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/lit/ girls rise up: which books gave you trauma when you were younger?

| I read Cat's cradle when I was 12, it started my love for scifi novels, but also made me fear the unknown.

It featured this hypothetical form of water that freezes instantly and also any other water it touches, called ice 9. Everyone dies in the end because the world is frozen over... Ice 9 was originally being researched for freezing water so soldiers don't get their feet wet in mud? (It was a while ago I don't remember too well) weapons of mass destruction are scary to me


| Another book I read and scared me was the shining? Stephen King's books are so compelling but so scary... With the recent-ish movie coming out I had to pick up the sequel Dr. Sleep with the same name.

As Jack, became less and human, that was such a dreadful experience...

and spoiler: the cyclic nature of possession by the hotel ghosts is even more scarier


| I don't think I have any book that scares me in that way, but I think I encountered my first sex scene in books when I was, like, ten years old. Disturbed the heck out of me.


| Where the Red Fern Grows.


| I barely remember the book and I never finished it, but Red Rising.
It's not like it scarred me as I haven't thought about the book in years, but I think it kinda fucked me up at the time. I was, like, 11 I think, and the book starts with, like, main characters mom getting publicly executed or something. Like, hanged or beheaded or something along those lines.
That shit was hard for me to comprehend at the time. It was hard to, like, process.


| Oh, shit. I almost forgot. That fucking science book. I don't remember the name and I don't care to remember it. My mom read it with me when I was 7 years old or something, and there was a page about black holes.

That shit terrified me so much that it made me feel physically sick. It was to the point where my mom drove me to the ER in the middle of the night because she thought I was having heart complications or something and almost vomitting. Fuck that book. Fuck black holes.


| There are monsters inside the cosmos that can swallow entire stars.


| >>752480
This. It was a torture rape scene from a Dirty Harry novel. Fucked me up for years.


| >>752480 Interesting, honestly books were my first experience with the topic of sex. It was in Cherub series i think -- honestly if anything as a horny teenager they made me more intrigued than anything. What part of it was traumatising?

>>752584 how was it scary? I searched it up just now, seems to be about a boy and some hunting hounds?

>>752596 I ABSOLUTELY LOVE RED RISING, it reminds me of Ender's game mixed with wool. The beginning parts are a bit sickening, not a book


| - i'd read to my child in all honesty. But I think it just made me hate the patriarchy in that book more than before. That book did scare me about being underground though.

>>752599 I watched neil de grase (typo?) explain what would happen if two blackholes collide a while ago... It sure did give me big existential crisis energy

>>752625 anything about that topic disgusts me...


| No point mentioning the name since it doesn't have an international release, but a fantasy book i read very vividly described one of tge protags murdering his father with a fire poker. i think i was barely 10 at the time. closed the book and didn't finish it until maybe 5 years later


| When I was 10ish, I read a lot of scifi and a lot of it had some pretty graphic sex scenes. I wonder often if that's part of the reason I'm so horny


| >>752629
Yeah. I'm sure I would love Red Rising if I read it now. The author seems to have, very similar beliefs and world view as me from what I can remember, and revolution type stuff is always just sick.
But, I didn't finish it back then.


| Warrior Cats. How exactly did it traumatize me? I almost became a furry


| >>752635 no do go on, I am curious now, what is about?

>>752643 hahaha must've been pretty mature as a 10 year old reading a big boy book

>>752692 Do give it another try ^^; I read it not too long ago and still loved it, I think 2-3 years ago

>>752729 Warriors was the shit! I don't really identity as a furry but you can call me that hahaa. They were so compelling I read the main series and bear and dog spin off, not to mention I read Redwall afterwards, and Poppy by avi,


| -then rats of nihm anthro. As literature maybe these books are not great, but as children books these are great! Some are making really great messages I can remember (warriors not so much but maybe rats of nihm, the incident dog in the nighttime and water ship down do hold up).


| >>752917
Yeah, I might. I've already got a book I'm reading though, and I don't read that often. I don't have a lot of energy so concentrating on reading words just doesn't always work for me.
But, if I eventually get to read books more often then I'll give it another shot :)


| >>752917 Oh god it's been years-- but I'll try. So the title translates to "The Dragon Gate" and it's set in a world where people use dragons for war etc. But dragons start disappearing or outright killing themselves and the plot follows two characters trying to figure out and stop what's happening.
Tbh I started reading it bc I was obsessed with dragons at the time, but now the author is one of my favorites so that's nice (even tho I prefer her other books mostly)


| I can't really say there's much trauma involved, but I remember feeling really sad and sort of surrogate-homesick for Odysseus when I was reading The Odyssey at like 11 or 12.


| >>752632
It disgusted me too. I thought Dirty Harry was some cheezy movie hero from the 70s but the books are (allegedly, I only read the one) pretty fucking out there when it comes to schock value.

In the first chapter Harry blew someone's dick off with his magnum and mocked him for it when he bled to death.

Considering this was my first "adult" book I thought this was the kind of stuff they read all the time.


| There were two.

The first was a Harry Potter knockoff years before Harry Potter about children who were abducted to a magic school and had to make potions as weapons, but they were more like alchemical grenades. It was a small print run and it is the only book I have ever read that gave me a blinding headache so bad that I had to put it down. And there's no trace of the book anywhere on the internet.

The second was an early collection of John Callahan comics. Look them up.


| The Jungle was pretty disturbing to read at 13y/o. May have cause permanent distrust in corporations/institutions


| >>753850 a lesson for life


| >>753850
I mean, isn't that something everyone should have? Learning that at a young age isn't a bad thing.


| >>753034 me too girl, I also had a dragon phase when I was younger, 'The dragon rider', 'wings of fire', 'the fire within', distinctly remember the dragons (that didn't really look like dragons) from the bone series.

giving away my young age, curb my genz amirite?


| >>752931 I agree Trying to find time between work is pretty difficult. Would recommend audio books for commute time though, that's something that works for me


| >>753042 That's a very advanced book for a 12 year old haha.

I do find as children, books can evoke strong emotion often. I remember crying in the boy in the striped pajamas.

Though, what aspect of the odyssey made you feel homesick? If I recall correctly it was people sailing together on an action packed adventure, though the mood can get somber at times.


| >>753087 yes. Rapists are horrible.

>In the first chapter Harry blew someone's dick off with his magnum and mocked him for it when he bled to death.
ouch... that sounds terrible


| >>753354
hmm you could post to r/tipofmytongue maybe someone will recognise it

>John Callahan comics
Political cartoons traumatised you?


| >>753850 >>753857 >>754000
Nooo, corporations are not evil at all, they are trustworthy good people who don't extort their workers for moneee


| Anywho, anyone every heard of this comic called "the book of bunny suicides"? It is so misleadingly cute, but morbid


| >>754592
Different people start reading at different levels at different times, I guess. I wouldn't call The Odyssey any more advanced than, say, Lord of the Rings.
And The Odyssey is filled with adventures, sure, but the framing device of the narrative is Odysseus and his men trying to journey home to Ithaca after the events of The Iliad; several times in the story the group winds up detained for various reasons, and the journey ends up taking ten years.


| Ten years was an unfathomably long time to my child mind, and any of the longer interruptions to the journey (mostly Odysseus's stays with Calypso and Circe) made for very effective bad mood fuel.


| >>754596
Oh, yeah, I forgot. Corporations are super good for the world and especially the workers, and they're not a small amount of people thriving on extorting people by exploiting an oppressive system. Silly me (⌒_⌒;)


| >>754590 Dragon Rider was published before I was born, I think you're good in terms of age-
It's the only one of those books I know, but I absolutely adored it (and still do). It's one of my comfort books. It's so fun and vivid.
I actually got to go to a reading for the sequel with my boyfriend at the time. Fun day, even tho we stood outside for like 30min due to a false fire alarm.

Total number of posts: 35, last modified on: Mon Jan 1 00:00:00 1619364085

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