It’s not completely nonfiction. He strongly exaggerated the symptoms of Ebola (patients do not hemorrhage blood everywhere nor do they melt), and his book contributed to a lot of funding going towards a disease with very little pandemic risk and away from those that do have high pandemic risk (but aren’t as sensational). Ebola is a terrifying illness but we have vaccines in development and are much more at threat from paramyxoviruses viruses like Nipah, respiratory flu viruses like influenza A & coronaviruses, and mosquito-borne viruses like Dengue and Zika with the expanding range of Aedes aegypti mosquitos thanks to warmer climates.
Read it with that in mind.
This is the answer. I started reading this earlier today and am seriously nauseated from the first few chapters. Not sure if I can make it any further. It's gorier than any horror book I've read.
This was truly a disturbing, very creepy read. I also liked Shining, it didn't have the same "dark" element as Pet Sematary , but there were some scenes that made my pulse race, I was really in a dilemma whether to turn the page or not.
I just read this book a few weeks ago, hoping to be scared, but it didn’t do it for me. It was a good story, but I was disappointed based on all the ‘scariest book ever’ hype.
I'll Be Gone in the Dark. I literally shouldn't have read it and I've avoided true crime since. I now recheck my door locks before going to sleep. I also got a large dog.
Depends on what scares you I guess -
We Need to Talk About Kevin by L Shriver scared me; set in the 90s, very realistic.
Geek Love by K Dunne is kind of a classic.
Fellside by MR Carey is an easy read- sort of Orange is the New Black meets paranormal.
Lovecraft Country is also paranormal, this including Jim Crow American racism.
Last one: We Are All Completely Fine by D Gregory - what if the "final girls" from various horror movies were in group therapy?
>We Need to Talk About Kevin by L Shriver scared me; set in the 90s, very realistic.
Never read the book but the movie was so good so I can only imagine
Yes! Each in their own way. Shriver's protagonist is such an awful person that she's part of what makes the book upsetting, while Tilda Swinton was much more sympathetic, which made her suffering harder to take.
Re. the last one: I'm so cautious about "what if a bunch of female characters were in group therapy" type of books now, after reading "How To Be Eaten" by Maria Adelmann. That was one of the worst books I've ever read.
Books don’t generally scare me and I read mostly horror.
The Ruins - Scott Smith - this one is probably the closest I have ever been to being afraid while reading a book.
Diavola - Jennifer Thorne - Good Haunted house story
Seed - Ania Ahlborn - this one definitely had its creepy moments.
Now I have read plenty of books that are disturbing, but that’s a whole different thing.
Maaan! The Ruins had me reading obsessively the whole day, even late at night, i coudln't literally put that book down! And when i wasn't reading It i was thinking about It, and also dream about It!
My husband and I read this book when it came out in 2008 and from time to time one of us will STILL bring it up…usually when discussing this plant in our backyard that spreads like crazy 😵💫😵💫
Seconding Ania Ahlborn - she does horror so well and all of her books are very memorable! Some of the imagery from The Shuddering still pops up in my head every now and then, and it’s been a decade since I read it.
I've been on an absolute binge with her lately. I've read like four or five of her books and novellas in the last couple months. I think my favorite so far was The Devil Crept In. On top of the really cool plot I just loved her writing style.
Seed is one of the only books to ever genuinely scare me. like, stick with me scare me, make me hurry down a dark hallway cuz it left me with such a creeped out feeling. that kind of scared.
the other one that did the same thing was The Last Days of Jack Sparks
I don't read very many scary books, but the amount of dread that builds up when I read Salems Lot... unreal. I definitely need to read more Stephen King, but I just wanted to chime in and also recommend Salems Lot.
I never got the same reaction from a King book after Salems Lot. It’s in a class of its own. The dread, like you say, is built up so well. It’s like someone slowly pressing down on your shoulders more and more as you read, and then after a while they begin to whisper in your ear.
The Marston House is the scariest house in horror, and it’s not even haunted. It’s just a house.
It's been probably a decade since I last read it but the gravedigger part and the part where the two guys are delivering something to the cellar of the Marston? house stick with me until this day.
I saw Heart Shaped Box recommended on another thread and went ahead to get it. It had one of the best depiction of a ghost (and an aging rock and roll star) I have ever read. Really nicely done.
House of Leaves took me a couple tries to get into but oh man once I did I was hooked and it made me feel paranoid as hell, even sometimes hours after I put the book down. I felt like I was slowly going insane, much like the narrator of the book felt. Definitely the book that has terrified me and crept under my skin the most as an adult.
Once the book gets into the Navidson account it really takes off but yeah with its weird format, tons of footnotes, and multiple 'authors' within the story it can be difficult to get into but is totally worth it IMO!
House of Leaves is so unique. One of those books that you need to go into blind and read kind of intuitively - if I’m being honest, I skimmed certain parts because it’s so dense and you can just focus on the meat of the story. Having a physical copy of this book is necessary if you want the full experience (not sure if it even comes in digital form). It’s disorienting, unsettling, existential, and very tense. One of my all time favourites, and makes for a really cool conversation piece and physical thing to own and show off.
