Scariest book you've ever read

[Erie]

Oh, and The Ruins!! Seriously scary stuff.

[Marie Helene]

Hell House

The stuff of legends, the blackest nightmare fuel.

[Tim]

The Hunger - Alma Katsu

[Erin]

Tim wrote: "The Hunger - Alma Katsu"

I really enjoyed that one.

[Gene]

The book that had the biggest immediate impression on me was 'Salem's Lot. I wasn't a child when I read it, but for something like a week after I finished it I had an elemental fear of the dark.

[Lindy]

I thought The Right Hand of Evil by John Saul was pretty creepy. Also Lost Boy by Christina Henry. Not terrifying, but really good books.

[Steve]

Definitely The Exorcist and its sequel Legion. Plus the book regarding the story Blaty based his amazing novel on.

Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin. True life possessions that appear mundane to start with and then scare the s@@@ out of you.

Book about Anneliese Michel is pretty horrifying plus Haunted by Robert Curran about a true life haunting that is terrifying as it involves kids.

Deliver us from Evil by Ralph Sarchie is great too and vastly superior to the awful movie made.

[Kelly B]

Lindy wrote: "I thought The Right Hand of Evil by John Saul was pretty creepy. Also Lost Boy by Christina Henry. Not terrifying, but really good books."

I just added Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook to my TBR list a few days ago, after reading Christina Henry's first Alice book, which I thought was great.

[Kirsten]

Erie wrote: "Oh, and The Ruins!! Seriously scary stuff."

I gave the vines surrounding our apricot tree a very wide berth after reading it.

[Lindy]

I also wanted to suggest The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith! Some very scary parts and such a good read! Not sure it is considered horror, but I would consider parts of it to be.

Also, I can't wait to read the Alice series by Christina Henry! Is it scary at all?

[Andrew]

Scary books are exciting to me, and it's unusual that one would actually scare me while reading. 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff' that terrified me as a kid. Since then, House of Leaves has probably come the closest to scaring me as an adult. Some of H.P. Lovecraft's stories come fairly close as well.

[James]

John wrote: "I recommend most books by Stephen King, but primarily: It, The Stand, Misery, and ‘Salem’s Lot. Max Brook’s World War Z is fantastic zombie stuff, if you like that. Clive Barker’s Thief of Always, ..."

All good books.

[James]

Sonya wrote: "The shining"

Love The Shining. I wrote a screenplay inspired by it.
Which remains unproduced basically because it's too damned scary.

No one can finish it.

[Kelly B]

Lindy wrote: "Also, I can't wait to read the Alice series by Christina Henry! Is it scary at all? "

I didn't think it was scary per se, but it was a bit gory:-).

[Gordon]

Communion: A True Story terrified me. Everything about it, including Whitley Strieber's strong belief that the events happened to him, bothered me.

[Atlanta]

@tim and Erin yes, the hunger scared me.

[Em]

When I was a kid the short story The Boogeyman by Stephen King gave me nightmares!

[John]

Donald wrote: ""I AM LEGEND," by Richard Matheson. I firmly believe this was the grandfather of all "Walking Dead" fiction, or "Zombie Apocolypse" stuff."

And how different Matheson's version is from the movies that came later.

[Rafael]

Pet Sematary by Stephen King was disturbing, more so because i have a toddler the age of gage so yeah, i read a lot of horror so have many picks but one of the best is SOUR CANDY by Kaelan Burke

[Alessandro]

I think the scariest book I've never read was IT, by Stephen King. Pennywise the Clown is the most terrifiyng creature I,ve never seen.

[solitaryfossil]

Mine is the short story collection, Stephen King: Night Shift, maybe in 8th grade? Loved it, dreamed (nightmares) about some of the stories.

[Ethan]

Gotta go with Dathan Auerbach's Penpal and the CreepyPasta series, Humper Monkey and Fifty Foot Ant stories. I love the accuracy of this person's military lingo and culture (although some things are a little over the top).

[Carleton]

Adam wrote: "NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. Personal favorite of mine. Fast paced thrill ride from start to finish. Read around Christmas time for an extra special bonus of scare."

This is next on my TBR I just bought the book last week

[Meli]

Carleton wrote: "Adam wrote: "NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. Personal favorite of mine. Fast paced thrill ride from start to finish. Read around Christmas time for an extra special bonus of scare."

This is next on my TBR I j..."

Cosign... such a good book and some genuinely creepy moments which I don't get often anymore.

[Tori]

Well when I was a really small In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories scared the ever-loving jeepers out of me. As an adult...probably one of Stephen King's books.

[sonya]

the shining

[Tori]

Sonya wrote: "the shining"

That's definitely up there for me! Loved it but it got eerie!

[Oscar]

There are only two books that kind of scared me, and both are by John Saul: one is Suffer the Children and the other is Nathaniel.

[Gerhard]

Naomi's Room by Jonathan Aycliffe is a real hair-raising read. I don't know if it is the scariest thing I've ever read, but it comes pretty close.

