Scariest Books You've Ever Read

I never really read a scary book, but Flowers In The Attic was so disturbing I got about 1/4 of the way through and gave it away. What a fucked up book.

 

I have found most (all) of VC Andrews books to be more than disturbing. But then, I must say I've never really been able to read one through to the end. They are sensuous and incestuous. ALL of her books that I've (tried) to read wound up involving close incest. ewwwwww Having sex both before and after finding out about being CLOSE blood relatives...a deserving double
ewwwwwwwwww.:devil:

 

My mum used to read her books like they were candy.

I've seen parts of the movie (or was it a TV movie?) version of Flowers in the Attic, and all I can say is

 

lol, That is a rather regularly recurring theme. The first book I ever read by her was "Music in the Night", though, and I got really into the Logan family series. Then I got into a few of the other series, but yeah, eventually the incest thing got a little disturbing, so I don't read her books much anymore, lol.

 

Bag of Bones by Stephen King was pretty creepy.
Another King book, maybe not the scarriest but certainly one of his best was "Liseys' Story".

 

Hands down... the bible... both from the content of it, and the way people react to it.

 

For this ex-Catholic it's a no-brainer. The Exorcist scared the bejeezus out of me.

 

House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski.

Definitely the scariest book I've ever read. I read it, fittingly, right when I moved into a new house. I kept walking around my empty house making sure no doors had appeared out of no where. It got to the point where I was thinking about measuring my house on the inside and the outside just to make sure. Kept seeing stuff out of the corner of my eye too.

As far as other stuff goes, I remember the Goosebumps "The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb" and one of the Animorphs books called "The Stranger" scared me pretty bad as a kid. Grimm's Fairy Tales and Edgar Alan Poe are pretty disturbing too.

 

Intensity by Dean Koontz. It was so scary because it could totally happen. I read that book in three days one summer when I was in high school and when I finished it at about 2am I had to get up and check that all the doors and windows were locked.

 

One book I haven't read here on the forums that genuinely frightened me is The Stand, uncut by Stephen King. An apocalyptic tale that tickles every nerve in your body in a positive (but mostly negative) way. I'm a major King fan and have read most of his works, but The Stand has had a massive impact on my mind. It was absolutely intense to read.

 

i just finished "spanky" by christopher fowler. its like a neo-faustian story of demonic posession, i really like his style, its funny, chilling, gruesome and above all gripping, I couldn't put the book down.

i'd also reccomend "psychoville" by the same author, a tale of murder in post-thatcher british suburbia. essentially a really good, intelligent slasher. great for anyone whose spent any time in a gated or otherwise segregated snobby middle class suburb and hated it. fantastic read.

"hell house" by richard matheson is also pretty good. as is "ghost story" by peter straub. check out some of the books of blood by clive barker if you fancy some colourful fare.

dunno if i'd say they were scary, but unsettling in parts and exciting throughout

 

oh, a side note on spanky, the front cover and title make it look exactly like gay erotic fiction, so i attracted many strange looks on he bus before i noticed

 

Really it's not much worse than today's news. Two of my all time favs are "Stand on Zanzibar" & "The Sheep Look Up" by John Brunner

 

It, Salems' Lot, Amityville Horror.

 

Stephen King's The Shining was the last book that scared me. I was a teenager when I read it, alone in bed, and some passages made me want to hide under the sheets and keep the lights on. I felt I was too old already to be that scared by a novel, so it was a little embarrassing.

When I read the novel a second time it didn't scare me anymore because I knew what would happen.

 

It probably has mainly to do with the age I was reading it but as a kid I enthusiastically took up Roald Dahls books only to get terrified by the Magic finger. I had nightmares where ducks took over the daily life of me and my family.

 

Heres another vote for amityville horror.

 

The mist by Stephen King although the ending in the movie should have been in the book.

Just makes me get the heeby jeebez...or however you spell it. Gross all those spiders.

 

Intensity by Dean Koontz.

 

Also The Exorcist. Both the book and the movie scared the shit outta me.