What's the most depressing book you've ever read? I'm talking soul-motherfucking-crushing...

This

Requiem for a Dream

a third vote for this followed by Oblomov

I don't know why but infinite jest made me laugh and bummed me out at the same time.

The Idiot

People don't give this book enough credit for being THE book about drug abuse, manipulation, and addiction both illegal, over the counter, via electromagnetic wave, and prescribed.

I shill for this book every chance I get. It's so fucking criminally underrated. I blame reddit and YouTube faggots for making people think it's some porno or a symphony.

Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre had this effect on me when I first read it in high school. It was also my first exposure to existential philosophy so it's effect on me was two-fold in a way.

It is a symphony of America and the American Dream. But it also shows you what the American Dream actually was.

Stepping on everyone beneath you and doing everything against he notion of what a good American is. It's a book that says, "This whole American thing is disgusting, stop trying to be it. It's fucking awful."

This is why we need socialism. We must destroy the ultra-bourgeoisie.

Woah....wrong thread.

Yes. It is criminally underrated.

#BernieSanders

Couldn't take this book seriously after flipping to the back and reading that bit about unmarried women. I get that it was tongue-in-cheek but fuck it was awful.

this is far from depressing 2bh

Some Chekhov stories hit really close home, but in the good way.

Hard mode: Books that don't involve sexuality.

i'm not sure what you mean by this. if a book examines someone's life in detail, their sexuality is going to come up, even if it's asexual

There's a reason this book pretty much single handedly redefined vampires. Fuck the 80s. What about that decade made people so cynical under the neon veneer? Not a single character gets through unscathed and they didn't even accomplish anything important in the end.

lol same

Wouldn't say Oblomov was depressing

The satire is too real at times

MALIGNANTLY

Not a book, but Tolstoy has a short story called "The Death of Ivan Illyich" that made me stay in my room for a week straight.

Whoops, I mean "Alyosha the Pot"

Did you read Malone Dies and Unnamable from the same trilogy? They only get more depressing

I can't wait until you both get your hearts broken when Hillary gets the nomination. Fuck you both ;)

The very last "interview" fucked me up for like a month. I stopped going to school and failed all my classes that semester, legit just laid in bed for days at a time listening to sports talk radio to try to normalize my thoughts again, only getting up to eat and go to the bathroom

USELESS
nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to be, and no one to know.

youtube.com/watch?v=tLaJCRyX84k

if anyone is interested, John Krasinski tried to make a film adaptation of the book. This is him reading the part that fucked my shit right up

The last bit of the life of pi really messed me up

This really affected me, but I can't say it was at all depressing. Depression is emotional numbness, forgetting the ability to recall what it was like to be happy. That was intense.

I couldn't imagine how a strawman tumblr feminist would react to that.

>irregardless
Fucking shit author, dropped.

The long walk - Stephen king

>No Longer Human
isnt there a novel and manga? which did you read?

Post the excerpt

Manga wise Homunculus and ShindoL: Emergence
(by the guy that wrote Ichi the killer)

...

Flowers for Algernon

Something with how he loses himself, and is only faintly aware he lost anything to begin with, resonates deeply with my darkest fears. Watching him come to understand himself, just to lose it, shook me pretty good

Johnny Got His Gun

I have, but I still think Molloy is the one that breaks it for me. Maybe because it's the first, I don't know. I just remember reading that part where Moran's legs fail and he lays on his back using his hand to crawl around, close the book and think "well that's it, life meaningless, nothing is worthwhile, I'm killing myself"
It was particularly the 2nd part of the book with Moran which made me feel like this

>chinese drawings
lol

The Magicians, it gave me insomnia for two weeks after I finished it.

my old chatlogs with her

durísimo

The Bible.

Grendel
Hamlet
Sorrows of Young Werther
Great Gatsby

gross, end yourself

how do i experience it the best? I got anally ravaged with tears at the end of GON, Do i read all the short stories?

1984 when I was 11.

Baby's first sads

Blood Meridian.

why does everything on this site always come back to "those damn sjws!!!" i really really truly hate it

>t. Pheobe Crystal (aka @BritneySpearsLover91)

Groupthink. It's like how in almost every reddit thread, no matter what the subject, there's always or two people saying how Trump sucks.

Something of Paulo Coelho, when I have to read him for school I wish to kill myself

>t.
call me newfag or whatever, but what?

It;s Finnish (I think) for 'regards' It's a spicy meme.

thank you.

>chinese drawings
>lol
Where do you think you are?

Edgy.

on a literature board
where do YOU think you are?

>mainstream political rivalry is edgy
You've lived a very sheltered life, haven't you?

an hero

...

iktfb

my dairy desu familia

I used the term strawman for a reason.

>Paulo Coelho
>read him for school

Wow, sucks to be you.

Absolutely spirit crushing.

first post=best post

'Drugs are bad, mkay'' the book.

Please, tell me its better than the dog shit movie with the epic meme music.

ham on rye is kinda depressing, knowing its about his own shit and just how sad it was. its a great book, even if i think the guy was pretty nuts

that movie was waaaay underappreciated.

I know its funny but it also felt very depressing to me. I knew things wouldnt go that well for Oblomov from the start, maybe that influenced my feelings

>No Longer Human
I related to this book a lot more than I should have. It was kind of horrifying seeing how accurate a Japanese man from 70 years ago was able to perfectly describe my life.

Literally stopped eating for several months until they had to take me to a hospital. I just lay on my bed in my own shit and urine, refusing to get up to go to the bathroom, until I didn't even have anything in my body to come out as shit and urine. I became a literal fucking statue. I couldn't even sleep. I am still suffering from the adverse neurological and physiological effects.

Can poetry collections be considered?
Anne Sexton really bummed me out.

Le Chaos et la Nuit
It's a good book but I mean Jesus Christ

what happened?

The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house
All that cold, cold, wet day.

Devastating material

Too wet to go out
And too cold to play ball.
So we sat in the house.
We did nothing at all.

The bonechilling tragedy continues

“I know it is wet
And the sun is not sunny.
But we can have
Lots of good fun that is funny!”

Crippling pathology made all the more toxic by the false chance of hope

So Long, See You Tomorrow
Mrs. Dalloway

But our fish said, “No! No!
Make that cat go away!
Tell that Cat in the Hat
You do NOT want to play.
He should not be here.
He should not be about.
He should not be here
When your mother is out!”

I'm afraid I can't keep reading. Why did you ever bring this existential bile to light

Really, so what's the difference between Infinite Jest and Requiem for a Dream?

The Blind Owl was pretty depressing, especially knowing that the author went on to kill himself, by gassing himself of all ways

Shit man, my diary is the most depressing thing I've read too.

What is this? Wasn't damaging at all, get this shit out of here senpai. In no way was this soul shattering, literal boo hoo "she wuz so connected and fought her rape with luv" and "I never luv befo".

Mein Freund! Richard Yates is best desu.

I found it way too over the top to really take seriously

I still get depressed if I think too long about this book. Like, can't-get-out-of-bed-for-anything depressed.

it was in 7th grade english class and we had free time
i saw this on the bookshelf in the back, and thought it was about a robot kid. A typical scifi novel. The stories of child abuse in it made me sob quietly as i read it. I remember I was mentally questioning the meaning of life and the existence of God and morality, melting in my desk, shaking , with tears streaming down my face absolutely terrified.I felt so relieved when the bell rang and i could go to math ,because that book was scaring me more than anything id ever experienced. I never picked it up again
very weird looking back on it now