Recommendations: Disturbing Reads

"I liked books about awful things—murder, illness, death. I remember selecting one of the thickest books from the public library, a chronicle of ancient Egyptian medicine, to study the gruesome practice of pulling the brains of the dead out through the nose like skeins of yarn. I liked to think of my brain like that, tangled up in my skull. The idea that my brains could be untangled, straightened out, and thus refashioned into a state of peace and sanity was a comforting fantasy." - Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh

So, I got very into extreme horror at the beginning of the year. It quickly became all I was reading. If the book reviews contained the word "disturbing" or the author was receiving death threats, I was reading it.

I believe I covered my feelings on transgressive literature in my Reading For Catharsis list, but I find this genre oddly comforting. When everything is going to hell in my life, turning to books and seeing that the people on the page have it so much worse is a fucked up little comfort. 

I wanna keep this short and sweet, so here are a few of my favourite depraved reads.

Please read at your discretion, and assume all content warnings apply. I've marked the ones that contain heavy pregnancy themes.

• Frisk by Dennis Cooper
• The Sluts by Dennis Cooper
• Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates 
• Along the Path of Torment by Chandler Morrison
• Dead Inside by Chandler Morrison *
• Woom by Duncan Ralston *
• Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis
• Yellow by Aron Beauregard
• Sew Sorry by Aron Beauregard, Daniel Volpe
• Talia by Daniel Volpe
• Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin
• Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite
• Wormwood by Poppy Z Brite
• Gone to See the River Man by Kristopher Triana
• Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica *