'The Incest Diary' has been labelled the most controversial book of 2017.

Some books are light-hearted entertainment meant to be read over sunny days at the beach, others require just a little bit more concentration and thought.

And then there’s The Incest Diary – which might just leave you so disturbed you won’t be able to hug your dad for a week.

The book, which is set to be released on 18 July, is written by a woman, now believed to be in her 40s, reflecting on the 18-year “sexual relationship” she had with her father when she was a child and young woman.

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Bloomsbury’s UK publishing director Alexis Kirschbaum told News.com.au that what was particularly disturbing to her was that the anonymous author describes enjoying sex with her father as a teenager.

“The Incest Diary is the most disturbing book I have ever read, and it is not only because of the nature of the abuse the author recounts,” she told the website.

“It is because the author’s account is a chronicle of pleasure. I am very uncomfortable with that.”

“I know now that it is a symptom of her abuse, and it is perhaps the most unbearable symptom there is, to find pleasure in what essential destroys you.”

Bloomsbury is confident the author's "sparse, poetic, violent" account is true, with the American editor adding they spoke to old friends who the author had confided in and checked medical records, The Independent reports.

The author writes that the abuse began when she was three years old and didn't end until she was in her 20s.

She claims her mother and other family members knew of the abuse, which had been so normalised that when her family moved into a new house when she was eight years old - she expected the master bedroom was for her and her father, "and that my mother would sleep in one of the other bedrooms".

"To my mother, I was the other woman. She often told me that she wished I hadn’t been born."

However, perhaps the most shocking revelation is that she came to enjoy the sex with her father, a fact that challenged Kirschbaum.

"The Incest Diary raises complex issues about art, freedom, consent, and I believe the author’s experience must be heard for this reason," she told News.com.au.

"It matters that the world knows this has taken place. It matters that it is told in this way, with such beauty. I have endeavoured to publish the book with the care, discretion and dignity it deserves.

"I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I couldn’t stop talking about it. I still can’t. And I won’t be the only one."

Reviews of the book have been mixed, with some finding the writing beautiful and others the structure disjointed. However, it's the content that readers have had a problem with - including a UK journalist who said it "fetishes female misery and demonises dads".

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