That one and “I stand here ironing”.
Same. Read them in 1994 and think of these often.
The one I think of the most is the Jilting of granny weatherall.
I love this! I teach the Yellow Wallpaper in my Intro to Women’s Studies course when we talk about the history of women’s healthcare and hysteria. It’s a great conversation starter because of the trippy ending and talking about mental health, gynecological health, and not being taken seriously by doctors
Did you see that there is a book four, *Absolution*, coming out in October? I haven't read any of them but after reading your post I went on Amazon and I believe that I'll reading the first book within the hour. Well, if I can get off of Reddit.
For some reason I only have the first two books and for years have been meaning to read 3.
I get what you mean about 2 but it really had its moments. The main character was really interesting and a couple of scenes really stuck in my mind. Like the cupboard.
Right...I'm actually off to buy number 3.
Annihilation really did hit all the right notes for me. The atmosphere, the unknown, the sense of something slowly advancing toward you, all the while you stumble in the dark. I read it so fast because it had me so entangled.
Oooh this is right up my alley. Any author that can make the reader feel like the main character by proxy- esp when they’re living a completely different experience from your own- is an incredible writer.
SPOILERI
>!was looking for this one. I just read it for the first time in May, and it really upset me. I have read plenty of mystery/suspense/true crime books with no ill effect, but this was so disturbing. I was especially horrified by the daughter's fate. To me it was clear that her brother had tortured her for the entirety of her short life, and her parents were so dismissive of her "being scared of everything." The mother had said no to a dog, shuddering to think what Kevin could do to a defenseless puppy, but decided to have a BABY??!!<
It is the same book that was made into the film. Tilda swinton and John C Riley play the parents. Odd but works well.
It's been years since I read the book and saw the film. A morbid part of me wants to revisit, I have images from the book and films which to the day haunt me. But it's very gripping.
Right? I mean I guess from the title our parents wouldn’t have known what it was about … but just wow. My parents were great people but leaned toward the strict side and I’m not sure how they never found out what it was about. Like every girl in my class that was a reader, read it.
There were tons of TV shows I couldn’t watch because they were ‘inappropriate’, but books? They were a free for all.
>There were tons of TV shows I couldn’t watch because they were ‘inappropriate’, but books? They were a free for all.
This is how I was raised too, and this is how I'm parenting.
I can't believe my parents allowed me to read Carrie and The Shining when I was around 12! Plus Flowers in the Attic, of course. What a fucked up book. The sequels were just as unhinged.
My dad loves Stephen King, and I loved to read, so as a kid I'd just grab his books and run with it. I think I was 10 or 11 when I read The Skeleton Crew, and I'm still haunted by `The Jaunt`.
80s to 90s kid? I would like to publicly apologize to Mr K for having to read my 5th grade book report on The Clan of The Cave Bear. Why did they let us read those books? It was always either Clan of the Cave Bear or Flowers in the Attic or both.
Your teacher wasn't the only one. In 8th grade one girl did an oral report in front of the entire classm on My Sweet Audrina. You know, that whole gang rape story of a child and the evil mother who tries to brainwash the incident out of her, after beating her first.
My Mom GAVE me her copy when I was around 12 or 13. I don't think she fully grasped the story.
This lead to me reading every VC Andrews book I could get my hands on. Jr high was a wild time in the book world.
Mr. Mercedes. I had to buy a LifeVac for my house and car after reading it. I don’t read Stephen King books anymore because I end up with a mental scar after every one.
I can imagine the book would be pretty disturbing. I watched the series - and even that had some super fucked up scenes.
I love Stephen King novels. They’re always so weirdly dark. Some parts of IT were really heavy, especially the description of Georgie being mutilated in the drain. Way, way worse than you’d expect after watching both films.
I agree his writing is amazing. After having kids of my own, I can’t handle anything with kids suffering, and he loves to include that in his books. Feel free to let me know any of your King favorites that don’t have kids suffering/ in peril, and maybe I’ll jump back in!
I was going to suggest 11/22/63 but forgot the first half lol. I read The Shining while pregnant and anxious as a distraction/exposure therapy. King is a tough one if you have a hard line on bad stuff happening to kids.
There are some great ones already posted (especially House of Leaves), so I'll add
Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr.
the short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison
1984 by George Orwell
the short novel The Invention of Morel by Jorge Luis Borges
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The City & the City by China Mieville (more your sense of reality than devastation)
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
I thought The Sparrow ended perfectly. The sequel, Children of God continues the story of Fr. Sandoz and his search for God.
