Perhaps the book itself was tame and all of a sudden on chapter 32 or something, there’s a really fucked up death. Or perhaps it’s a rather gory book with a death so shockingly gnarly that even it surprised you.
For me it’s when a character kills a baby towards the end of Song of Achilles. Song was a pretty tame book; sure there was death here and there but the violence is never lingered upon and feels more akin to the type of violence you’d see in Troy. Until the very final chapter that is. Without spoiling too much, a new character was introduced who was the son of another character and well, this kid was a freaking sadist. One of the scenes that literally shocked me was when he grabbed an infant and splattered his brains across the wall. It was such a vividly brutal moment in a book that never contained violence to that degree. The fact that an infant was the main victim just made it all the more worse. It absolutely disgusted and I basically reacted to it the same way your average redditor reacts when they read about a dog getting killed.
But what was your moment?