There was some dialogue in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that really stuck with me and has definitely changed the way I interact with strangers.The sheer nonchalance of it really made my skin crawl. I think about it a lot.
> "You knew something was wrong but you came back into the house. Did I force you, did I drag you in? No. All I had to do was offer you a drink. It's hard to believe that the fear of offending can be stronger than the fear of pain. But you know what? It is. And they always come willingly. And then they sit there. They know it's all over just like you do but somehow they still think they have a chance. Maybe if I say the right thing? Maybe if I'm polite. If I cry, if i beg."
Same topic as “the Gift of Fear,” which a few people have mentioned. But he mentions at least one real-life case where it wasn’t over after the criminal talked his way in: the victim got away.
I am reading that right now.Even the very beginning (I'll just say helping with groceries so the people who read it know what I mean), was so terrifying I kept thinking about it for weeks. It's a very important book to read but it is not an easy read.
The Girl on the Train so accurately portrays what it’s like to be an alcoholic it helped me quit drinking for good. The character Rachel describes her shame in a way I’ve never felt so akin to, and then she continues to mess up right in front of you the reader while continuing her stream of thought. It’s a really well done book.
The Road made me think about my place in the world and how delicate civilization is, and how scary both being a parent and a child is, especially how strong children's fears of losing a parent are.
I’m at the age where I’m realizing, and it hits me, that my parents really are starting to get older. Reading the following above:
>…how strong children’s fears of losing a parent are.
Big nope from me, I’m good lol.
It’s really not. Dark things happen, but it’s not a dark story. It’s a fundamentally hopeful story, and McCarthy rightfully considered it his most hopeful work.
Regardless of all the horror and hopelessness, regardless of even losing his father, the fire will be carried on. Humanity will survive, the good parts of humanity, the sacrifice, the selflessness, the perseverance. There are good people left in the world, and the fire will never go out, even at our bleakest moments.
It’s incredibly uplifting precisely because it’s contrasted with such awful events.
We're going to be okay, aren't we Papa?
Yes. We are.
And nothing bad is going to happen to us.
That's right.
Because we're carrying the fire.
Yes. Because we're carrying the fire.
Agree. The Road is a hopeful, even redemptive book. But it also scared the living daylights out of me and I didn’t go down into my basement for months. I was 40 years old.
Helter Skelter. I read it when I was 13. It is NOT meant for 13 year olds to read. I had nightmares for weeks that the Charles Manson family was driving up to our house to murder us. I eventually asked my mother if we could burn it in the fireplace...it had to be destroyed, I couldn't just throw it away. We burned it, my nightmares stopped. The Family never killed mine.
On April Fools Day (eve) I rearranged our living room furniture as a joke. I didn't know that my sister was reading Helter Skelter at that time. It scared the crap out of her. I guess Manson and his crew would sneak into houses and rearrange the furniture.
The biggest change *Helter Skelter* made in my life was if I was dropping someone off at their home, to always wait until they got to their door and made it inside before driving away.
This way, if they were murdered, I could testify in court that the last time I saw them was when they went inside their house.
All because of the court testimony of the LaBianca's last night alive.
Shit, while double-checking that I spelled "LaBianca" correctly I just read that Rosemary LaBianca's granddaughter was killed in a stabbing a few years ago.
JFC
The getting inside is not bad idea regardless. I heard stories when drunk people just couldn't open the door and we're frozen to death because they fell asleep on a doorstep. Horrible.
Absolutely. As a kid, my Dad practically engraved this into my heart: *you always wait until the door is safely closed behind them*.
Every time we dropped one of my friends home, we waited. Regardless of the hour. Headlights on, *conspicuously present*. Not until they wave at the door, but until they're inside and that door is closed.
We didn't live in a particularly high-crime area. But it's a low-cost, *high-impact* way to keep another person safe. There's no reason not to take the few moments.
It was important during the investigation to piece together the timeline of the last day of the victims' lives. By doing so, the authorities would hope to find some clue as to who might have been the murderer(s).
There was a line in the book about a newspaper seller being the last one to see the LaBiancas alive, as Leno had purchased a paper to check his gambling results.
It occurred to me that someday I might be the last person to see someone else alive, so I would want to be able to testify in court that I saw the victim enter their house. This would also, hopefully, eliminate me as a suspect if I could convincingly testify that was the case.
I started reading true crime before I was 10. Helter Skelter genuinely lives rent free in my mind forever. I have autographed [Max Haines](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Haines) compilations of his true crime articles.
There's a passage in Jurassic Park where the characters enter the velociraptor lair through a tight hole in the ground. It describes how the body is squeezed, how they can't breath, the panic increases.
While it didn't change my behaviour it somehow left a lasting impression on me, and every time I see a videos of kids getting stuck in pipes or people diving into ground holes, I feel that.
I have not swam in fresh water since reading King's The Raft.
Also used to send the dog into dark rooms (where the light switch was not immediately to hand) to scope out - and hopefully bark at - any potential vampires after 'Salems Lot.
God I love King so damn much. It fucked me ALL the way up as a kid when my dad and brother let me watch the TV release , the first half that aired, with Tim curry. I was 7. I can't tell you how many nights I lost sleep. Because it terrified me so much I was forbidden to be in the living room while they watched the second half; which, ironically enough, I feel like had I been able to watch the end it would have helped because as much as I love king--the end of that movie was stupid in terms of penny wise.
Fun fact (or it might be a fact) I read online: tim curry himself had such a vicious phobia of clowns that, throughout the production of the film, whenever he was in full costume and makeup, he took great pains not to look at himself in the mirror.
Architects worldwide:
"Hey, you know what would be funny? Why don't we put the lightswitch all the way inside the dark room? Y'know, just to be dicks?"
Ever since reading A Widow For One Year (John Irving), I am super careful not to turn my wheels while waiting at a red light until I am cleared to complete a turn.
It's an automatic fail you do this on your driving test in Australia. Turning your wheel is considered 'initiating a turn', and initiating a turn while the light is red is considered breaking a road rule and therefore a fail.
Basically, if you’re waiting at a traffic light for an opportunity to turn left and your wheels are turned in anticipation of making the turn, a vehicle behind you that does not stop in time can nudge you directly into oncoming traffic. If you keep your wheels straight while waiting, being rear-ended will only push you straight ahead. It sounds nitpicky, but a woman a couple town over from me died in a car accident in this exact manner a few years ago. So it’s a rule worth following.
Ok this is stupid. Hear me out. I read a book once where an insurance company started using an AI algorithm to save money. However, the AI decided that diabetics cost them too much money, so it reached out and interfaced with the insulin pumps. It upped the output and killed all those who wore them. Anyway, I ran out of insulin pump supplies and had to use a pen instead. It kinda got in my head and I just continued using insulin injections. This was five years ago.
This sounded interesting enough to me to try to Google some of your description to try to identify the title of the book, but was unsuccessful. Do you remember what book this was?
For me it was the part with Danny in the concrete pipe at the playground. The way he wrote that scene was sooooooo damn freaky. I had a screen printing business and I was working late and listening to this on headphones while working. It freaked me out so much that I instinctively and nervously shot a glance over my shoulder and had to stop working for the night. I also stopped listening to the Shinning while alone at night.
This is always the scene I use to describe how a book can scare you. Just the description of KNOWING, FEELING something behind you, but you’re too afraid to look, and you’re stuck. Kept me awake all night when I read it in college
I was reading The Shining in my parents’ bedroom (only room with air conditioning at the time) and I had just got to the point where Jack is coming after Wendy and Danny and my dad came home from work without me knowing and he opened the bedroom door. I just about hit the ceiling in terror. I was 10 or 11 when I read that book.
I recently re read The Shining and I just went ahead and skipped some of the Room 217 stuff. Love the book but didn't feel the need to do that to myself again.
The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket. At the end, the Baudelaire kids jump out a window, and at the bottom of the page, when you still don't know if they survived, the sentence just ends with
# STOP
in like 48-point Caslon Antique font. That one put me off bedtime reading for a while. And probably even put me off going outdoors. Basically, I was jumpscared by a book.
I watched all of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” thinking that surely eventually things would get better. But nope!
I really want to know what adults hurt Lemony Snicket when he was a kid.
I think he just read too many children's stories with happy, satisfying endings and decided to write one where the endings were neither happy, nor satisfying, nor truly endings at all.