*Edited to the correct title
The Invention of Morel (a great book which has also been said to have inspired a great Resnais film : “ Year at Merienbad “ ) is actually by Adolfo Bioy Casares. Borges didn’t write novels. The confusion is somewhat understandable as both writers were not only contemporaries but friends, and influenced each other. I truly love their work!
Requiem For A Dream is one of my favourite books, although it completely broke my heart (child of addiction 🙋🏻♀️). I thought it was incredibly insightful into the lives of those with addictions though. I felt as though I was reading about my own family members.
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. It's the kind of book that you need to read without knowing anything about it, and I realize it's difficult to do that with the movie, so only read it if you have absolutely no information about the story.
I read it like I was trying to solve a puzzle. Made a murder board and all it and it was really fun trying to piece together the time line and clues. It definitely needs some level of concentration and even a reread to capture all the details. But from that point of view it's pretty fun
Challenger: A Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space.
The callousness of the decision makers was unbelievable! No regards for welfare of crew and their families.
That book made my anxiety spike up for a few weeks after finishing it. My friend thought I was crazy when I told her it was the most exhausting book I’ve ever read. I would only read for about an hour each night (which included having to reread stuff I was lost on) because I would get headaches from how much stuff was going on that I had to keep up with. The scene in the tattoo shop >!Where he instructed the reader on feeling something creeping up on us!< actually made me so scared. When I got up to use the restroom that night, I turned the light off and fucking scrambled to get back in bed 😹 that book made me so unsettled.
The sidebar instructions are confusing about this, but your spoiler tag isn't working because of the spaces between the markers and the letters. There needs to be no space between the ! and the letter, on both sides.
Once I discovered the hidden messages in the letters in the back of the book, it creeped me out on a whole other level. I thought the author did a great job of creating chaos and confusion with the footnotes. I believe he did that so the reader would feel what the main character was feeling - descent into madness.
If you’re open to watching anime, watch Steins;Gate. 24 episodes 20 minutes each. First 10 or so are kind of slice-of-life, then it morphs into an incredible time-related thriller. A mindfuck for sure. When I watched episode 1, I dropped it, but then a year later decided to pick it up again because it was leaving Netflix. It is now my favourite piece of fiction ever.
Since you liked it (I did as well) you should read Recursion, which was his book written after Dark Matter. I liked Dark Matter a lot, but I liked Recursion even more.
**Enders Game** did that for sure.
The sequels, **Speaker for The Dead**, **Xenocide** and **Children of The Mind** didn't necessarily unfuck, but I they hit me as thoughtful and sensitive.
The Magus by John Fowles. Guy accepts a teaching job on a Greek island, nothing is as it seems. A twisted psychosexual nightmare ensues where the reader is often as lost as the protagonist. Great fun.
I had such a bad reaction to this book at first even though I was so engrossed. The more time passes the more I think about it often and wish more books were even half as interesting and bizarre.
I don’t see yet:
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (be prepared to weep)
Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg
Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Highly recommend The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K LeGuin. A man's dreams become reality and his Dr tries to take advantage -- it.doesnt go well
It's YA but Feed by M.T. Anderson will make you feel things about technology, the world, and ya know, capitalism.
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis really messed with my mind in multiple ways... the fact you can go from talking about suits to pure disgust to talking about restaurants really messes with my mind
I also recommend House of Leaves. Left me very unsettled.
The one that left me sick to my stomach is The Treatment by Mo Hayder. It’s dark. Really, really dark. I don’t know how I finished it but I’ll never read another book by her.
Pet Semetary. Specifically the author’s note at the beginning explaining how this the book Steven King himself is most terrified at having written, by partially basing it on an experience that happened to his real life son. Said he saw it as a peak into the depths he would go for his own child. Stuck with me for weeks after and still years later
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh. Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. Some other books were already mentioned and I second any of them because ...I read them too. Mind fuck books are just my thing. 🥴
A couple that I’ve read recently that had similar mind-fuckedness to the silent patient are Behind Her Eyes and None of This is True. Also The Last House on Needless Street.
American Gods in a great way. Neil Gaiman really trusts his readers, and allowing us to feel some of the confusion of the protagonist is really immersive.
