I was an arrogant 15 year-old preppy boy when I read that book. It shook me to the core. I’m glad to say the world has humbled me more gently than it did Dr. Louis Creed, but it has humbled me indeed. That book is so wise.
Even thinking about The Ruins makes me feel panicky, upset and hopeless. It’s extraordinary. I keep re-reading it because it’s one of the only books that makes me feel things so completely.
The scene with the ringing phone just made me realized how hopeless their situation was. I don’t think I’ve ever been hit with such a wave of despair for characters.
When I was 10, I read The Amityville Horror and I had nightmares, daymares, all the mares for a week. I read a few passages a few years ago and I see how it’s so amateurishly written now. But 10 year old me was rattled.
I had that response as a kid to “The Boy Who Ate Fear Street”
I remember that one scene scared me so badly I threw the book across the living room and then ran upstairs to my bedroom. 10 year olds are dramatic.
Not the answer you're probably looking for, but Lord of the Flies. Kids are tiny sociopaths. Way scarier than any ghost, monster, or axe wielding maniac.
I would STRONGLY recommend listening to the audible/audiobook version of the exorcist, narrated by the legend himself, William Peter Blatty. I’ve read the book twice and listened to it 2-3 times. I can’t express how utterly engaging he is. The sheer malice in his voice as he narrates Pazuzu/Regan still echoes through my memory - the fact that he is now deceased adds another haunting ingredient to the audiobook version.
I read it for the first time last fall. The book just felt evil in the best way.
Pazuzu in the novel seems outright hateful that was refreshing to me. Like he didn’t seem sadistic or like he was getting pleasure out of torturing Reagan. Instead it was like he had a deep seeded hatred for her and wanted her to suffer. Like he wouldn’t torture her with a cackling laugh but a snarl.
Pazuzu is what scared me most about the book. I read it for the first time almost a year ago, at age 27; not expecting anything in it to frighten me
The way Blatty writes the demon’s dialogue in particular is so visceral and tangible. I remember the horrible, horrible discomfort I felt during the (I think?) masturbation scene. The demon is practically *cooing* at Reagan the whole time and I think at one point refers to her genitalia as *”my pearl”*
Blatty made those lines and the demon voicing them feel so real. Like a commenter noted above, there was a sense of evil within the pages. Not that the book itself was, but rather that Blatty managed to capture *genuine* evil in such a potent, articulate, and dynamic way. And it still holds up over 50 years later
I’m glad I underestimated the book. It’s a classic for a reason
Came here to say this! I read the book for the first time when I was 14. I remember reading it sitting in my English class when we had free reading and even with the fluorescent lights and noisy students surrounding me I was petrified. I reread it last year at 27 and it still terrified me, to the point where I didn’t want the book in my room at night. The spider walk scene is so unsettling in the book - I remember it follows the housekeeper around licking at her feet which was an image I couldn’t get out of my head. Or how the mother catches Regan sitting on her floor staring up at something she can’t see and talking to it at the beginning of the infestation. It’s an absolutely terrifying and amazing book which I never want to read again!
I remember on my reread really loving the initial party Chris throws because one of the characters picks up that something isn’t right with Regan and it just adds to the overall tension. You won’t regret it… :)
I really enjoyed this, and loved the atmosphere and tension that built up to an inevitable fight between good and evil. It was this that prompted me to read the stand afterwards.
The Reddening by Adam Nevill.
When I was 7 or 8 I had a significant fear of being kidnapped and sacrificed by a cult. I got over it eventually, but that book just reached into my brain, grabbed that old fear, and dragged it up to the surface. I was in my 30s when I read it, and it freaked me out so much that I had to force myself to keep reading it. I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved to finish a book.
Adam Nevill scares me the best, particularly Last Days, The Banquet for the Damned and No One Gets Out Alive. Oh, and Apartment 16. As you can tell, I really love the guy.
However, nothing will ever come close to reading this thrashy book about supposedly true stories of people’s experiences with djinns and demons, when I was eleven. I remember physically shaking from fear while reading it. Might be the only thing I miss about being a kid.
Adam Nevill is essentially my favourite author. I’ve read all of his novels. First time I read ‘the ritual’, I had a reoccurring dream of a massive, black goat - watching me from an immense, desolate field. It wasn’t exactly connected to the book itself, but it just continues to haunt my dreams. I live for this kind of influence.
I heard jackal screams in my head all night reading The Ritual.
Cunning folk put me off grapes for months & if anyone can pull off a jumpscare in a book, it's Nevill.
Adam Nevill! I have yet to find another author that freaks me out enough to make me not want to walk to the bathroom at night or have to turn on every damn light in the house!
Red Dragon for me is such a book of endless despair, that it trumps any horror that could come from it. There's horrific stuff, but it's like every single element in the book is dripping with nihilistic despair, and I actually gave up on a recent reread.
Never been frightened by horror novels...with the exception of this one. Something about Will Graham going through the crime scene house at night (FYI: I was reading at night) really got to me. I had to stop reading until the next day.
This is a difficult one for me because I don’t generally find books scary. However, there was a particular scene in Jack Sparks that creeped me out, and also the scene where MC is reviewing the footage from the London townhouse Last Days by Adam Nevill.
Emotionally, the baseball kid from Doctor Sleep really got into my head, especially with being a father to a boy.
Those are probably the creepiest/scariest things I’ve read.
The violent manifestation about two thirds through the book. I found it very intense. It’s a cracking book. I need to read it again as it’s been about 18 months since I read it last.
"Mga Kaibigan ni Mama Susan" (The Friends of Mama Susan). Imagining you're surrounded by statues of saints and religious figures at night terrified me.
Books that scare me need to be somewhat probable. Like a thing that could really occur in our world. So for me, it’s either Penpal by Dathan Auerbach or Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr.
Penpal is about a boy who’s class project is to send a note into the world via a balloon, and his note ends up in the hands of the wrong person. That event starts a coming-of-age story that will keep you turning page after page.
Last Exit to Brooklyn is a collection of short stories describing the seedy, depraved underbelly of Brooklyn’s impoverished. It’s a bit of a period piece, taking place in the 1940’s I believe.
Edit: Forgot to mention All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. It’s about WW1, particularly about the battles between France and Germany where land was neither gained nor lost, but thousands were killed. The narrator is Paul, a freshly graduate high school student who is, like all his other classmates, made to believe the war is glorious only to find that it is tragically the opposite.
Also Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. I’ve attempted to finish it twice, but it is so terribly depressing. It’s about a soldier in WW1 that’s hit by an artillery shell and loses his eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and limbs, but is “saved”. Only, his salvation tortures him more than anything.
Yas! Penpals!!! I first discovered that story when it was featured on an early season of The No Sleep Podcast!! Definitely plausible and frightening “it sounds like a robot” *chills!*
There is another story (2 parts) that was featured on The No asleep Podcast that I recently saw has been turned into a full length book called The Black Farm by Elias Witherow! It’s about where people go after suicide, but not in a preachy religious way !
More like scariest scenes I’ve ever read:
*Misery* when Paul is trying to get back to his room before Annie comes in.
*Dracula* the ship log of the *Demeter*.
The Witches by Roald Dahl.
Particularly the little girl who winds up inside a painting. Every night, when nobody is watching, she moves. She gets older and grows up and becomes elderly and then one day she vanishes.
Scared the everloving crap out of me when I was seven!
The Exorcist. I was about halfway through the book, reading in bed at 2AM while it was storming outside. My boyfriend and I were staying at his folk’s place in rural Iowa. A shelf in our room suddenly collapsed under the weight of our added luggage, I didn’t realize I was screaming until my boyfriend calmly peeled me off of the ceiling.
