I so appreciate the amount of time and effort that went into compiling this list! And it helps me know which books that interest me may be ones that I can handle, based on the handful on the list that I’ve already read.
I also have some recommendations: Crash and The atrocity exhibition by JG Ballard, the George Miles Cycle (5 books: Closer, Frisk, Try, Guide and Period) by Dennis Cooper, The dice man by Luke Rhinehart, Sarah and The heart is deceitful above all things by JT Leroy.
Probably the most disturbing book I've read was Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea. In part because of the author's biography, but also because the most disturbing part of the story is told only through a substitute, so your mind has to do the gruesome work of imagining alone. I agree about Blood Meridian. Incredibly grim, but the language is so beautiful and sculpted, and the narration so matter-of-fact and uncaring, that the violence doesn't seem to hit you with immediacy. It is one of the books I've thought about the longest after I've read it, but not so much for the violence.
Is it based on the actual true crime murder case? If so, that case disturbed me so bad probably one of the worst torture and murder cases I’ve ever heard of.
"The Girl Next Door" - Jack Ketchum nailed that book. Just amazing, and Dallas (the real Jack K) was a wonderful person. RIP - Thank you for your great videos and enthusiasm for reading good tales!
Ooooh time to take notes! I have so many of these books already on my Kindle, yay! I absolutely adored Confessions! Flowers In the Attic is an interesting submission - I think what makes that one so disturbing is that so many of us read this book when we were probably too young to read it. 😂. I want to say I was maybe 11 or 12 when I started reading VC Andrews? I know everyone is different, but the only book that genuinely haunts me years and years after reading it is We Need To Talk About Kevin. That book kind of ruined me.
Excellent presentation. Funny how 'disturbing' is in the eye of the beholder. This is definitely a video to save. Perfect to refer to when trying to choose that next book to read. Thank you!
I've read a few of these books. I don't usually pick disturbing books. For me, The Dark Half by Stephen King was the most disturbing. I get more disturbed by psychological horror.
Excellent list, really comprehensive. The Collector really hit me hard, felt very upset after finishing it in a way I hadn't expected, having read a fair few other disturbing books. Same with the Girl Next Door, though that was expected. Another book which disturbed and caused a real visceral reaction in me was Wild Swans, which is a memoir about the communist revolution in China. That book made me feel so much rage throughout at the awful things that humans can do to each other.
That is a lot of disturbing books!. Most of the ones I've read from the listing would be in the B tier... like Sharp Objects, The Collector, My Dark Vanessa... I've read a couple in the A tier (We need to talk about Kevin, American Psycho and Poking Holes) but nothing from the S List tier. I can see why these tier list ranking videos are so popular, great work sorting through so many disturbing titles. Poking Holes by Juan Valencia is the most disturbing book I have read, I was Dora Suarez by Derek Raymond was the most disturbing book I'd read pre-Booktube.
Excellent list Olly, very impressed with your tenacity in this project. If I had to add my own suggestion, I’d recommend The Fungus by Harry Adam Knight (joint pseudonym of John Brosnan and Leo Kettle), which at various points is disgusting enough to be genuinely disturbing, particularly near the beginning.
What a great roster of books - some of which I read, some of which I find tempting, some I don’t think I could stomach. I’ve recently read The Laws of the Skies, and can even say that it wasn’t too long ago I read Haunted. Haunted, I think, was effective for me overall, but yes, the first story was sickening, and didn’t really get topped but anything else in the book. I really liked The Laws of the Skies, though there was a sort of senselessness to it that left me thinking “disturbing….but it just sort of trundled along in exactly the way I thought it was going to.”. I also thought I had gone through something similar, and better, in the graphic novel Beautiful Darkness, by Vehlmann and Kerascoet. Books you mentioned that I loved: The Painted Bird, Johnny Got His Gun, The Wasp Factory. I’ll mention some of the most disturbing books I have read that you did not include: Billy, by Whitley Strieber (Horror) Under the Skin, by Michel Faber (Horror, SF) Compulsion, by Shaun Hutson (Crime, Horror) Wisteria Cottage, by Robert M. Coates (Crime, Horror) Wieland, by Charles Brockden Brown (18th Century, Crime, Horror) Somebody’s Voice, by Ramsey Campbell (Horror) A Killing Winter, by Tom Callaghan (Crime) Suffer the Flesh, by Monica J. O’Rourke (Extreme Horror, and a book I’m mentioning even though I did not like it) Off Season, by Jack Ketchum (Horror) The Kill Riff, by David J. Schow (Horror) Nightmare, by Lynn Brock (Crime) Panther, by Brecht Evens (Graphic Novel, Horror)
Brilliant list, and good work. I know you have spent a long time on this project. The rankings will be a helpful guide for those interested in such content. It’s not usually my favorite subject matter, but I found a few titles of interest. Thanks! 😺✌️
Loved the ranking! The only book that I can think of that really disturbed me and stuck with me for a long time, that’s not already on this list, is A Child Called It.