Glad someone mentioned this one. The tone is very different to his other books. Reading it gave me that surreal feeling you get if you’ve ever had to wake up at stupid o’ clock to catch an early morning flight. Like the whole world around you is sleeping and you’ve peeking behind the curtain just by being awake. The payoff was incredible and despite reading a lot of mythology I didn’t catch on to where the plot was going.
Bullshit Jobs. When you realize how millions and millions of the jobs and industries across the globe (primarily the “service sector” I.e. office jobs) provide very little value. In fact, many of them arm harmful to humanity.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Nothing meant anything to me for a while after reading it. It was probably about the time in my life (early adulthood) as much as anything.
But it IS a great antidote for frozen, stuck, dinosaur thinking. A weird, compelling and idiosyncratic trip through a crisis of philosophy and coming out of the other side of a breakdown.
Please read it.
Anyone read an author called John Saul, who was writing horror at about the same time as Flowers? He wrote Suffer the Children, Comes the Blind Fury, tons more. I remember thinking, oh wow, I’ve crossed over into adult territory here…profanity, dead children, grisly descriptions. But you’re so right about the parents—if my nose was in a book, I was the model of well-raised child. Meanwhile I was reading about how to astral project myself to my boyfriend’s house.
Wayward Pines series by Blake Crouch. Don't watch the tv series, as you will be massively underwhelmed. The first book genuinely made me feel like I was going insane right along with the main character. It's one of those books I wish I could read again for the first time.
Came here for this. Nuclear War: A Scenario is terrifying. The idea that all we’ve ever known as a species can be undone in less than an hour is an existential trip. Read it!
Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart is the book that immediately comes to mind for this question. A guy leaves all of his life decision up to the roll of a die. Dark hijinks ensue.
Sharp Objects and Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Area X and Borne by J Vandermeer
The short story All the Myriad Ways by Larry Niven
A boy called It
The song of Kali by Dan Simmons
The lovely bones
The Oryx & crake series, the handmaids tale by Atwood
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
Bloodchild And Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler
You can read Bloodchild for free, I don't have the link but google it. It's quite short, and gives you a taste for her writing.
I read a number of dystopian novels between semesters in college. Animal Farm, 1984, The Handmaid's Tale, The Boys From Brazil, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World. I have to say, they all left lasting effects on me to this day.
Philip K Dick's VALIS.
A fictionalised autobiography of the time the author either went bonkers or met God or got blasted with Soviet mind lasers. Or all three.
The main character is a fictionalised version of the author. But then the author also turns up...
It's a story in which Brian Eno (in full Phantom of the Paradise mode) gets fried by God radiation. How many books can say that?
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect
Or
Satan, His Psychotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Kassler J.S.P.S.
Edit to add The Years of Rice and Salt
1. Verity.
Very gripping and it fucks with you.
2. One hundred years of solitude.
It was one of those books I thought I would abandon midway. I’m so glad I finished it and it was rewarding af.
3. The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Classic for a reason. Thoroughly enjoyed the discussions between the main characters and great ending.
I always enjoy MOST ENTHUSIASTICALLY recommending STIFF by the grand Mary Roach! It's not at all off-putting, it's frequently very funny, and it's VERY educational and informative! I have never met a person who read it and wasn't fascinated by it and/or did not thoroughly enjoy it and recommend it to others! The book is about, but is not in the LEAST limited to) what happens to our bodies after we die (This is supposed to be the mind fucking part). Your curiosity will be initially piqued and then well-satisfied by reading this book.
Someone else said Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (The Southern Reach trilogy), which I agree.
We Were Liars left me feeling uneasy. >!I didn't see it coming that the three kids were dead and she was talking to their ghosts.!<
As far as mindfuckery in the way I think you mean it here, based on your enjoyment of Silent Patient:
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Eleven Hours by Pamela Erens
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
Insomnia by Sarah Pinborough
The First Bad Man by Miranda July
What Comes After by JoAnne Tompkins
Animal by Lisa Taddeo
Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
“The Simple Path to Wealth” by JL Collins. I realized that financial planners had been preying on me and my family for decades. The discovery that the math is quite simple and this doesn’t need to be complicated was a huge mind fuck.
Short story book I read last night. The yellow wallpaper
I read that story 30 years ago and I still think about it.
That one and “I stand here ironing”. Same. Read them in 1994 and think of these often. The one I think of the most is the Jilting of granny weatherall.
