readers advisory for all discussion

Yeah, so this might sound weird, but... I'm looking for a book that is the literary equivalent of Edvard Munch's "The Scream." You see, I'm really into novels about young people with angst and existential issues, but at the same time, I don't want to read some cheap teeny novel. I kind of want to read something demanding and serious. So yeah.

And I've already read The Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zooey, and The Bell Jar, but I'm trying to find something else that's like that and maybe a little more difficult and interesting.

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God I'm such a typical teenager. Me and ma angsty books. lol

Examples of books I like: Nausea, The Journals of Malte Laurid Brigge, The Tropic of Cancer, Candide, Journey to the End of the Night.

But I'd like to find something a little more relevant to our time and is written more recently.

I think K.I. Hope's books have that feel. Particularly hector, but also This is Not a Flophouse.

Also, maybe, Crime and Punishment and Tender is the Night, but those are older.

i don't know if i would call these "demanding and serious", but they definitely involve the themes you are looking for. i would read the first few pages and take it from there:

This Book Will Save Your Life

Prescription for a Superior Existence: A Novel...

Well, it's a really short read and the protagonist isn't as young as Holden Caulfield but you might enjoy The Stranger. It's the only book I've read by Albert Camus but it made me curious to read more.

Hunger by Knut Hamsun. It's on my to-read list, haven't read it yet, but it sounds right up your alley.

Lanark: A Life in Four Books by Alasdair Gray. This one I've read; it's a fantastic novel, and I think it suits your criteria very well.

Maybe Time Must Have a Stop, although this too is kind of... old.

I think The Trick Is to Keep Breathing and The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done: A Novel

have that feel they are sort of really depressed books.

Dear Everybody I think is also interesting.

but honestly I don't know how you are interpreting the scream. can you be a little more specific?

did you try any of these?? did anything work for you?