Glad to see Let's Go Play... make the top tier. I might have put it in "A" myself but unsure. I still have a love/hate feeling about that book. It still haunts me after 2 years. I keep saying that what the kids do is half the horror, why they do it is the other half.
I was so happy when I finished reading all the Red Riding Quartet. They are bleak and unrelentingly dark. I'm glad I read them, but it was difficult. Great list!
Stumbled onto this channel by accident! I'm not a great reader of disturbing things, but I thought I'd mention one because it wasn't on the list (I don't know if true disturbing book readers would find it as creepy as I do). Shin Sekai Yori (From the New World). I watched the anime and then later read the novel. It lives more or less rent-free in my head simply because it is so understandable how the society and the rules they enforce could come to be as they are, even if they are pretty horrifying.
Let's hope Matt Shaw doesn't come after you next... He has quite the reputation for being butthurt about people talking badly or being bored by his edgelord books lol
@@CriminOllyBlog not surprising at all, maybe he'll write another awful edgelord book with an AI generated cover slandering you next time! That would be quite the achievement
I think I hate horror and really disturbing, disgusting books. But this was a really interesting list. I was curious. I thought Lord of the Flies, 1984, and Handmaid's Tale were disturbing for what horrors are visited on humans by other humans. The only books I read on this list were Helter Skelter, Flowers in the Attic and Perfume, probably the more "popular" books.
The Girl Next Door is easily the most disturbing book I've ever read. The fact that she could have escaped near the end but went back for her sister added a whole mount of tragedy to it.
Oh my goodness, you are so much braver than I am. If I tried to read these books, I'd never sleep again. When I watch or read disturbing stuff, my system forgets the difference between fiction and non-fiction (even though my brain knows), and I freak out. It might be the PTSD doing that, though.
This list is perfect for someone like me getting back into reading. I loved Confessions both the book and movie. Great list, I know now what books to read for Spooky Season 👍🏾
I’ve not seen many people talk about it but Sam Byer’s ‘Come Join our Disease’ absolutely wins it for me. I really struggled to decide my stance on it, at times the prose was super effective and other times it felt like it was stuck in a philosophical deathloop. Either way, I still retch when I think about the bread scene.
The most disturbing book I’ve ever read is Happy Like Murderers by Gordon Burn. It’s about Fred and Rosemary West, but it’s written in a very different style to the normal true crime book.
Loved this! And the Matt Shaw book bit was 😂😂😂😂 Let’s hope he remains chill and doesn’t come after you. But I think you’d be able to handle it with elegance.
Have you heard of Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott? It is the story of a girl who was kidnapped by a sexual predator and has been held hostage by him for the past five years. It is unrelentingly unsettling and it is actually written for young adults!
A very interesting list, though I don't gravitate to books because of the "Disturbance Factor". The one title I EXPECTED to see, but didn't, is William Golding's LORD OF THE FLIES.
@@anotherbibliophilereads oh my goodness the first time I read ‘off season’ I stayed up all night shocked and turning and reading pages as fast as I could
This was a well presented and excellent survey. You missed, however, Finishing Touches by Thomas Tessier, which is masterfully written and one of the most disturbing books I have ever read. You also might want to check out the Radiant Dawn duology by Cody Goodfellow. I think the most disturbing part of this horror/political/ espionage story is how realistic it feels. Makes one wonder what is really going on in the world.
Let's Go Play at the Adams has nothing to do with the Sylvia Likens case (the one that inspired The Girl Next Door), it just happens to have a vaguely similar theme.
I've read some of this because of your reviews, even when you express not liking the book. I've enjoyed some of them, for example Cows (I had a chuckle with it). I've got some that interest me and others outright don't. I remember reading Out by Natsuo Kirino when I was far to young to.
@alvarosalandy7969 Cows was SO funny!! The writing is so well done despite what goes on with the story. Read fairly quickly, and I still own the paperback!
Thank you very much for this interesting video! I enjoyed it. I read now Winnie-the-Pooh but after I finish it I will definitely read something more disturbing! It shall be “let’s go play…” (interesting to compare it with “The girl next door” which I read year ago).
@@CriminOllyBlog A novel i read quite a while ago which i remember being distrubing is "Son Of The Endless Night". Might be worth checking out if you haven't read it. It is about demonic possession.
I'm in the middle of work right now "House of leaves", I'm trying to find the book cover at the end but I'm not immediately recognizing it. Where did it rank? Thank you.
Wow, What a list! The most disturbing book I have ever read is The Vanishing by Tim Krabbé. Still lingers with me years later. Honourable mention to The Collector by John Fowles. Very disturbing!