[Gerhard]

Robert wrote: "The scariest novel I've ever read is Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco. It's definitely my favorite haunted house novel. There are two short stories that really scared me, too: Horrible Imaginings ..."
I agree! This is a seriously creepy book.

[Alina]

Salems lot by the one and only Stephen King is still the scariest book that I ever read, but there's a close second to it, Them by James Watts scared the crap out of me while reading it. I always think twice now before petting a kitty..

[jamako]

Phew, I basically never get scared by books or movies. The best I can do is strong discomfort, which mainly happens when protagonists are in situations where they experience a severe lack of control. The only books that managed this are Misery and Gerald's Game by Stephen King and The Terror by Dan Simmons.

Regarding movies/series, all three adaptations of the above are actually quite good and capture what makes the books so uncomfortable, Gerald's Game probably even improves on the book.

The only movie that actually got under my skin is The Nightmare (2015) by Rodney Ascher, which is a documentary focused on extreme cases of sleep paralysis. Fuck that shit.

[Jess]

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn really creeped me out.

It was also not a good idea to listen to Broken Monsters whilst walking down a badly lit alleyway!

[Rachel]

I am Legend, The Exorcist, Harvest Home, Pet Sematary, Salem's Lot, Dominion by Bentley Little

[Branchie]

Penpal by Dathan Auerbach really got me. I’ve read and listened to it in audiobook form and.... chills.

[Dominic]

The only book to truly scare me to the point that I had to turn off the audio book was Laird Barrons Ocultataions. I was driving through Mexico at night and I could just not deal. I was also afraid of driving through mexico lol but this was to much. In General anything Thomas Ligotti or Laird Barron have done it for me. I see people mention Joe Hill. Heart Shaped Box had a few parts that were truly chilling.

[David]

Like many, Stephen King's work stands out as some of the scariest for me, The Shining and Salem's Lot. There was an E.F Benson short story 'The Room In the Tower' that terrified me as a kid.

[Rob]

solitaryfossil wrote: "Mine is the short story collection, Stephen King: Night Shift, maybe in 8th grade? Loved it, dreamed (nightmares) about some of the stories."

Em wrote: "When I was a kid the short story The Boogeyman by Stephen King gave me nightmares!"

Yep. Maybe it was the age I was when I read Night Shift (11 or 12), but that collection, especially The Boogeyman and Gray Matter, really got to me and invaded my dreams. I even wrote a kind of thesis on The Boogeyman in eighth grade. My teacher wrote a comment on my paper that I'd never even considered before: "WAS there actually a boogeyman?". I got an A on my paper.

[Anita]

Midnight

[Tabitha]

I don't scare that easily myself but these books I highly recommend. The Girl Next Door and Off Season by Jack Ketchum, Misery by Stephen King, Str8 Laced by Pheare Alexander, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, NOS4A2 by Joe Hill, and Survivor by J.F Gonzalez. You won't be disappointed.

[Meli]

I have GOT to read The Exorcist!

I loved NOS4A2 and look forward to the TV show adaptation.

[Vavita]

Meli wrote: "I have GOT to read The Exorcist!

I loved NOS4A2 and look forward to the TV show adaptation."

I did NOS4A2 as an audio and Kate Mulgrow's voice was the scariest thing ever! It was wicked!

[OliveTree]

Can't say I can think of a book thats "the scariest book ive ever read!!" but this got me thinking about what makes books scary as opposed to other stuff and i was actually talking with my sister about horror in books vs movies, specifically, and how books simply cannot have the same kind of horror in movies. They CAN'T stray towards instinctual, big slavering monsters or guys with knives kinds of horror, it simply doesn't work. Even something like Alien which i would argue is very smart horror wouldn't function in a book format, because the core of the horror is very like, lizard brain instinct stuff. Being trapped with a predator, that sort of thing.

The process of reading a book is literally just being informed of events and thinking about them, and the horror employed needs to me intellectual horror imo. Dont mistake me to mean like "oh yes mh hm i am an intellectual" I just mean it should be something that gets more creepy the longer you think about it, as opposed to like an ape killing people which kind of flatlines at some point when all you can do is imagine it

The Moving Finger by Stephen King is a really good example of such a thing, imo. The premise only gets more unsettling the longer you think about it, it's so strange and lacking foundation in any sense of normalcy to rely on. No spoilers, its about a guy who notices a finger poking out of his bathroom drain.

[Clint]

It by Stephen King.

[Cassi]

The Third Parent - Elias Witherow.

Less "jump-scare" scary, much more disturbing. In fact...very disturbing. One of the only books I had to put down and just sit for a while before picking it back up. Trigger warnings all around though for sexual assault and child abuse, wouldn't want you diving into it. If you're interested, you can look up Elias on Reddit, he posts some of his shorter stories there, it'll give you a feel for it. The Third Parent is the story of his Tommy Taffy character, so I'd peek at those to figure out if you want to go further or not.

[Tyler]

I don’t know if it was necessarily the scariest, but due to the disturbing nature of the book and the age I was when I read it, Steve Gerlach’s “Rage” was quite something.

It was about someone who devolved into what we know as a mass shooter now. Disturbing descent within those pages.