October Recs (disturbing books edition)

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash.

Happy Halloween! This month I thought I’d share some recently read disturbing books (following my last post about the darkest book I’ve ever read). They cover a wide variety of topics but all of them unsettled me in some way. Let’s dive right in: 

ALL’S WELL (Mona Awad). I loved BUNNY so I was excited to check out Mona Awad’s follow up, about a suffering theater professor who’s determined to stage Shakespeare’s less-than-loved play All’s Well. When she’s approached by three men who promise to help not only with the play but also with her chronic pain, she enters into a dangerous pact. Awad brilliantly mixes her protagonist’s grounded reality with a tilting fairytale-like sense of horror, and I couldn’t stop reading. I’m now even more psyched to read her newest, ROUGE, which just came out this year.

DELICATE CONDITION (Danielle Valentine). Danielle Valentine’s new novel was turned into the newest season of American Horror Story: Delicate, but like many book-based shows I urge you to read the book first. Protagonist Anna wants nothing more than to have a baby, but up until now, her fertility treatments haven’t worked. When she finally does become pregnant, strange and upsetting things start to happen, and Anna wonders what’s really growing inside of her. Valentine brilliantly shows the condescension and gaslighting that women consistently face in the American birthing industrial complex, as well as touching on horrific historical details that pregnant women have faced in the name of science. 

EVERYTHING’S FINE (Cecilia Rabess). As the title would suggest, everything’s NOT fine in Cecelia Rabess’s debut. Protagonist Jessica, a progressive Black woman, gets her first post-college finance job and runs into her white, conservative former classmate, Josh. Despite their wildly different political and life views, they find themselves becoming friends and eventually lovers. Rabess expertly explores the unease and distress of loving someone who lives in a completely different reality than you. For an added kick, the book takes place leading up to the 2016 election, adding an underlying element of disquiet to every page. 

SLONIM WOODS 9 (Daniel Barban Levin). Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence was one of the most disturbing cult documentaries I’ve ever seen. This memoir was written by one of the members of that cult. Levin is a poet and writer, and he beautifully explains his state of mind at each stage of being pulled into cult leader Larry Ray’s orbit. I’m not sure if I’ve ever had a more visceral disturbed reaction to reading a book. But watching Daniel’s journey out of mind control is riveting and ultimately relieving. 

THE LONELY HUNTER (Aimée Lutkin). This is not a traditionally frightening book, but parts of it are certainly disturbing and even infuriating. Lutkin wrote this memoir after indicating at a dinner party that she was okay with with being single—even forever. Re: the other guests’ horror, protests, and platitudes (“it’ll happen when you least expect it!”), Lutkin wrote an article about the topic that went viral and became this book. Lutkin looks into the history of romantic partnerships (a fairly new phenomenon), and how systemic issues and cultural discrimination negatively affect single people in the US. Lutkin also details her decision to intentionally begin dating, and all the ups and downs that entails. As someone who’s spent a large portion of my adult life single, I found this book not only disturbing (there’s are reasons single people are maligned, and we should all be concerned) but also validating, and I wish I’d read it earlier in life.

THE PALEONTOLOGIST (Luke Dumas). I’m actually interviewing Luke this Thursday (free, sign up here!) about his second novel (his first was A HISTORY OF FEAR). The book is “Night at the Museum as reimagined by Michael Crichton and Stephen King,” according to AJ Finn, which is certainly accurate. The novel follows paleontologist Simon as he takes a job at a failing museum, only to start seeing and hearing dark things he can’t explain. The book is incredibly psychological, and also contains elements that are creepy on a primal level: dark basements with secret rooms, disturbing scribbles from a deceased predecessor, and dreams of a mythical creature called “The Bone Man.”

What books disturbing books have you read recently? I’d love to hear in the comments below!

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