Help Finding Scary Books

[Melanie]

Hi guys. I wonder if you all could help me with something. I love reading scary books. The problem is, not much scares me. I've read a ton of books that other people have said scared them silly, and, while I've enjoyed them, maybe even got a chill or two, I generally don't really get scared. Some of the movies of books have scared me, though. Maybe I'm just too visual to get scared by books? I hope not.

Anyways, my request to you is, tell me about the books that really, really scared you. Thew kind that made you sleep with the light on, the kind that made you shudder. Scare me.

[Char]

Ghost Story by Peter Straub was scary, to me.

The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum was also scary but for completely different reasons.

The Shining and Salem's Lot are good, scary standbys.

The Haunting of Hill House-not slasher type horror, but psychologically scary.

Ghoul scary and gory.

[Rachel]

It by Stephen King-King is a visual writer, IMO.
Come Closer by Sara Gran-very atmospheric
Hell House by Richard Matheson-creepy, kinda gory and weird, good companion to The Haunting of Hill House.

What was the last book you read that really scared you, Melanie? and why?

[Melanie]

I've read Salem's Lot, Haunting of Hill House, Ghoul and It. I'm a huge Stephen King fan, yet surprisingly enough, I've never read The Shining. It was the scariest I've read in these suggestions, but I enjoyed them all. I'll have to check out the others, a few of which I already have in my library, but never got around to reading.

A good many books had a scene or two that's scared me, or at least creeped me out, while I was reading, but books that frightened me as a whole are few and far between.

I remember being really scared while reading Faerie Tale by Raymond E Feist, but I read it as a young teen, around 14 or so, and I've never been able to find it again, so I don't know if I was scared just because of my age or not.

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty scared me as well, but I'd seen the movie first, so I had those visuals in my head as I was reading.

Off the top of my head, while thinking of the most popular horror writers (King, Koontz, Rice etc) I can't really think of others that spooked me as much as those two did.