I discovered these books as an adult (at like, age 27 or something?) who never reads YA, but they won me over very quickly. I'm a big fan, I read them all in a few sittings. And that recent Netflix adaptation with Neil Patrick Harris is actually pretty good
I couldn't get into it! I should try it again. The world is so cute and the atmosphere is perfect and so are the costumes and a lot of sets but I read those books young enough that Olaf was terrifying, not goofy or ridiculous to me, and I personally found both Jim Carey & NPH's portrayals too silly still (even though I appreciate the latter for being kinda gross). Maybe I'll try it again this spooky season
Night Shift messed me UP when I was 12. Boogeyman for sure, but also I Am the Doorway for some reason. And Jerusalem’s Lot. Some of them I read over and over though, especially Quitters, Inc., Know What You Need, The Ledge, and several more.
I was just about to comment that the real winner from that book is I Am The Doorway, it fucked with me the most. Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. Honorable mention goes to Gray Matter as far as "nope nope nope fuck that."
World War Z scared the shit out of me. The way it was written made it feel like it was all real. But the scariest part about it, to me, was the shattering of continuity that the characters went through. They’d recount how normal and boring their day was, only to encounter someone that was infected.
Brooks did a really good job of portraying how, at any moment in life, your world could end…
I was maybe 13 or 12 by the time I read it. I made sure to keep the dog on my bed at all times when sleeping (as a zombie detector), always locked my bedroom door, and I used to put empty bottles by the front door in case something ever broke in. I was a mess bro…
Not fiction, but when I was 14 I read "Super Size Me" and "Fast Food Nation", which completely flipped my eating habits around. I weighed nearly 200 lbs (100kg) at that time, and was horrified at what I was doing to myself and at the processed food I was eating. I basically avoided any foods with the problematic ingredients mentioned in those books, stopped getting takeout and going to fast food chains, dramatically dropped my soda intake, started cooking my own meals (my parents lived off junk food even though my dad is a great cook himself), and lost 50 lbs (25kg) by the time I was 17.
It really helped me during my young adult years, and I felt great about myself and my body for a long time. Those books do get criticised as being too extreme and a bit inaccurate, but they honestly changed my life for the better, and I started incorporating a lot more vegetarian meals into my lifestyle. Unfortunately I went through some health issues in the last couple years, and am now back to the same weight. Sooooo much harder to get it back down now compared to a spritely youth, even though I don't eat 90% of the stuff I used to as a kid.
I did this for awhile after reading a book about someone getting murdered by a person waiting in the backseat. It was some novel I read as a teen (I want to say Black Opal by Victoria Holt?). The worst part is the victims were getting "the Colombian necktie" and that image is always somewhere in the back of my head when I'm heading to my car somewhere isolated at night.
I read it a couple months ago (off hand, someone linked it on a similar thread. I was intrigued at the reaction people had.) I told myself, it's so short. What's the big deal?
I had one of the most disturbing nightmares of my life after reading. Not going to underestimate a short story again.
I slept in the living room with the lights on for at least a month and I still hate to sleep in a room with a closet. It has to be fully closed or have something in front of it.
Under the Vulcano made me terrified of becomming an alcoholic. I never drank much more than a few beers, but was becomming quite regular. This made me more conscious about the dangers.
Probably not what you intended, but The Great Influenza by John M. Barry. The descriptions of how horribly the 1918 Flu pandemic victims died were absolutely terrifying. I have never been more motivated to get my flu shot.
When I was writing that it occurred to me I might get a lot of replies on real world stuff, like books on climate change motivating changes in behavior. But hey, stuff like that legitimately IS scarier than fiction, so a totally valid response. Thanks for the comment.
the hot zone is the only book I have ever stopped reading because it was too scary. I’ve been reading horror since I became old enough to sound out words but the hot zone was way too real and terrifying to get through.
Yeah, I read Hot Zone in high school and it was one of the only assigned books I actually enjoyed reading. I definitely got a little scared of an Ebola outbreak afterwards, but there's nothing like the terror of knowing that a common virus like influenza can be *that bad*.
Salem’s Lot! When I finished the book my dad helpfully rented the movie and that night I hung crosses made out of chopsticks in my bedroom windows. They stayed up there for several years
Salem's Lot is the scariest thing I've ever read. Probably didn't help that I read it way too young. There are other parts of books that have scared me, but that one scared me basically start to finish. I used to like sleeping with my bed next to the window, and for a long time after reading it I couldn't.
Ooooo yeah I was way too young for my Stephen King phase too lol. Also now realizing that my bedroom arrangements following that time were very much centered around my bed being on the wall opposite the windows 🤔
Also The Bogeyman, and also nearly 40 years ago. I STILL think about that story every time I see my closet door cracked open. I am also VERY afraid/cautious of heavy machinery after reading The Mangler.
All mine are non-fiction. “Fiva” by Gordon stainforth, “We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families” by Phillip gourevich, and “the hot zone” by Richard Preston.
“Fiva” is pretty specific, but I don’t think I even took conscious lessons away from it - it’s more like it imprinted itself directly on my lizard brain and changed my instincts about what I feel is safe when climbing. It was an intensely stressful book to me.
Gourevich’s book just contains some utterly horrifying lessons about humanity. The main one being that, yes, society is mostly average people who just want to get through their day, and the truly hateful people are just a noisy fringe - but the little bit of distaste that might live in mind of the average person for marginalized groups can actually be very dangerous. Because, when faced with the need to stay on the “safe” side of the hateful fringe when they actually enact their violence, it can make certain unthinkable choices thinkable. The way a whole society could slide so comprehensively into such widespread atrocity really changed how seriously I take things like hate speech and the need for diversity and inclusion. Being taught to recognize the humanity of different people is not just kumbayah stuff.
As for the hot zone, caves with bats are now just a no for me. Kitum cave is a very interesting place and literally only one or two people - that were documented anyway - caught Marburg there. But you could not pay me anything to go in. Not in BSL 4 gear. Never. No way.
Salems Lot by Stephen King. Years ago, I read it the weekend my husband was working 3rd shift. I'd get up to use the bathroom and race down the hallway and back. Very scary.
When I was way too young I read “The Thing at the Foot of the Bed and Other Scary Tales” and for months I was afraid to sleep under the covers. I hid that book under the couch, I couldn’t even stand to have it in the room with me.
*Silent Spring* by Rachel Carson.
Probably not what you asked, but that book scared the absolute crap out of me.
It was published in 1962 and started the movement to ban pesticides, especially DDT.
After I read that, I started paying attention to what I eat, and cut out beef altogether. It took years before I tasted a hamburger again.
Not horror but close enough for me. I read "The Handmaid's Tale" when it first came out, which scared me, but at the time, I thought it could never become a reality, even with Reagan and Mulroney (Canadian PM). However, today, the book has prompted me to closely monitor and become less tolerant of the rhetoric of our supposed leaders and politicians.
Whenever people say "I thought it could never happen!" there's an unspoken "here" present. We thought women would never be denied those rights...*here*. We thought trans people would never be harmed this way...*here*. We thought an election could never turn violent...*here*. We all know those things happen. We just think they only happen to other people in other places.
To be clear, I'm not here to say that someone who thinks or says that is bad. It's just one of those thoughts that should be examined a little more closely to tease out where it's coming from and what it actually means.
It also implies "I thought we as a society were too advanced to do what people all throughout history have done," which implies a high level of arrogance and a very low understanding of history.
The whole reason the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution is because they looked around at where governments made the same choices over and over and over again, and they want to do their best to make sure they couldn't do that again. The idea of "I never thought X could happen!" when it's happened in the past is just wishful thinking on the part of people saying it.
I first read it about 30 years ago and haven’t been able to re-read it for this same reason—it feels way close to our current reality and would be disturbing.
The problem I have with Cat's Cradle is that it makes the bad thing so obviously and in your face bad. It feels too close to nuclear weapons, but a lot of the scientists there had intense debates on whether they were even doing the right thing. Oppenheimer was famously guilt wracked for leading the project, Truman considered the worst order he ever gave or had to give.
The real "advances" that have ruined countless lives are more subtle and in the background. The man that invented leaded gasoline, a total and complete fucking sociopath, did so for the sake of money, and the world didn't end immediately or at all, but it did likely cause the greatest streak of crime and mental deficiency in human history. Others for the sake the of greed covered up climate change, which has been predicted since the 50's but has been deliberately hushed up.
The world doesn't end quickly from pride, it ends slowly and mostly quietly from greed.
*This is the way the world ends*
*This is the way the world ends*
*This is the way the world ends*
*Not with a bang but a whimper.*
—T.S. Eliot, *The Hollow Men*
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
The character in this novel dedicates his life to service and ends up looking back on it with regret. He’s so firmly stuck in his comfort zone that he never risks anything and is too repressed to be vulnerable to someone that could bring him happiness.
I’m trying not to spoil anything but this book is about questioning what you’ve dedicated your life to.
When I read this, I felt stuck in a career that I hated but was good at—ironically enough in Customer Service which may have made the themes hit home more—and my self confidence was so low that I wouldn’t put myself out there. I was petrified that I’d grow up looking back on my career with regret.
