• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

Which book scared you?

SK is the master, no doubt about it, but something about Pet Sematary crossed the line and really creeped me out. The idea of the little boy ... and the way he wholeheartedly admits through foreshadowing "you're not gonna like this" is part of his trademark, I guess. He really "channeled" Edgar Allen Poe with that book.

A short story in an old "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" anthology really got to me ... (Here's a bibliography if you don't believe me ) about a tear-dropped shaped golden creature ... Dune Roller by Julian May originally published in Astounding Dec ’51. (Google is amazing!) The full title of the anthology was Stories Not for the Nervous, and included authors like Ray Bradbury, Dorothy Sayers, Frederic Brown, Richard Matheson, Hal Dresner, and so on. Each author was "introduced" by Hitch in a very droll manner reminiscent of the TV series.
 
I read Ghost Story by Peter Straub when I was 15. I think that's the only book to ever really freak me out. I've been reading horror since I was 10 or so.
 
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski really creeped me out. There were parts of it that were really slow going, and the super unconventional structure can get annoying at times, but every now and then the book hits you with something that crawls under your skin and keeps you up at night.
 
Bo, try Silence of the Lambs. Its good at some parts. If you haven't seen the movie its great reading otherwise there is no fun. :|
 
I thought Amityville Horror & Pet Sematary were a little creepy, but I have yet to read a book that actually scared me.
 
ebolamonkey said:
Space Odyssey 3001. It was so bad it scared me.
Click to expand...
*grinning*

Some stories in Stephen King's Nightshift really scared me. I had to sleep with the lights on the night I read it.
 
Renee said:
I read Ghost Story by Peter Straub when I was 15. I think that's the only book to ever really freak me out. I've been reading horror since I was 10 or so.
Click to expand...
That's another good one. The movie was horrible, tho.
 
scarifying

Now, the question lies on many levels. It is not neccessarily the scariest novel, but what scared you!

Ok. 1. At the mountains of Madness, by Lovecraft
I was alone at the time, in a large house, and, reading it, I got the impression of a massive presence outside. Not a friendly one, either!
I had to stop reading, especially when the dog were killed by, well, whatever.
2. Dracula. When he throws a small package to his vampire brides, and we find out that its a baby. Brrr.
3. 'The shining', by Steven King, natch
 
Oberon said:
That's another good one. The movie was horrible, tho.
Click to expand...
The movie, Ghost Story, was an absolute bore and lost all of the nuances of the book that made it creepy.
 
Sadly, no book has ever really scared me. :(
I'm just waiting for they really good book that will make the hair on my neck stand up and make me look over my shoulder as I read. :)
 
Odd Thomas, by Dean Koontz really scared me. It was so horrible and so uninteresting (and ripped of just about every book and movie out there) that I put it down after just 50 pages, never to pick it up again.
 
Hi all! First post here. :)

I'd have to agree with the others that said "IT"... that book my scared every time I picked it up, of course, I think I read that when I was 14 or so - I really need to pick up another copy to read again. hehe

Currently reading through Chandler McGrew: The Darkening - very good book thus far! Getting a mix of everything in there and it has a fairly original story with a lot plot twists, keeps you on your toes. :D
 
Braxas said:
I'd have to agree with the others that said "IT"... that book my scared every time I picked it up, of course, I think I read that when I was 14 or so - I really need to pick up another copy to read again. hehe
Click to expand...

The opening chapter of It is one of the creepiest opening chapters written. Just the image my mind makes of the paper boat floating down into the drain gives me the shivers. I swerve around sewage drains to this day.

It was definitely better the second time around for me. I first read around ten years ago, and recently read it last month. King at his best, no doubt.
 
Intesity by Koontz eh? Was a suspenseful read for me but not particularly scary. In King's collection of short stories is a story called 1408 which creeped me out sufficiently. I haven't read all that much horror yet so I guess I shouldn't say really. But the one story that did give me the heebeejeebies was 1408.
 
Gerards game by Stephen King

I was home alone at the time and was petrified. Kept seeing things in the shadows!

I also read another that was called Naomi's room (no idea who wrote it). That was spooky too!
 
Slacker said:
Hmm, I was a kid, I think I was 8 or 9 years old. I can't recall the precise title or find it on Amazon with what I remember, but it was named something like "I have a Friend Named Helen" and it was about a girl who was around my age at the time, with a little sister who I think was like 5 or 6 yo. The little sister meets a ghost kid by a pond who wants to play with her, forever and ever and ever (MUAH, HAH, HAH), and the older sister is just there, a kid herself, trying to fight the ghost back as she sees it happening but no one believes her.

It scared the bejeesus out of me, I didn't sleep for days.
Click to expand...

The story's called Wait 'til Helen Comes. That was a favorite of mine when I was younger, too :)

I don't know about novels as a whole that scared me, but Stephen King managed to get me with some scenes. There's a scene in The Stand where Larry's walking through the Lincoln Tunnel, he's alone in the dark and thinking about all the dead people in their cars and trying to not walk on the corpses on the catwalk, and his lighter goes out... and then he hears something move... AHHHH!

I was reading that scene once and my mom was in the same room reading, she turned a page in her book and I jumped 5 feet in the air... SK's the master all right.
 
Man, haha, when the priest was in the upstairs bedroom when the fella "woke up", in salems lot, i had to go into my living room from the bed room and turn on the lights, scared the hell out of me. the usse of dialog in that portion of the book was awesome, i think
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top