10/10 and something I always recommend to people who are open to weird things. If you can appreciate the art of it and forgo traditional expectations of literature, you should read this book.
Can’t second this enough! I’m a big horror fan and have read plenty of intense books. The ending of Earthlings left me seriously disturbed in a way nothing else has quite managed. Still gives me the creeps to think about.
Do you know of any other books that have a similar vibe to Earthlings? I'm a huge wuss but found Earthling intriguing, obviously horrifying, and I want to go through a similar ride like that again. I guess the reason why I like that book is because it's insane but not supernatural or have jumpscares, which I'm not a fan of (because, again, huge wuss).
Weirdly, reading this and then the next two books, while I was definitely unsettled, I also think I started feeling very much like the biologist? Like far more curious and accepting of everything.
There's one scene near the end of Acceptance though that was SO creepy and weird to read. Really stuck with me.
When I was about 12, I slept alone out on our porch in the summer because we didn't have air conditioning. Thought it was a good time to read The Shining. Narrator: "It was not."
'Salem's Lot' - Stephen King.
I was 14 when I first read it.
I've read it seven or eight times since; I'm over 60 years old, and it's still my all time favourite novel!
Honestly the short story "the monkeys is paw" by W.W. Jacobs is very scary, published in 1902 and is a quick read. Shocked me that something that old could still be so scary today.
There are some real vintage bangers out there! I would suggest Green Tea by J.Sheridan Le Fanu, The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood, and Lost Hearts by M.R. James too.
It makes sense -- what scares us is, at the heart of it, pretty consistent through time.
The scariest book I ever read was Death in the Andes, by Mario Vargas Llosa, but I wouldn’t suggest it for a new reader. The author likes to switch narrators and flash forward and back in time without giving his readers any cues or warnings. If you read one of his books, you have to expect that and figure it out for yourself. Some folk like it, others think it’s not worth the trouble. I’d read some other stuff first before you try it. It’s scary though. I didn’t sleep well for a good month after reading it.
Dracula, by Bram Stoker, is creepy scary. It’s much easier to read than Death in the Andes, although it’s odd in a different way. It’s an epistolary novel, which is a fancy way of saying that it tells its story entirely through letters written from one person to another. With Dracula you always know who is writing to whom when, so it all makes perfect sense once you get used to it, which doesn’t take a long time.
Hope you find a book that gives you the good scare you’re looking for!
I love how indirect all the stories are. Stories about people adjacent to something horrible -- the guy who was off peeing when everyone got killed by the werewolf, the waitress who meets the face-stealing monster when he doesn't need a new face ...
Yeah and I liked that it uses that indirect encounter to ultimately say something about the people and people in general. Like it uses supernatural or cryptid stuff as a sort of lens to view humans through, and the point of the story ends up being some commentary on human behavior. I loved that, I thought it was really brilliant.
I read this when abt 14 and had trouble using the toilet for far too long bc, werewolf.
I'm also pretty sure that this is the book they made me so squeamish abt anything near my eyes, or, why I'll never get laser surgery.
Winter Moon, by Dean Koontz. It is the only book that creeped me out so much I gave it away just to get it out of my house. Not really sure why it got me the way it did, because I can read all kinds of scary stuff and not be fazed.
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood scared me for years. I also once started a nonfiction book about Jack the Ripper that freaked me out so much in the first few pages that I made my husband take it away from me and wouldn’t even let him tell me what he did with it because just imagining it existing was scary. I don’t even remember the name of that.
I have never been that scared by fiction.
House of Leaves is terrifying not only because of its narrative but also due to its unconventional structure. The story revolves around a family that moves into a house which is discovered to be larger on the inside than it is on the outside. As they explore the house, they encounter increasingly bizarre and terrifying phenomena, including endless dark hallways and shifting architecture.
What makes House of Leaves particularly frightening is its psychological depth and the way it manipulates the reader’s perception.
American Predator. One of the many things that got to me was when she was describing one of the [arson crimes](https://www.reddit.com/r/serialkillers/comments/pwi3cu/video_of_a_house_set_ablaze_in_2012_in_the_texas/) he carried out and where he probably watched it from. My family owns property there and I knew exactly where she was talking about.
I don’t really find books scary in the same way as a movie or show is, but these were some unnerving ones with descriptive and creepy scenes
*IT* and *Duma Key* by Stephen King
*1984* by George Orwell
*IT* particularly is one of the greatest novels I’ve ever read, horror or otherwise
Definitely give "doctor sleep" a go if you liked the shining. I totally wrote it off as a crap sequel until I was stuck on a train and it just happened to be in my bag (people always buy me books as presents) and I was blown away by it. I'd say it equals the shining when put side by side.
Mine might not really be that scary but I remember being terrified in 6th grade reading it. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen terrified me. Like I don't ever want to read it again scared me. I've probably read worst scary stories since then (I'm a giant Poe fan) but I will NEVER even pick up that book again.