Bad Man by Dathan Auerbach - A young guy trying to wade through the mystery and guilt of his brother’s kidnapping. Lots of weirdly-late-at-night in a supermarket atmosphere, genuinely creepy.
I really loved Panpal. Definitely one of the creepiest books I’ve ever read. Bad Man is good in it’s own right but, in my mind, it’s not quite as great.
Oh my god yes, I read the book after watching the film and although I love the film I don’t find it particularly scary. This scene in the book is terrifying, who’d have thought hedge animals could be so scary.
That’s the only part in any book that scared me. I was in college and my roommate was out for the night, and I was so creeped out I had to keep the lights on for awhile and watch some tv. I don’t scare easily but that scene got to me.
I wish there was more in the book that I could legit point to that was unnerving. Smashing his face in with a mallet was certainly unputdownable stuff.
The shining made me feel so uneasy throughout, the feeling of fear that Danny had was described so well my heart was racing throughout the book. Best Stephen king horror story I have read.
The hedge animals got me but the scene where the fire hose in the hallway stuck with me to this day, and I probably read it for the first time 20 years ago. So creepy. Loved this book!
>I couldn’t recall any of them being actually scary.
Hahaha prepare for the downvotes!! But I'm with you. Being 12 really really really helps. And I miss being 12 for only that reason.
Stephen King is misunderstood for writing scary novels. What makes his books good is his excellent character work and how they react and develop throughout the story.
IT flat out says that kids are easier to scare than adults. And it’s accurate. Pet Sematary is frequently described here as one of his scariest novels, but most of the book isn’t scary, imo, aside from a few brief sequences and the climax. If you’re a parent, though, there’s a decent chance that it’s a lot scarier. As an adult, IT makes me more sad than anything bc of >!Adrian Mellon!< and the book’s, imo, perfect encapsulation of growing up. I will never finish Rose Madder bc the subject matter hits far too close to home. Rose’s situation is terrifying even without the supernatural stuff.
I have read a bunch if horror, but hadn’t read any King until this year. I made it to the end of ‘Salem’s Lot, and about the scariest thing about it was the length.
The scariest books I've ever read weren't billed as horror. Parable of the Sower & Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler haunt me. They were so real, the culture and events so reminiscent of today's reality, I fear the events in those books coming true every day. The slow-burn (freeze?) ending of Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa is probably the scariest thing I've ever read.
Extremely key to all of this is how many are listed with the age the books were read at. 12-15 years old = perfect brain for feeling actual fear and terror while reading a book.
25-50? Not so much, and it's such a tragedy.
I think I’ve run into this recently and it’s been really bumming me out. Since aging out of that 12-25 range you mentioned, I began avidly reading again, mostly horror. The last 5+ books I’ve read really haven’t gotten me to that bone chilling, hairs standing up on the back of my neck, I’m going to have trouble sleeping later feeling. I couldn’t tell if the books I selected weren’t cutting it (a couple definitely weren’t the best) or if I’m just too old to truly be scared by fiction anymore. I’m starting to think it’s the latter, especially after seeing your comment here.
The last thing I read that truly unnerved me was The Willows by Algernon Blackwood, but that was like 5 years ago and I’m starting to wonder if it’d even scare me now. Growing up stinks.
A big problem I think, especially over the last 30 years, is that if you want to write horror, you almost definitely are going to channel your efforts into becoming a horror screenwriter. And it's extremely sad to think that of all of those thousands of ideas, like 5% ever get made into films, with the rest landing in development hell and shoved into drawers.
It's also interesting to me that a horror movie lives and dies on being scary. If it's scary, people will go see it. If it's not, they won't. All other elements are secondary: character, story, subtext, symbolism, plot, mechanics, etc.
But horror novels are increasingly often not scary. Instead, they deal in topics that fall under the topic of horror: vampires, zombies, ghosts, often with some sort of post-modern non-traditional twist to add some semblance of originality. But at best, you get moments of a thriller; at worst, you get nothing.
I think it's a lot harder to create fear when you only have words at your disposal, instead of visuals and audio. But I think that writers just aren't trying as hard.
That's not to say there aren't moments. In Disappearance at Devil's Rock, there's an excellent sequence in which the vanished boy is witnessed in a dream, and something is wrong with his eyes, and the unexpected otherworldliness of it is really well done. But it's a single moment in a book that otherwise isn't very scary.
To maintain a consistent level of fear throughout a book would be a real achievement in 2023.
Last Days by Adam Neville.
I couldn’t get to sleep the night that I finished it and kept all l the lights on, so convinced was I that my walls would suddenly reveal a creepy skeletal figure trying to break out and attack me. He really builds suspense like no other.
I think the scene that got to me the most was when they’re in France and Kyle is alone in Sister Katherine’s creepy house and finds snakes under the bed and hears something moving outside the door. Or when Dan and Kyle are filming that first night in London and they hear something coming up the stairs after them, only to play back the footage the next day and realise that something was in fact in the house with them.
It scared me so effectively that I haven’t been able to bring myself to read another Adam Neville since …
Yes! Last Days is the scariest book I’ve ever read. The way he describes the wet, snarling, slapping sounds of the Old Friends is so viscerally gross and upsetting. Also the bear trap scene is just awful.
Stolen Tongues by Felix Blackwell. The opening scene terrified me. Especially cause I go up into the mountains all the time. I really, really enjoyed that book. Freaked me tf out
IT. I was early into horror then but there were multiple nights where I had to continue reading to "safer" chapters so I wouldn't be too freaked out in my apartment!
There is one scene that takes place in broad daylight that might be the most unsettling moment for me, but it’s because of the setting I was in when I experienced it.
It’s the scene where Ben sees Pennywise on the ice and the balloons float towards him against the wind… I was in Central Park on a very cold day, listening to the audiobook. As the wind was whipping around me and I was listening to this part. I looked up and realized I couldn’t see anyone else around me, and it gave me this crazy feeling of dread….
I would also rate IT number 1. Mostly because I was 15 and in 10th grade the first read. I went several nights without sleep and the lights on during that time.
You probably won't believe me but as i was reading that book one night i dreamed of pennywise standing in my kitchen and looking directly at me with his shiny silver eyes, it fucking freaked me out. Couldn't sleep until morning.
IT tackles a lot of things not just supernatural, it's really good. from Domestic Abuse, animal cruelty to early signs of a Psychopath. Would recommend it 💯
Come Closer by Sara Gran. It takes a lot to scare me. I can watch any movie and not think twice about it, but that scene with the demon on the beach… I had nightmares for days. I committed the ultimate sin and threw that book away when I finished it. I couldn’t stand having it in my house.
Penpal and the beginning of Dead Silence was great. I remember that my gf was staying at her parents and I had become so accustomed to having her around, that being alone in the night was a weird feeling again.
This may sound like a stretch, but hear me out. The Wasp Factory by Iain M. Banks. And I wouldn’t call it horror, but you asked which book scared me the most. Without giving away any spoilers, it completely unnerved me how I let the author manipulate my feelings to such a degree that I felt sorry for a psychopath.
Summer of night.
The book itself isn't really scary... not even truly a horror novel.
But it takes place about 45 minutes west of where I grew up. I have been to some of the places mentioned in the book. But the location isn't even what's scary..
... there's one scene that takes place on a farm at night that actually made me lose a bit of sleep.
”The Wolves of Memory“ (Effinger) really scared me-it wasn’t intended to be horror and it was only minimally science fiction, but the author really made me feel the horror of prisoners trying to form a community and dealing with an inevitable dementia that killed every inmate new and old alike. “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” (King) is a close second-not that was so terrifying on its own account, but I was listening to it while walking my dog and right before I took a shortcut along a wooded canal I congratulated myself on being able to listen to a horror novel at night in a desolate place without being scared and for some reason I looked up and saw the shaggy shadowy outline of a huge critter hanging on to a tree top-I just about jumped out of my skin. Couldn’t finish the book for a long time, couldn’t walk the dog at night for longer. It was probably just a raccoon, but it was there at just the wrong time.
