that any shred of happiness I experienced was doomed to only be temporary, so it made me kinda sad to feel happy after that (if that makes sense?). It’s honestly hard to shake that thought still today because of that book, it just hit me so hard.
What are yours and what happened as a result?
by fahhgedaboutit
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The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I loved that book but it messed me up. Some of the images were so distressing and the anxiety it created in me – wow. I actually felt ill reading it but couldn’t stop because it is a masterpiece. I avoid all dystopian/zombie/apocalypse stuff simply because it makes me feel so sad and anxious but knew I had to read that.
American Psycho – Ellis. First I had to read in the daytime and I was at the beach with my friends, sitting relatively close to the water. All the kids playing in the waves and I got the chapter about the zoo visit. I remember being relaxed, warm and feeling joy in my environment and yet I kept hiding the book in the sand to escape from it. The chapter is intense and I was in shock as to the indifference of life I was reading while watching kids and random people walk through their life.
I don’t think anyone can ever be in the “right” frame of mind to read “A Little Life”.
1st: I lost my job, and my home at the same time.
Decided to pack everything I could into my truck, and head somewhere totally different.
Chose to reread The Grapes Of Wrath then.
2nd one: My Dad died, and it had been just me and him for a while. Chose to read The Road.
3rd: Working night shift at a snowy hotel. By myself. You can guess what I read. You’re right.
Why do I do this to myself?
A thousand splendid suns,
I read it not knowing anything about it and got triggered so bad i had to take a break
The Metamorphosis, Kafka. Read it yesterday and just wasn’t expecting it to hit that hard, considering that it was more of a novella. I guess the pressure of work and family – parallel with how Gregor was providing for his family was a bit of a sore point for me atm. Still in a bit of a slump today, and it feels like it’s going to take a while to come back. Although, I’m not sure whether there is any good time to read this one, it feels like one of those story that will haunt you wherever you are. That being said, it’s an incredible piece, 10/10, highly recommended.
Kafka. The trial. I threw it across the room at one point. Great story, really rattles you.
The midnight library I decided to read that freshly after I’d recently attempted suicide like an idiot I got triggered badly lmao
As the mother of a daughter, reading Lolita was rough. But I powered through and finished.
Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre. I was in a pretty severe depression when I read this book, and it pushed me over the edge into a full-blown existential crisis.
By random chance, I ran into an old friend and his brother at a bar a couple of months later. We wound up on the topic of philosophy and when I mentioned I’d been struggling, his brother recommended A Happy Death by Albert Camus — a book which he said helped him through a similar period. Reading that novel, along with The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger helped guide me to the right path and allowed me to crawl my way out of the abyss.
For me it was “No Longer Human” by Osamu Dazai, some contents in that book are disturbing and depressing to say the least. Was relatively young when I read that book, felt kinda depressed for a week or smtg
For some reason I read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’, lying in a park on a hot summer’s day.
Didn’t really do it justice! 🙂 great book though.
Of all things, A Separate Peace. I was a young teenager; I read it not long after my mom died, she went into the hospital on a Saturday night with stomach issues and was gone by the morning – undiagnosed cancer.
After I read the book, I became totally freaked out by splinters and the importance of getting them the hell out of your body so they wouldn’t travel to your heart and kill you. Obviously, not what my mom died of, but I guess I connected the two, because here I am 50+ years later unable to deal with a splinter to the point of an anxiety attack.
Me: First year of college, majorly depressed, lonely, unable to relate to friends, easy access to high parking garage where a few people have been known to jump off
Also me: you know what I haven’t read? The Bell Jar
Needless to say I did not finish it
Beloved.
I had just birthed and lost a child over Christmas break. Returned to school and was assigned this book. I still hate it to this day. It really messed with me at a time where I was already reeling and extremely depressed.
Just went back to work after maternity leave, having lots of baby feelings.
Tried to read The School for Good Mothers, where the first chapters are about a mother being forcibly separated from her baby. …Maybe another time.
The Little Prince, I was in hospital. That ending was devastating. Beautiful book.
This is more of a light-hearted one, but I was reading Arturo’s Island, while in a phase between jobs and career and a lot of self doubts.
I was nearly towards the end, when arturo see his father come back and think something like “He’s old, he’s almost in his 30s”. I closed the book in spite and never picked it up again.
Girl, Interrupted when I was in an outpatient intensive therapy group for self-harm.
Tried to read American Gods after a bad ltr breakup and all the relationship stuff and general mood just cratered me.
I have been a lifelong reader, and there is only one book that I had to put down because I couldn’t handle it. It was The Push by Ashley Audrain. I read it when my third baby was a few months old and I was in the throes of acute PPA.
I eventually came back to it when I was feeling better and was glad I did, because I enjoyed it. But yeah, other than this one time I’ve never felt like I wasn’t in the right state of mind for a book.
We Need to talk about Kevin. Read it when my first child was only a few months old. I was like, why have I done this lmao. It’s a great book but it fucked me up.
I read The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey right in the very beginning of the pandemic and let me tell you it was not great
I don’t know if one could ever be in the right head space to read “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold. I felt so sad after reading it. And the feeling persisted for WEEKS!
Night by Elie Wiesel – my god they had us read that in, I want to say, 7th grade and everything about it was horrifying. Page 3 or so talks about babies used for machine gun targets, then the brutal death of his father, the near crushing at the camps, etc. Just an absolute horror from start to finish that still haunts me to even imagine going through. Then to hear what that scumbag Bernie Madoff did. The world would be better if humans weren’t a part of it.
Where the Red Fern Grows. Little elementary school me was not prepared for that.
Five Little Indians by Michelle Good. I’m indigenous, and my family are residential school survivors. I made it one chapter in, and immediately knew I didn’t want to continue.
I know the atrocities that were inflicted upon my people. I don’t need/want to wallow in them. (That being said, I know other indigenous people like the book.)
I read *A Farewell to Arms* while AWOL from the military. Needless to say it resonated. Fortunately I was not a major or higher so they didn’t shoot me when I went back
Infinite Jest. It was a summer break between before my third year at Uni, the summer felt kind of empty, so I was lying on the floor and consuming this book a lot. The themes of the book worsened the depression that‘s already had been there (or so I think retrospectively) and next thing in September I was on Zoloft for the first (but not the last) time in my life.
My library hold of I’m Glad My Mom Died came in the week before my mom died. Did not pick it up, not considering it anytime soon.
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
I was deeply depressed throughout my 20’s, even when things were going well. Every line in that book was entirely too relateable. The main character’s quiet desperation and cynicism reflected my own at the time. I had to put it down and come back to it when I was in a more emotionally stable point in my life. Reading the book in the midst of my depression literally felt like a heaviness on and in my chest.
My Year Of Rest And Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh
Sort of opened a Pandoras Box – the side of me that was so similar to that character. Got loose with my pills. Life stuff happened. I was already depressed. Overdose.
My mom has terminal cancer and idk how much longer she has. I’ve found myself reading things lately that have themes of losing a parent.
I think sometimes our subconscious minds tend to seek out things to help us work through whatever we’re facing. Kind of like using dreams to make sense of things. It’s pretty cool, actually, that our brains can do that.
The first time I read The Handmaid’s Tale I was experiencing infertility problems and then I actually got pregnant. It wasn’t ideal.
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Three Bronte sisters all traumatised me in different ways
I’m glad my mom died by, jennette mccurdy
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This made me relive trauma I had lived through as a child but was a amazing read and I would read it again.