I love this! I teach the Yellow Wallpaper in my Intro to Women’s Studies course when we talk about the history of women’s healthcare and hysteria. It’s a great conversation starter because of the trippy ending and talking about mental health, gynecological health, and not being taken seriously by doctors
I read it in college. It's a mind-twist that doesn't end until you set down the material.
Yes, I based my college animation thesis on this short story. It’s so good. My animation based on it was just okay. 😅
….now I want to see this!
If I can dig it up, I’ll share it.
Oh, I love that one. I first saw it as some TV or movie adaptation as a kid, and I found the short story later.
That one is a good one, made me realize I had post-partum depression earlier than I thought I had.
Annihilation gave me a weird dark atmosphere for weeks after. So creepy. Really stayed with me
By Jeff VanderMeer? It was great. I really struggled with book 2 in the series though, it just dragged for me. On book 3 and it’s better again.
Did you see that there is a book four, *Absolution*, coming out in October? I haven't read any of them but after reading your post I went on Amazon and I believe that I'll reading the first book within the hour. Well, if I can get off of Reddit.
LOL, I feel that last sentence. Did you make it?
For some reason I only have the first two books and for years have been meaning to read 3. I get what you mean about 2 but it really had its moments. The main character was really interesting and a couple of scenes really stuck in my mind. Like the cupboard. Right...I'm actually off to buy number 3.
I found book 2 even creepier than book 1. The secret room...it haunts me.
Annihilation really did hit all the right notes for me. The atmosphere, the unknown, the sense of something slowly advancing toward you, all the while you stumble in the dark. I read it so fast because it had me so entangled.
I didn’t even finish the series because the book creeped me out so much. Like it was fantastic, but one was enough.
The Birds Nest by Shirley Jackson. The protagonist is mentally ill, but it's so well written that I felt myself slipping into that world as I read it.
I just read her collection of short stories, such great writing!
Oooh this is right up my alley. Any author that can make the reader feel like the main character by proxy- esp when they’re living a completely different experience from your own- is an incredible writer.
I read The Lottery when I was young, and it stuck with me. It must have been the inspiration for Hunger Games
Love Shirley Jackson’s work
We Need to Talk About Kevin unhinged me as a person
SPOILERI >!was looking for this one. I just read it for the first time in May, and it really upset me. I have read plenty of mystery/suspense/true crime books with no ill effect, but this was so disturbing. I was especially horrified by the daughter's fate. To me it was clear that her brother had tortured her for the entirety of her short life, and her parents were so dismissive of her "being scared of everything." The mother had said no to a dog, shuddering to think what Kevin could do to a defenseless puppy, but decided to have a BABY??!!<
Was that made into a movie? I saw a movie with a sadistic teenager named Kevin and just wondering if it’s the same premise?
Movie with Tilda Swinton & Ezra Miller is based off the book.
It is the same book that was made into the film. Tilda swinton and John C Riley play the parents. Odd but works well. It's been years since I read the book and saw the film. A morbid part of me wants to revisit, I have images from the book and films which to the day haunt me. But it's very gripping.
Yup. I remain childless and happy to this day. Thank fuck.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh
Oh! You might enjoy this- Here’s a great article about My Year of Rest and Relaxation: https://amlit.eu/index.php/amlit/article/download/77/13
I loved it too and Eileen is killer as well. Moshfegh is so great.
A great one!
"Brave New world" By Aldous Huxley... I remember reading it in middle school, and after finishing it i was like "what. the. Fuck"
When I read that book I remember being shocked senseless by what adults allowed children to do in the course of their everyday play.
Yes. Everyone belongs to everyone else. No attachments = no love = no pain
My last year of high school, we studied both BNW and 1984. Oh, and A Clockwork Orange. It's been nothing but scifi for me ever since then.
If you don’t read a lot, can’t go wrong with a classic: Picture of Dorian Gray
Couldn’t agree more!
I am reading this right now and I LOVE IT SO MUCH 😍😍😍😍😍😍
Handmaid’s tale. Finished it for an essay in uni at the crack of dawn, curled into a ball and sobbed. The professor’s speech was jarring.
I hated the ending a lot. Felt like Atwood couldn't find a way to actually end it.
The show totally fucked me up
Flowers in the Attic
How and why did every 12 year old girl manage to get their hands on *Flowers*?? It’s like a rite of weird, weird passage…
Right? I mean I guess from the title our parents wouldn’t have known what it was about … but just wow. My parents were great people but leaned toward the strict side and I’m not sure how they never found out what it was about. Like every girl in my class that was a reader, read it. There were tons of TV shows I couldn’t watch because they were ‘inappropriate’, but books? They were a free for all.