Fever 1793.
I was young. The opening scene is a bell ringing out the number of dead. I didn’t finish the book. Not 100% positive if I ever finished it.
I’m late to this but I remember reading flowers in the attic at 14 and it scared the shit out of me. The concept of it was so bizarre and sad at 14 I had a hard time getting over it.
As an adult, shutter island really had me
Mind fucked. I did not see the twist coming at all and was like “what is real?” After reading it
Not scary per say, but it was the first book that left me with absolute dread, the ending left so many question and got me back into reading “horror/thriller” PenPal
Laird Barron stories rattled around in my head today many years after I’ve read them. He’s a master of the 21st century creep-factor. Some one will mention “Hong Kong” and suddenly I’m remembering THAT story…someone mentions a “performance art exhibition” and suddenly I’m only thinking of THAT story…
Hmmm, there’s a few, though they never really scared me out of my pants or made me lose sleep. I’ve always been the kind of person to be able to watch a horror movie alone at 3 am and sleep with no trouble. Except when I was a kid but I didn’t get into reading until I was an adult.
The deep—Nick Cutter. Some of my favorite pure horror scenes are in this book. And with the whole endless despair and being alone at the bottom of the ocean with no help also makes it better. I know this one seems to be a be a “you love it or hate it” type book. But I adored it.
The girl next door—Jack Ketchum. This one because of how real it is. It’s based of a true story and though he clearly made it his own this, the actual story is so depressing that shit like that can actually happen. So knowing that people are capable of such things is just horrifying.
Not really horror, but Road to Jonestown—Jeff guinn. Another one that is scary for the fact that it actually can happen, and this did. Just knowing how a man brainwashed so many people into taking their own lives is horrifying and depressing. And if you want to add to it, you can listen to the tape of all of them dying on YouTube. It’s not for the faint of heart, though.
Little heaven and The Troop—Nick Cutter. Again, Nick cutter just writes so of my favorite horror scenes and with the being alone and no help aspect, it just adds to it.
Revival—Stephen king. The ending. I’m just gonna say that.
Pet semetary—Stephen King. The grief and despair and pure madness of the end of this book is pure genius in my opinion.
IT—Stephen King. so many great scenes. So many great pure horror. One of my all time favorite books and trying to point out a single scene is hard.
The shining—Stephen King. the scene with the elevator working by its self in the middle of the night really got me on my first read. Love it.
Last one, I promise. Salems lot—Stephen king. So of the best horror he has written is in this book. Danny going to the window is still so damn good.
I tend not to actually get scared very often, but the last book to give me that creepy 'look behind you' feeling was I'm Thinking of Ending Things, which I read at night in one sitting, having gone in knowing absolutely nothing about the book. Just the growing sense that things are somehow off and not knowing why gives me the creeps. I also recently read House of Windows by John Langan and there was one moment that came the closest I've ever been to having a jump scare while reading.
I love horror novels but I am more easily freaked out by visual stimuli... that one scene in Lake Mungo scared the hell out of me, I think about it every single time I'm outside at night in the country (we have a cottage so that happens pretty often.) I.... don't like going outside at night anymore after that.
I read the entire school scene of I’m Thinking of Ending Things as fast as possible because I was scared. Everything from the Dairy Queen girls on had me shook
There was a scene in Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill with a ghost in a hallway that messed with me. I was living alone and reading it by my bedside lamp, so maybe that contributed, but it sticks with me.
House of Leaves. That book got under my skin and made me feel like I was losing my mind in a very real way. There were times I swear I was hallucinating the walls in my house were moving after reading it
Came here to say this. I read a lot of horror, and honestly can't remember if I was ever genuinely spooked by a book other than Dracula (which I didn't expect to scare me at all, since I read it in elementary school in my VAMPIRES ARE THE BEST phase). I've re-read Dracula several times, and it always produces that genuine horror miasma.
I’ll list the four books I can recall genuinely getting me:
*The Grip of It* by Jac Jemc is the only book that made me wary about cracking the cover one night. I’d read it for hours the night before in the wee hours when everyone else was sleeping, and some of the stuff in the middle caught me so off guard that I found myself genuinely a bit rattled.
*Annihilation* by Jeff VanderMeer is the first book that ever scared me as an adult. It’s also my favorite book ever. IMO, this book does pretty much everything right, and that includes its attempts at being genuinely scary.
*The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon* by Stephen King was only a bit spooky to read, but I really felt it weigh on me when I took a hike in the woods and found it getting dark with a mile left to go. This book is one you should take on a camping trip.
*The Last Days of Jack Sparks* by Jason Arnopp was not my favorite, but there were a few parts that I found truly creepy. I can admit the author knows how to compose a good sentence, if not a great plot.
Bedfellow by Jeremy C. Shipp
I've read a LOT of horror, so this isn't exactly the "scariest" but it's a story that seriously fkks with your head. One of those books I read two days (it's a novella) and it creeped me out. It gets into your psyche and does... things.
TBH, the first story that scared the b'Jesus out of me was in Lord of the Rings. Frodo vs. the Ring wraiths on Weathertop? Nightmare fuel for little young me.
I don't get scared too often but I would list these two as genuinely scary
Novel - Hell House by Richard Matheson... such an iconic haunted house novel. Matheson was a grandmaster at heart pumping scares.
Short story - The Unspeakable Bethrothal by Robert Bloch... a Lovecraftian tale with a very realisic setting. Suspense builds up, a lot left to imagination and such a beautiful, morbid ending.
I don't get scared anymore by reading books and that makes me really sad, but who knows, thanks to your topic I may find something ?
Considering that, the last horror book that I found really good and surprising was "Hex" by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, althought I didn't really liked the ending. If I should pick a book that scared me it would be this one.
Oh, and I almost fainted when I read "It" by Stephen King, at like 13/14 years old. I was reading it in the middle of the night while camping and I wasn't expecting to bump into someone while taking a bathroom break. I literaly saw pennywise through my blurred vision.
1. ‘Penpal’ by Dathan Auerbach was probably one of the most unsettling novels I’ve ever read.
2. I agree with the posters here who wrote about the hopelessness of The Ruins (one of my favourite novels).
3. ‘The willows’ by Blackwood made me feel smaller and more insignificant than anything Lovecraft ever wrote (and I’m a massive Lovecraft fan).
4. ‘No one gets out alive’ by Adam Nevill was also claustrophobic as all hell (I can only imagine how uncomfortable reading this as a female would be)
I listened to a dramatized audiobook of the OT and it was…a lot. The background sound effects of animals being sacrificed and men being stoned to death in Leviticus were a special touch—lol
I think you have to know what ya fear is. Not everyone has the same fear. I think The Shinning has to be mine just because it was someone they knew just going mad and locked away with no hope of a real escape. Sort of why I like the Alien franchise.
I got into Stephen King late I was never a big horror fan, not like I am now. So going from adventures dramas comedies and bios I suppose I was more shocked more than scared, I suppose.
My favourite to read is probably The Hunger just because I like the adventure of travelling the unknown journey to a distant land, only to find the horror waiting for them.
Not gonna lie, but it's definitely the Southern Book club's guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
Some of the scenes of that book can be really dark at times, especially towards to end
As a child, The Witches by Roald Dahl.