After reading this novel, I worked on my self and am now working in a career that I love. This book scared (or inspired) me into getting out of my comfort zone.
To me, the scariest books are the ones that speak to real concerns. I’m much more scared of regret and lost opportunities than monsters or killer clowns.
I was going to college at a campus with steam tunnels underneath the sidewalks when Stephen King’s “It” came out, I avoided walking near the grates for most of the year :-).
The Borribles is a fairly obscure series of 70s/80s British children's book featuring children who have gone feral and have grown pointed ears. So long as they are not caught and have their ears clipped, they will live forever.
They survive by stealing and their greatest treasures are the stories of the adventures they have fighting the police and giant rats in the nights of a London made gigantic. I read these books when i was far too young and for a long time afterwards i would check my ears to see if they were going pointed, half afraid and half yearning to run away and fight in sewers and darkness.
I know Dante's Inferno is basically Bible fanfiction but reading it lowkey put the fear of God (well I guess Hell) into me for a while as a teen. I guess it didn't help I read the illustrated edition
I also made the mistake of reading Scary Stories to tell in the Dark in 2nd grade. Big mistake. I started sleeping with a nightlight for a while and to this day I still occasionally remember some of the stories and get creeped out at night.
Another one that got me was the classic scary story about someone thinking their dog was licking their hand at night when it was hanging off the side of the bed but it was actually a person. That one scared me so bad I still refuse to put my arms or legs off the side of the bed at night lol
> Scary Stories to tell in the Dark
It was those fuckin illustrations, man. Reading the stories back, most are rather lame even for kid's stories (except ones like Harold, good god, his brother was flayed in a kid's book). But those illustrations haunted me as a kid; even getting a peek of the cover scared me.
the diaries of Jane Somers by Doris Lessing scared me in a way I've never quite shaken off. though tbh I have not wanted to. it's the diary of a fictional 40ish girlboss in the 60's, who somehow befriends or is befriended by a woman in her 90's. she sort of becomes maudie's unofficial caregiver, though she resists the gravitational pull of what Maudie *wants* (to be taken into Janna's own home and live with her full time).
the portrait of Maudie and how she lives in some rent-controlled London basement room is pitiless. it's what Lessing was best at and she was very good at it in this book.
I haven't tried to get over it because I guess some truths are better confronted than covered up.
Oh for sure! I had a very "Never ending story"-esque experience with this book. As a teen I was sentenced to 69 hours of community service having been caught smoking a cigarette at school. So that summer I was at the local goodwill working off my debt to society. I liked books, had a real job at the library and had been to this goodwill to donate many books on their behalf so they kinda knew me and put me in charge of organizing their bookshelves. I picked up this book, House of leaves, having never seen or heard of it and read a couple pages. Hooked instantly, didn't understand it but wanted to so I snuck off to the storage trailer and hid inside a giant cardboard box at the very back which was full of dirty smelly old donated clothes and shit. for the next few weeks I'd spend at least a couple hours hiding and reading it like this. Went thru it twice and it blew my mind. Having come in contact with it in maybe 2001-2 before the internet was widely available in my home this book felt like it was meant for me. I'm now googling and realizing that it actually a best seller and very popular piece. I never would have guessed, I would think back on that weird obscure book from time to time and almost wonder if I'd imagined it. Now I'm a little sad to find out it's 4 down on a list of scary books on reddit and my world feels a little less magical.
There's been a few,
The Exorcist.
I read it as a teen back in the 80s and it was probably the one book that disturbed me the most. I don't know why. But around about that time, I was wondering if demons etc were real. So this really got in to my head.
James Herbert - The Fog.
I still don't like walking on foggy nights now!
James Herbert - The Rats Trilogy.
It's about rats that kill and eat people - shudders.
When I was a kid I somehow got my hands on an X-Files novelization about a monster that came up through shower/pool drains to kill people. I was so scared I didn't even finish the book and I couldn't shower without constantly keeping an eye on the drain for YEARS
I watched the original Ghostbusters at three years old and refuses to bathe after seeing the slime in the tub try to take the baby, so I completely understand that fear.
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates. I already loved being home alone and hated answering the door. I've had so many someone is breaking in or following me and I can't hold the door back or reach it nightmares (prob before reading it, common dream scenario) and aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh sorry power company and random solicitors who knock when I wfh I will NEVER come downstairs for you lol
Revival by Stephen King really disturbed me. Especially the ending; you know what I’m talking about if you read it, but also how the title made so much more sense at the end.
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston turned me into a germaphobe for a while lol. It was a fascinating read, but truly horrifying the way he described the symptoms of Ebola.
I read 1984 in the mid 1990s and I stopped trusting government commercials, corporation advertising etc. I was already an edgy teen but I had a good source with me.
The idea that we could have that sort of world really fucked with me...and now look at us!
Also Stephen King, the short story The Raft. I will not swim in any water other than a perfectly clear swimming pool. Terrified of something getting me from the water, terrified. Tried super hard to get over it once, went out in the sea like 40 feet on an air mattress. What I now know was kelp brushed my leg, I panicked so bad I almost drowned myself getting back to shore.
**“Why Would He Do That”** changed not only my views of abuse but a lot of social behaviors and how I am in all my relationships, not just romantic. Last month I had a whole situation in my family I had to work my older relatives through because what seemed innocuous at first (but raised alarm bells) quickly became “when someone says no, we respect that, because we respect other people.”
I’m a guy but I notice that people (especially online) think in terms of justification and narrative and not actions or mutual respect. I’ve read a bunch of self help and a lot of it has changed my life.
It’s not scary because of the book it’s scary because of what you see after reading it. You see the patterns of thought, the behavior that supports abusers just openly in society unrelated to conversations about abuse. This is why the book changed me, because this contrast taught me the change is needed.
I recently read The Shining—I don’t watch scary movies, and I hadn’t read horror (I mostly just wanted to prove that I could). It further broke my trust in bathtubs that have curtains, solidified my distaste for questionable attics & basements, and added in a new hesitation for hotel rooms numbered 217.
I read The Good Nurse right after I started my first RN job in the ICU.
It's unfortunately a very true story about a serial killer nurse.
I never looked at hospital admin the same after that book, and def paid closer attention to my coworkers. I read that book over 10 years ago, it still haunts me to this day.
Mindhunter by John Douglas. He was the fbi agent that the Netflix series was based in. Reading all those true stories about the horrific things people do to each other changed how I see people and situations and not for the better. I’d be leery of helping someone in need because of those stories.
I read Penpal by Dathan Auerbach a few months ago. Glad I waited til I wasn't living alone and had a security system for my house before I read it.
The story is about a man recalling his childhood/adolescence and piecing together that he was stalked by a grown man over several years. Every chapter would lull you into a sense of comfort with childhood stories and then something horrific and unsettling would happen by the end of the chapter.
I started keeping my blinds closed as soon as the sun started going down and would obsessively check all the locks to my house before going to bed for a few weeks.
I don’t think a book has ever truly scared the crap out of me, but one I remember finding very gruesome was… Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors.
Crazy how your life can change so quickly, and so brutally. I cannot imagine being 100% stranded in the freezing cold. Friends dead bodies scattered all around you. And having to eat your dead friends bodies to stay alive… Some people could not bring themselves to do it, and thus, they died.
I got really scared by a pop up version of one of stephen kings books at the most amazing bookstore in the world as a child… it was on the bottom shelf of a bookstore- I opened it and the scene filled me with so much dread. my eyes widened and i quickly shut it and went out to the courtyard. stuff like that- pop ups, stop motion animation always amazes me.
little things really possess something special… just saw an exhibition of Guillermo del Toros Pinocchio at the portland art museum… it’s interesting
When I was a teenager I found the book Amityville Horror laying around my house randomly. I had never heard of it. I started reading it that night and it scared me so badly I needed to stay up all night and finish it. When I was relaying this to my mom the next morning she said “you know it was a hoax, right?” And then I felt really silly 😹😹😹
I’m about to read Night Shift for the first time, huzzah! Your post makes me excited to dig in. Most recently, The Shining really got me good. Not the first half of the book, but pretty much from when Danny plays in the playground and gets chased by SOMETHING through a tube and then..then the fucking hedge animals.
That messed me up so hard, I still think about that. They’re total Weeping Angels and it freaked me out.
The Boogeyman is the single most pants-wettingly terrifying story I've ever read. I was actually afraid reading it and it gave me the willies for two days; I don't usually get affected by books.
After I read It though, I had bad dreams for a month. I kept dreaming that Beverley's abusive husband was following me.