War memoirs, honest ones, are all disturbing I think - but I still consider With the Old Breed by EB Sledge to be one of the most disturbing books I’ve read. Although Sledge was undoubtedly patriotic and proudly served - and those feelings run through the entirety of the book - his depictions of combat and the casual cruelty of teenagers drafted to fight… its really intense and I vividly remember a lot of those scenes even 30 years later. The maggots and the mud too. The guy I bought it from as a teenager told me it was anti-war propaganda dressed up as a memoir and he was right.
I was about to start reading With the Old Breed, I have it tucked in my backpack right now, so it's ready to go to work with me tonight. (I am trying to finish reading Shogun first, and that book takes awhile) A relative of mine gave it to me as a gift. I so excited.
@@MementoMori395 Oh I love to hear you’re reading this! It’s an incredible book - the detail of combat conditions and the inhumanity suffered by all participants are so vivid, but Sledge somehow remains completely human through it all. Good luck with Shogun!
@@Bertha-Mason Thanks! When it comes to WW2, I am mostly familiar with the western front stuff. I haven't really read or studied anything with the pacific fighting. So this will be the first.
`A Little Life´ the one book I will never shut up about. ^^ I lost sight of how many of these you read, that´s really impressive!! I read about half of this in one year, but even if you do read a lot more you can be really proud of yourself for going through all of them. Phew! ´My Dark Vanessa´ I personally really liked; I appreciated the story of a ´not so perfect´ victim. I guess I just like books that make me cry, and feel something (which is not simply disgust) but there are a lot of books on my tbr from this list; I want to tackle Lolita this summer. I think the most disturbing book I have read (and there aren´t that many) was ´Gone to See the Riverman´ which I hated. Which I´ve also gone on a rant about what all the things I didn´t like were, but there is one ´aspect´ in particular that made me frigging hate this book. ´Eric the pie´ was also really disturbing to me personally; I´m sensitive with animal cruelty. I had to skip a lot of pages, so I guess it´s one I couldn´t get through at all. Really horrific! But didn´t hate it like I did the Riverman book.
I know it's a traditional gesture, but I looked at the thumbnail and all I could see was Bill Hader's "Stefon" from Saturday Night Live. *SOmeone* had to tell you. Sorry if the comment is lame. .. it's like Spinach in your teeth though. As always you are the master of booktube.
The slob - I’ve not read anything that had an impact like when the slob uses the vacuum but after action transplanted to the barn I thought the book was silly and rushed. I really wanted it to live up to the hype but it didn’t.
Of the 22 of these I've started, The Girl Next Door and Let's Go Play at the Adams' are the only 2 I couldn't finish. I got The Melting for my birthday so seeing it sitting in the S tier with those other 2 is making me nervous 😅
16:46 Reagarding Notice by Heather Lewis, do you think that there could be any truth to this novel? After I read it, I was just left feeling like this had to have come from somewhere. That no one’s mind could be that dark without there having been something. As I was reading it, the vivid depictions of certain events really stood out, and I just couldn’t imagine how she could write like that without having had these horrific experiences. What do you think?
I know that she was a victim of abuse. Whilst I don’t necessarily think the specific events of the book are factual, I definitely think the MC’s self destructive psychology is autobiographical
I don't read a lot of disturbing books, so at first I thought I wouldn't have read any of these books. Hahaha, I read 3. American Psyco, We Need to Talk About Kevin and Perfume. I think Stephen King's Rage should be on the list. But perhaps you haven't read it??
Oh Olly, why oh why did you have to put Firefly on here? The only Piers Anthony books I've ever read we're the Xanth series. I naively thought that someone with such a great imagination and sense of humor must be a good person. 30 minutes on Goodreads learning about this book and I'm crushed! Ugh, I'll never be the same again 😞
I really, really enjoyed this. But it would be great if you could post the list in the description or pinned it in the comments because you kinda zoom through this and it's hard to understand you at times.
Good video and good reference, thanks for sharing. Some I'd like to suggest: "The Decadent Reader" edited by Asti Hustvedt "Dangerous Liaisons" by Choderlos de Laclos "Maldoror" by Comte de Lautréamont "The Bad Seed" by William March "Eden Eden Eden" by Pierre Guyotat "The Basketball Diaries" by Jim Carroll Happy Reading. :-)
In some ways it depends on what's disturbing, I think torture porn, perversions of nature, even some types of body horror, are not necessarily that disturbing, at least not in terms of the simply descriptive, though I think you make that point well enough in the rankings too. Another sci fi masterworks series book Random Acts of Senseless Violence is good and kind of disturbing too in its depiction of a kind of individual and social breakdown into disorder. This book plays a sort of a trick but its also meant to be a meditation on how deterministic, or not, the world is, or so I thought, which is kind of disturbing some how too. Its part of a series but I never read any of the other books in the series. It was kind of stand alone jarring and I liked it for that.