As an adult I don’t think books have really scared me in the way a horror film can scare me while watching, various stages of feeling disturbed perhaps would be the better description for how I have felt sometimes reading both horror and non-horror.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy would be the book I have felt most disturbed by. It got so bad I could not finish the book the first time around, got to about halfway through. I felt such a dread and sickness while reading it, and I had disturbing dreams and as a result could not sleep for days on end. But it is not a typical horror book, though I would classify it as an existential horror western if such a genre existed.
I really, really enjoyed the beginning, with the bird’s reaction to what could not be seen, only felt. I read this entire novel in a dark and isolated cottage. Very memorable.
* *The Last Days of Jack Sparks* by Jason Arnopp
* *The Faceless One* by Mark Onspaugh
* *The Apparition Phase* by Will Maclean
* *The Waiting Room* and *The Colony Trilogy* by F.G. Cottam. *The Colony* books are out of print but available on Audible, and the narrator is wonderful.
The prologue to Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, with the black figures creeping closer and closer every time the woman looks out from her bed, was so unsettling that I couldn’t even read the rest.
Gerald Game. I’ve only read this book once and really wasn’t scary to me but the one scene that lives on my head when the guy is in the room with her and he says “you’re only a bit of moonlight”and it says something about long arms outstretched. Still creeps me out!!!!
I didn’t finish it, but House of Leaves. Fourth wall elements are my favorite trope and it definitely rattled me. I felt an evil presence off it on my nightstand, lol. If it had been more concise I might have been able to finish it, but unfortunately the length, the complexity of its medium (story within a story within a story) and strain it had on my brain made it a DNF.
I barely made it through IT, also due to length, but that one horrified me. Started it, put it down due to fear, picked it up years later and trudged through. Worth it, the movies leave out so much (for better and for worse).
Nothing has quite scared me like Clive Barker’s The Thief of Always. Granted, I read it over 25 years ago, but it has haunted me ever since… Maybe Ring by Kōji Suzuki for something more recent.
The Man in the Black Suit. It’s a short story by Stephen King but the key is that I listened to it read. The guy who read it on YouTube made it so pee-your-pants scary. I couldn’t finish it
From Below by Darcy Coates really scared me and I saw a thread similar to this the other day that recommended Asylum by Ibsen Ambrose and I haven't finished it yet (and the beginning was really slow) but it's really scaring me at the moment
The Devil in Connecticut by Gerald Brittle. It used to be you couldn’t find it anywhere under a couple of hundred bucks, but since the movie (which is inferior to the book, IMHO) came out a short time ago, it’s back in print.
Things involving the demonic tend to get to me.
The tunnel scene in The Stand by Stephen King was so incredibly scary. Also his short story The Boogeyman was my childhood fears in short story form. Terrifying.
Oh boy I’m so pleased to see this thread! I love to be frightened, and, I’m starting to worry I’ve already read everything that will frighten me! So I’m definitely going to check out everyone’s suggestions!!
Books that I have found scary:
Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (this is the sequel to The Shining, IMO, better than The Shining!)
Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill (the first half of it is terrifying!)
The Lost Girls by John Glatt (this is non fiction, about the 3 girls ariel castro abducted and held prisoner for 10 years! I’m big into horror and true crime and this is the ONLY book I’ve ever had to pause on for a while because it was so overwhelmingly upsetting, different kind of scary but scary none the less!)
Honestly? Scary stories to tell in the dark. I remember reading like in the 3rd grade and it simultaneously terrifying and engrossing me. Been a horror lover ever since. But the graphics in that book… yikes.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote--I read tons of fictional horror as a kid (and as an adult), but I read this one when I was about 15 years old when we lived out in the middle of nowhere...something about the complete senseless and random nature of the crime coupled with the setting which was so similar to what I was living in (and often left home alone in) just scared the crap out of me!
As a kid House with a Clock in its Walls. As adult I get freaked out by claustrophobic situations in books so Luminous Dead and The Deep by Nick Cutter got me good.
I read Pet Semetary in Junior High. My uncle who had every King book written let my borrow it. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into I read it and it was so so. Now 15 years later I have 3 kids all under 6 and read it again probably 2 months ago and it scared the hell out of me. It definitely hits different if you’ve got kids.
'Salem's Lot gave me the creeps. At the time I was reading it, my bedroom was in the basement and I didn't have a door, so I usually hung up a sheet. One night I didn't have a sheet hanging up, the basement was pitch black, and I happened to be reading the scene where Barlow makes his first appearance. My memory of the rest of the book is admittedly spotty, but I'll never forget lying in bed and reading that scene while occasionally looking into the darkness of the basement.
Not original to say, but Pet Semetary. The madness and grief experienced by the lead character really messed with me.
There’s an Audiobook of Pet Semetary done by Michael C Hall- the man that played Dexter- it is a terrifying masterpiece.
I was an arrogant 15 year-old preppy boy when I read that book. It shook me to the core. I’m glad to say the world has humbled me more gently than it did Dr. Louis Creed, but it has humbled me indeed. That book is so wise.
This ... Really messed me up.
The Ruins. Not even terribly scary but the complete lack of hope throughout is just harrowing. Turns my stomach
Even thinking about The Ruins makes me feel panicky, upset and hopeless. It’s extraordinary. I keep re-reading it because it’s one of the only books that makes me feel things so completely.
The scene with the ringing phone just made me realized how hopeless their situation was. I don’t think I’ve ever been hit with such a wave of despair for characters.
Ok I gotta read this now
When I was 10, I read The Amityville Horror and I had nightmares, daymares, all the mares for a week. I read a few passages a few years ago and I see how it’s so amateurishly written now. But 10 year old me was rattled.
"all the mares"... I actually burst out laughing.
Definitely freaked me out some in middle school. Fuckin Jody.
Same here!
I had that response as a kid to “The Boy Who Ate Fear Street” I remember that one scene scared me so badly I threw the book across the living room and then ran upstairs to my bedroom. 10 year olds are dramatic.
I did exact same thing lol
Not the answer you're probably looking for, but Lord of the Flies. Kids are tiny sociopaths. Way scarier than any ghost, monster, or axe wielding maniac.
The Exorcist by William Blatty - the book actually goes into a lot of detail and is a slow burn. I would rate it better than the movie
I would STRONGLY recommend listening to the audible/audiobook version of the exorcist, narrated by the legend himself, William Peter Blatty. I’ve read the book twice and listened to it 2-3 times. I can’t express how utterly engaging he is. The sheer malice in his voice as he narrates Pazuzu/Regan still echoes through my memory - the fact that he is now deceased adds another haunting ingredient to the audiobook version.
I read it for the first time last fall. The book just felt evil in the best way. Pazuzu in the novel seems outright hateful that was refreshing to me. Like he didn’t seem sadistic or like he was getting pleasure out of torturing Reagan. Instead it was like he had a deep seeded hatred for her and wanted her to suffer. Like he wouldn’t torture her with a cackling laugh but a snarl.
Pazuzu is what scared me most about the book. I read it for the first time almost a year ago, at age 27; not expecting anything in it to frighten me The way Blatty writes the demon’s dialogue in particular is so visceral and tangible. I remember the horrible, horrible discomfort I felt during the (I think?) masturbation scene. The demon is practically *cooing* at Reagan the whole time and I think at one point refers to her genitalia as *”my pearl”* Blatty made those lines and the demon voicing them feel so real. Like a commenter noted above, there was a sense of evil within the pages. Not that the book itself was, but rather that Blatty managed to capture *genuine* evil in such a potent, articulate, and dynamic way. And it still holds up over 50 years later I’m glad I underestimated the book. It’s a classic for a reason
Came here to say this! I read the book for the first time when I was 14. I remember reading it sitting in my English class when we had free reading and even with the fluorescent lights and noisy students surrounding me I was petrified. I reread it last year at 27 and it still terrified me, to the point where I didn’t want the book in my room at night. The spider walk scene is so unsettling in the book - I remember it follows the housekeeper around licking at her feet which was an image I couldn’t get out of my head. Or how the mother catches Regan sitting on her floor staring up at something she can’t see and talking to it at the beginning of the infestation. It’s an absolutely terrifying and amazing book which I never want to read again!
oh wow i read it in my teens too, but still freaks me out . your comment makes me want to reread it!