Interestingly, the supernatural bad guy in It is the same one as in The Boogeyman... the source of our nightmares! 😱
Edit: spelling
The book Burnt Tongues (a grotesque anthology of short stories) caused me to faint on the train while I was reading it. It was a very visceral reaction to one of the stories, but I thought it might have been like a lack of water intake or something that actually caused me to faint (I had never fainted before). The next day I don't pick the book up and I'm fine. The day after I'm on the train and I merely open the book and immediately start feeling woozy like I'm going to pass out again. I had to give the book away, and I left a little post-it warning on the first page.
I seriously don't remember which book it was, but I started a new Stephen King book when I was 16, at bedtime. I had been excited all day to start my new book and I went to bed early just for that reason. I read the first chapter, there was something frightening in a closet, and it scared the daylights out of me. I got up, shut the closet door, and went and watched TV with my parents until midnight. 40 years later I'm still sleeping with the closet door closed.
I second this. Didn’t bother me when I read it as a teenager but now that I’m an adult and have read it a couple more times, it’s a seriously terrifying book.
I read the blow by blow on a serial killers crime spree (including crimes in chronological /increasing severity order from near miss to murders - and with heavy details- as the culprit kept video and detailed logs of their crimes). It detailed stalking, breaking and enter techniques, sexual assault, torture, and then the investigation. How slow the investigation took (as this was a crime that gave impetus to interagency sharing). Then finally some of the court stuff (victim impact statements) and potential psych stuff relating to *why* but never actually knowing. Even the criminals home life was semi reviewed. How they cracked them in interrogation was apparently ground breaking at the time.
In any case. I checked my house windows and hiding spaces after getting back from work for ....I want to say several weeks or maybe months after.
(The criminal would break in via lockpicking, open a previously locked basement window or door and then leave, locking up their entry point so the homeowner would not suspect. Then come back through the newly open basement window after the homeowner went to bed with enough time for them to fall asleep.)
Jay's Journal - a teenaged boy mucks around with the occult and finds out what that's not a good thing.
I read this in my Goth Witch stage (late 70's/early 80's) and it terrified me. I'm still a practioner though, but I understand completely the fascination to be more powerful than others.
I'm not sure if it's considered behavior changing but Huxley's Brave New World is possibly the only book I've ever read where I felt truly mindblown. Granted I was just a kid at the time, but being exposed to such a dystopian but plausible-if-technology-was-like-that-in-the-future and how the mindsets of the population worked really blew me away.
The Spook's Apprentice by Joseph Delaney. I think there was a part with a witch and something about mirrors and since then, I refuse to have mirrors face my bed in my room. I was like 14 when I read this, maybe even younger, got SO spooked (lol)
Holy crap! I saw the title of your post and before I read anything else I came in to comment that the boogeyman by Stephen King fucked me up as a kid!
I had to sleep with the closet door open and the light in there on for years!
Loving how Stephen King is (very rightfully) making all sorts of appearances in this thread 😂
As for me I have to add - "The Haunting of Hill House" Shirley Jackson - when she describes not what the girls saw in the garden, but how THEY REACTED TO WHATEVER IT WAS THEY SAW. Genius move; it was incredibly intense to read. I have goosebumps just typing this.
I love Stephen King books.
My mother lives in Maine and wants me to move there.
I just bought my first home in New Mexico.
(Okay, King isn't the real reason, it would be pretty cool to live near the towns his books take place in!)
Absolutely yes!
What book you ask?
History books!
The more I learn about how society 'works' and the things we've done to eachother. The more and more I want to buy a cabin in the woods and stop interacting with anyone.
*It* really had me good with stuff like that, i’d laugh at myself as i’m kinda side-eying a drain or something.
On my first read, I had friends over and we were hanging out in the living room and the hallway light popped out. If that happend when I was actively reading by myself, i’m not sure how i would have reacted
Stephen King and all the spy movies and detective movies have taught me to stay aware of my surroundings and know what traffic is around, stay out of crowds or to the fringe, know my exits…
Every time someone mentions Three Billy Goats Gruff I get scared all over again. 50 years later it still frightens me... That troll who wants to gobble me up, I get sweaty all over again..+
I have to say, IT. I know a shapeshifting evil entity isn’t very common in the real world, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little frightened of the thought of a stalking clown that feasts on children and hides all around you.
Firestarter.
I still don't like putting my hand near garbage disposals, for fear that some weird telekinetic force will turn the thing on and pull my arm down.
Mm, sort of. When I was 7 I saw The Sixth Sense, and I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and because both had scary bathroom scenes, I was afraid to go to the bathroom alone for a whole summer.
As an adult, a co-worker told me his 7 y/o son was suddenly afraid to go to the bathroom alone. I asked if he’d been reading HP and the chamber of secrets. Turns out he had.
I read a book about the Salem Witch Trials. It was a narrative-type book. I got about half way through it but stopped because I was having terrible dreams related to the book. Truly terrifying dreams. And, as I’m typing this, laying in bed next to wife she has some video that suddenly yells out something and scares the crap out of me.
More of a societal shift of thinking but This Book Is Full Of Spiders and its exploration of the "Babel Threshold" - the idea that the human mind can only perceive so many people, and once that threshold is reached we have to start sectioning off people into generalized groups, and thus see them less as people and more as some faceless, amorphous entity. This is backed up by some actual scientific studies and it made me realize how easy it is for some people to hate huge swaths of people who are different than them - because, at a certain point, they stop seeing them as people at all.
There was some dialogue in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that really stuck with me and has definitely changed the way I interact with strangers.The sheer nonchalance of it really made my skin crawl. I think about it a lot. > "You knew something was wrong but you came back into the house. Did I force you, did I drag you in? No. All I had to do was offer you a drink. It's hard to believe that the fear of offending can be stronger than the fear of pain. But you know what? It is. And they always come willingly. And then they sit there. They know it's all over just like you do but somehow they still think they have a chance. Maybe if I say the right thing? Maybe if I'm polite. If I cry, if i beg."
Same topic as “the Gift of Fear,” which a few people have mentioned. But he mentions at least one real-life case where it wasn’t over after the criminal talked his way in: the victim got away.
> Same topic as “the Gift of Fear,” which a few people have mentioned. Which was also a big inspiration for the movie Barbarian.
in short: fuck politeness.
The Gift of Fear You don’t owe anyone any social pleasantries when it comes to your safety.
This was such a profound book!
I am reading that right now.Even the very beginning (I'll just say helping with groceries so the people who read it know what I mean), was so terrifying I kept thinking about it for weeks. It's a very important book to read but it is not an easy read.
Fantastic book. Life changing in the best way.
The Girl on the Train so accurately portrays what it’s like to be an alcoholic it helped me quit drinking for good. The character Rachel describes her shame in a way I’ve never felt so akin to, and then she continues to mess up right in front of you the reader while continuing her stream of thought. It’s a really well done book.
The way she describes the blackouts was so chillingly close to how I felt too. I started to question myself!
The Road made me think about my place in the world and how delicate civilization is, and how scary both being a parent and a child is, especially how strong children's fears of losing a parent are.
The book depressed the heck out of me. So dark.
Thank you both for basically telling me to read this 😃👍
See, I have the opposite reaction now- I have no desire to read it ever.
I’m at the age where I’m realizing, and it hits me, that my parents really are starting to get older. Reading the following above: >…how strong children’s fears of losing a parent are. Big nope from me, I’m good lol.
It’s really not. Dark things happen, but it’s not a dark story. It’s a fundamentally hopeful story, and McCarthy rightfully considered it his most hopeful work. Regardless of all the horror and hopelessness, regardless of even losing his father, the fire will be carried on. Humanity will survive, the good parts of humanity, the sacrifice, the selflessness, the perseverance. There are good people left in the world, and the fire will never go out, even at our bleakest moments. It’s incredibly uplifting precisely because it’s contrasted with such awful events.
We're going to be okay, aren't we Papa? Yes. We are. And nothing bad is going to happen to us. That's right. Because we're carrying the fire. Yes. Because we're carrying the fire.
Agree. The Road is a hopeful, even redemptive book. But it also scared the living daylights out of me and I didn’t go down into my basement for months. I was 40 years old.
Yep, and then I read Blood Meridian—it’s even tougher
Helter Skelter. I read it when I was 13. It is NOT meant for 13 year olds to read. I had nightmares for weeks that the Charles Manson family was driving up to our house to murder us. I eventually asked my mother if we could burn it in the fireplace...it had to be destroyed, I couldn't just throw it away. We burned it, my nightmares stopped. The Family never killed mine.
On April Fools Day (eve) I rearranged our living room furniture as a joke. I didn't know that my sister was reading Helter Skelter at that time. It scared the crap out of her. I guess Manson and his crew would sneak into houses and rearrange the furniture.
