Stories that stuck with you -

[smallmilk]

Are there any stories that stuck with you? Stories that you read/watched years ago and can still remember? What do you think makes a story memorable?

For me:

13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson - book i read when i was 13 or so. Its about a girl that gets 13 envelopes from her now dead aunt and follows the instructions in them. The ending is a bit unexpected but for ya i think it one of the better ones.

Pipi Long Stocking by Astrid Lindgen - you probably know this one

Sinbad and the legend of the seven seas - dreamworks movie, eris' animation is absolutely gorgeous!

Spirited Away - Ghibli movie, you know this one too lol

Shiki - a vamprie anime and one of the first animes i ever watched. The designs are kinda ugly but the story is pretty dark

Presonally, i think that emersion plays a big role. The more emersed i am in a media the better ill remember it because the events in the story will feel like theyre my own.

 

[Un Platano]

The novelization of 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke is even better than the movie. For me, it was one of those books where you feel like you're floating through the clouds once you finish reading it.

 

[FatFuckingClown]

My dad had to work super late to keep the three of us, (me, my brother, and him), fed and not homeless, so we didn't get much time with him.

One of the few things we got to do together would be when he read this to us every night before bed. (At around 11, or whenever he got in. We would wait.) He would do so many voices, and it was just so much fun. <3

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

Basically the entirety of The Illustrated Man.

 

[millais]

The novelization of 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke is even better than the movie. For me, it was one of those books where you feel like you're floating through the clouds once you finish reading it.

I read the full series of novels before watching the films, and I think they very nicely complement one another with the exception of the 2010 film, which has not aged very well at all

 

[Un Platano]

I read the full series of novels before watching the films, and I think they very nicely complement one another with the exception of the 2010 film, which has not aged very well at all

I think that the series lost its focus as it progressed. I haven't even read the 4th book yet because of how watered-down the 3rd one was compared to the second, and that to the first. Does the 4th one follow that progression?

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

I remember reading 1984 for the first time when I was like 13 and being super sad and depressed. Same thing when I read Brave New World a year or so later.

 

[ERROR_ENTRY]

Let's go to Golgotha!

Basically, time travel tourism is a thing, and a group of people go back in time to see Jesus being sentenced to crucifixion. The tour guide tells everyone on the tour that they have to keep everything as it actually happened in the past, so he tells the group to chant for Barabbas when Pontius Pilate asks who should be freed. One of the group then notices that the only people for Barabbas to be freed are members of the tour group.

 

[DatBepisTho]

I think about two particular books fairly often: Fahrenheit 451 and Alas Babylon. Not just because when asked what books they would memorize parts of or try to preserve... college classmates responded with Twilight and other bullshit that wouldn't benefit postapocalyptic generations down the line.

-It's hard to put into words for 451 because it's almost all of the book, but the irradiated ring and haircut scenes from Alas Babylon still stick with me to this day.

 

[Coleman Francis]

77 Shadow Street by Dean Koontz is one of the more recent books I read that stuck with me awhile after finishing it. It was just so weird, you had time travel, nano robots, a fancy hotel as a backdrop and about 12 characters to keep up with. Good story though, definitely not what I expected from the title and the cover (and the author, really)

 

[Nekomata12]

In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried by Amy Hempel really stuck with me.
A lot of her shorter pieces aren't really stories but more like literary sketches, but I think of this one from time to time.

Spoiler: In The Animal Shelter

Every time you see a beautiful woman, someone is tired of her, so the men say.

And I know where they go, these women, with their tired beauty that someone doesn't want - these women who must live like the high Sierra white pine, there since before the birth of Christ, fed somehow by the alpine wind.

They reach out to the animals, day after day smoothing fur inside a cage, saying, "How is Mama's baby? Is Mama's baby lonesome?"

The women leave at the end of the day, stopping to ask an attendant, "Will they go to good homes?" And come back in a day or so, stooping to examine a one-eyed cat, asking, as though they intend to adopt, "How would I introduce a new cat to my dog?"

But there is seldom an adoption; it matters that the women have someone to leave, leaving behind the lovesome creatures who would never leave them, had they once given them their hearts.