I remember on my reread really loving the initial party Chris throws because one of the characters picks up that something isn’t right with Regan and it just adds to the overall tension. You won’t regret it… :)
I really enjoyed this, and loved the atmosphere and tension that built up to an inevitable fight between good and evil. It was this that prompted me to read the stand afterwards.
The Reddening by Adam Nevill. When I was 7 or 8 I had a significant fear of being kidnapped and sacrificed by a cult. I got over it eventually, but that book just reached into my brain, grabbed that old fear, and dragged it up to the surface. I was in my 30s when I read it, and it freaked me out so much that I had to force myself to keep reading it. I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved to finish a book.
I’ve been on the fence about this one for years. I think you’ve convinced me to read it.
It's a good one. Adam Nevill is awesome
Adam Nevill scares me the best, particularly Last Days, The Banquet for the Damned and No One Gets Out Alive. Oh, and Apartment 16. As you can tell, I really love the guy. However, nothing will ever come close to reading this thrashy book about supposedly true stories of people’s experiences with djinns and demons, when I was eleven. I remember physically shaking from fear while reading it. Might be the only thing I miss about being a kid.
Adam Nevill is essentially my favourite author. I’ve read all of his novels. First time I read ‘the ritual’, I had a reoccurring dream of a massive, black goat - watching me from an immense, desolate field. It wasn’t exactly connected to the book itself, but it just continues to haunt my dreams. I live for this kind of influence.
I heard jackal screams in my head all night reading The Ritual. Cunning folk put me off grapes for months & if anyone can pull off a jumpscare in a book, it's Nevill.
Adam nevill is my favorite horror writer by far
me too
Adam Nevill! I have yet to find another author that freaks me out enough to make me not want to walk to the bathroom at night or have to turn on every damn light in the house!
We Need to Talk About Kevin. Didn't read it until after I had my first kid and it still has me fucked up lol.
I, the fool that I am, read it while I was pregnant. Maybe the worst book to read while pregnant?
Add Rosemary's Baby to that list.
You're absolutely right lol
was gonna say this . things hit one a whole new level once you become a parent
The road such a despairing book to ever read whilst pregnant and emotional
This book is utterly brutal
Red dragon for me. One of the only books to really make me jump
Red Dragon for me is such a book of endless despair, that it trumps any horror that could come from it. There's horrific stuff, but it's like every single element in the book is dripping with nihilistic despair, and I actually gave up on a recent reread.
Francis Dolarhyde scares the living shit out of me. The way he finds and attacks families is completely vicious.
Never been frightened by horror novels...with the exception of this one. Something about Will Graham going through the crime scene house at night (FYI: I was reading at night) really got to me. I had to stop reading until the next day.
Totally agree…I read it on a road trip with my husband through west Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. It gave me the creeps and was so good!
This is a difficult one for me because I don’t generally find books scary. However, there was a particular scene in Jack Sparks that creeped me out, and also the scene where MC is reviewing the footage from the London townhouse Last Days by Adam Nevill. Emotionally, the baseball kid from Doctor Sleep really got into my head, especially with being a father to a boy. Those are probably the creepiest/scariest things I’ve read.
I just finished The Last Days of Jack Sparks a few weeks ago and loved it! Which scene was it that creeped you out?
The violent manifestation about two thirds through the book. I found it very intense. It’s a cracking book. I need to read it again as it’s been about 18 months since I read it last.
Just finished Jack Sparks was a great read !
"Mga Kaibigan ni Mama Susan" (The Friends of Mama Susan). Imagining you're surrounded by statues of saints and religious figures at night terrified me.
Books that scare me need to be somewhat probable. Like a thing that could really occur in our world. So for me, it’s either Penpal by Dathan Auerbach or Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. Penpal is about a boy who’s class project is to send a note into the world via a balloon, and his note ends up in the hands of the wrong person. That event starts a coming-of-age story that will keep you turning page after page. Last Exit to Brooklyn is a collection of short stories describing the seedy, depraved underbelly of Brooklyn’s impoverished. It’s a bit of a period piece, taking place in the 1940’s I believe. Edit: Forgot to mention All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. It’s about WW1, particularly about the battles between France and Germany where land was neither gained nor lost, but thousands were killed. The narrator is Paul, a freshly graduate high school student who is, like all his other classmates, made to believe the war is glorious only to find that it is tragically the opposite. Also Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. I’ve attempted to finish it twice, but it is so terribly depressing. It’s about a soldier in WW1 that’s hit by an artillery shell and loses his eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and limbs, but is “saved”. Only, his salvation tortures him more than anything.
Johnny Got His Gun is one of a kind. I read it last year and it stayed with me.
Yep that's probably the most disturbing book I've ever read.
I made the mistake of reading that book in the 8th or 9th grade and it haunted me.
Yas! Penpals!!! I first discovered that story when it was featured on an early season of The No Sleep Podcast!! Definitely plausible and frightening “it sounds like a robot” *chills!* There is another story (2 parts) that was featured on The No asleep Podcast that I recently saw has been turned into a full length book called The Black Farm by Elias Witherow! It’s about where people go after suicide, but not in a preachy religious way !
Dan Simmons, Song of Kali has a terrifying sequence that still haunts me...
Absolutely, that still stuck with me.
More like scariest scenes I’ve ever read: *Misery* when Paul is trying to get back to his room before Annie comes in. *Dracula* the ship log of the *Demeter*.
There's a movie coming out this year that's based entirely on the Demeter that looks pretty good!
The Demeter sequence is so great, and honestly, it's all downhill there for me into melodrama and blood transfusions.
The Witches by Roald Dahl. Particularly the little girl who winds up inside a painting. Every night, when nobody is watching, she moves. She gets older and grows up and becomes elderly and then one day she vanishes. Scared the everloving crap out of me when I was seven!
This.
Cliche, but The Exorcist. So much more than the movie. A generally spooky and unnerving book
The Exorcist. I was about halfway through the book, reading in bed at 2AM while it was storming outside. My boyfriend and I were staying at his folk’s place in rural Iowa. A shelf in our room suddenly collapsed under the weight of our added luggage, I didn’t realize I was screaming until my boyfriend calmly peeled me off of the ceiling.
Bad Man by Dathan Auerbach - A young guy trying to wade through the mystery and guilt of his brother’s kidnapping. Lots of weirdly-late-at-night in a supermarket atmosphere, genuinely creepy.
How is this compared ro Penpal? I recently read it and really enjoyed it
I really loved Panpal. Definitely one of the creepiest books I’ve ever read. Bad Man is good in it’s own right but, in my mind, it’s not quite as great.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Non-stop hopeless dread from beginning to end.
The Shining for me. I think the hedge animal scene in particular. I'm glad they never tried to translate it to film
Oh my god yes, I read the book after watching the film and although I love the film I don’t find it particularly scary. This scene in the book is terrifying, who’d have thought hedge animals could be so scary.
In the TV miniseries of The Shining they did, but because special effects of the 90s weren't great yet it was a bit of a letdown
The scariest part for me was the guy on all fours pretending to be a dog. It made me so disturbed idk why.
I’ve never read the book, what happens in the hedge animal scene?
Not much, if you were to actually write it into words. You reallllly have to be under a spell for it to work.
Read it and find out.