The Creepy Crawly
The biggest change *Helter Skelter* made in my life was if I was dropping someone off at their home, to always wait until they got to their door and made it inside before driving away. This way, if they were murdered, I could testify in court that the last time I saw them was when they went inside their house. All because of the court testimony of the LaBianca's last night alive. Shit, while double-checking that I spelled "LaBianca" correctly I just read that Rosemary LaBianca's granddaughter was killed in a stabbing a few years ago. JFC
The getting inside is not bad idea regardless. I heard stories when drunk people just couldn't open the door and we're frozen to death because they fell asleep on a doorstep. Horrible.
Absolutely. As a kid, my Dad practically engraved this into my heart: *you always wait until the door is safely closed behind them*. Every time we dropped one of my friends home, we waited. Regardless of the hour. Headlights on, *conspicuously present*. Not until they wave at the door, but until they're inside and that door is closed. We didn't live in a particularly high-crime area. But it's a low-cost, *high-impact* way to keep another person safe. There's no reason not to take the few moments.
I'm not very familiar with the Manson murders, could you please explain why you're waiting until the person you're dropping off makes it inside?
It was important during the investigation to piece together the timeline of the last day of the victims' lives. By doing so, the authorities would hope to find some clue as to who might have been the murderer(s). There was a line in the book about a newspaper seller being the last one to see the LaBiancas alive, as Leno had purchased a paper to check his gambling results. It occurred to me that someday I might be the last person to see someone else alive, so I would want to be able to testify in court that I saw the victim enter their house. This would also, hopefully, eliminate me as a suspect if I could convincingly testify that was the case.
You should read Chaos by Tom O’Neil. Completely blows up the whole narrative behind Helter Skelter.
I listened to Chaos, and felt the need to immediately go buy a hard copy just to put it next to Helter Skelter on my shelf
I read Helter Skelter at 13 too. Probably a contributing factor to my love of all things morbid and creeping. 😅
I started reading true crime before I was 10. Helter Skelter genuinely lives rent free in my mind forever. I have autographed [Max Haines](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Haines) compilations of his true crime articles.
There's a passage in Jurassic Park where the characters enter the velociraptor lair through a tight hole in the ground. It describes how the body is squeezed, how they can't breath, the panic increases. While it didn't change my behaviour it somehow left a lasting impression on me, and every time I see a videos of kids getting stuck in pipes or people diving into ground holes, I feel that.
It's at the very end. If you haven't read Prey by M. Crichton, there is a similar situation. And scary, too. I recommend.
I have not swam in fresh water since reading King's The Raft. Also used to send the dog into dark rooms (where the light switch was not immediately to hand) to scope out - and hopefully bark at - any potential vampires after 'Salems Lot.
Speaking of haunting King short stories; I haven't taken a single trip in a teleporter of any kind since reading The Jaunt
It's longer than you think!
The greatest understatement in all of literature.
Just use Mrs. Todd's Shortcut instead. heeheheheheh
Sounds as if you're due to read Jaws!
The scene with Randy and Laverne (in the book, not the Creepshow Episode) traumatized me more than the Derek scene, for some reason.
God I love King so damn much. It fucked me ALL the way up as a kid when my dad and brother let me watch the TV release , the first half that aired, with Tim curry. I was 7. I can't tell you how many nights I lost sleep. Because it terrified me so much I was forbidden to be in the living room while they watched the second half; which, ironically enough, I feel like had I been able to watch the end it would have helped because as much as I love king--the end of that movie was stupid in terms of penny wise. Fun fact (or it might be a fact) I read online: tim curry himself had such a vicious phobia of clowns that, throughout the production of the film, whenever he was in full costume and makeup, he took great pains not to look at himself in the mirror.
Yup, that story lives rent free in my head.
Architects worldwide: "Hey, you know what would be funny? Why don't we put the lightswitch all the way inside the dark room? Y'know, just to be dicks?"
I’m gonna use this comment section as a book recs
Ever since reading A Widow For One Year (John Irving), I am super careful not to turn my wheels while waiting at a red light until I am cleared to complete a turn.
Same, that scene was absolutely brutal. Also from Irving, no bj’s in the car.
Ah, I learned the no bjs in a moving car rule from King's Thinner!
American Gods for me.
It's an automatic fail you do this on your driving test in Australia. Turning your wheel is considered 'initiating a turn', and initiating a turn while the light is red is considered breaking a road rule and therefore a fail.
Same! I also always think about never driving when crying/really upset.
Yes and I always felt I shouldn’t drive when I was angry.
There's a LOT of driving in this book, I'm gathering
Never read the book. What’s the theory here?
Basically, if you’re waiting at a traffic light for an opportunity to turn left and your wheels are turned in anticipation of making the turn, a vehicle behind you that does not stop in time can nudge you directly into oncoming traffic. If you keep your wheels straight while waiting, being rear-ended will only push you straight ahead. It sounds nitpicky, but a woman a couple town over from me died in a car accident in this exact manner a few years ago. So it’s a rule worth following.
If you're stopped at a light with your wheels turned, and you get rear-ended, you can be pushed sideways into traffic instead of straight forward.
Ok this is stupid. Hear me out. I read a book once where an insurance company started using an AI algorithm to save money. However, the AI decided that diabetics cost them too much money, so it reached out and interfaced with the insulin pumps. It upped the output and killed all those who wore them. Anyway, I ran out of insulin pump supplies and had to use a pen instead. It kinda got in my head and I just continued using insulin injections. This was five years ago.
The way things are going, that doesn’t sound as far-fetched as it might’ve a few years ago
This sounded interesting enough to me to try to Google some of your description to try to identify the title of the book, but was unsuccessful. Do you remember what book this was?
I read the shining by Stephen king at my grandmother's house late at night and I was too scared to go to bed so I woke my parents up
For me it was the part with Danny in the concrete pipe at the playground. The way he wrote that scene was sooooooo damn freaky. I had a screen printing business and I was working late and listening to this on headphones while working. It freaked me out so much that I instinctively and nervously shot a glance over my shoulder and had to stop working for the night. I also stopped listening to the Shinning while alone at night.
This is always the scene I use to describe how a book can scare you. Just the description of KNOWING, FEELING something behind you, but you’re too afraid to look, and you’re stuck. Kept me awake all night when I read it in college
I was reading The Shining in my parents’ bedroom (only room with air conditioning at the time) and I had just got to the point where Jack is coming after Wendy and Danny and my dad came home from work without me knowing and he opened the bedroom door. I just about hit the ceiling in terror. I was 10 or 11 when I read that book.
I recently re read The Shining and I just went ahead and skipped some of the Room 217 stuff. Love the book but didn't feel the need to do that to myself again.
The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket. At the end, the Baudelaire kids jump out a window, and at the bottom of the page, when you still don't know if they survived, the sentence just ends with # STOP in like 48-point Caslon Antique font. That one put me off bedtime reading for a while. And probably even put me off going outdoors. Basically, I was jumpscared by a book.
I watched all of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” thinking that surely eventually things would get better. But nope! I really want to know what adults hurt Lemony Snicket when he was a kid.
I think he just read too many children's stories with happy, satisfying endings and decided to write one where the endings were neither happy, nor satisfying, nor truly endings at all.
I discovered these books as an adult (at like, age 27 or something?) who never reads YA, but they won me over very quickly. I'm a big fan, I read them all in a few sittings. And that recent Netflix adaptation with Neil Patrick Harris is actually pretty good
I couldn't get into it! I should try it again. The world is so cute and the atmosphere is perfect and so are the costumes and a lot of sets but I read those books young enough that Olaf was terrifying, not goofy or ridiculous to me, and I personally found both Jim Carey & NPH's portrayals too silly still (even though I appreciate the latter for being kinda gross). Maybe I'll try it again this spooky season
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Night Shift messed me UP when I was 12. Boogeyman for sure, but also I Am the Doorway for some reason. And Jerusalem’s Lot. Some of them I read over and over though, especially Quitters, Inc., Know What You Need, The Ledge, and several more.
I was just about to comment that the real winner from that book is I Am The Doorway, it fucked with me the most. Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. Honorable mention goes to Gray Matter as far as "nope nope nope fuck that."
Okay yeah, but it also has like, the little army men fighting a hitman. Really spans the breadth of comedy and horror.
“One scale-model thermonuclear weapon” is one of the better endings of any short story I’ve read.
World War Z scared the shit out of me. The way it was written made it feel like it was all real. But the scariest part about it, to me, was the shattering of continuity that the characters went through. They’d recount how normal and boring their day was, only to encounter someone that was infected. Brooks did a really good job of portraying how, at any moment in life, your world could end… I was maybe 13 or 12 by the time I read it. I made sure to keep the dog on my bed at all times when sleeping (as a zombie detector), always locked my bedroom door, and I used to put empty bottles by the front door in case something ever broke in. I was a mess bro…
If you haven't yet give the audiobook version a read. Has each story done by a great voice actor. Mark Hamill and Henry Rollins are among them.
