The question I pose is a pretty simple one:
What is the scariest book you’ve ever read?
It doesn’t need to be horror, of course, though I expect a good bit of horror to creep and skulk through. And you can talk about comic books, too, if you’re so inclined.
Note: I’m not asking about your favorite scary book. I’m asking about the one that scared you, or freaked you out, or disturbed you on some fundamental level.
I get more than a little freaked out by serial killer books. Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite is an early one that got under my skin. Recently, worth noting Mister Slaughter, by Robert McCammon — pre-Revolutionary War serial killer tale, with tension so taut it was like a rope around my neck as I read it. Or, consider the last two Lauren Beukes novels: The Shining Girls and Broken Monsters. I’m only halfway through the latter but dang can she a) write and b) freak you the fuck out. For non-serial killer novels, while the film version didn’t spook me, the novel of The Exorcist is a pretty amazing read, and if you’ve never read it, well, now’s the time.
Anyway —
Your turn!
What books have really gotten under your skin?
Maybe it’s not a book, exactly, but a particular scene.
Let’s hear it.
(We’ll do movies next week, and maybe games after.)
Silas Payton says:
Some of my favourites are by Jack Kilborn: Afraid, Trapped, and Endurance. Great reads. Scary, suspenseful, with some humor thrown in. Also Blake Crouch’s Andrew Z. Thomas trilogy. Very Creepy.
October 20, 2014 — 11:42 PM
Kefirah says:
I’m a little late to this project, but there was a book called “Michelle Remembers” about a young woman remembering being a part of satanic rituals as a very young child. There were a number of things that terrified me about the book, not the least being that it happened in Victoria BC where I was born. Even the fact that the incidents are widely discredited hasn’t stopped the book being terrifying to me.
That and “Amityville Horror”. I went through a period of reading books about stuff like this, but these two books scared the living bejeebuz out of me enough that I couldn’t even keep the books in my presence and got rid of them. I STILL have a fear of looking out of dark windows, thinking I’ll see piggy red eyes.
October 21, 2014 — 1:53 AM
James Ritchie says:
In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote. Not a novel, but it reads like one, and the fact that it is true scared the bejeebers out of me.
October 21, 2014 — 12:22 PM
David J Delaney says:
Stephen King’s IT freaked me out when I was younger
October 22, 2014 — 6:05 AM