You should maybe try some of wrath James white’s later books. The writing gets better. I found succulent prey more disturbing than the book you tiered here. Also his book with Edward lee, the teratologist is pretty disturbing and gross.
One I seldom see mentioned is Arslan, in part as its sci fi masterworks series, it contains some pretty shocking sexual violence and also a plot which may or may not have to do with the freudian death wish/drive, I wouldnt read this again and I think the author totally nailed the necrophilious vs biophilious idea, let down by its finish but shocking at times and will remain with me anyway. The Wasp Factory I think deserves a mention, some of the understated savagery in that book is unforgetable.
Would I find any of these books at my local bookstore in the Novel section or Horror section? I'm interested in reading some of these and would like to save some money by buying used copies.
Hmm..there’s only been 2 books that have really bothered me they were both in the true crime genre. The Last Victim and Slow Death both disturbing in subject and facts of the cases. The Last Victim isn’t very long of a book but is very sad at the end. Slow death is just horrific in the details of what happened. It’s well researched and written but so horrific, I can’t even come up with another word.
I'm curious as to why Stephen King isn't in your list. I'm not suggesting he should be, but am genuinely curious. I don't tend to get disturbed by books, but one scene in 'Blood Meridian' still turns my stomach when I think of it.
I so appreciate the amount of time and effort that went into compiling this list! And it helps me know which books that interest me may be ones that I can handle, based on the handful on the list that I’ve already read.
I’m proud that you finally made a tier! Well done, Olly. Saving for later in the week. 😎 - MJ
Thanks MJ!
@@CriminOllyBlog 🤗🤗
A Tier List on this channel? Goody goody 👏🏽
I like how the fact that the Marquis de Sade was clearly and transparently a crazy person took some of the edge off of Saló
This is a monumental achievement. Time to clear up my reading schedule for the S tier books
Thank you!
Way to speed run a tier list of a lot of books. Great mini-reviews
Thank you!
I also have some recommendations: Crash and The atrocity exhibition by JG Ballard, the George Miles Cycle (5 books: Closer, Frisk, Try, Guide and Period) by Dennis Cooper, The dice man by Luke Rhinehart, Sarah and The heart is deceitful above all things by JT Leroy.
Probably the most disturbing book I've read was Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea. In part because of the author's biography, but also because the most disturbing part of the story is told only through a substitute, so your mind has to do the gruesome work of imagining alone.
I agree about Blood Meridian. Incredibly grim, but the language is so beautiful and sculpted, and the narration so matter-of-fact and uncaring, that the violence doesn't seem to hit you with immediacy. It is one of the books I've thought about the longest after I've read it, but not so much for the violence.
This was great! Thanks for taking the time for rank all these. Girl Next Door is definitely the most disturbing book I’ve read.
Thanks Crystal!
Is it based on the actual true crime murder case? If so, that case disturbed me so bad probably one of the worst torture and murder cases I’ve ever heard of.
@@reneeannreads yes it is based on a true case.
I also don't get why House of Leaves is considered disturbing. Like, it's weird and really cool but disturbing? IDK.
"The Girl Next Door" - Jack Ketchum nailed that book. Just amazing, and Dallas (the real Jack K) was a wonderful person. RIP - Thank you for your great videos and enthusiasm for reading good tales!
Did you know him? Thanks so much for your kind words!
Ooooh time to take notes! I have so many of these books already on my Kindle, yay! I absolutely adored Confessions! Flowers In the Attic is an interesting submission - I think what makes that one so disturbing is that so many of us read this book when we were probably too young to read it. 😂. I want to say I was maybe 11 or 12 when I started reading VC Andrews? I know everyone is different, but the only book that genuinely haunts me years and years after reading it is We Need To Talk About Kevin. That book kind of ruined me.
Well done! 👍🏽 Am going to pick up more than a few books you talked about. This was a lot of fun to watch/listen to. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽📚
Glad you enjoyed it!
I absolutely adore the pillow man and have read it at least five times but I never see it anywhere! Great video :)
Excellent presentation. Funny how 'disturbing' is in the eye of the beholder. This is definitely a video to save. Perfect to refer to when trying to choose that next book to read. Thank you!
Thanks Lina - glad you enjoyed it!
I've read a few of these books. I don't usually pick disturbing books. For me, The Dark Half by Stephen King was the most disturbing. I get more disturbed by psychological horror.
Excellent list, really comprehensive. The Collector really hit me hard, felt very upset after finishing it in a way I hadn't expected, having read a fair few other disturbing books. Same with the Girl Next Door, though that was expected. Another book which disturbed and caused a real visceral reaction in me was Wild Swans, which is a memoir about the communist revolution in China. That book made me feel so much rage throughout at the awful things that humans can do to each other.