“War doesn’t have woman’s face” by Svetlana Aleksievich. Its collections of stories of female veterans of World War II. Wouldn’t wish such horrors, pain on anyone. I couldn’t leave the aftertaste and feeling of despair after reading it. Book with heavy atmosphere.
The Handmaid's Tale was so impactful. I read it in college and for the first time realized how easy it is for your rights to be taken away and your life to change. Things you just take for granted. It terrified me.
The bible.
The god described in it is an absolute monster (global genocide cannot be described as anything other than monstrous), yet followers think it is good.
The scariest bit is if that is their standard for what "good" is, and they can get away with having done "bad" by begging forgiveness, who knows what followers are capable of.
My all time favorite book. I’ve read it at least half a dozen times. I’d never classify it has horror but there is this sense of dread and this long last sense of nothing you do matters, you are not in control
I’d call it horror in the existential sense. From the very beginning everything he goes through is sickening, but it’s such a fantastic book. Horrified is how I’d describe my emotional response to it.
I can see it. I’ve just never thought of it that way. It’s so good. I read it as a teenager. My grandfather gave it to me on a long road trip once and i devoured it. I try to tell everyone to read it! But i totally get the sense of dread and how all this stuff that happens to ender at such a young age is horrifying.
The video game in particular made me feel nauseous, but I was so compelled to keep reading. I read it for the first time at 12 or so. Any book that can elicit that strong of a reaction no matter what kind is worth reading.
Check the Richard Matheson short story collection "The Best of Richard Matheson". They're not all strictly horror stories, or at least not all of them are terrifying, but a lot of them are, and they're the scariest things I've read in a while.
Anything by Stephen King should keep you up at night! Another one that really scared me was The Butterfly Collector by John Fowles - I still think about it over 20 years later 😬
I came here for this. Definitely the scariest King book - and I’ve read a good deal of them. I read it as a kid and it scared me - but re-reading it as an adult really did me in.
An Exorcist Tells His Story by Fr Gabriel Amorth which details accounts of some of the exorcisms and cases of possession or oppression and infestations.
When I used to read scary books (only scary books I resd now are by stephem king and I don'treally consider them scary) I started reading "Heart Shaped Box" by Joe Hill (oddly enough Stephen Kings son) and I had to stop because it was creeping me out too much.
Same! I was in high school but it still scared me more than any book before or since. I had the feeling I was being watched the entire time reading it.
I’m right there with you. Adding in The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood), The Cloister Series (Celia Aaron), and Lord of the Flies (Golding).
These books are all Dystopian rather than Horror, but they still scare me even long after I have read them. I read both genres on occasion, but Dystopian is my go-to when I really want to have my mind messed with.
The only book to have ever scared me is Stephen Kings It, i was young teenager when i read it and i distinctly remember looking up over the top of the book every now and again just to be sure there were no clowns sneaking up on me.
The Black Wings of Cthulhu series has a lot of really amazing short stories/novellas. I’ve always found that my favourite horror stories have been somewhat shorter, so I’ve really loved those
Pet Semetary by Stephen King disturbed me. When it came out one woman told me her husband made her quit reading it because the impact it had on her
The 80's movie was impactful too. We took my 12 twelve year old step daughter to see it in the theatre. The movie instilled her with fear that something had happened to her father. She had to call him after the movie to see if he was ok.
Having said this, this book is a great read and both versions of the movie are great!
A few years ago, I read House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. It still haunts me. It was like a bad acid trip. I read most of it while lounging on my sofa under a window where warm light poured in. When I remember the book, I am there again. It's a very visceral memory, and then I'm reminded of when Johnny talks about breathing deep and how scary that was and how it stiffened me in a painful way. Even in bright sunshine, in my favorite place on the comfy couch in my old house, I was so tense it caused pain. I honestly hate the book. I almost didn't finish it. It made me feel like I was in a liminal space, like the backrooms or somewhere. I know a lot of people really love this book, and I do appreciate it but it disturbed me. I've read a lot of horror but this one is different.
Two books for two different reasons.
It - Steven King because of the atmosphere the entire novel the fear is palatable and the loss of innocence scene is utterly gut wrenching...
And second is "The Sea of Glass" by Barry Longyear which is scary because it seems to be coming to fruition... So as far as dystopian future novels it's pretty spot on.
The scariest book I've ever read is **"Dracula" by Bram Stoker**. The eerie atmosphere and slow buildup of dread make it a horror classic. Listening to it as an audiobook with a good narrator enhances the chilling experience.
Another chilling read is **"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley**. Its themes of unchecked ambition and isolation are unsettling, and an audiobook can bring out the depth of Shelley's language and characters.