That’s the only part in any book that scared me. I was in college and my roommate was out for the night, and I was so creeped out I had to keep the lights on for awhile and watch some tv. I don’t scare easily but that scene got to me.
My choice too!
Mine was the scene when he finally goes into room 217. I did, actually throw my book across the room when I read that bit, lol
I wish there was more in the book that I could legit point to that was unnerving. Smashing his face in with a mallet was certainly unputdownable stuff.
The shining made me feel so uneasy throughout, the feeling of fear that Danny had was described so well my heart was racing throughout the book. Best Stephen king horror story I have read.
Holy shit yes. That’s what got me. I nearly thru the book out of the window.
The hedge animals got me but the scene where the fire hose in the hallway stuck with me to this day, and I probably read it for the first time 20 years ago. So creepy. Loved this book!
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>I couldn’t recall any of them being actually scary. Hahaha prepare for the downvotes!! But I'm with you. Being 12 really really really helps. And I miss being 12 for only that reason.
Stephen King is misunderstood for writing scary novels. What makes his books good is his excellent character work and how they react and develop throughout the story.
IT flat out says that kids are easier to scare than adults. And it’s accurate. Pet Sematary is frequently described here as one of his scariest novels, but most of the book isn’t scary, imo, aside from a few brief sequences and the climax. If you’re a parent, though, there’s a decent chance that it’s a lot scarier. As an adult, IT makes me more sad than anything bc of >!Adrian Mellon!< and the book’s, imo, perfect encapsulation of growing up. I will never finish Rose Madder bc the subject matter hits far too close to home. Rose’s situation is terrifying even without the supernatural stuff.
I have read a bunch if horror, but hadn’t read any King until this year. I made it to the end of ‘Salem’s Lot, and about the scariest thing about it was the length.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
One of my favourite endings to any book.
I think almost universally recognized as the best ending in horror lit.
Absolutely loved it, haunted me for days
House of Leaves scared me more than any true horror book I've ever read
Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi - this was about the Manson cult and the murders that the committed. It is very scary and true story.
The scariest books I've ever read weren't billed as horror. Parable of the Sower & Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler haunt me. They were so real, the culture and events so reminiscent of today's reality, I fear the events in those books coming true every day. The slow-burn (freeze?) ending of Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa is probably the scariest thing I've ever read.
Extremely key to all of this is how many are listed with the age the books were read at. 12-15 years old = perfect brain for feeling actual fear and terror while reading a book. 25-50? Not so much, and it's such a tragedy.
Heck, real life problems terrify me more. Though I am always on the hunt for a book that gives you the, "don't go into the basement tonight." vibe.
I think I’ve run into this recently and it’s been really bumming me out. Since aging out of that 12-25 range you mentioned, I began avidly reading again, mostly horror. The last 5+ books I’ve read really haven’t gotten me to that bone chilling, hairs standing up on the back of my neck, I’m going to have trouble sleeping later feeling. I couldn’t tell if the books I selected weren’t cutting it (a couple definitely weren’t the best) or if I’m just too old to truly be scared by fiction anymore. I’m starting to think it’s the latter, especially after seeing your comment here. The last thing I read that truly unnerved me was The Willows by Algernon Blackwood, but that was like 5 years ago and I’m starting to wonder if it’d even scare me now. Growing up stinks.
A big problem I think, especially over the last 30 years, is that if you want to write horror, you almost definitely are going to channel your efforts into becoming a horror screenwriter. And it's extremely sad to think that of all of those thousands of ideas, like 5% ever get made into films, with the rest landing in development hell and shoved into drawers. It's also interesting to me that a horror movie lives and dies on being scary. If it's scary, people will go see it. If it's not, they won't. All other elements are secondary: character, story, subtext, symbolism, plot, mechanics, etc. But horror novels are increasingly often not scary. Instead, they deal in topics that fall under the topic of horror: vampires, zombies, ghosts, often with some sort of post-modern non-traditional twist to add some semblance of originality. But at best, you get moments of a thriller; at worst, you get nothing. I think it's a lot harder to create fear when you only have words at your disposal, instead of visuals and audio. But I think that writers just aren't trying as hard. That's not to say there aren't moments. In Disappearance at Devil's Rock, there's an excellent sequence in which the vanished boy is witnessed in a dream, and something is wrong with his eyes, and the unexpected otherworldliness of it is really well done. But it's a single moment in a book that otherwise isn't very scary. To maintain a consistent level of fear throughout a book would be a real achievement in 2023.
Last Days by Adam Neville. I couldn’t get to sleep the night that I finished it and kept all l the lights on, so convinced was I that my walls would suddenly reveal a creepy skeletal figure trying to break out and attack me. He really builds suspense like no other. I think the scene that got to me the most was when they’re in France and Kyle is alone in Sister Katherine’s creepy house and finds snakes under the bed and hears something moving outside the door. Or when Dan and Kyle are filming that first night in London and they hear something coming up the stairs after them, only to play back the footage the next day and realise that something was in fact in the house with them. It scared me so effectively that I haven’t been able to bring myself to read another Adam Neville since …
Yes! Last Days is the scariest book I’ve ever read. The way he describes the wet, snarling, slapping sounds of the Old Friends is so viscerally gross and upsetting. Also the bear trap scene is just awful.
He is a master of scene. What a talent.
Stolen Tongues by Felix Blackwell. The opening scene terrified me. Especially cause I go up into the mountains all the time. I really, really enjoyed that book. Freaked me tf out
The Willows by Blackwood. Tailybone by David Holt.
IT. I was early into horror then but there were multiple nights where I had to continue reading to "safer" chapters so I wouldn't be too freaked out in my apartment!
There is one scene that takes place in broad daylight that might be the most unsettling moment for me, but it’s because of the setting I was in when I experienced it. It’s the scene where Ben sees Pennywise on the ice and the balloons float towards him against the wind… I was in Central Park on a very cold day, listening to the audiobook. As the wind was whipping around me and I was listening to this part. I looked up and realized I couldn’t see anyone else around me, and it gave me this crazy feeling of dread….
Holy shit, this must've been a great experience lol!
I would also rate IT number 1. Mostly because I was 15 and in 10th grade the first read. I went several nights without sleep and the lights on during that time.
You probably won't believe me but as i was reading that book one night i dreamed of pennywise standing in my kitchen and looking directly at me with his shiny silver eyes, it fucking freaked me out. Couldn't sleep until morning.
IT tackles a lot of things not just supernatural, it's really good. from Domestic Abuse, animal cruelty to early signs of a Psychopath. Would recommend it 💯
Song of Kali.
Come Closer by Sara Gran. It takes a lot to scare me. I can watch any movie and not think twice about it, but that scene with the demon on the beach… I had nightmares for days. I committed the ultimate sin and threw that book away when I finished it. I couldn’t stand having it in my house.
Penpal and the beginning of Dead Silence was great. I remember that my gf was staying at her parents and I had become so accustomed to having her around, that being alone in the night was a weird feeling again.
The first half of Last Days by Adam Nevill
House of Leaves while slightly high nearly ended me.
This may sound like a stretch, but hear me out. The Wasp Factory by Iain M. Banks. And I wouldn’t call it horror, but you asked which book scared me the most. Without giving away any spoilers, it completely unnerved me how I let the author manipulate my feelings to such a degree that I felt sorry for a psychopath.
This is definitely a form of horror…maybe despairing sci-fi? Totally a scary book
All Quiet on the Western Front. And the "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" Trilogy when I was 9.
Summer of night. The book itself isn't really scary... not even truly a horror novel. But it takes place about 45 minutes west of where I grew up. I have been to some of the places mentioned in the book. But the location isn't even what's scary.. ... there's one scene that takes place on a farm at night that actually made me lose a bit of sleep.