That is a lot of disturbing books!. Most of the ones I've read from the listing would be in the B tier... like Sharp Objects, The Collector, My Dark Vanessa... I've read a couple in the A tier (We need to talk about Kevin, American Psycho and Poking Holes) but nothing from the S List tier. I can see why these tier list ranking videos are so popular, great work sorting through so many disturbing titles. Poking Holes by Juan Valencia is the most disturbing book I have read, I was Dora Suarez by Derek Raymond was the most disturbing book I'd read pre-Booktube.
Excellent list Olly, very impressed with your tenacity in this project.
If I had to add my own suggestion, I’d recommend The Fungus by Harry Adam Knight (joint pseudonym of John Brosnan and Leo Kettle), which at various points is disgusting enough to be genuinely disturbing, particularly near the beginning.
What a great roster of books - some of which I read, some of which I find tempting, some I don’t think I could stomach. I’ve recently read The Laws of the Skies, and can even say that it wasn’t too long ago I read Haunted. Haunted, I think, was effective for me overall, but yes, the first story was sickening, and didn’t really get topped but anything else in the book. I really liked The Laws of the Skies, though there was a sort of senselessness to it that left me thinking “disturbing….but it just sort of trundled along in exactly the way I thought it was going to.”. I also thought I had gone through something similar, and better, in the graphic novel Beautiful Darkness, by Vehlmann and Kerascoet.
Books you mentioned that I loved: The Painted Bird, Johnny Got His Gun, The Wasp Factory.
I’ll mention some of the most disturbing books I have read that you did not include:
Billy, by Whitley Strieber (Horror)
Under the Skin, by Michel Faber (Horror, SF)
Compulsion, by Shaun Hutson (Crime, Horror)
Wisteria Cottage, by Robert M. Coates (Crime, Horror)
Wieland, by Charles Brockden Brown (18th Century, Crime, Horror)
Somebody’s Voice, by Ramsey Campbell (Horror)
A Killing Winter, by Tom Callaghan (Crime)
Suffer the Flesh, by Monica J. O’Rourke (Extreme Horror, and a book I’m mentioning even though I did not like it)
Off Season, by Jack Ketchum (Horror)
The Kill Riff, by David J. Schow (Horror)
Nightmare, by Lynn Brock (Crime)
Panther, by Brecht Evens (Graphic Novel, Horror)
Brilliant list, and good work. I know you have spent a long time on this project.
The rankings will be a helpful guide for those interested in such content. It’s not usually my favorite subject matter, but I found a few titles of interest.
Thanks!
😺✌️
Such a wonderful and entertaining video! And, it will surely fill many TBR lists!!! Very Well Done!!!
Thanks Rod!
Loved the ranking! The only book that I can think of that really disturbed me and stuck with me for a long time, that’s not already on this list, is A Child Called It.
Its because of you Olly i read Pillow Man and The Melting, so thank you
Sorry about that 😂
Glad to see Let's Go Play... make the top tier. I might have put it in "A" myself but unsure. I still have a love/hate feeling about that book. It still haunts me after 2 years. I keep saying that what the kids do is half the horror, why they do it is the other half.
I’d say Coldheart Canyon by Clive Barker. Seriously whacked book. It definitely stuck with me. Very weird.
I was gonna mention Clive Barker too. There’s at least a couple stories in his Book of Blood collection that I would include.
I was so happy when I finished reading all the Red Riding Quartet. They are bleak and unrelentingly dark. I'm glad I read them, but it was difficult. Great list!
Stumbled onto this channel by accident! I'm not a great reader of disturbing things, but I thought I'd mention one because it wasn't on the list (I don't know if true disturbing book readers would find it as creepy as I do). Shin Sekai Yori (From the New World). I watched the anime and then later read the novel. It lives more or less rent-free in my head simply because it is so understandable how the society and the rules they enforce could come to be as they are, even if they are pretty horrifying.
Hiya. Awesome tier list. My TBR is now bursting with new possibilities. Thnx!
Have you read 'Under the Skin' by Michele Faber????
This is very appreciated. Keep doing what you do!
BLOOD ON THE TRACKS MENTIONED 🗣🔥💯
Let's hope Matt Shaw doesn't come after you next... He has quite the reputation for being butthurt about people talking badly or being bored by his edgelord books lol
😂😂 one of his friends did turn up in the comments on another video of mine
@@CriminOllyBlog not surprising at all, maybe he'll write another awful edgelord book with an AI generated cover slandering you next time! That would be quite the achievement
@elenabarbieri1286 😂😂
I think I hate horror and really disturbing, disgusting books. But this was a really interesting list. I was curious. I thought Lord of the Flies, 1984, and Handmaid's Tale were disturbing for what horrors are visited on humans by other humans. The only books I read on this list were Helter Skelter, Flowers in the Attic and Perfume, probably the more "popular" books.