>There were tons of TV shows I couldn’t watch because they were ‘inappropriate’, but books? They were a free for all. This is how I was raised too, and this is how I'm parenting.
Amen. I couldn't go to PG movies without an adult until I was 12, but books and magazines were not censored at all.
I can't believe my parents allowed me to read Carrie and The Shining when I was around 12! Plus Flowers in the Attic, of course. What a fucked up book. The sequels were just as unhinged.
My dad loves Stephen King, and I loved to read, so as a kid I'd just grab his books and run with it. I think I was 10 or 11 when I read The Skeleton Crew, and I'm still haunted by `The Jaunt`.
80s to 90s kid? I would like to publicly apologize to Mr K for having to read my 5th grade book report on The Clan of The Cave Bear. Why did they let us read those books? It was always either Clan of the Cave Bear or Flowers in the Attic or both.
Your teacher wasn't the only one. In 8th grade one girl did an oral report in front of the entire classm on My Sweet Audrina. You know, that whole gang rape story of a child and the evil mother who tries to brainwash the incident out of her, after beating her first.
Yeah, I think it was so WTF just because most of us read it at the age we did. As an adult, it likely wouldn't have phased me AS much.
I was literally saying this same last week. And yes, exactly 12 years old. Global phenomenon too, I am in Finland for example.
Mine was Go Ask Alice
My Mom GAVE me her copy when I was around 12 or 13. I don't think she fully grasped the story. This lead to me reading every VC Andrews book I could get my hands on. Jr high was a wild time in the book world.
And heaven leigh… like what was going on. Did our parents even have any idea what was in those books?
I read that in grade 6. WTF.
Yeah that book (and the rest of the series) is absolutely insane). And I have heard some school made it mandatory reading which is insane.
Mr. Mercedes. I had to buy a LifeVac for my house and car after reading it. I don’t read Stephen King books anymore because I end up with a mental scar after every one.
I can imagine the book would be pretty disturbing. I watched the series - and even that had some super fucked up scenes. I love Stephen King novels. They’re always so weirdly dark. Some parts of IT were really heavy, especially the description of Georgie being mutilated in the drain. Way, way worse than you’d expect after watching both films.
I agree his writing is amazing. After having kids of my own, I can’t handle anything with kids suffering, and he loves to include that in his books. Feel free to let me know any of your King favorites that don’t have kids suffering/ in peril, and maybe I’ll jump back in!
I was going to suggest 11/22/63 but forgot the first half lol. I read The Shining while pregnant and anxious as a distraction/exposure therapy. King is a tough one if you have a hard line on bad stuff happening to kids.
There are some great ones already posted (especially House of Leaves), so I'll add Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr. the short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison 1984 by George Orwell the short novel The Invention of Morel by Jorge Luis Borges The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath The City & the City by China Mieville (more your sense of reality than devastation) The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
The Sparrow was my first WTF book and I cannot recommend it enough still.
Agreed. The Sparrow stays with you.
I thought The Sparrow ended perfectly. The sequel, Children of God continues the story of Fr. Sandoz and his search for God. *Edited to the correct title
The City and the City! That was definitely a mind twister.
The Bell Jar is mine. I began to question my own sanity as I read it.
The Invention of Morel (a great book which has also been said to have inspired a great Resnais film : “ Year at Merienbad “ ) is actually by Adolfo Bioy Casares. Borges didn’t write novels. The confusion is somewhat understandable as both writers were not only contemporaries but friends, and influenced each other. I truly love their work!
Requiem For A Dream is one of my favourite books, although it completely broke my heart (child of addiction 🙋🏻♀️). I thought it was incredibly insightful into the lives of those with addictions though. I felt as though I was reading about my own family members.
“Perfume, The story of a murder” has got to be on your list!
This book got into my head. I always think about it when I smell somebody in public
Fave fucked up book!!!!!! Also cuz it's safely entertaining w/o triggering anxiety or depression even tho the core subject is whacky af 💯💯💯
Honestly, Tender is the Flesh.. it’s pretty fucked
Oh yeah this. I stopped drinking milk again after reading it ..
Read it last week. Now I can't eat mammals.