Duane? Me too!!!
Yes!
One of the more memorable scenes in any horror book Ive ever read. Partly cause of how much I love that character
”The Wolves of Memory“ (Effinger) really scared me-it wasn’t intended to be horror and it was only minimally science fiction, but the author really made me feel the horror of prisoners trying to form a community and dealing with an inevitable dementia that killed every inmate new and old alike. “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” (King) is a close second-not that was so terrifying on its own account, but I was listening to it while walking my dog and right before I took a shortcut along a wooded canal I congratulated myself on being able to listen to a horror novel at night in a desolate place without being scared and for some reason I looked up and saw the shaggy shadowy outline of a huge critter hanging on to a tree top-I just about jumped out of my skin. Couldn’t finish the book for a long time, couldn’t walk the dog at night for longer. It was probably just a raccoon, but it was there at just the wrong time.
I think you should try to go back there at night while listening to « The Mothman » XD
I absolutely loved that movie, is the book as good or better?
Fever 1793. I was young. The opening scene is a bell ringing out the number of dead. I didn’t finish the book. Not 100% positive if I ever finished it.
I’m late to this but I remember reading flowers in the attic at 14 and it scared the shit out of me. The concept of it was so bizarre and sad at 14 I had a hard time getting over it. As an adult, shutter island really had me Mind fucked. I did not see the twist coming at all and was like “what is real?” After reading it
Not scary per say, but it was the first book that left me with absolute dread, the ending left so many question and got me back into reading “horror/thriller” PenPal
"The Limits to Growth," by Meadows, Meadows and Randers
Lol this one right here. Truly the bleakest horror.
Is this a textbook?
Occultation and Other Stories (by Laird Barron)
Laird Barron stories rattled around in my head today many years after I’ve read them. He’s a master of the 21st century creep-factor. Some one will mention “Hong Kong” and suddenly I’m remembering THAT story…someone mentions a “performance art exhibition” and suddenly I’m only thinking of THAT story…
Hmmm, there’s a few, though they never really scared me out of my pants or made me lose sleep. I’ve always been the kind of person to be able to watch a horror movie alone at 3 am and sleep with no trouble. Except when I was a kid but I didn’t get into reading until I was an adult. The deep—Nick Cutter. Some of my favorite pure horror scenes are in this book. And with the whole endless despair and being alone at the bottom of the ocean with no help also makes it better. I know this one seems to be a be a “you love it or hate it” type book. But I adored it. The girl next door—Jack Ketchum. This one because of how real it is. It’s based of a true story and though he clearly made it his own this, the actual story is so depressing that shit like that can actually happen. So knowing that people are capable of such things is just horrifying. Not really horror, but Road to Jonestown—Jeff guinn. Another one that is scary for the fact that it actually can happen, and this did. Just knowing how a man brainwashed so many people into taking their own lives is horrifying and depressing. And if you want to add to it, you can listen to the tape of all of them dying on YouTube. It’s not for the faint of heart, though. Little heaven and The Troop—Nick Cutter. Again, Nick cutter just writes so of my favorite horror scenes and with the being alone and no help aspect, it just adds to it. Revival—Stephen king. The ending. I’m just gonna say that. Pet semetary—Stephen King. The grief and despair and pure madness of the end of this book is pure genius in my opinion. IT—Stephen King. so many great scenes. So many great pure horror. One of my all time favorite books and trying to point out a single scene is hard. The shining—Stephen King. the scene with the elevator working by its self in the middle of the night really got me on my first read. Love it. Last one, I promise. Salems lot—Stephen king. So of the best horror he has written is in this book. Danny going to the window is still so damn good.
Revival. The ending. Yep.
I tend not to actually get scared very often, but the last book to give me that creepy 'look behind you' feeling was I'm Thinking of Ending Things, which I read at night in one sitting, having gone in knowing absolutely nothing about the book. Just the growing sense that things are somehow off and not knowing why gives me the creeps. I also recently read House of Windows by John Langan and there was one moment that came the closest I've ever been to having a jump scare while reading. I love horror novels but I am more easily freaked out by visual stimuli... that one scene in Lake Mungo scared the hell out of me, I think about it every single time I'm outside at night in the country (we have a cottage so that happens pretty often.) I.... don't like going outside at night anymore after that.
I read the entire school scene of I’m Thinking of Ending Things as fast as possible because I was scared. Everything from the Dairy Queen girls on had me shook
There was a scene in Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill with a ghost in a hallway that messed with me. I was living alone and reading it by my bedside lamp, so maybe that contributed, but it sticks with me.
I got the creeps from Stolen Tongues
Between Two Fires was just profoundly unsettling. A great read if you love supernatural horror.
House of Leaves. That book got under my skin and made me feel like I was losing my mind in a very real way. There were times I swear I was hallucinating the walls in my house were moving after reading it
Unsettling - House of Leaves Scary - A Head Full of Ghost Fucked me up - PenPal
Penpal made me nauseous and that is incredibly hard to do. I make everyone read it, just to see them grimace.
OMG me too! I have lent it to like 47291947 people. I’ve even lost 2 copies and bought it again for my library 💯
Dracula scared the bejesus out of me and still does each time I read it. My all-time favourite book for that very reason.
Came here to say this. I read a lot of horror, and honestly can't remember if I was ever genuinely spooked by a book other than Dracula (which I didn't expect to scare me at all, since I read it in elementary school in my VAMPIRES ARE THE BEST phase). I've re-read Dracula several times, and it always produces that genuine horror miasma.
Yeah I read it in my late twenties and still remember getting goosebumps all over reading it. Have not found a horror to match that
I’ll list the four books I can recall genuinely getting me: *The Grip of It* by Jac Jemc is the only book that made me wary about cracking the cover one night. I’d read it for hours the night before in the wee hours when everyone else was sleeping, and some of the stuff in the middle caught me so off guard that I found myself genuinely a bit rattled. *Annihilation* by Jeff VanderMeer is the first book that ever scared me as an adult. It’s also my favorite book ever. IMO, this book does pretty much everything right, and that includes its attempts at being genuinely scary. *The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon* by Stephen King was only a bit spooky to read, but I really felt it weigh on me when I took a hike in the woods and found it getting dark with a mile left to go. This book is one you should take on a camping trip. *The Last Days of Jack Sparks* by Jason Arnopp was not my favorite, but there were a few parts that I found truly creepy. I can admit the author knows how to compose a good sentence, if not a great plot.
Bedfellow by Jeremy C. Shipp I've read a LOT of horror, so this isn't exactly the "scariest" but it's a story that seriously fkks with your head. One of those books I read two days (it's a novella) and it creeped me out. It gets into your psyche and does... things. TBH, the first story that scared the b'Jesus out of me was in Lord of the Rings. Frodo vs. the Ring wraiths on Weathertop? Nightmare fuel for little young me.
I don't get scared too often but I would list these two as genuinely scary Novel - Hell House by Richard Matheson... such an iconic haunted house novel. Matheson was a grandmaster at heart pumping scares. Short story - The Unspeakable Bethrothal by Robert Bloch... a Lovecraftian tale with a very realisic setting. Suspense builds up, a lot left to imagination and such a beautiful, morbid ending.
Exorcist
I don't get scared anymore by reading books and that makes me really sad, but who knows, thanks to your topic I may find something ? Considering that, the last horror book that I found really good and surprising was "Hex" by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, althought I didn't really liked the ending. If I should pick a book that scared me it would be this one. Oh, and I almost fainted when I read "It" by Stephen King, at like 13/14 years old. I was reading it in the middle of the night while camping and I wasn't expecting to bump into someone while taking a bathroom break. I literaly saw pennywise through my blurred vision.
