I'm reading Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn and it looks to be excellent, but the reader has just found out (early on but spoiler alert) that the protagonist was a cutter as a child. I find it some- what difficult to read about this. Maybe it's because I did it once. In ninth grade, I carved my boyfriend's initials in my leg. By the time the scabs went away, he had too. Never did it again, wasn't tempted even. But it's there somewhere.
Is there something you can't bear to read about in novels? What fills you with terror that might not frighten other readers?
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Certain depictions of violence will make me stop reading books, even though I am a "must find out what happens" kind of girl.
The scene in Stephen King's "The Dead Zone," in which the bad guy kicks a dog to death, made me stop reading. And although I was too deep into his and Peter Straub's "Black House" to stop when I reached the depiction of a molestation, I'm not likely to go back to that book again... just lock my kid in a windowless room till he's 18! (Not really. But it's sure tempting.)
Funny thing is, it's not ALL violence to children or animals that turns me off. It's more the way it's put across.
Patti, is it just the cutting, or all self-destructive tendencies that bother you? Just wondering because I'm a nail-biter - not a nibbler, a biter. Sorry if that squicks you out, just explaining why a description of a cutter wouldn't bother me - because I understand it.
I guess I see it as self-hatred turned inward and experienced as children. There are probably other things at work, but it just makes me very sad. Why is it girls develop eating disorders and cut themselves whereas boys turn up with guns?
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