The dark side of literature

Why am I fascinated by dark creepy books about mental insanity, cruelty, evil, addiction, depression, suicide....that take me to places where I really don't want to go?

It's not entertaining, you can't call it a pleasure. - It's even some kind of intriguing challenge.

Torture, fear, desperation, sometimes it hurts physically, at times it is disgusting, sometimes unbearably sad. But I insist.

I'm not talking about stories with monsters, aliens, ghosts, witches or other paranormal things. I'm talking about the normal madness, books that feel all too real.

Depression is all around us, friends commit suicide, others are addicted or in recovery, we all know someone who has been in a psychiatric ward, we read about shooting sprees in schools, girls who have been kept for years in some basement ... That's the world we live in.

I want to see the whole image. I want to understand the twisted minds, the reasons behind. I don't want to close my eyes.

And of course there's the thrill, the suspense, the roller-coaster-feeling!

Here are some of the best books I've read last year from the „Dark Side“ that really stay in mind:

(The links lead to my reviews on Goodreads)

Addiction

The damage done, the most striking of all,  Milk Blood and

On the lips of children
are so extreme that I really hope that these things don't happen anywhere – but Mark Matthews has a way to make them feel real, and it's frightening.

Stray isn't as shocking as the others but very realistic.

                 And, totally different

My Dead Friend Sarah  by Peter Rosch.

Mothers and their mental insane sons:

It's a special relationship between mothers and their sons and sometimes love itself is insane.

Mother be the judge by Sally O'Brien 

The insanity inside by Theodore Andrew

House rules by Jodi Picoult 

We need to talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Insane minds

There are a lot more, but those come to my mind immediately.

Persona by Mark Horn who is a master of insane minds but this one is my favorite of his books.

The Roommate by T. Scott McLeod

Anti-Depressant  

by Clark Kline

                   

                  

Suicide

When my fire burns low
by Aslyn Foran

Escalators
by Danielle Tara Evans

The line between habit and addiction, between a depressed mood and deep depression, between exhaustion and burnout is very slim. And I know that depression is waiting for me just behind the next corner. I don't see myself as a potential killer and I don't think I'd be able to commit suicide. But the human mind is a fragile thing and I have fallen in some dark holes and I don't know where I'd be now without my faith, without Jesus who has always pulled me out of the holes.