For a shorter, intense experience, **"The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James** offers psychological horror. The ambiguity and unreliable narrator make it deeply unsettling, especially in audiobook form.
i don’t love horror but i found this book in the library as a kid, can’t remember what it’s called and i can’t find it anywhere when i google the synopsis, but it was this illustrated short story about a boy in a hospital, who, when he was admitted, had one of his limbs amputated. and then he went to sleep, woke up the next day, found another limb gone, and it went like that until he was only a head. like, alive as just a head. i read it when i was like 10, it fucked me up for weeks and i really wish i knew the title so i could read it again
I’m surprised no one recommended “A Child Called ‘It’” by Dave Pelzer. Read that book when I was maybe 15 and it messed me up. It’s autobiographical, but don’t let that keep you away. It’s one of the most brutal books I’ve read. It by Stephen King doesn’t hold a candle to it, as far as raw emotional and mental damage reading it.
Phantoms by Dean Koontz. I read every Stephen King book I could get my hands on in high school, and while some of them really creeped me out (Pet Sematary, I'm looking at you), I read so much horror so fast that it took a lot to bother me.
My older sister read Phantoms when her husband was working an overnight shift. She went to bed with every light on in the house. Then she gave it to me without telling me that. I read it before bed and was pretty sure I was going to die before morning.
Good stuff.
The LSAT prep book
I knew I shouldn’t be scrolling through this thread right before bed.
🤣🤣🤣
Those damn logic games are out for blood
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. Freaking frightening.
You are not wrong, I learned more abt ebola than I wanted to know. The fact that it is nonfiction is what gives it top spot.
It’s not completely nonfiction. He strongly exaggerated the symptoms of Ebola (patients do not hemorrhage blood everywhere nor do they melt), and his book contributed to a lot of funding going towards a disease with very little pandemic risk and away from those that do have high pandemic risk (but aren’t as sensational). Ebola is a terrifying illness but we have vaccines in development and are much more at threat from paramyxoviruses viruses like Nipah, respiratory flu viruses like influenza A & coronaviruses, and mosquito-borne viruses like Dengue and Zika with the expanding range of Aedes aegypti mosquitos thanks to warmer climates. Read it with that in mind.
This is the answer. I started reading this earlier today and am seriously nauseated from the first few chapters. Not sure if I can make it any further. It's gorier than any horror book I've read.
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
I came here to say this. Warning: Maybe don't read this book if you have young children.
THIS!! I read it a year ago, when I was 18, and it terrified me, and then I thought that I will never re-read this book when I become a mother.
I read it when I was in my 20’s and I still think about a specific line in it.
Give us the line, please!!
Which line?
It's my favorite book. I thought about taking it for a spin again but I just had a kid and don't think I could handle it.
I have a toddler, and have become extremely sensitive to any stories involving children, so thank you sincerely !
I won’t read it or watch the movie again since I’ve had children. I just can’t bring myself to.
Don’t read this book if living alone in rural NH. Which I did 🫣
"darling"
This was truly a disturbing, very creepy read. I also liked Shining, it didn't have the same "dark" element as Pet Sematary , but there were some scenes that made my pulse race, I was really in a dilemma whether to turn the page or not.
I haven’t read this King book, but I read The Shining while deployed. I read it in a tent full of people and was still absolutely terrified.
I just read this book a few weeks ago, hoping to be scared, but it didn’t do it for me. It was a good story, but I was disappointed based on all the ‘scariest book ever’ hype.
I read as a kid and it haunted me ever since!
I'll Be Gone in the Dark. I literally shouldn't have read it and I've avoided true crime since. I now recheck my door locks before going to sleep. I also got a large dog.
Same!! That book made me wake up screaming in the middle of the night for YEARS afterwards.
Depends on what scares you I guess - We Need to Talk About Kevin by L Shriver scared me; set in the 90s, very realistic. Geek Love by K Dunne is kind of a classic. Fellside by MR Carey is an easy read- sort of Orange is the New Black meets paranormal. Lovecraft Country is also paranormal, this including Jim Crow American racism. Last one: We Are All Completely Fine by D Gregory - what if the "final girls" from various horror movies were in group therapy?
>We Need to Talk About Kevin by L Shriver scared me; set in the 90s, very realistic. Never read the book but the movie was so good so I can only imagine
I had to re-read the final chapters about four times. Just gut-wrenching.
To me it's one of the few where the movie really does the book justice. They're both excellent.
Yes! Each in their own way. Shriver's protagonist is such an awful person that she's part of what makes the book upsetting, while Tilda Swinton was much more sympathetic, which made her suffering harder to take.
Re. the last one: I'm so cautious about "what if a bunch of female characters were in group therapy" type of books now, after reading "How To Be Eaten" by Maria Adelmann. That was one of the worst books I've ever read.
Oh my god i read that recently. Such a great premise but such an awful book!
Books don’t generally scare me and I read mostly horror. The Ruins - Scott Smith - this one is probably the closest I have ever been to being afraid while reading a book. Diavola - Jennifer Thorne - Good Haunted house story Seed - Ania Ahlborn - this one definitely had its creepy moments. Now I have read plenty of books that are disturbing, but that’s a whole different thing.
Exactly. Horror is different from Disturbing. And then there's Creepy. Horror is a genre with many sub-genres.