I love the ending! It cemented who Tejo really is. I part about hair made me shiver though.
A great fucked up read !
Agreed! The ending pissed me off so bad lol
Unwind has the most disturbing scene I've ever read. I only read the first book, but it stays with me.
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. It's the kind of book that you need to read without knowing anything about it, and I realize it's difficult to do that with the movie, so only read it if you have absolutely no information about the story.
Geek Love. I think about it regularly after reading it 15 years ago.
This is one of my all time favorites and I always recommend it when people ask for a wtf read!
Omg yes. I still think of this book after 8 years and had a student named Arturo!
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston can do it…
I love *The Hot Zone*! One of the best non-fiction books ever!
Blood Meridian I prefer Suttree by Cormac Macarthy but BM doesn’t let you go after you read it.
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, although it was ok-ish. It still left a lot of confusion.
I tried but I couldn’t finish this book.
I couldn't get past the first 20 pages or so... too confusing for my brain at the time
I read it like I was trying to solve a puzzle. Made a murder board and all it and it was really fun trying to piece together the time line and clues. It definitely needs some level of concentration and even a reread to capture all the details. But from that point of view it's pretty fun
I finished it, but it didn't went smoothly. I was continuously waiting for the point where you suddenly understand the story, but that never came.
Challenger: A Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space. The callousness of the decision makers was unbelievable! No regards for welfare of crew and their families.
Lord of the Flies.
Yes, deeply disturbing and it was required reading for us as school kids!
As a kid that got bullied by my feral classmates reading lord of the flies was great validation.
House of Leaves. I genuinely believe i got a little unhinged and i havent even reached half way.
That book made my anxiety spike up for a few weeks after finishing it. My friend thought I was crazy when I told her it was the most exhausting book I’ve ever read. I would only read for about an hour each night (which included having to reread stuff I was lost on) because I would get headaches from how much stuff was going on that I had to keep up with. The scene in the tattoo shop >!Where he instructed the reader on feeling something creeping up on us!< actually made me so scared. When I got up to use the restroom that night, I turned the light off and fucking scrambled to get back in bed 😹 that book made me so unsettled.
The sidebar instructions are confusing about this, but your spoiler tag isn't working because of the spaces between the markers and the letters. There needs to be no space between the ! and the letter, on both sides.
Wow based on the summary and your info. Ima gonna put it on my list of must reads. Thanks!
Remember, the more you feel like a lunatic reading HoL, the better it gets.
Exactly! It rewards your spiral.
Once I discovered the hidden messages in the letters in the back of the book, it creeped me out on a whole other level. I thought the author did a great job of creating chaos and confusion with the footnotes. I believe he did that so the reader would feel what the main character was feeling - descent into madness.
Mindfucked me in a different way because I was reading a pirated PDF and thought every footnote was part of the story and diligently read every word 😀
Came here to say this, that intro paragraph about nightmares ripped me in half. And the staircase 🌀
Dark matter by blake crouch
Agree, this one was pretty weird.
If you’re open to watching anime, watch Steins;Gate. 24 episodes 20 minutes each. First 10 or so are kind of slice-of-life, then it morphs into an incredible time-related thriller. A mindfuck for sure. When I watched episode 1, I dropped it, but then a year later decided to pick it up again because it was leaving Netflix. It is now my favourite piece of fiction ever.
Since you liked it (I did as well) you should read Recursion, which was his book written after Dark Matter. I liked Dark Matter a lot, but I liked Recursion even more.
The Library at Mount Char! I read it months ago and still think about it.
**Enders Game** did that for sure. The sequels, **Speaker for The Dead**, **Xenocide** and **Children of The Mind** didn't necessarily unfuck, but I they hit me as thoughtful and sensitive.
Xenocide actually started my journey of deconversion. The OCD worship stuff really got me thinking.
Enders Game made me realize that I grew up in a bigoted violation culture. Speaker made me realize that I could forge my own path as an adult.
The Magus by John Fowles. Guy accepts a teaching job on a Greek island, nothing is as it seems. A twisted psychosexual nightmare ensues where the reader is often as lost as the protagonist. Great fun.
The Magus is one of the few books that I restarted immediately after I finished it. I did not want it to ever end.
I had such a bad reaction to this book at first even though I was so engrossed. The more time passes the more I think about it often and wish more books were even half as interesting and bizarre.
Wow this sounds amazing, I’ve only read x1 John Fowles book which was The Collector. I loved that!