The Girl Next Door is easily the most disturbing book I've ever read. The fact that she could have escaped near the end but went back for her sister added a whole mount of tragedy to it.
Cool spoiler, now I don't have to bother reading it
@@sqlb3rn Cry
@@LSPig Do you think emotions are something to be ashamed of? That's healthy.
“The Road” and “Blood Meridian”, both written by Cormac McCarthy. Visceral and unforgiving.
This tier was so good! I added a few new books to my tbr!
Oh my goodness, you are so much braver than I am. If I tried to read these books, I'd never sleep again. When I watch or read disturbing stuff, my system forgets the difference between fiction and non-fiction (even though my brain knows), and I freak out. It might be the PTSD doing that, though.
Read most of these, but got some new recommendations, thanks! Gillian Flynn's name is pronounced like "Jillian", btw :)
This list is perfect for someone like me getting back into reading. I loved Confessions both the book and movie. Great list, I know now what books to read for Spooky Season 👍🏾
Thanks for the recommendations!
I’ve not seen many people talk about it but Sam Byer’s ‘Come Join our Disease’ absolutely wins it for me. I really struggled to decide my stance on it, at times the prose was super effective and other times it felt like it was stuck in a philosophical deathloop. Either way, I still retch when I think about the bread scene.
I haven't heard of that one, thanks for the recommendation!
The most disturbing book I’ve ever read is Happy Like Murderers by Gordon Burn. It’s about Fred and Rosemary West, but it’s written in a very different style to the normal true crime book.
Loved this! And the Matt Shaw book bit was 😂😂😂😂 Let’s hope he remains chill and doesn’t come after you. But I think you’d be able to handle it with elegance.
lol I know a lot of people appreciate his work but I just don’t get it.
@@CriminOllyBlog same, same. And then everything that happened… ah, no, never reading his books.
Interesting fact he's been hired to write a book adoption of a movie. Be interesting to see which one.
Have you heard of Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott? It is the story of a girl who was kidnapped by a sexual predator and has been held hostage by him for the past five years. It is unrelentingly unsettling and it is actually written for young adults!
Was so excited to see exquisite corpse on your list, one of my favourite books of all time, and i agree 100% with your placement 😊
Belgium represent on the S tier! The Melting by Lize Spit is just phenomenal! 🙂
Just ordered it!
Excellent list! Some of these books I haven't heard of, so I'm thrilled that my TBR list is growing!
Delighted that I’m helping you find new things to read!
I got a whole lot of books to read after this one 😂 great video and excellent series!
A very interesting list, though I don't gravitate to books because of the "Disturbance Factor". The one title I EXPECTED to see, but didn't, is William Golding's LORD OF THE FLIES.
I've read 19 on this list and got some good TBR recs, so thank you.
Can t believe i watched the ENTIRE video!
Exellent video idea!!!😊
I admire your stamina!
I’m surprised Off Season didn’t make it on this list. Definitely worthy of the A tier.
@@anotherbibliophilereads oh my goodness the first time I read ‘off season’ I stayed up all night shocked and turning and reading pages as fast as I could
@@chrisallenmax by Jack Ketchum?
@@littlemiss131 yes! It was sooo good!
new Ollie upload= weekend happiness
Thank you! 🙏🏻
This was a well presented and excellent survey. You missed, however, Finishing Touches by Thomas Tessier, which is masterfully written and one of the most disturbing books I have ever read.
You also might want to check out the Radiant Dawn duology by Cody Goodfellow. I think the most disturbing part of this horror/political/ espionage story is how realistic it feels. Makes one wonder what is really going on in the world.
Thanks, I haven't read either of those. Glad you enjoyed the video
The laws of the skies is such a favorite of mine, quick nice read !
Let's Go Play at the Adams has nothing to do with the Sylvia Likens case (the one that inspired The Girl Next Door), it just happens to have a vaguely similar theme.
Great video! I agree with some, disagree on others. But I got some great recommendations I loook forward to reading. Thanks!
I've read some of this because of your reviews, even when you express not liking the book. I've enjoyed some of them, for example Cows (I had a chuckle with it).
I've got some that interest me and others outright don't.
I remember reading Out by Natsuo Kirino when I was far to young to.
Out is a HEAVY book
@alvarosalandy7969 Cows was SO funny!! The writing is so well done despite what goes on with the story. Read fairly quickly, and I still own the paperback!
Painted bird has the single saddest page I've ever read. The scene with the horse.if you know you know.
Thank you very much for this interesting video! I enjoyed it. I read now Winnie-the-Pooh but after I finish it I will definitely read something more disturbing! It shall be “let’s go play…” (interesting to compare it with “The girl next door” which I read year ago).
