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SkyOfFallingWater t1_j5pnq2u wrote

Weirdly enough the first book I thought of was "The Royal Game" by Stefan Zweig.

But two others come to mind as well:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (though for me the movie was even darker)

Young Gerber by Friedrich Torberg (now that I think about it this is probably my definite answer, but I don't know if it would still have that effect on me because it might have just been due to the time I read it in... then again, I think it would still be devastating)

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LuckElectronic OP t1_j5porkw wrote

What’s the young gerber about?

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SkyOfFallingWater t1_j5ptyy9 wrote

It follows the student Kurt Gerber as he's approaching the final exams at his school. He's basically disoriented, depressed and well, you know... the typical stuff lots of young people deal with. It also talks about oppressive authority from the teachers and the ending is unfortunate and devastating.

It was published when Torberg was only 22 years old. He was inspired by his own experiences and the fact, that there were a lot of student suicides in the year 1929 (in Austria I'm guessing).

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