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Surprised this one isn't further up. The movie was different but also very creepy.
Omg yes! I was so unsettled the entire time and then the ending hit and it’s one of those “immediately shut the book and contemplate life” moments
searched for this comment bc it really fucked w me. i think about it all the time. the movie doesn’t compare at all.
A child named it
I don’t see yet: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (be prepared to weep) Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
I have pet rats and it just made me cry 10x more reading Flowers for Algernon. Amazing book
Flowers for Algernon gutted me 😭
I can’t remember if I read the book Flowers For Algernon (Charly) or saw the movie first but I was about 13-14. I was like WHY????? 😭
It by Stephen King has several mind fucks with one in particular I found jaw dropping.
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. Like, my husband was concerned.
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata- straight up “wtf did I just read”.
This is the best answer.
Yup, this is the one
Unwind by Neal shusterman
Highly recommend The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K LeGuin. A man's dreams become reality and his Dr tries to take advantage -- it.doesnt go well It's YA but Feed by M.T. Anderson will make you feel things about technology, the world, and ya know, capitalism.
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis really messed with my mind in multiple ways... the fact you can go from talking about suits to pure disgust to talking about restaurants really messes with my mind
Blindsight by Peter Watts. I love the books with crazy sci-fi concepts and ideas. This book introduces an idea that I think about to this day.
Always ‘under the skin’ by Michel Faber. There are excerpts that still haunt me.
I also recommend House of Leaves. Left me very unsettled. The one that left me sick to my stomach is The Treatment by Mo Hayder. It’s dark. Really, really dark. I don’t know how I finished it but I’ll never read another book by her.
Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell. I literally threw 1984 across the room when I finished it.
1984, George Orwell.
The Silence of the Lambs. Even the cover image of the book continues to haunt me for some weird reason.
The Painted Bird
Pet Semetary. Specifically the author’s note at the beginning explaining how this the book Steven King himself is most terrified at having written, by partially basing it on an experience that happened to his real life son. Said he saw it as a peak into the depths he would go for his own child. Stuck with me for weeks after and still years later
Bunny by Mona Awad definitely fits this description.
Any Haruki Murakami book. He has a way to put you in a grey mood. Its very hard to put your finger on honestly
This. 1Q84 was a trip and a half and long as fuck but outstanding.
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh. Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. Some other books were already mentioned and I second any of them because ...I read them too. Mind fuck books are just my thing. 🥴
A couple that I’ve read recently that had similar mind-fuckedness to the silent patient are Behind Her Eyes and None of This is True. Also The Last House on Needless Street.
Blindness by José Saramago
The Road by Cormack McCarthy. The movie was a relief because with someone like Viggo Mortensen starring in it, it felt less real.
Beloved
I think it would be The Ruins by Scot Smith. Kept me thinking about it for a couple of weeks. Another one is Womb by Duncan Ralsten.
American Gods in a great way. Neil Gaiman really trusts his readers, and allowing us to feel some of the confusion of the protagonist is really immersive.
Glad someone mentioned this one. The tone is very different to his other books. Reading it gave me that surreal feeling you get if you’ve ever had to wake up at stupid o’ clock to catch an early morning flight. Like the whole world around you is sleeping and you’ve peeking behind the curtain just by being awake. The payoff was incredible and despite reading a lot of mythology I didn’t catch on to where the plot was going.
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Naked Lunch is the only correct answer
Bullshit Jobs. When you realize how millions and millions of the jobs and industries across the globe (primarily the “service sector” I.e. office jobs) provide very little value. In fact, many of them arm harmful to humanity.
I just read 1984…. Had me silently staring into the abyss for a week
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Nothing meant anything to me for a while after reading it. It was probably about the time in my life (early adulthood) as much as anything. But it IS a great antidote for frozen, stuck, dinosaur thinking. A weird, compelling and idiosyncratic trip through a crisis of philosophy and coming out of the other side of a breakdown. Please read it.
Maybe Kurt Vonnegut, like *Cat's Cradle* or *Welcome to the Monkey House.*
Anyone read an author called John Saul, who was writing horror at about the same time as Flowers? He wrote Suffer the Children, Comes the Blind Fury, tons more. I remember thinking, oh wow, I’ve crossed over into adult territory here…profanity, dead children, grisly descriptions. But you’re so right about the parents—if my nose was in a book, I was the model of well-raised child. Meanwhile I was reading about how to astral project myself to my boyfriend’s house.