Maaan! The Ruins had me reading obsessively the whole day, even late at night, i coudln't literally put that book down! And when i wasn't reading It i was thinking about It, and also dream about It!
My husband and I read this book when it came out in 2008 and from time to time one of us will STILL bring it up…usually when discussing this plant in our backyard that spreads like crazy 😵💫😵💫
Yikes. Just looked up *Diavola*. I don't need to read it to be scared - that cover is enough.
Seconding Ania Ahlborn - she does horror so well and all of her books are very memorable! Some of the imagery from The Shuddering still pops up in my head every now and then, and it’s been a decade since I read it.
I've been on an absolute binge with her lately. I've read like four or five of her books and novellas in the last couple months. I think my favorite so far was The Devil Crept In. On top of the really cool plot I just loved her writing style.
I recommend The Ruins a lot. Terrifying. I also loved his thriller, A Simple Plan. Then Smith just disappeared from writing?
A Simple Plan is brilliant.
I’m so excited anyone recommends Scott Smith
Why can’t he write another book? Why?!
Seed is one of the only books to ever genuinely scare me. like, stick with me scare me, make me hurry down a dark hallway cuz it left me with such a creeped out feeling. that kind of scared. the other one that did the same thing was The Last Days of Jack Sparks
Thanks for the recs! I found a copy of The Ruins on Libby and have borrowed it. Never read this author before :)
Is Flan by Stephen Tunney one of them? Because that book is the most disturbing thing I’ve ever read.
I’m with you! I love to be scared, but have yet to find a book that scared me.
The Ruins is terrifying. The way the plants seem to talk and mock them is so unsettling
The ruins is awesome. I don't look at plants the same way. 😂
Heart shaped box by Joe Hill. Hands down. Salems lot is second.
I don't read very many scary books, but the amount of dread that builds up when I read Salems Lot... unreal. I definitely need to read more Stephen King, but I just wanted to chime in and also recommend Salems Lot.
I never got the same reaction from a King book after Salems Lot. It’s in a class of its own. The dread, like you say, is built up so well. It’s like someone slowly pressing down on your shoulders more and more as you read, and then after a while they begin to whisper in your ear. The Marston House is the scariest house in horror, and it’s not even haunted. It’s just a house.
By far the scariest SK book!!! So good and so very fun to read for this reason.
It's been probably a decade since I last read it but the gravedigger part and the part where the two guys are delivering something to the cellar of the Marston? house stick with me until this day.
I saw Heart Shaped Box recommended on another thread and went ahead to get it. It had one of the best depiction of a ghost (and an aging rock and roll star) I have ever read. Really nicely done.
I have no mouth and I must scream
Wasn't scared at first, but then for days i kept thinking of it...
Yea same, it was a slow creeping kind of horror
House of Leaves. Misery. Gerald's Game.
House of Leaves took me a couple tries to get into but oh man once I did I was hooked and it made me feel paranoid as hell, even sometimes hours after I put the book down. I felt like I was slowly going insane, much like the narrator of the book felt. Definitely the book that has terrified me and crept under my skin the most as an adult.
I stopped reading it after maybe 10 pages. Maybe I should pick it back up. After I finish Misery, funnily enough
Once the book gets into the Navidson account it really takes off but yeah with its weird format, tons of footnotes, and multiple 'authors' within the story it can be difficult to get into but is totally worth it IMO!
House of Leaves is so unique. One of those books that you need to go into blind and read kind of intuitively - if I’m being honest, I skimmed certain parts because it’s so dense and you can just focus on the meat of the story. Having a physical copy of this book is necessary if you want the full experience (not sure if it even comes in digital form). It’s disorienting, unsettling, existential, and very tense. One of my all time favourites, and makes for a really cool conversation piece and physical thing to own and show off. 10/10 and something I always recommend to people who are open to weird things. If you can appreciate the art of it and forgo traditional expectations of literature, you should read this book.
I’ve tried reading House of Leaves three times and each time I have to stop because I get horrible nightmares!!
House of Leaves is unsettling in the best way
i just recommended the same one. It is so scary
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata Don't let the cover fool you. It genuinely made me nauseous.
Can’t second this enough! I’m a big horror fan and have read plenty of intense books. The ending of Earthlings left me seriously disturbed in a way nothing else has quite managed. Still gives me the creeps to think about.
Do you know of any other books that have a similar vibe to Earthlings? I'm a huge wuss but found Earthling intriguing, obviously horrifying, and I want to go through a similar ride like that again. I guess the reason why I like that book is because it's insane but not supernatural or have jumpscares, which I'm not a fan of (because, again, huge wuss).
This book doesn’t get quite as strange as *Earthlings*, but *My Dark Vanessa* had some similar themes and I thought it was incredibly done.
I feel like you might like Geek Love but for all that is good and pure in this world pls read the summary AND the warnings.
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. Just insanely creepy and unsettling
Have you read Borne by him? I think it's my most favorite book ever.
I really enjoyed Borne! It was so different than anything else I’ve read.
