Another no from me. Even in the case of overtly dangerous ideas and pseudoscience that makes a case for bigotry (The Bell Curve, Irreversible Damage, etc), burning the books is an overly simplistic solution that would make a martyr of these authors while ignoring the real reasons people are drawn to exclusionary or fascistic ideologies. These tendencies arise out of social inequality, scapegoating, and unexamined fear of the other that won't go away simply with the removal of certain titles. Moreover, I think the words (fictional and otherwise) of cruel and hateful actually offer us a very valuable insight into the draw of certain ideas and behaviours, and therefore leave us better equipped to combat them - in ourselves, too.

I agree very young children should have a certain amount of benign control exercised over what they have access to (ETA: and that this is the responsibility of their carers and teachers, not the state), or at the very least an adult in their lives who'll talk them through anything they read that upsets or confuses them. For the rest of us, I don't believe the potential for someone to make a bad choice should be answered by restricting our choices. It's through conversation that we learn, and unsavory book can make for a great starting point.

Oh, for sure - I didn't mean to imply your post was censorious, just throwing it out there. Certain subjects are a pretty hard sell for me, too, even if I wouldn't write them off entirely. You did the right thing by taking care of yourself!

There's no subject matter I'll flat out refuse to read, and I don't think anything should be off limits entirely for writers; we need fiction that covers the whole range of what humans are capable of experiencing. That said, execution matters a lot. I find a lot of value in reading the viewpoints of truly reprehensible people, and in stories exploring the aftermath of the most horrific events you can imagine, but I'm not interested in schlocky, gratuitous revelling in these things.

I wouldn't be comfortable giving you a yes or no answer, since I have no personal experience with psychosis and only a fairly surface level understanding of it. But if you're prone to being deeply upset by disturbing scenes in fiction and having things play on your mind to a debilitating degree, it might be a good idea to skip this one, or at least put it down when things start getting heavy. I really hope the treatment is going well and you're in a good place these days.

"Traumatic" is an extremely strong word for any work of fiction. Yes, there's some scenes that involve remarkably inventive acts of brutality described in lascivious detail, and there's parts I had to skim even though I have a pretty strong stomach for gore. There's images and imagined pain that'll haunt you for a while, but I don't think anything in those pages will make anyone develop a psychiatric illness unless something was already going wrong.

That said, the book is one of my favourites and I do recommend forging ahead with it if you're not squeamish. It's really funny and insightful (accidentally, perhaps, by the sound of things) about consumerism and wealth and filling the void.