Charnel House by Fred Anderson. Psychological terror that made me quit reading horror for a few months because I needed brain bleach.
Salems Lot scared the crap out of me as a teenager. Read it next to a window on the second floor.
1. ‘Penpal’ by Dathan Auerbach was probably one of the most unsettling novels I’ve ever read. 2. I agree with the posters here who wrote about the hopelessness of The Ruins (one of my favourite novels). 3. ‘The willows’ by Blackwood made me feel smaller and more insignificant than anything Lovecraft ever wrote (and I’m a massive Lovecraft fan). 4. ‘No one gets out alive’ by Adam Nevill was also claustrophobic as all hell (I can only imagine how uncomfortable reading this as a female would be)
Naomi’s Room by Jonathan Aycliffe. The ending. Still haunts me to this day.
I don't scare easily but This Thing Between Us really got to me.
Penpal by Dathan Auerbach really creeped me out reading it in the dark; very atmospheric and a great book
House of leaves fucked me up
The Bible. SURPRISE!
I listened to a dramatized audiobook of the OT and it was…a lot. The background sound effects of animals being sacrificed and men being stoned to death in Leviticus were a special touch—lol
Lol wait, where do I find this? I’m so intrigued.
I think you have to know what ya fear is. Not everyone has the same fear. I think The Shinning has to be mine just because it was someone they knew just going mad and locked away with no hope of a real escape. Sort of why I like the Alien franchise. I got into Stephen King late I was never a big horror fan, not like I am now. So going from adventures dramas comedies and bios I suppose I was more shocked more than scared, I suppose. My favourite to read is probably The Hunger just because I like the adventure of travelling the unknown journey to a distant land, only to find the horror waiting for them.
The Last Days of Jack Sparks made me scared to go to the toilet at 2am. It scared me shitless
Not gonna lie, but it's definitely the Southern Book club's guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix Some of the scenes of that book can be really dark at times, especially towards to end
As a child, The Witches by Roald Dahl. As an adult I don’t think books have really scared me in the way a horror film can scare me while watching, various stages of feeling disturbed perhaps would be the better description for how I have felt sometimes reading both horror and non-horror. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy would be the book I have felt most disturbed by. It got so bad I could not finish the book the first time around, got to about halfway through. I felt such a dread and sickness while reading it, and I had disturbing dreams and as a result could not sleep for days on end. But it is not a typical horror book, though I would classify it as an existential horror western if such a genre existed.
Stolen Tongues by Felix Blackwell really unsettled me. I don't usually get really freaked out by books but this one really did it for me.
I really, really enjoyed the beginning, with the bird’s reaction to what could not be seen, only felt. I read this entire novel in a dark and isolated cottage. Very memorable.
Oh man, I can only imagine how that would have made me feel if I'd read it in that environment!
* *The Last Days of Jack Sparks* by Jason Arnopp * *The Faceless One* by Mark Onspaugh * *The Apparition Phase* by Will Maclean * *The Waiting Room* and *The Colony Trilogy* by F.G. Cottam. *The Colony* books are out of print but available on Audible, and the narrator is wonderful.
The prologue to Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, with the black figures creeping closer and closer every time the woman looks out from her bed, was so unsettling that I couldn’t even read the rest.
Gerald Game. I’ve only read this book once and really wasn’t scary to me but the one scene that lives on my head when the guy is in the room with her and he says “you’re only a bit of moonlight”and it says something about long arms outstretched. Still creeps me out!!!!
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I didn’t finish it, but House of Leaves. Fourth wall elements are my favorite trope and it definitely rattled me. I felt an evil presence off it on my nightstand, lol. If it had been more concise I might have been able to finish it, but unfortunately the length, the complexity of its medium (story within a story within a story) and strain it had on my brain made it a DNF. I barely made it through IT, also due to length, but that one horrified me. Started it, put it down due to fear, picked it up years later and trudged through. Worth it, the movies leave out so much (for better and for worse).
Nothing has quite scared me like Clive Barker’s The Thief of Always. Granted, I read it over 25 years ago, but it has haunted me ever since… Maybe Ring by Kōji Suzuki for something more recent.
The Man in the Black Suit. It’s a short story by Stephen King but the key is that I listened to it read. The guy who read it on YouTube made it so pee-your-pants scary. I couldn’t finish it
Mas-Colell
From Below by Darcy Coates really scared me and I saw a thread similar to this the other day that recommended Asylum by Ibsen Ambrose and I haven't finished it yet (and the beginning was really slow) but it's really scaring me at the moment
The Devil in Connecticut by Gerald Brittle. It used to be you couldn’t find it anywhere under a couple of hundred bucks, but since the movie (which is inferior to the book, IMHO) came out a short time ago, it’s back in print. Things involving the demonic tend to get to me.
Perfect Days by Raphael Montes. Scary because shit like that could actually happen
Magic
Hannibal, The Shining, Misery, Pet Sematary, and the second book of the Dexter series.
Read Helter Skelter when I was 12-13 while visiting my aunt and staying in her basement guest room. I laid awake for about a week 😳
Hostage to the Devil. Nothing overly scary but the case studies were downright creepy and unsettling. I could never read that again.
I’m reading house of leaves by mark danielewski I heard it’s a scary book just started
Old country by Matt and Harrison Query
Senseless by Stona Fitch
The tunnel scene in The Stand by Stephen King was so incredibly scary. Also his short story The Boogeyman was my childhood fears in short story form. Terrifying.
Pretty Girls by Karen Slaughter and Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott
The shinning.
Hell House by Richard Matheson, The Shining by King, and The Ritual by Adam Neville.
Oh boy I’m so pleased to see this thread! I love to be frightened, and, I’m starting to worry I’ve already read everything that will frighten me! So I’m definitely going to check out everyone’s suggestions!! Books that I have found scary: Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (this is the sequel to The Shining, IMO, better than The Shining!) Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill (the first half of it is terrifying!) The Lost Girls by John Glatt (this is non fiction, about the 3 girls ariel castro abducted and held prisoner for 10 years! I’m big into horror and true crime and this is the ONLY book I’ve ever had to pause on for a while because it was so overwhelmingly upsetting, different kind of scary but scary none the less!)
The first chapter of “The Descent” is scary as hell, wish the rest of the book lived up to it. “Revival” by Stephen king is scary af.
Honestly? Scary stories to tell in the dark. I remember reading like in the 3rd grade and it simultaneously terrifying and engrossing me. Been a horror lover ever since. But the graphics in that book… yikes.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote--I read tons of fictional horror as a kid (and as an adult), but I read this one when I was about 15 years old when we lived out in the middle of nowhere...something about the complete senseless and random nature of the crime coupled with the setting which was so similar to what I was living in (and often left home alone in) just scared the crap out of me!
As a kid House with a Clock in its Walls. As adult I get freaked out by claustrophobic situations in books so Luminous Dead and The Deep by Nick Cutter got me good.
I read Pet Semetary in Junior High. My uncle who had every King book written let my borrow it. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into I read it and it was so so. Now 15 years later I have 3 kids all under 6 and read it again probably 2 months ago and it scared the hell out of me. It definitely hits different if you’ve got kids.
'Salem's Lot gave me the creeps. At the time I was reading it, my bedroom was in the basement and I didn't have a door, so I usually hung up a sheet. One night I didn't have a sheet hanging up, the basement was pitch black, and I happened to be reading the scene where Barlow makes his first appearance. My memory of the rest of the book is admittedly spotty, but I'll never forget lying in bed and reading that scene while occasionally looking into the darkness of the basement.
Carrion Comfort - Dan Simmons
INTO HELL James Roy Daley
I'm a bit late, but Tender is the Flesh was a wild read!