22 Disturbingly Twisted Moments From Books That Made Us Never Want To Read Again

    "It’s almost a relief when he cuts her in half with a chainsaw."

    Sam Cleal
    by Sam Cleal

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Recently, we asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about book moments that were so shocking they nearly stopped reading. Here are some of the best (read: worst) suggestions, but they do with a hefty content warning and an obvious spoiler alert!

    🚨 Warning, this post includes references to sexual assault, rape, and suicide, as well as graphic descriptions of murder, bodily mutilation, and animal abuse. 🚨

    1. It by Stephen King.

    Scribner

    "I read the book in 2016 before the new movie came out. I got to the part when the kids are trying to get out of the tunnels, and couldn't believe what I was reading. I re-read the scene thinking I must have misunderstood. Once I realised I hadn't, I couldn't believe this had ever gotten published!"

    — frenchforkate

    "One scene popped into my head right away. It's when "the Losers' Club", who are all 11 or 12 years old, take turns having sex with Beverly. It was so hard to stomach."

    — daniellerenstrom

    2. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

    Black Swan

    "The final bombing scene is harrowing. Reading how almost everyone Liesel knows is killed within a few pages absolutely broke me the first time I read it."

    — gecoldesina

    3. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

    Picador Classic

    "When George takes Susie to his underground lair to rape and kill her. The first line of the book lets you know she’s dead, and the terror of waiting for her death is almost too much. But when the scene comes, and he uses the hat her mother made for her to gag her, it’s too much for me."

    — lisamariegc

    "I remember reading it and I didn’t pick the book back up for three weeks, which isn’t like me. I can finish a book within days. My mom asked me why and I just kind of broke down. It’s a really great book just a hell of an introduction."

    — shantsg

    4. Night by Elie Wiesel.

    Penguin General UK

    "When they get to the concentration camp and what happens to the babies – that's all I can write without crying. You hear about what was done during the Holocaust, but to read how it was experienced is different. I'm glad I read it because it's so important, but I will never reread that book."

    — regz123455

    5. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

    Faber and Faber

    "For me it's the bit when Esther is talking about picturing her life like a fig tree. It made me physically put the book down, stare straight ahead and wonder about my life. It made me wonder where I’m going to be in 10, 20, 30 year's time. It really made me ponder about every aspect of my life, whether my personality is just a figment of my imagination, and whether people see me differently. It’s an incredible book, a masterpiece, if you will."

    — diananana

    6. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

    Bloomsbury Publishing

    "The most difficult moment by far is when Hassan is raped by Assef, and Amir doesn’t do anything to stop it. I’ll never forget the way the book described it, and I’ve only read it that one time nine years ago."

    — candacechristinew

    "I remember I read that exact chapter in my English class during quiet time. I felt like the silence of the classroom was deafening. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. It was so graphic. I was in tears by the time I’d finished reading that part in class. I thought about it for days and couldn’t sleep at night. But it is, however, by far one of my favorite books."

    — bethanyb4e718ed83

    7. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins.

    Scholastic

    "When tributes' bodies were hung from various places. First, Brandy’s body is hung from a crane, then both District 6 tributes, then Marcus by his wrists (not quite dead but beaten and bloody) inside the arena. I had to stop and put a hand to my mouth at each part just because of the gruesomeness."

    — hawkeyefan0215

    8. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.

    Penguin Random House

    "When Willem and Malcolm were killed in a car accident. I almost put the book down and stopped reading right there. It was so dark, especially considering what all the characters had overcome. For the two of them to die so unexpectedly was heartbreaking."

    — arianarose114

    "When Jude revealed he was forced into sex work as a child. Though the entire book is incredibly heartbreaking, this was definitely the hardest part to read."

    — sawyea

    "Not only the graphic flashback scenes detailing Jude’s horrific child abuse, but the scenes in the present where he believed he deserved it. I’ve never wanted to pull a character out of a story and just hold them and make their pain go away as much as I did with Jude St Francis."

    — datamay

    9. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.

    Picador PB

    "Patrick Bateman starves a rat, shoves part of a PVC pipe into the vagina of a woman he’s holding captive, pushes cheese inside her, and releases the rat into the pipe to go after the cheese. He then pulls out the pipe trapping the rat inside her. She screams as it eats her from the inside out; it’s almost a relief when he cuts her in half with a chainsaw later! This remains the most difficult scene I’ve ever read, and it’s one I try so hard to forget but can’t."

    — natalieg4c7885913

    "Patrick Bateman cuts through a hobo’s eyeball and pops it out of the socket with a knife. Then he kills the hobo’s dog. It’s disgusting. That whole book is tough to read."

    — paitay21

    10. The Green Mile by Stephen King.

    Pocket Books

    "JC’s execution breaks me every time. The book propels all the emotion straight to the heart, and it's also so well portrayed in the movie, with Paul unable to say the words that begin his execution."

    — brianh423e3c0ec

    "Del Delacroix’s death was so gruesome and detailed. The sensory writing made you feel EVERYTHING. I had to take breaks during that part of the book, even though I knew what happened from the movie. Nightmares of burning flesh for a week!"

    — taylors42255676d

    11. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.

