High school teacher had us read Survivor Type - thus began my love for stephen king
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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Maybe not disturbing enough, but the short story that really stuck with me was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_to_the_Slaughter
Random shitposts on the internet have wiped away all the trauma I got from anything I read in school.
Guts by chuck palahniuk.
did you hold your breath?
"The Long Rain" by Bradbury was the one that stuck with me.
"On the Quay at Smyrna" by Ernest Hemingway. A very short read, almost a vignette, but it left me depressed. Too on the nose for the current world situation.
They Bite by Anthony Boucher is like four pages long and had me jumping at every shadow in the corner of my eye for a week. I found it in my grandparents' copy of Alfred Hitchcock's 30 Best in Horror or something like that, bought a copy for the brother I like because it shook me so badly (I verified it was in there)
Exit by Harry Farjeon.
The Dweller in the Gulf by Clark Ashton Smith.
By the Waters of Babylon still haunts me in the best way.
The cold equations
I remember having read this one as a child in elementary school. Had to keep the anthology book it was in checked out for several months, as I kept re-reading it trying to grapple with the ethics of the story. It was brutal for a 10yo.
Hardfought, by Greg Bear. Sci-fi set in the far future, spoken with a military patois that is difficult to understand but is meant to highlight the alienness of the forever war that the story takes place in. Themes upon themes fifteen-plus layers deep, even though this is only a novella.
I have something north of 3,000 volumes in my library, and if I was to pick the most influential fiction story of my life, this would be it. I had difficulty reading it as a teenager who was typically reading at a university level while in high school, so it’s going to take serious effort by most to truly benefit from it. But when you finally understand those themes… holy shit.
guy maupassant? e.g. the necklace