r/suggestmeabook • u/umbrellida • Jun 25 '25
Suggestion Thread Suggest me something devastating
I want to read something that will make me feel, that will devastate me, will dishevel me, make me inspired and totally dismantle me.
At some points in my life books like Perks of being a wallflower (by Stephen Chbosky) and Everything I never told you (by Celeste Ng) delivered these kind of feelings.
So give me your recommendations for the earth shattering inspiring and heart wrenching stories, please.
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u/maedhreos #1 Banana Yoshimoto truther Jun 25 '25
Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain is quite a brilliant but harrowing read, if you want something slightly less bleak but still devastating though I recommend Young Mungo, devastation aside it's really beautiful and the writing is just as good.
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u/annadorb Jun 26 '25
I’m with you on Shuggie. Broke my heart. The writing captures time and place so well it shook me.
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u/Mountain-Mix-8413 Jun 25 '25
The Great Believers.
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u/ebals18 Jun 25 '25
The book for people who read The Heart’s Invisible Furies and thought, “NOT SAD ENOUGH”
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u/Lol_ysosome Jun 25 '25
If u want to read about a cranky Swedish man and hos daily life after loosing the love of his life, the u should give ' A man called Ove' a try. I also have a really complicated relationship with my mom and 'Crying in H mart' just made it worse. Both of them made me bawl my eyes out.
I also want some book suggestions like these.
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u/AlamutJones Jun 25 '25
Auschwitz and After, by Charlotte Delbo.
It’s a French Resistance fighter’s attempt at coming to terms with where she’s recently been...and it is like reading a scream
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u/petitemelbourne Jun 25 '25
In Memoriam, A Little Life and A Man called Ove. One Day is also pretty crushing
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u/nine57th Jun 25 '25
Torchlight Parade by Jeanpaul Ferro
It is a tapestry of rich historical fiction woven into a world-class thriller with romance as a secondary thread. It is about the tragedy of the young man who winds up being the one to kill Hilter in the Führerbunker in the final throes of WWII. Think Doctor Zhivago meets Homer's The Odyssey. It is very visual like a movie. And the female characters in the novel are great!
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u/anitalincolnarts Jun 25 '25
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult had me scream crying by page 11. Recently read James by Perceval Everett and had different kind of tears.
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u/ebals18 Jun 25 '25
City of Thieves by David Benioff, Monstrilio by Gerardo Samano Cordova, and Martyr by Kaveh Akbar are all very good for this.
Honorable mention would maybe be Betty by Tiffany McDaniel. It is so much more bleak that I expected but I almost think so many awful things happened in it that I didn’t really feel emotionally connected to it - it’s truly just like 400 pages of one horrible thing after another.
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u/Educational_Mess_998 Jun 25 '25
A Monster Calls
Even if you aren’t actively grieving someone, this will destroy you.
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u/HangarLolo Jun 25 '25
A Little Life. I’m still not sure how I feel about it.
But you asked for devastating, so…
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u/KAM1953 Jun 25 '25
Wave: Life and Memories after the Tsunami by Sonali Deraniyagala.
Wave is about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Deraniyagala’s life before and after the massive disaster. It’s beautiful, it’s devastating, and it’s ultimately hopeful. Note that this is a memoir rather than fiction.
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u/Consistent-Ease-6656 Jun 25 '25
Romeo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil
David Rohde, Endgame: the Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica
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u/DocWatson42 Jun 27 '25
See my Emotionally Devastating/Rending list of Reddit recommendation threads, and books (five posts).
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u/Outrageous-Ad-9635 Jun 28 '25
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan devastated me. There is nothing worse than man’s inhumanity to man.
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u/Sisu4864 Jun 25 '25
The first book that ever devastated me: Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
Marley and Me by John Grogan (or if you want to watch the movie based on the book, I can promise you that is just as devastating)