Surprised no Edward Lee or Richard Laymon on the list.
I’ve read a tonne of Laymon and he’s too bad a writer to be disturbing really. Lee is a gap though, I need to read The Bighead I think
@@CriminOllyBlog A novel i read quite a while ago which i remember being distrubing is "Son Of The Endless Night". Might be worth checking out if you haven't read it. It is about demonic possession.
Lol. The Terrifier 2 metaphor worked so well for me. I knew EXACTLY what you meant. 😂🤣
Gone To See The River Man was just so good. It stuck with me…. The Girl Next Door was definitely a powerful read.
great video to see right before heading to powells!! picked up copies of sharp objects and i was dora suarez while i was there because of this 🎉
Timestamps please! It's ahrd to read the tier list sometimes!
I'm in the middle of work right now "House of leaves", I'm trying to find the book cover at the end but I'm not immediately recognizing it. Where did it rank?
Thank you.
C
@@reginaldcampos5762 Thank you
Interesting list, some I've read, some are on my to-read list, and some I need to add. The Matt Shaw knocking was fairly predictable, though...
I feel like anything by Dennis Cooper should be on here
Yeah he's the author who disturbs me the most for sure. Feels like I'm looking at something I really shouldn't know about
Wow, What a list! The most disturbing book I have ever read is The Vanishing by Tim Krabbé. Still lingers with me years later. Honourable mention to The Collector by John Fowles. Very disturbing!
War memoirs, honest ones, are all disturbing I think - but I still consider With the Old Breed by EB Sledge to be one of the most disturbing books I’ve read. Although Sledge was undoubtedly patriotic and proudly served - and those feelings run through the entirety of the book - his depictions of combat and the casual cruelty of teenagers drafted to fight… its really intense and I vividly remember a lot of those scenes even 30 years later. The maggots and the mud too.
The guy I bought it from as a teenager told me it was anti-war propaganda dressed up as a memoir and he was right.
I was about to start reading With the Old Breed, I have it tucked in my backpack right now, so it's ready to go to work with me tonight. (I am trying to finish reading Shogun first, and that book takes awhile) A relative of mine gave it to me as a gift. I so excited.
@@MementoMori395 Oh I love to hear you’re reading this! It’s an incredible book - the detail of combat conditions and the inhumanity suffered by all participants are so vivid, but Sledge somehow remains completely human through it all.
Good luck with Shogun!
@@Bertha-Mason Thanks! When it comes to WW2, I am mostly familiar with the western front stuff. I haven't really read or studied anything with the pacific fighting. So this will be the first.
`A Little Life´ the one book I will never shut up about. ^^ I lost sight of how many of these you read, that´s really impressive!! I read about half of this in one year, but even if you do read a lot more you can be really proud of yourself for going through all of them. Phew!
´My Dark Vanessa´ I personally really liked; I appreciated the story of a ´not so perfect´ victim.
I guess I just like books that make me cry, and feel something (which is not simply disgust)
but there are a lot of books on my tbr from this list; I want to tackle Lolita this summer.
I think the most disturbing book I have read (and there aren´t that many) was ´Gone to See the Riverman´ which I hated. Which I´ve also gone on a rant about what all the things I didn´t like were, but there is one ´aspect´ in particular that made me frigging hate this book.
´Eric the pie´ was also really disturbing to me personally; I´m sensitive with animal cruelty. I had to skip a lot of pages, so I guess it´s one I couldn´t get through at all. Really horrific! But didn´t hate it like I did the Riverman book.
I know it's a traditional gesture, but I looked at the thumbnail and all I could see was Bill Hader's "Stefon" from Saturday Night Live.
*SOmeone* had to tell you.
Sorry if the comment is lame. .. it's like Spinach in your teeth though.
As always you are the master of booktube.
The slob - I’ve not read anything that had an impact like when the slob uses the vacuum but after action transplanted to the barn I thought the book was silly and rushed. I really wanted it to live up to the hype but it didn’t.
Great job! I wonder, if you couldrank same books by quality, and not by disturbiness?
Possible- they'll all be listed on my GoodReads account as well, so you could get star ratings there
I've been dying to get my hands on The Melting! I don't think it's out in the US yet.
Of the 22 of these I've started, The Girl Next Door and Let's Go Play at the Adams' are the only 2 I couldn't finish. I got The Melting for my birthday so seeing it sitting in the S tier with those other 2 is making me nervous 😅
16:46 Reagarding Notice by Heather Lewis, do you think that there could be any truth to this novel? After I read it, I was just left feeling like this had to have come from somewhere. That no one’s mind could be that dark without there having been something. As I was reading it, the vivid depictions of certain events really stood out, and I just couldn’t imagine how she could write like that without having had these horrific experiences. What do you think?