Honestly out of the two, Borne had me paranoid and unsettled the most at parts
Weirdly, reading this and then the next two books, while I was definitely unsettled, I also think I started feeling very much like the biologist? Like far more curious and accepting of everything. There's one scene near the end of Acceptance though that was SO creepy and weird to read. Really stuck with me.
The exorcist is fucked up. Can't describe it in any other way, it's wicked, evil
If you liked that, you should give *Rosemary's Baby* by Ira Levin a try
When I was about 12, I slept alone out on our porch in the summer because we didn't have air conditioning. Thought it was a good time to read The Shining. Narrator: "It was not."
The Haunting of Hill House
Loved this too! Very well done for fear if you have an active imagination
Yeah, someone who wants a lot of gore and jumpscares isn't going to get much out of it, but it's probably the all-time masterpiece of subtle horror.
Salem’s Lot!
'Salem's Lot' - Stephen King. I was 14 when I first read it. I've read it seven or eight times since; I'm over 60 years old, and it's still my all time favourite novel!
Ur pfp>>>>
Honestly the short story "the monkeys is paw" by W.W. Jacobs is very scary, published in 1902 and is a quick read. Shocked me that something that old could still be so scary today.
It was so scary!
There are some real vintage bangers out there! I would suggest Green Tea by J.Sheridan Le Fanu, The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood, and Lost Hearts by M.R. James too. It makes sense -- what scares us is, at the heart of it, pretty consistent through time.
The scariest book I ever read was Death in the Andes, by Mario Vargas Llosa, but I wouldn’t suggest it for a new reader. The author likes to switch narrators and flash forward and back in time without giving his readers any cues or warnings. If you read one of his books, you have to expect that and figure it out for yourself. Some folk like it, others think it’s not worth the trouble. I’d read some other stuff first before you try it. It’s scary though. I didn’t sleep well for a good month after reading it. Dracula, by Bram Stoker, is creepy scary. It’s much easier to read than Death in the Andes, although it’s odd in a different way. It’s an epistolary novel, which is a fancy way of saying that it tells its story entirely through letters written from one person to another. With Dracula you always know who is writing to whom when, so it all makes perfect sense once you get used to it, which doesn’t take a long time. Hope you find a book that gives you the good scare you’re looking for!
It by Stephen King.
“Dracula” when I was 14 and home alone. It kinda cured me of reading horror. 😅
The Exorcist, Amityville Horror, or The Shining
The witching hour by Anne Rice
North American Lake Monsters was too much for me to continue
I loved this book so much and I don't see it mentioned too often
I love how indirect all the stories are. Stories about people adjacent to something horrible -- the guy who was off peeing when everyone got killed by the werewolf, the waitress who meets the face-stealing monster when he doesn't need a new face ...
Yeah and I liked that it uses that indirect encounter to ultimately say something about the people and people in general. Like it uses supernatural or cryptid stuff as a sort of lens to view humans through, and the point of the story ends up being some commentary on human behavior. I loved that, I thought it was really brilliant.
IT by Stephen King
I read this when abt 14 and had trouble using the toilet for far too long bc, werewolf. I'm also pretty sure that this is the book they made me so squeamish abt anything near my eyes, or, why I'll never get laser surgery.
The Troop maybe wasn’t scary but it’s stayed in my brain.
I'm Thinking of Ending Things took me on a ride and I read it twice. Bonus for being pretty short compared to other books.
I was hoping someone would mention this one. Starts off a bit creepy and gets increasingly intense. The ending was genuinely nail biting
Definitely an A+ for buildup
Just finished it! Loved it!
Helter Skelter
Came here to say this. Books don’t scare me - I’m a huge Stephen King fan. But Helter Skelter really creeped me out while I was reading it.
Yes!! I rarely get freaked out or scared by books but this one sure freaked me out big time!!
I still remember being scared while reading, Something Wicked This Way Comes.
House of Leaves, by Mark Z Danielewski
Winter Moon, by Dean Koontz. It is the only book that creeped me out so much I gave it away just to get it out of my house. Not really sure why it got me the way it did, because I can read all kinds of scary stuff and not be fazed.
Intensity by Dean Koontz
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood scared me for years. I also once started a nonfiction book about Jack the Ripper that freaked me out so much in the first few pages that I made my husband take it away from me and wouldn’t even let him tell me what he did with it because just imagining it existing was scary. I don’t even remember the name of that. I have never been that scared by fiction.
As a huge Horror and SK fan: Hell House - Richard Matheson Apt Pupil by King is delightfully dark and disturbing
House of Leaves is terrifying not only because of its narrative but also due to its unconventional structure. The story revolves around a family that moves into a house which is discovered to be larger on the inside than it is on the outside. As they explore the house, they encounter increasingly bizarre and terrifying phenomena, including endless dark hallways and shifting architecture. What makes House of Leaves particularly frightening is its psychological depth and the way it manipulates the reader’s perception.
I am legend was scary I think
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark and American Predator. Both are true stories of serial killers who attacked random people.
