The cold equations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague_Dogs_(novel)

go away now

guy maupassant? e.g. the necklace

We read The Yellow Wallpaper and that was pretty effed.

I only recently discovered Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, but I think that would need to be in the conversation.

A Modest Proposal traumatized one girl in my class.

We all had to write our own versions, trade them randomly, and read them aloud. She ended up with mine: Have the death row inmates build a prison on the moon, then turn off their air supply to complete their sentence. (Wrote it before I'd read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress)

She finished reading, and exclaimed "What is WRONG with you!?" She knew it was mine because of how hard I was laughing at her panic.

I was outdone by the quiet girl who included a recipe for "kitten kurry" in her essay though. I really should have tried to get with her, lol.

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin

I read Flowers for Algernon as an adult. It hit me hard. I have since heard that it is read i school many places in the US.

Edit: I've only read the novel he wrote based on the short story, but I guess the short story is equally as good since it won the Hugo award while the novel won the nebula award.

Many people have a visceral reaction to Palahniuk’s Guts, but it never hit me particularly hard. That and the underage incest impreg fantasies, it was always a bit of a turn off.

Honestly, for me, nothing beats good old Edgar Allan Poe, and he’s already in the syllabus.

Damn near anything Ray Bradbury wrote. I swear he just wanted to traumatize anyone that read any of his work.

Guts - Chuck Palahniuk
When someone mentioned it, I was like "it's just a story, in a book, and I've read some shit. How bad can it be?" Well, it can be really bad, I wanted to unread it. The memory is fading now, but I still have an "ugh" feeling

All Summer in a Day isn’t necessarily scary, but reading it in 6th grade felt like a real eye opener on just how evil people can be, especially when they don’t even understand that they are.

death of a salesman. making depressed highschoolers read that while some of them already may be considering suicide just about did a few of us in. also the plot just sucks.

Short stories:

• Flowers for Algernon
• I have no mouth and I must scream

Short-ish:

• Of mice and men
• Brave new world

There will come soft rains, I presume, is what inspired that post. It has done a number on many a child

The Jaunt

"Computers Don't Argue" by Gordon Dickson. Guy gets shipped the wrong book by a book club, tries to return it, gets sent to a collections agency, and things spiral completely out of control from there. It's lived rent-free in my head since I read it years ago. (apologies for the mobile-unfriendly format, this is the only source I know for this story) https://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=133

"Unauthorized Bread" by Cory Doctorow is a more up-to-date discussion of the same kind of power dynamics though. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Turkish elementary-school books.

Wanna read about a small girl getting beat up by her dad and kicked out before freezing to death as she vividly imagines her dead grandma and lighting matchsticks to prolong her suffering for 20 pages?

I think author was either Russian or Danish. Still no clue why that was a required read at age of 7 in my school.

Lord of the flies

The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin

Space might be the final frontier but it is by no means forgiving

Blood Child ild by Octavia Butler. Humans living on an alien reservation have the males implanted by the insect like alien's eggs and they start burrowing out of your flesh when they're ready.

When the Wind Blows.

A textbook on integral calculus

My freshman college English prof assigned House of Leaves.

It was awesome watching the preppy kids descend into madness

Someone else mentioned Flowers for Algernon, so mine will be ģWhere the Red Fern Grows_. Such an emotional roller coaster.

And while I won't downplay those K-12 books, I think anyone who's ever taken a Russian Literature class in college will agree that Russian authors are next level for depressing novels. Few things compare to the bleak, gray, petty, inescapable, hopeless lives portrayed by authors like Sologub, and while English translations would certainly be accessible to high school students, I'm really glad they don't include them.

Unless someone's going to say they were given The Petty Demon as a reading assignment in high school.

I remember in high school our text book had some paragraphs from various literature books. One of the books was called zombie (or zombies) so of course I checked it out, even if the teacher skipped it. The section was just a description or something, nothing particular, but I decided to borrow the book at the library anyway, and the full story was basically (spoilers ahead, it's gory):

I wonder if somebody did it as an Easter egg or what

Into the Wild (1996) is a popular pick for something both scarring but also uncontroversial.

Less exciting would be The Pinballs (1976).

The king in yellow

!shortstories@literature.cafe

Whatever you choose, post right there 😭

We had to read this book called A Prayer for Owen Meany in school. Lots of weird stuff in that one. Main thing that stood out to me was a part where the mc is tied up to his girl cousin and gets an erection

A classic: https://quirogatranslated.wordpress.com/2014/06/20/the-feather-pillow/

I try to not remember The Veldt but I still liked it as a good read. I also hated Harrison Bergeron but I think I was suppose to?

I've always remembered H. G. Wells' The Red Room, altho it's shorter than most mentioned here I think. Just loved it. So unsettling. So evocative and creepy. It's been maybe thirteen years. 😂

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Was a full, but short, novel that I think was summer reading: The Chocolate Wars.

Not traumatizing as much as just a shit message. Don't quietly try to opt out of what the public wants, don't rock the boat, or you'll be executed publicly as a spectacle while your peers cheer.

Kid doesn't want to participate in his high school chocolate selling fundraiser, bunch of other things happen in between, and then his classmates organize a rigged boxing match between him and the biggest school bully where they all cheer while the bully beats the main character to death. And it just hard cuts, ends there.

What a garbage book.

There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. If comics count, The Enigma of Amigara Fault.

Oh man, let's talk about short stories that defined my taste in literature!

• To Build A Fire: definitely built a fascination in me of the morbid and got me way more into survivalism than quick sand ever did. I live in a cold place too and that put it well into perspective how dangerous that can be.

• The Sniper: This was my start into war literature, and what a good start. I keep coming back to this one when I hear people talk about a civil war in the US. It's more unsettling now than ever before.

• The Lottery. How couldn't that be on the list?

• Cask of Amontillado: big vibes. Poe made me goth-brained no doubt.

Our school also had us read Robert Frost. Really great way to introduce kids to the idea that 'some folks just kinda wanna die all the time'. That and why child labor laws are good and important.

The Jaunt by Stephen King

Im still scarred by my english teacher enthusiastically reading certain scenes of Equus to the class.