I know that she was a victim of abuse. Whilst I don’t necessarily think the specific events of the book are factual, I definitely think the MC’s self destructive psychology is autobiographical
I don't read a lot of disturbing books, so at first I thought I wouldn't have read any of these books. Hahaha, I read 3. American Psyco, We Need to Talk About Kevin and Perfume.
I think Stephen King's Rage should be on the list. But perhaps you haven't read it??
Is that a gshock DW-5610Y9 on your wrist in the thumbnail? You have great taste in watches too
I forget the model number, but yes it’s a square yellow G - classic design
Oh Olly, why oh why did you have to put Firefly on here? The only Piers Anthony books I've ever read we're the Xanth series. I naively thought that someone with such a great imagination and sense of humor must be a good person. 30 minutes on Goodreads learning about this book and I'm crushed! Ugh, I'll never be the same again 😞
Oh no! Sorry!
Great video! I would add Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon by Matt Dinniman to this list.
Read The Dwarf. An excellent study of a twisted mind during the Medieval days.
I reviewed and "House of Leaves" was present, so it checks out. Another very disturbing Samuel Delaney novel is "Dhalgren".
I need to try that one
I really, really enjoyed this. But it would be great if you could post the list in the description or pinned it in the comments because you kinda zoom through this and it's hard to understand you at times.
@@Rubysoho346 agree!
The Bel Jar was an experience.
Portrait of a Nuclear Family by J.P. Behrens is a great story about just how far a woman will go to protect her family's image.
Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry is one you should put on your radar. It’s pretty violent.
I read Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr as a teen and it messed me up, still think of the trash heap scene and shudder it's so disturbing.
Good video and good reference, thanks for sharing.
Some I'd like to suggest:
"The Decadent Reader" edited by Asti Hustvedt
"Dangerous Liaisons" by Choderlos de Laclos
"Maldoror" by Comte de Lautréamont
"The Bad Seed" by William March
"Eden Eden Eden" by Pierre Guyotat
"The Basketball Diaries" by Jim Carroll
Happy Reading. :-)
Thank you!
@@CriminOllyBlog You're welcome, hope you enjoy 'em. :-)
Nice categorization. May I know this website? I wanna do one for myself too!
It’s called Tiermaker
In some ways it depends on what's disturbing, I think torture porn, perversions of nature, even some types of body horror, are not necessarily that disturbing, at least not in terms of the simply descriptive, though I think you make that point well enough in the rankings too. Another sci fi masterworks series book Random Acts of Senseless Violence is good and kind of disturbing too in its depiction of a kind of individual and social breakdown into disorder. This book plays a sort of a trick but its also meant to be a meditation on how deterministic, or not, the world is, or so I thought, which is kind of disturbing some how too. Its part of a series but I never read any of the other books in the series. It was kind of stand alone jarring and I liked it for that.
The summer I died bothered me for a while after I read it, I could not put that one down.
It definitely had its moments
This Little Family still haunts me and I’ve a high threshold!
Torture Garden? The Turner Diaries? The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing was unsettling. I am not sure the confessions of Carl Panzram counts as a 'book'.
You should maybe try some of wrath James white’s later books. The writing gets better. I found succulent prey more disturbing than the book you tiered here. Also his book with Edward lee, the teratologist is pretty disturbing and gross.
One I seldom see mentioned is Arslan, in part as its sci fi masterworks series, it contains some pretty shocking sexual violence and also a plot which may or may not have to do with the freudian death wish/drive, I wouldnt read this again and I think the author totally nailed the necrophilious vs biophilious idea, let down by its finish but shocking at times and will remain with me anyway. The Wasp Factory I think deserves a mention, some of the understated savagery in that book is unforgetable.
Would I find any of these books at my local bookstore in the Novel section or Horror section? I'm interested in reading some of these and would like to save some money by buying used copies.
I think probably about 50/50 - a lot of them are horror or crime, but many are general fiction
@@CriminOllyBlog thank you
Hmm..there’s only been 2 books that have really bothered me they were both in the true crime genre. The Last Victim and Slow Death both disturbing in subject and facts of the cases. The Last Victim isn’t very long of a book but is very sad at the end. Slow death is just horrific in the details of what happened. It’s well researched and written but so horrific, I can’t even come up with another word.
I'm curious as to why Stephen King isn't in your list. I'm not suggesting he should be, but am genuinely curious. I don't tend to get disturbed by books, but one scene in 'Blood Meridian' still turns my stomach when I think of it.
I can’t think of any King that really disturbed me
@@CriminOllyBlog Fair enough :)
I agree completely. Less than zero is far more disturbing than american psycho. The end is absolutely creepy.
In fact I would remove American psycho from the list. I did not find it disturbing at all.