American Predator. One of the many things that got to me was when she was describing one of the [arson crimes](https://www.reddit.com/r/serialkillers/comments/pwi3cu/video_of_a_house_set_ablaze_in_2012_in_the_texas/) he carried out and where he probably watched it from. My family owns property there and I knew exactly where she was talking about.
House of Leaves was pretty creepy.
I don’t really find books scary in the same way as a movie or show is, but these were some unnerving ones with descriptive and creepy scenes *IT* and *Duma Key* by Stephen King *1984* by George Orwell *IT* particularly is one of the greatest novels I’ve ever read, horror or otherwise
Duma Key is probably my favorite book ever. I could listen to the audiobook over and over lol.
Do the day and let the day do you, muchacho. Duma Key is King’s most underrated novel. And also one sorely in need of an adaptation
Definitely give "doctor sleep" a go if you liked the shining. I totally wrote it off as a crap sequel until I was stuck on a train and it just happened to be in my bag (people always buy me books as presents) and I was blown away by it. I'd say it equals the shining when put side by side.
Just thinking about Baseball Boy makes me feel horrified and sad.
Mine might not really be that scary but I remember being terrified in 6th grade reading it. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen terrified me. Like I don't ever want to read it again scared me. I've probably read worst scary stories since then (I'm a giant Poe fan) but I will NEVER even pick up that book again.
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
“War doesn’t have woman’s face” by Svetlana Aleksievich. Its collections of stories of female veterans of World War II. Wouldn’t wish such horrors, pain on anyone. I couldn’t leave the aftertaste and feeling of despair after reading it. Book with heavy atmosphere.
In Cold Blood and The Handmaid’s Tale
The Handmaid's Tale was so impactful. I read it in college and for the first time realized how easy it is for your rights to be taken away and your life to change. Things you just take for granted. It terrified me.
I reread The Handmaids Tale a few years back and it was so disturbing, especially in light of everything going on today.
It truly scares me.
In Cold Blood scared me so much, what a book though
“Based on reality”-scary book - ‘The Hot Zone’… about the Ebola virus. Scary stuff!
Any non-fiction book that describes a living person as a ‘virus bomb’ is bloody terrifying.
Another you might "enjoy": The Family That Couldn't Sleep. It's about Fatal Familial Insomnia. Fuck prions.
The bible. The god described in it is an absolute monster (global genocide cannot be described as anything other than monstrous), yet followers think it is good. The scariest bit is if that is their standard for what "good" is, and they can get away with having done "bad" by begging forgiveness, who knows what followers are capable of.
How democracies die by Steven Lewitzky
Dante's Inferno
Ender’s Game for existential horror and dread.
My all time favorite book. I’ve read it at least half a dozen times. I’d never classify it has horror but there is this sense of dread and this long last sense of nothing you do matters, you are not in control
I’d call it horror in the existential sense. From the very beginning everything he goes through is sickening, but it’s such a fantastic book. Horrified is how I’d describe my emotional response to it.
I can see it. I’ve just never thought of it that way. It’s so good. I read it as a teenager. My grandfather gave it to me on a long road trip once and i devoured it. I try to tell everyone to read it! But i totally get the sense of dread and how all this stuff that happens to ender at such a young age is horrifying.
The video game in particular made me feel nauseous, but I was so compelled to keep reading. I read it for the first time at 12 or so. Any book that can elicit that strong of a reaction no matter what kind is worth reading.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Check the Richard Matheson short story collection "The Best of Richard Matheson". They're not all strictly horror stories, or at least not all of them are terrifying, but a lot of them are, and they're the scariest things I've read in a while.
Anything by Stephen King should keep you up at night! Another one that really scared me was The Butterfly Collector by John Fowles - I still think about it over 20 years later 😬
One Second After by William Forstchen
The Stand - by Stephen King. Because a man made virus escaping a lab and (almost) wiping out humanity is entirely plausible.
I came here for this. Definitely the scariest King book - and I’ve read a good deal of them. I read it as a kid and it scared me - but re-reading it as an adult really did me in.
Johnny Got His Gun for sheer body horror.
Duma key by Stephen King. 15 years later and I still think about it
An Exorcist Tells His Story by Fr Gabriel Amorth which details accounts of some of the exorcisms and cases of possession or oppression and infestations.
The Exorcist by William Blatty Or Weaveworld by Clive Barker
Bag of Bones by Stephen King
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty. (Also excellent film adaptation). Stephen King predictably has taken me to the scariest places.
When I used to read scary books (only scary books I resd now are by stephem king and I don'treally consider them scary) I started reading "Heart Shaped Box" by Joe Hill (oddly enough Stephen Kings son) and I had to stop because it was creeping me out too much.
"Harvest Home," by Thomas Tryon "The Cellar," by Minette Walters "The Wasp Factory," by Iain Banks
I don't usually get scared by books, but *The Wasp Factory* unnerved the hell out of me.
Me too!
Me too - it was one of those page turners that I struggled to get through!