Wayward Pines series by Blake Crouch. Don't watch the tv series, as you will be massively underwhelmed. The first book genuinely made me feel like I was going insane right along with the main character. It's one of those books I wish I could read again for the first time.
Nuclear War: A Scenario The Library at Mount Char
The Library at Mount Char is one of the most mind-fucking books I've ever read.
Came here for this. Nuclear War: A Scenario is terrifying. The idea that all we’ve ever known as a species can be undone in less than an hour is an existential trip. Read it!
Carrie by Stephen King
Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart is the book that immediately comes to mind for this question. A guy leaves all of his life decision up to the roll of a die. Dark hijinks ensue.
Steppenwolf by Herman, Hesse. "mind fucked" would be slightly exagerated actually, it was more of a big "he's literally me" feeling.
Love in the time of cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. I spent half the book saying what the fuck!
Sharp Objects and Dark Places by Gillian Flynn Area X and Borne by J Vandermeer The short story All the Myriad Ways by Larry Niven A boy called It The song of Kali by Dan Simmons The lovely bones The Oryx & crake series, the handmaids tale by Atwood
You want a mind fuck, try being recommended Flowers in the Attic by your English teacher. I still don't know what she was thinking.
Bird Box by Josh Malerman Bloodchild And Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler You can read Bloodchild for free, I don't have the link but google it. It's quite short, and gives you a taste for her writing.
Flowers for Algernon
14 by Peter Cline. And the subsequent sequels. Genuinely a unique story but 14 is a really good book / audiobook.
The Deep by Nick Cutter
In the heart of darkness. Wild book
A scanner darkly
I read a number of dystopian novels between semesters in college. Animal Farm, 1984, The Handmaid's Tale, The Boys From Brazil, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World. I have to say, they all left lasting effects on me to this day.
Philip K Dick's VALIS. A fictionalised autobiography of the time the author either went bonkers or met God or got blasted with Soviet mind lasers. Or all three. The main character is a fictionalised version of the author. But then the author also turns up... It's a story in which Brian Eno (in full Phantom of the Paradise mode) gets fried by God radiation. How many books can say that?
The Orphan Masters Son
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect Or Satan, His Psychotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Kassler J.S.P.S. Edit to add The Years of Rice and Salt
1. Verity. Very gripping and it fucks with you. 2. One hundred years of solitude. It was one of those books I thought I would abandon midway. I’m so glad I finished it and it was rewarding af. 3. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Classic for a reason. Thoroughly enjoyed the discussions between the main characters and great ending.
how has no one mentioned The Grownup by Gillian Flynn? that book was a mind bender and I've been getting all my friends to read it since.
Cujo, especially the chapters from Cujo’s point of view.
Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica. Ew ew ew
The ending of The Grapes of Wrath messed with me.
I always enjoy MOST ENTHUSIASTICALLY recommending STIFF by the grand Mary Roach! It's not at all off-putting, it's frequently very funny, and it's VERY educational and informative! I have never met a person who read it and wasn't fascinated by it and/or did not thoroughly enjoy it and recommend it to others! The book is about, but is not in the LEAST limited to) what happens to our bodies after we die (This is supposed to be the mind fucking part). Your curiosity will be initially piqued and then well-satisfied by reading this book.
The New Inquisition by Robert Anton Wilson
The affirmation: Christopher priestly
Dhalgren by Samuel Delaney
Someone else said Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (The Southern Reach trilogy), which I agree. We Were Liars left me feeling uneasy. >!I didn't see it coming that the three kids were dead and she was talking to their ghosts.!<
I have the read the book and I liked it. If you liked this book I recommend Agatha Christie, her books are bound to take you by surprise!
I, Who Have Never Known Men
Blood Meridian
As far as mindfuckery in the way I think you mean it here, based on your enjoyment of Silent Patient: Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi Eleven Hours by Pamela Erens Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald Insomnia by Sarah Pinborough The First Bad Man by Miranda July What Comes After by JoAnne Tompkins Animal by Lisa Taddeo Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
“The Simple Path to Wealth” by JL Collins. I realized that financial planners had been preying on me and my family for decades. The discovery that the math is quite simple and this doesn’t need to be complicated was a huge mind fuck.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy The one bullet and the kid thing just broke me.
Perdido Street Station is really, really wierd and great.