    Arrow

    "The scene where the computer programmer is killed by the venom-spitting dinosaur is written from his POV. At first he can't understand why it's spitting at him, but then it gets him in his eyes and he collapses in excruciating pain. Now he can only see darkness and flashing spots, but Crichton still describes the way he feels the ground shake as the dinosaur approaches. He tries to fend off the attack he knows is coming, but the next thing he knows he's reaching down to feel his own intestines. Then there's a pain on both sides of his head as he's lifted off the ground and he feels his warm guts spill out. He realizes that his head must be in the creature's jaws and desperately begs that it'll all end soon. It's a million times worse than the film!"

    — zkye

    12. One Child by Torey Hayden.

    William Morrow Impulse

    "What sticks out to me most are the books by Torey Hayden, a former special education teacher. In One Child, she describes a six-year-old girl called Sheila who was silenced by abuse and abandonment. While in Torey's classroom, Sheila commits all kinds of trouble. But what really broke my heart was when Sheila uses the bathroom twice in the first half hour of class, and Torey notices she's bleeding. Sheila eventually discloses that her uncle Jerry had tried to rape her, and when she was too small, he cut her genitalia with his knife."

    — becky07990

    13. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls.

    Yearling

    "When I read it I had one of my first major panic attacks. The first half was all about saving these two doggos, but then they both die! One dog dies first, and then the other slowly dies from literal sadness. I cried writing this comment."

    — youcanhavethekidsbutigetthedog

    14. Unwind by Neal Shusterman.

    Simon & Schuster Books

    "There's a scene where a teen boy gets surgically dismembered while he's fully conscious, and the chapter is entirely from his POV up to the last second when his brain is taken apart. That chapter disturbed me so much that I marked it so I know to skip it in future."

    — colleend9

    "They literally took that kid apart and he was begging them not to. Jesus, that was hard to read and dark AF."

    — andread14

    "It’s the most haunting thing I’ve ever read. I had to physically put the book down and walk away. I barely finished it and I refuse to read the rest of the series."

    — amsanta

    15. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

    Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group

    "When Tom was pronounced guilty I almost put down the book I was so angry, especially seeing it through Scout’s eyes. It was absolutely heartbreaking. I think I re-read that part several times to make sure that he, a clearly innocent man, was pronounced guilty."

    — arianarose114

    16. A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer.

    Orion

    "Any part where there is abuse towards David, but more specifically the part where his mom tries to force David to eat the spoiled diaper. It literally made my stomach sick and I had to take a break from the book."

    — markixel

    "I know the book is horrendous all round (especially given it’s based on true events) but even though I haven’t read it since I was like 13/14, that scene still sticks out."

    — jdyer

    17. Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel by George Orwell.

    Penguin Press

    "The whole book really, but especially the ending, when Winston is caught by the authorities and brought to The Ministry of Love. It’s not enough for them to torture him until he says what they want to hear, they want to completely break him, physically, mentally, and spiritually until he’s nothing but a shell to be used by Big Brother. And they succeed."

    — gaelicmaiden

    18. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne.

    Penguin Random House Children's UK

    "The part where Bruno and Shmuel were in the gas chamber and they assumed that they were going to find his dad taking a group shower."

    — jazmineb49d289c21

    "When you realise what’s coming; I almost didn’t want to finish it! It’s just horrific and I sobbed, hard."

    — laurat4085a0179

    19. Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup.

    Graymalkin Media

    "There's a lot of awful stuff in the book that sums up just how unforgivably evil slavery was, but the scene that was the hardest to finish was when Patsey was whipped nearly to death. It was so devastating in writing that I couldn't bring myself to watch it on film, but I STRONGLY believe that every student in America should be required to read the book or see the film."

    — etconner

    20. The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks.

    Penguin Books

    "This book won the Carnegie Medal a few years ago, so fourteen-year-old me thought it would be a great read for my teenage eyes. Uhhhh, yeah, so it’s about a boy who gets kidnapped and placed in an underground bunker with lots of random strangers who have also been kidnapped, and over the course of the book most of them die until it’s just him and this little girl he’s taken under his wing. The book is written in the first person and is a TEEN BOOK, so you’re constantly holding out hope that the protagonist will escape at the end. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t. The last few pages get more and more garbled and scant as the protagonist describes how the little girl dies in his arms of starvation, and then eventually he succumbs too. I actually threw the book across the room when I finished it."

    — freyar48f58cc99

    21. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See.

    Random House

    "These two young women and their mother are fleeing Shanghai ahead of the invading Japanese army, but are caught by soldiers. The mother and older sister are violently raped, and the mother is killed, but not before they try to stamp her feet flat. She has bound feet, and the soldiers stomp on them to 'unroll' them while she screams in agony. It’s an excruciating scene that the younger sister has to listen to while hiding."

    — natalieg4c7885913

    22. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver.

    Profile Books

    "The end was so heart-wrenching, and as a teacher it took everything I had to not throw the book across the room. I cried so hard. I cannot even look at it anymore, it’s packed up in a box. And my heart races if I see any ads for the movie."

    — nikkig4f3188fbd

    Note: Some entries were edited for length and/or clarity.

    Want to be featured in similar BuzzFeed posts? Make sure to follow the BuzzFeed Community on Facebook and Twitter!