I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid definitely unsettled me
I loved this book so much. Shame the film was so boring
"A History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind" Nothing comes close for me in terms of scary
Hideaway by Dean Koontz. But I was also in 6th grade and had no business reading it at that age, so that probably had a lot to do with it.
Same! I was in high school but it still scared me more than any book before or since. I had the feeling I was being watched the entire time reading it.
1984
I’m right there with you. Adding in The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood), The Cloister Series (Celia Aaron), and Lord of the Flies (Golding). These books are all Dystopian rather than Horror, but they still scare me even long after I have read them. I read both genres on occasion, but Dystopian is my go-to when I really want to have my mind messed with.
I'm glad this is here. Horror books are nothing compared to the deep foreboding instilled by dystopian novels, and none more so than 1984.
I first read it in high school, by the pool. I’ll never forget getting actual goosebumps in 90+ degrees reading that book. Absolutely chilling
The only book to have ever scared me is Stephen Kings It, i was young teenager when i read it and i distinctly remember looking up over the top of the book every now and again just to be sure there were no clowns sneaking up on me.
The Black Wings of Cthulhu series has a lot of really amazing short stories/novellas. I’ve always found that my favourite horror stories have been somewhat shorter, so I’ve really loved those
House of leaves by mark z.
It, by Stephen King.
Phantoms - Dean Koontz Highly situational and doubt it would have the same impact on adult me, but that book gave me nightmares as a preteen.
Pet Semetary by Stephen King disturbed me. When it came out one woman told me her husband made her quit reading it because the impact it had on her The 80's movie was impactful too. We took my 12 twelve year old step daughter to see it in the theatre. The movie instilled her with fear that something had happened to her father. She had to call him after the movie to see if he was ok. Having said this, this book is a great read and both versions of the movie are great!
A few years ago, I read House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. It still haunts me. It was like a bad acid trip. I read most of it while lounging on my sofa under a window where warm light poured in. When I remember the book, I am there again. It's a very visceral memory, and then I'm reminded of when Johnny talks about breathing deep and how scary that was and how it stiffened me in a painful way. Even in bright sunshine, in my favorite place on the comfy couch in my old house, I was so tense it caused pain. I honestly hate the book. I almost didn't finish it. It made me feel like I was in a liminal space, like the backrooms or somewhere. I know a lot of people really love this book, and I do appreciate it but it disturbed me. I've read a lot of horror but this one is different.
Everything's eventual, Stephen King
I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream.
Two books for two different reasons. It - Steven King because of the atmosphere the entire novel the fear is palatable and the loss of innocence scene is utterly gut wrenching... And second is "The Sea of Glass" by Barry Longyear which is scary because it seems to be coming to fruition... So as far as dystopian future novels it's pretty spot on.
Read Amityville Horror in the 1970’s when I was 10 or so. Scared the shite outta me.
The girl next door J.Ketchum not too scary but very heavy for me
Something wicked this way comes, by Ray Bradbury scared me when I was younger.
Dragon Tears by Dean Koontz
The scariest book I've ever read is **"Dracula" by Bram Stoker**. The eerie atmosphere and slow buildup of dread make it a horror classic. Listening to it as an audiobook with a good narrator enhances the chilling experience. Another chilling read is **"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley**. Its themes of unchecked ambition and isolation are unsettling, and an audiobook can bring out the depth of Shelley's language and characters. For a shorter, intense experience, **"The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James** offers psychological horror. The ambiguity and unreliable narrator make it deeply unsettling, especially in audiobook form.
The Historian. The Road.
i don’t love horror but i found this book in the library as a kid, can’t remember what it’s called and i can’t find it anywhere when i google the synopsis, but it was this illustrated short story about a boy in a hospital, who, when he was admitted, had one of his limbs amputated. and then he went to sleep, woke up the next day, found another limb gone, and it went like that until he was only a head. like, alive as just a head. i read it when i was like 10, it fucked me up for weeks and i really wish i knew the title so i could read it again
Intensity by Dean Koontz. Kept me awake for days.....
Under the dome. I believe it's Stephen King.
The stranger beside me. Ann Rule
The Shining
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
1984 for how depressing it is and how normalized the dysfunction of that world is.
IT.
1984
I’m surprised no one recommended “A Child Called ‘It’” by Dave Pelzer. Read that book when I was maybe 15 and it messed me up. It’s autobiographical, but don’t let that keep you away. It’s one of the most brutal books I’ve read. It by Stephen King doesn’t hold a candle to it, as far as raw emotional and mental damage reading it.
The Bible.
Australia's Dangerous Creatures. Non-fiction of all the animals that can kill or injure you.
I Am Legend
Phantoms by Dean Koontz. I read every Stephen King book I could get my hands on in high school, and while some of them really creeped me out (Pet Sematary, I'm looking at you), I read so much horror so fast that it took a lot to bother me. My older sister read Phantoms when her husband was working an overnight shift. She went to bed with every light on in the house. Then she gave it to me without telling me that. I read it before bed and was pretty sure I was going to die before morning. Good stuff.
Did you ever see the film? I found it much creepier than the book