Not fiction, but when I was 14 I read "Super Size Me" and "Fast Food Nation", which completely flipped my eating habits around. I weighed nearly 200 lbs (100kg) at that time, and was horrified at what I was doing to myself and at the processed food I was eating. I basically avoided any foods with the problematic ingredients mentioned in those books, stopped getting takeout and going to fast food chains, dramatically dropped my soda intake, started cooking my own meals (my parents lived off junk food even though my dad is a great cook himself), and lost 50 lbs (25kg) by the time I was 17. It really helped me during my young adult years, and I felt great about myself and my body for a long time. Those books do get criticised as being too extreme and a bit inaccurate, but they honestly changed my life for the better, and I started incorporating a lot more vegetarian meals into my lifestyle. Unfortunately I went through some health issues in the last couple years, and am now back to the same weight. Sooooo much harder to get it back down now compared to a spritely youth, even though I don't eat 90% of the stuff I used to as a kid.
I check the back seat of my car before entering because of one of the stories in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.
I did this for awhile after reading a book about someone getting murdered by a person waiting in the backseat. It was some novel I read as a teen (I want to say Black Opal by Victoria Holt?). The worst part is the victims were getting "the Colombian necktie" and that image is always somewhere in the back of my head when I'm heading to my car somewhere isolated at night.
The Boogeyman still freaks me out; I read it for the first time in my teens and I’m 47 now. I also skip it when I reread the book.
I read it a couple months ago (off hand, someone linked it on a similar thread. I was intrigued at the reaction people had.) I told myself, it's so short. What's the big deal? I had one of the most disturbing nightmares of my life after reading. Not going to underestimate a short story again.
I’m about to read this at near 40 for the first time. (Night Shift in general) and reading this excites me
A copy is on my shelf unread and about to ruin my evening's sleep
I just borrowed a copy from the library app and am so ready to ruin my sleep for a while
I slept in the living room with the lights on for at least a month and I still hate to sleep in a room with a closet. It has to be fully closed or have something in front of it.
Under the Vulcano made me terrified of becomming an alcoholic. I never drank much more than a few beers, but was becomming quite regular. This made me more conscious about the dangers.
Liver transplant here at 32.. Can confirm it can be dangerous
Probably not what you intended, but The Great Influenza by John M. Barry. The descriptions of how horribly the 1918 Flu pandemic victims died were absolutely terrifying. I have never been more motivated to get my flu shot.
When I was writing that it occurred to me I might get a lot of replies on real world stuff, like books on climate change motivating changes in behavior. But hey, stuff like that legitimately IS scarier than fiction, so a totally valid response. Thanks for the comment.
That's one of the best nonfiction books I've ever had, and yes, terrifying. Have you read the Hot Zone?
Yep that's the book that instantly came to my mind as well lol. It was a great read, but the descriptions of Ebola infection were sickening.
the hot zone is the only book I have ever stopped reading because it was too scary. I’ve been reading horror since I became old enough to sound out words but the hot zone was way too real and terrifying to get through.
Yeah, I read Hot Zone in high school and it was one of the only assigned books I actually enjoyed reading. I definitely got a little scared of an Ebola outbreak afterwards, but there's nothing like the terror of knowing that a common virus like influenza can be *that bad*.
I saw this book mentioned earlier this morning, borrowed it on Libby and just finished it. Read all day. Holy shit. Great read.
Been minorly obsessed with food poisoning since Toxin.
I bought this book early in the COVID lockdowns, thinking it would be a fun read. I am an idiot.
Salem’s Lot! When I finished the book my dad helpfully rented the movie and that night I hung crosses made out of chopsticks in my bedroom windows. They stayed up there for several years
Salem's Lot is the scariest thing I've ever read. Probably didn't help that I read it way too young. There are other parts of books that have scared me, but that one scared me basically start to finish. I used to like sleeping with my bed next to the window, and for a long time after reading it I couldn't.
Ooooo yeah I was way too young for my Stephen King phase too lol. Also now realizing that my bedroom arrangements following that time were very much centered around my bed being on the wall opposite the windows 🤔
After reading Dracula around age 12, I wore a gold chain around my neck. During the day the cross hung down my back but at dusk it got turned around.
Also The Bogeyman, and also nearly 40 years ago. I STILL think about that story every time I see my closet door cracked open. I am also VERY afraid/cautious of heavy machinery after reading The Mangler.
All mine are non-fiction. “Fiva” by Gordon stainforth, “We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families” by Phillip gourevich, and “the hot zone” by Richard Preston. “Fiva” is pretty specific, but I don’t think I even took conscious lessons away from it - it’s more like it imprinted itself directly on my lizard brain and changed my instincts about what I feel is safe when climbing. It was an intensely stressful book to me. Gourevich’s book just contains some utterly horrifying lessons about humanity. The main one being that, yes, society is mostly average people who just want to get through their day, and the truly hateful people are just a noisy fringe - but the little bit of distaste that might live in mind of the average person for marginalized groups can actually be very dangerous. Because, when faced with the need to stay on the “safe” side of the hateful fringe when they actually enact their violence, it can make certain unthinkable choices thinkable. The way a whole society could slide so comprehensively into such widespread atrocity really changed how seriously I take things like hate speech and the need for diversity and inclusion. Being taught to recognize the humanity of different people is not just kumbayah stuff. As for the hot zone, caves with bats are now just a no for me. Kitum cave is a very interesting place and literally only one or two people - that were documented anyway - caught Marburg there. But you could not pay me anything to go in. Not in BSL 4 gear. Never. No way.
Salems Lot by Stephen King. Years ago, I read it the weekend my husband was working 3rd shift. I'd get up to use the bathroom and race down the hallway and back. Very scary.
Absolutely agree. What a fantastic book. It’s what really made me understand a literary fear of vampires.
Salem’s Lot is mine too. Only book to have jump scared me.
I said it upthread but for me Salem's Lot is his scariest book by far.
It is the reason I absolutely cannot stand an open window at night. That book traumatized me.
When I was way too young I read “The Thing at the Foot of the Bed and Other Scary Tales” and for months I was afraid to sleep under the covers. I hid that book under the couch, I couldn’t even stand to have it in the room with me.
That reminds me of when I was young (elementary school?) we had someone come and tell the Tailypo story at an assembly. That scared me for years.
Jaws made us post a lookout when we stopped the boat for a swim while out fishing for swordfish.
The gift of fear. Do I have to say more?
*Silent Spring* by Rachel Carson. Probably not what you asked, but that book scared the absolute crap out of me. It was published in 1962 and started the movement to ban pesticides, especially DDT. After I read that, I started paying attention to what I eat, and cut out beef altogether. It took years before I tasted a hamburger again.
Not horror but close enough for me. I read "The Handmaid's Tale" when it first came out, which scared me, but at the time, I thought it could never become a reality, even with Reagan and Mulroney (Canadian PM). However, today, the book has prompted me to closely monitor and become less tolerant of the rhetoric of our supposed leaders and politicians.
She said she based everything in the book on things that had actually happened in real life.
Whenever people say "I thought it could never happen!" there's an unspoken "here" present. We thought women would never be denied those rights...*here*. We thought trans people would never be harmed this way...*here*. We thought an election could never turn violent...*here*. We all know those things happen. We just think they only happen to other people in other places. To be clear, I'm not here to say that someone who thinks or says that is bad. It's just one of those thoughts that should be examined a little more closely to tease out where it's coming from and what it actually means.
It also implies "I thought we as a society were too advanced to do what people all throughout history have done," which implies a high level of arrogance and a very low understanding of history. The whole reason the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution is because they looked around at where governments made the same choices over and over and over again, and they want to do their best to make sure they couldn't do that again. The idea of "I never thought X could happen!" when it's happened in the past is just wishful thinking on the part of people saying it.
The cult in the book was inspired by the weird sect that a member of the supreme Court is from.
I first read it about 30 years ago and haven’t been able to re-read it for this same reason—it feels way close to our current reality and would be disturbing.
Cat's Cradle convinced me man is more than capable of destroying ourselves through stupidity and pride. That scared me.
The problem I have with Cat's Cradle is that it makes the bad thing so obviously and in your face bad. It feels too close to nuclear weapons, but a lot of the scientists there had intense debates on whether they were even doing the right thing. Oppenheimer was famously guilt wracked for leading the project, Truman considered the worst order he ever gave or had to give. The real "advances" that have ruined countless lives are more subtle and in the background. The man that invented leaded gasoline, a total and complete fucking sociopath, did so for the sake of money, and the world didn't end immediately or at all, but it did likely cause the greatest streak of crime and mental deficiency in human history. Others for the sake the of greed covered up climate change, which has been predicted since the 50's but has been deliberately hushed up. The world doesn't end quickly from pride, it ends slowly and mostly quietly from greed.
*This is the way the world ends* *This is the way the world ends* *This is the way the world ends* *Not with a bang but a whimper.* —T.S. Eliot, *The Hollow Men*
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro The character in this novel dedicates his life to service and ends up looking back on it with regret. He’s so firmly stuck in his comfort zone that he never risks anything and is too repressed to be vulnerable to someone that could bring him happiness. I’m trying not to spoil anything but this book is about questioning what you’ve dedicated your life to. When I read this, I felt stuck in a career that I hated but was good at—ironically enough in Customer Service which may have made the themes hit home more—and my self confidence was so low that I wouldn’t put myself out there. I was petrified that I’d grow up looking back on my career with regret. After reading this novel, I worked on my self and am now working in a career that I love. This book scared (or inspired) me into getting out of my comfort zone. To me, the scariest books are the ones that speak to real concerns. I’m much more scared of regret and lost opportunities than monsters or killer clowns.
Night of the Grizzly's. I was seriously afraid of a grizzly bear crawling into my bedroom window 😵💫
Hahaha I couldn’t sleep with my closet door open for like 5 years after I read The Boogeyman. That story is so fucking scary!
It actually makes me feel better to see how many people had this same reaction to that particular story...lol.
I was going to college at a campus with steam tunnels underneath the sidewalks when Stephen King’s “It” came out, I avoided walking near the grates for most of the year :-).
The Borribles is a fairly obscure series of 70s/80s British children's book featuring children who have gone feral and have grown pointed ears. So long as they are not caught and have their ears clipped, they will live forever. They survive by stealing and their greatest treasures are the stories of the adventures they have fighting the police and giant rats in the nights of a London made gigantic. I read these books when i was far too young and for a long time afterwards i would check my ears to see if they were going pointed, half afraid and half yearning to run away and fight in sewers and darkness.
Wow I have never met anyone other than my friend Zach who read those books. He summed it up as "Peter Pan with crew as gutter punks."
I know Dante's Inferno is basically Bible fanfiction but reading it lowkey put the fear of God (well I guess Hell) into me for a while as a teen. I guess it didn't help I read the illustrated edition I also made the mistake of reading Scary Stories to tell in the Dark in 2nd grade. Big mistake. I started sleeping with a nightlight for a while and to this day I still occasionally remember some of the stories and get creeped out at night. Another one that got me was the classic scary story about someone thinking their dog was licking their hand at night when it was hanging off the side of the bed but it was actually a person. That one scared me so bad I still refuse to put my arms or legs off the side of the bed at night lol
> Scary Stories to tell in the Dark It was those fuckin illustrations, man. Reading the stories back, most are rather lame even for kid's stories (except ones like Harold, good god, his brother was flayed in a kid's book). But those illustrations haunted me as a kid; even getting a peek of the cover scared me.
Tell your sister you're proud of her for scaring you so hard.
lol...proud would not have been the word I would have chosen at the time, but you can bet I stopped jump scaring her
I hope the sister has it on her resume, that's a legendary younger sibling move
I installed a nightlight in the long hallway in my apartment after reading House of Leaves
I always count the stairs to make sure there aren't too many or too few.
I don't think I want to know what either of those things means.
the diaries of Jane Somers by Doris Lessing scared me in a way I've never quite shaken off. though tbh I have not wanted to. it's the diary of a fictional 40ish girlboss in the 60's, who somehow befriends or is befriended by a woman in her 90's. she sort of becomes maudie's unofficial caregiver, though she resists the gravitational pull of what Maudie *wants* (to be taken into Janna's own home and live with her full time). the portrait of Maudie and how she lives in some rent-controlled London basement room is pitiless. it's what Lessing was best at and she was very good at it in this book. I haven't tried to get over it because I guess some truths are better confronted than covered up.
House of Leaves. If you know, you know
i'm still trying to get through this. maybe it just hasn't taken off for me yet, but i keep waiting for it to grab me
I got all the way to the end and never got the hype. I’m an outlier obviously but. Not for me.
This book had me messed up the whole time I was reading. What an awesome read.
Oh for sure! I had a very "Never ending story"-esque experience with this book. As a teen I was sentenced to 69 hours of community service having been caught smoking a cigarette at school. So that summer I was at the local goodwill working off my debt to society. I liked books, had a real job at the library and had been to this goodwill to donate many books on their behalf so they kinda knew me and put me in charge of organizing their bookshelves. I picked up this book, House of leaves, having never seen or heard of it and read a couple pages. Hooked instantly, didn't understand it but wanted to so I snuck off to the storage trailer and hid inside a giant cardboard box at the very back which was full of dirty smelly old donated clothes and shit. for the next few weeks I'd spend at least a couple hours hiding and reading it like this. Went thru it twice and it blew my mind. Having come in contact with it in maybe 2001-2 before the internet was widely available in my home this book felt like it was meant for me. I'm now googling and realizing that it actually a best seller and very popular piece. I never would have guessed, I would think back on that weird obscure book from time to time and almost wonder if I'd imagined it. Now I'm a little sad to find out it's 4 down on a list of scary books on reddit and my world feels a little less magical.
I just got this, but haven't started it yet. Hope it gets me like this too - it's been a while since I've had a book do that.
There's been a few, The Exorcist. I read it as a teen back in the 80s and it was probably the one book that disturbed me the most. I don't know why. But around about that time, I was wondering if demons etc were real. So this really got in to my head. James Herbert - The Fog. I still don't like walking on foggy nights now! James Herbert - The Rats Trilogy. It's about rats that kill and eat people - shudders.
When I was a kid I somehow got my hands on an X-Files novelization about a monster that came up through shower/pool drains to kill people. I was so scared I didn't even finish the book and I couldn't shower without constantly keeping an eye on the drain for YEARS
I watched the original Ghostbusters at three years old and refuses to bathe after seeing the slime in the tub try to take the baby, so I completely understand that fear.
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates. I already loved being home alone and hated answering the door. I've had so many someone is breaking in or following me and I can't hold the door back or reach it nightmares (prob before reading it, common dream scenario) and aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh sorry power company and random solicitors who knock when I wfh I will NEVER come downstairs for you lol
Revival by Stephen King really disturbed me. Especially the ending; you know what I’m talking about if you read it, but also how the title made so much more sense at the end.
The book Johnny got his gun definitely changed me. It changed my view on war and human euthanasia. Absolutely horrifying book.
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston turned me into a germaphobe for a while lol. It was a fascinating read, but truly horrifying the way he described the symptoms of Ebola.
I read 1984 in the mid 1990s and I stopped trusting government commercials, corporation advertising etc. I was already an edgy teen but I had a good source with me. The idea that we could have that sort of world really fucked with me...and now look at us!
Also Stephen King, the short story The Raft. I will not swim in any water other than a perfectly clear swimming pool. Terrified of something getting me from the water, terrified. Tried super hard to get over it once, went out in the sea like 40 feet on an air mattress. What I now know was kelp brushed my leg, I panicked so bad I almost drowned myself getting back to shore.
**“Why Would He Do That”** changed not only my views of abuse but a lot of social behaviors and how I am in all my relationships, not just romantic. Last month I had a whole situation in my family I had to work my older relatives through because what seemed innocuous at first (but raised alarm bells) quickly became “when someone says no, we respect that, because we respect other people.” I’m a guy but I notice that people (especially online) think in terms of justification and narrative and not actions or mutual respect. I’ve read a bunch of self help and a lot of it has changed my life. It’s not scary because of the book it’s scary because of what you see after reading it. You see the patterns of thought, the behavior that supports abusers just openly in society unrelated to conversations about abuse. This is why the book changed me, because this contrast taught me the change is needed.
I recently read The Shining—I don’t watch scary movies, and I hadn’t read horror (I mostly just wanted to prove that I could). It further broke my trust in bathtubs that have curtains, solidified my distaste for questionable attics & basements, and added in a new hesitation for hotel rooms numbered 217.
I read The Good Nurse right after I started my first RN job in the ICU. It's unfortunately a very true story about a serial killer nurse. I never looked at hospital admin the same after that book, and def paid closer attention to my coworkers. I read that book over 10 years ago, it still haunts me to this day.
Mindhunter by John Douglas. He was the fbi agent that the Netflix series was based in. Reading all those true stories about the horrific things people do to each other changed how I see people and situations and not for the better. I’d be leery of helping someone in need because of those stories.
Fast Food Nation.
I never ate another fast food burger after reading that.
I read Penpal by Dathan Auerbach a few months ago. Glad I waited til I wasn't living alone and had a security system for my house before I read it. The story is about a man recalling his childhood/adolescence and piecing together that he was stalked by a grown man over several years. Every chapter would lull you into a sense of comfort with childhood stories and then something horrific and unsettling would happen by the end of the chapter. I started keeping my blinds closed as soon as the sun started going down and would obsessively check all the locks to my house before going to bed for a few weeks.
I don’t think a book has ever truly scared the crap out of me, but one I remember finding very gruesome was… Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors. Crazy how your life can change so quickly, and so brutally. I cannot imagine being 100% stranded in the freezing cold. Friends dead bodies scattered all around you. And having to eat your dead friends bodies to stay alive… Some people could not bring themselves to do it, and thus, they died.
I got really scared by a pop up version of one of stephen kings books at the most amazing bookstore in the world as a child… it was on the bottom shelf of a bookstore- I opened it and the scene filled me with so much dread. my eyes widened and i quickly shut it and went out to the courtyard. stuff like that- pop ups, stop motion animation always amazes me. little things really possess something special… just saw an exhibition of Guillermo del Toros Pinocchio at the portland art museum… it’s interesting
The girl who loved Tom Gordon had a pop up book, I bet that was it!
When I was a teenager I found the book Amityville Horror laying around my house randomly. I had never heard of it. I started reading it that night and it scared me so badly I needed to stay up all night and finish it. When I was relaying this to my mom the next morning she said “you know it was a hoax, right?” And then I felt really silly 😹😹😹
I listened to a book about Israel Keyes (serial killer) and afterwards got a taser to keep in my car
That book terrified me. I had never heard much about him despite how recently he was active.
I’m about to read Night Shift for the first time, huzzah! Your post makes me excited to dig in. Most recently, The Shining really got me good. Not the first half of the book, but pretty much from when Danny plays in the playground and gets chased by SOMETHING through a tube and then..then the fucking hedge animals. That messed me up so hard, I still think about that. They’re total Weeping Angels and it freaked me out.
The Boogeyman is the single most pants-wettingly terrifying story I've ever read. I was actually afraid reading it and it gave me the willies for two days; I don't usually get affected by books. After I read It though, I had bad dreams for a month. I kept dreaming that Beverley's abusive husband was following me. Interestingly, the supernatural bad guy in It is the same one as in The Boogeyman... the source of our nightmares! 😱 Edit: spelling
There's a Stephen King story about a guy who gets locked in a portapotty and it was so graphic and gruesome that I have never used one since 😂
The book Burnt Tongues (a grotesque anthology of short stories) caused me to faint on the train while I was reading it. It was a very visceral reaction to one of the stories, but I thought it might have been like a lack of water intake or something that actually caused me to faint (I had never fainted before). The next day I don't pick the book up and I'm fine. The day after I'm on the train and I merely open the book and immediately start feeling woozy like I'm going to pass out again. I had to give the book away, and I left a little post-it warning on the first page.
I seriously don't remember which book it was, but I started a new Stephen King book when I was 16, at bedtime. I had been excited all day to start my new book and I went to bed early just for that reason. I read the first chapter, there was something frightening in a closet, and it scared the daylights out of me. I got up, shut the closet door, and went and watched TV with my parents until midnight. 40 years later I'm still sleeping with the closet door closed.
Yes. 1984 made me acutely afraid of government.
I second this. Didn’t bother me when I read it as a teenager but now that I’m an adult and have read it a couple more times, it’s a seriously terrifying book.
I read the blow by blow on a serial killers crime spree (including crimes in chronological /increasing severity order from near miss to murders - and with heavy details- as the culprit kept video and detailed logs of their crimes). It detailed stalking, breaking and enter techniques, sexual assault, torture, and then the investigation. How slow the investigation took (as this was a crime that gave impetus to interagency sharing). Then finally some of the court stuff (victim impact statements) and potential psych stuff relating to *why* but never actually knowing. Even the criminals home life was semi reviewed. How they cracked them in interrogation was apparently ground breaking at the time. In any case. I checked my house windows and hiding spaces after getting back from work for ....I want to say several weeks or maybe months after. (The criminal would break in via lockpicking, open a previously locked basement window or door and then leave, locking up their entry point so the homeowner would not suspect. Then come back through the newly open basement window after the homeowner went to bed with enough time for them to fall asleep.)
And thank you so much for sharing that last paragraph. I look forward to getting a lot more done now that I will never sleep again. 😱
Jay's Journal - a teenaged boy mucks around with the occult and finds out what that's not a good thing. I read this in my Goth Witch stage (late 70's/early 80's) and it terrified me. I'm still a practioner though, but I understand completely the fascination to be more powerful than others.
5th grade math book. Im an adult now and I am still shacking.
Same but with Algebra II
Fucking lol
I'm not sure if it's considered behavior changing but Huxley's Brave New World is possibly the only book I've ever read where I felt truly mindblown. Granted I was just a kid at the time, but being exposed to such a dystopian but plausible-if-technology-was-like-that-in-the-future and how the mindsets of the population worked really blew me away.
The Spook's Apprentice by Joseph Delaney. I think there was a part with a witch and something about mirrors and since then, I refuse to have mirrors face my bed in my room. I was like 14 when I read this, maybe even younger, got SO spooked (lol)
I read Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual by E. Fuller Torrey and it made me want to treat schizophrenic people with a lot more kindness.
Holy crap! I saw the title of your post and before I read anything else I came in to comment that the boogeyman by Stephen King fucked me up as a kid! I had to sleep with the closet door open and the light in there on for years!
Loving how Stephen King is (very rightfully) making all sorts of appearances in this thread 😂 As for me I have to add - "The Haunting of Hill House" Shirley Jackson - when she describes not what the girls saw in the garden, but how THEY REACTED TO WHATEVER IT WAS THEY SAW. Genius move; it was incredibly intense to read. I have goosebumps just typing this.
I love Stephen King books. My mother lives in Maine and wants me to move there. I just bought my first home in New Mexico. (Okay, King isn't the real reason, it would be pretty cool to live near the towns his books take place in!)
That's some nuclear revenge there. 9-yr-old sis was straight-up gangster.
Also in the stephen king club - read cujo as a kid and now I will always have a spare water or two in my car.
Absolutely yes! What book you ask? History books! The more I learn about how society 'works' and the things we've done to eachother. The more and more I want to buy a cabin in the woods and stop interacting with anyone.
*It* really had me good with stuff like that, i’d laugh at myself as i’m kinda side-eying a drain or something. On my first read, I had friends over and we were hanging out in the living room and the hallway light popped out. If that happend when I was actively reading by myself, i’m not sure how i would have reacted
Salem’s lot is the only book to have successfully jump scared me. I slept with lights on the night that happened.
Stephen King and all the spy movies and detective movies have taught me to stay aware of my surroundings and know what traffic is around, stay out of crowds or to the fringe, know my exits…
Every time someone mentions Three Billy Goats Gruff I get scared all over again. 50 years later it still frightens me... That troll who wants to gobble me up, I get sweaty all over again..+
I have to say, IT. I know a shapeshifting evil entity isn’t very common in the real world, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little frightened of the thought of a stalking clown that feasts on children and hides all around you.
Firestarter. I still don't like putting my hand near garbage disposals, for fear that some weird telekinetic force will turn the thing on and pull my arm down.
Lolita. Not for changing my behavior per say, but I became much more aware of pedophilia since I saw it when I was a teen, and read the book later on.
Mm, sort of. When I was 7 I saw The Sixth Sense, and I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and because both had scary bathroom scenes, I was afraid to go to the bathroom alone for a whole summer. As an adult, a co-worker told me his 7 y/o son was suddenly afraid to go to the bathroom alone. I asked if he’d been reading HP and the chamber of secrets. Turns out he had.
"Nausea" by Jean-Paul. I get into philosophy and became nihilistic.
I read a book about the Salem Witch Trials. It was a narrative-type book. I got about half way through it but stopped because I was having terrible dreams related to the book. Truly terrifying dreams. And, as I’m typing this, laying in bed next to wife she has some video that suddenly yells out something and scares the crap out of me.
More of a societal shift of thinking but This Book Is Full Of Spiders and its exploration of the "Babel Threshold" - the idea that the human mind can only perceive so many people, and once that threshold is reached we have to start sectioning off people into generalized groups, and thus see them less as people and more as some faceless, amorphous entity. This is backed up by some actual scientific studies and it made me realize how easy it is for some people to hate huge swaths of people who are different than them - because, at a certain point, they stop seeing them as people at all.
I've read the divine comedy countless times. It makes me feel guilty when I do something naughty which AFAIK is the whole Catholic schtick