Please please please can I have a recommendation of an actually scary book.

[Rachel]

I have read many ghost stories but as yet have not found one that kept me glued and actually scared me. If anybody has any recommendations then I would love to hear them. If you found the haunting of hill House scary then I don't think that your idea of scary is the same as mine ( no offence) so please no recommendations of that book. I look forward to hearing from you all.

[Marc]

Did you find it scary? I'm guessing not. Most of the stories I've read are short stories in collections. Of that sort the spookiest I found was something called 'The Coat'. I'll have to see if I can find the collection I saw it in.

[Sean Kerr]

tengu by graham masterton and charnel house by the same author had my knees knocking lol. also salems lot by King is very creepy xxx

[C.]

Rachel wrote: "I have read many ghost stories but as yet have not found one that kept me glued and actually scared me. If anybody has any recommendations then I would love to hear them. If you found the haunting ..."


I sooo agree with you about The Haunting of Hill House, and every other book that are the most usual recommendations!

Sorry to say that I am no help at all, because no horror book has ever scared me!

The only 2 books that ever caused my pulse to race and white knuckle reading were nonfiction, and in my 65 years of avid reading, have never been topped!





one fiction book that is a close contender is



I love ghost stories and ones about haunted houses/places but none have ever given me the thrill that these did. :[ Films work much better.

[Rachel]

Hi c. me and you must have nerves of steel because so many books that are reviewed as ' creepy as hell' or 'utterly terrifying' just don't have the same affect on me. I read many reviews on House of Leaves by Mark z. danielewski which many said was the most terrifying book they've ever read and thought wow this must be worth a read but oh my gosh what a load of c**p. If I remember it was around 650 pages and i wasted far too much of my life reading it. Don't know if you've ever read it but honestly I got to the end and was puzzled by what actually happened. you should give it a look and let me know what you think. Wish I could find a scary book because I love a good scare.

[Marc]

Rachel wrote: "Hi c. me and you must have nerves of steel because so many books that are reviewed as ' creepy as hell' or 'utterly terrifying' just don't have the same affect on me."

The last time I experienced even the mildest creep factor from a book was when I was reading DFF: Dead Friends Forever by J.R. Turner. I first read it while I was in a motel room, and put it down about half way through to go to bed. Naturally, something in the motel made a noise, just as I was turning out the light, and for that one little moment I was actually creeped out. I'm not a horror fan, though, so I don't read many of them. Ghost stories aren't all that popular at the moment, are they, especially novels?

[Rachel]

Oh i don't know about that Marc there's always room for a good ghost story on my life.

[Kyle]

Is it just the books that don't do it for you, or do horror films not frighten you either?

Few stories ever scare me personally. The trick for me is getting me to care about the characters, so that I'm frightened on their behalf; I don't want them to get hurt. (I'm thinking of the "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" film and its child protagonist.)

None of the few books that have ever really left me unsettling were supernatural (although it's a genre I enjoy)--they were mostly thrillers about serial killers I read when I was younger.

Does the inability to be scared make the experience less enjoyable for you, or do you still enjoy the books you've read?

[Holly]

Kyle wrote: "Is it just the books that don't do it for you, or do horror films not frighten you either?

Few stories ever scare me personally. The trick for me is getting me to care about the characters, so th..."

Films are worse, I guess because when they fail they can cross over into the realm of the ridiculous; I'm pretty sure I laughed out loud a couple of times during the last half of The Conjuring.

I still enjoy the horror books I read even when they don't scare me. I don't even expect to be scared anymore; I'm just happy with a few moments of dread or unease or even a nice chill.

I can't read the serial killer books, though, they just make me mad. Unless of course the serial killer is taken down in a bloody and apalling act of revenge.....in that case I consider it a happy ending.

[Rachel]

Hi Kyle I can't say there have been many films that freaked me out to be honest. I was however, I'm ashamed to say, quite scared after watching Blair witch purely for the reason that I thought the story was true. It was only after my husband came home from work that night after I'd watched it that he told me that it wasn't, duh! I've been watching scary movies ever since I can remember. I watched nightmare on elm street on my tenth birthday, which wasn't a good idea I suppose but I found that it never scared me. I like films and books where you don't know what the nasty or evil thing is which is why I like ghost stories because you don't know who or what they are capable of. monsters and vampires I'm not interested in but I do love a bit of witch craft.

[Kyle]

Rachel wrote: "Hi Kyle I can't say there have been many films that freaked me out to be honest. I was however, I'm ashamed to say, quite scared after watching Blair witch purely for the reason that I thought the ..."

If you've been watching scary movies since you can remember, maybe you've been desensitized, like a college student who has pizza every night until suddenly it doesn't do the trick for them anymore. The same thing happened to me, but it just made me appreciate films that aren't afraid to do something new even more (here's looking at you, Cabin in the Woods).

I totally agree with you about liking books/movies where you're not familiar with the true nature of the antagonist or what they're capable of. I think it's because it goes back to that fear of "the other." Let's face it, most of the time what we imagine is worse than anything explicitly described, since we're projecting our unconscious fears.

And Holly, I totally had the same reaction to the second half of the Conjuring. (Although I have to guiltily admit I really liked the parts of that movie with the Annabelle doll, even if I never saw the actual Annabelle movie.)

[Sean Kerr]

has anyone seen the original Ringu film? while I quite like the American remake, the original is truly scary! the sound, the atmosphere, the images, gave me the creeps for ages

also the original Rec film! the last fifteen minutes are especially terrifying! love that film

[Rachel]

I've not seen that one I'll have to give it a look.

[Anthony]

Rachel wrote: "I have read many ghost stories but as yet have not found one that kept me glued and actually scared me. If anybody has any recommendations then I would love to hear them. If you found the haunting ..."

I think there are a lot of individual differences when it comes to how people define "scary". There are so many sub-genres within horror, that what one person finds frightening another finds boring. Gore and zombies bore me, but a good supernatural / ghost story (no matter how many I've read) can give a chill. Also, if you read a lot of horror, you might become jaded because you can anticipate plot twists. That is the case with me. That being said, if I can experience a chill or a few hairs rising on the back of my neck - even if it happens only once in a novel and only for a few moments - then I consider it a success. That is, a good scare. (That is what I shoot for when I write my own novels...)

Since I'm a tad old, many of my favorites were published a number of decades ago. Maybe because I was a newbie at reading horror? These include:
The Other, The Exorcist, Dark Gods. A newer novel I enjoyed is: A Good and Happy Child. A recent novella that had a creepy opening that raised the hackles on my neck is The Exorcism of Sara May.

Even though I found these great reads, there will be others who think they're just so-so.
Anyway, good luck with your search.

[Werner]

We have three different threads in this group, all of them posted by different people at different times, and each one of them asking for recommendations of "scary" books. Obviously, it would make far more sense to have just one thread, so that readers looking for such recommendations would only have to check out one place, and those who want to make suggestions wouldn't have to post them in three different places. I'd suggest using copy-and-paste to move your comments from this thread to this one: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... , and then deleting them here. Once that's done, we'll be able to delete this thread. Thanks for your help!