 

[Syaoran Li]

Mario Puzo's Omerta was my favorite book as a teenager and still is one of my favorite books today. It was a cool, pulpy action-packed Mafia story and it really helped me get through a rough high school experience. A lot of literary critics hated it, but I consider it to be Puzo's last hurrah and a great read.

Speaking of Mario Puzo, The Godfather (both the book and the movies) are among my all-time favorites and when I first saw Godfather Part I as a kid, it blew my mind and I loved it.

I read Stephen King's The Stand when I was thirteen and it was awesomely haunting. I read the complete version from the early 90's and the depiction of the breakdown of society in the first part of the book really got to me. The scenes of the decaying town of Arnette post-plague, the second die-off after the superflu has passed, and the soldiers mutinying were chilling. To this day, the Lincoln Tunnel scene scares the fuck out of me. Also, Randall Flagg is one of the greatest literary villains of all time in my opinion.

AKIRA is trippy as fuck but visually very impressive.

Even though Urotsukidoji is really just sleazy guro hentai that Toshio Maeda wrote for cathartic reasons, I loved it as a dumb edgelord teenager. As spergy as this may sound, I never enjoyed it for its intended purpose (if you can get off to the stuff in Urotsukidoji, something is seriously wrong with you), but I was actually engrossed into the apocalyptic lore and the characters of the four films (even if most of the characters are shallow and unlikable) and while I'm too ashamed to rewatch the series now, I still have nostalgic memories of those films. It helped that even as a teenager I viewed Urotsukidoji as extreme horror than as any form of erotica. It's like the old-school anime equivalent of Cannibal Holocaust. It's sick and repulsive, but it's also like a train wreck. You don't want to stare but you can't look away.

 

[Cable 7]

I don't read much, but a story that sticks with me is Guts by Chuck Palahniuk. It still sticks to me becasue of just how fucking disgusting it is. I love it.

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

For me it's Lazarus by Leonid Andreyev. It's a creepy story about Lazarus after he came back from the dead. He is different now and everyone who looks into his eyes becomes a shadow of their former self.

 

[Yaoi Huntress Earth]

I read the play, Equuis. I couldn't look at horses the same way again for a year.

 

[melty]

I don't read much, but a story that sticks with me is Guts by Chuck Palahniuk. It still sticks to me becasue of just how fucking disgusting it is. I love it.

Guts is great. I read it before I knew who Chuck Palahnuik was, and just thought, holy shit, what have I read? It was like some internet 1.0 copypasta that sticks with you. Years later I learned it was written by the Fight Club guy.

 

[DoctorJimmyRay]

Went on a Camus bender in HS. I'll never forget how much of an emotionally draining ordeal it was to make it through The Plague.

 

[AnOminous]

Went on a Camus bender in HS. I'll never forget how much of an emotionally draining ordeal it was to make it through The Plague.

This is one I've read over and over. It's better than The Stranger, which is overrated-ish.

 

[DoctorJimmyRay]

This is one I've read over and over. It's better than The Stranger, which is overrated-ish.

I never was all that fond of The Stranger, excellent book though it may be. Camus was the first author I truly read as an aware, thinking person. Exile and the Kingdom will always be a favorite of mine, and I still vividly remember the thrill of some ill defined emotion upon reading the final "Fortunately!" of The Fall. Hell, I've even got a first edition Myth of Sisyphus lying around here somewhere.

 

[Sure Thing Idiot]

As for a book, I read Joyland not long ago and it's still on my mind. I love most of Stephen King's work and the stories that I don't love are only because they didn't leave a big impact, which is me and my personal taste, and has nothing to do with the story itself or the writing (for example, The Shining I'm not nuts over simply because it isn't up my alley, but it's still a fantastic book and ride of a movie). Something about Joyland screwed with my head and I don't know what it was. I find amusement parks to be symbolic for something, which I'm not sure of either, but it was deeper than that. Almost like there's something in the book I couldn't and still can't see. I read it in a few hours because I actually could not stop reading it and it's gotta be an instant favorite for me. I don't think I've ever felt like that about a book before. If you're a fan of Stephen King check it out.