For me it was Gerald’s Game by Stephen King. I think it’s a fantastic novel with amazing character development. The main character is extremely realistic and well written. Despite the seemingly silly premise, I was invested throughout the entire thing. The main character’s development is really what sells it for me.
That being said, I am absolutely not reading it again anytime soon. There are two scenes in particular(if you’ve the book I’m sure you know) that managed to make extremely uncomfortable, mortified, and disgusted. My biggest fear is being trapped and helpless, so this book really got to me. Fantastic book, I’m never picking it up again.
Either that or Lord of the Flies… Dear God.
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro. It’s a novel about the impermanence/permanence of memory and the hold place has on people. As such, it meanders, fades, and repeats, while characters shift and become intermingled, all in the service of the novel’s themes. In spots, it’s almost stream of consciousness.
In short, it’s a challenge to read.
And yet, a couple decades after I read it, The Unconsoled still sticks with me, and not a week goes by that I don’t find myself thinking about or referring to its ideas.