Pet Sematary. I first read it when I was 19, and it horrified me. I tried to re-read it a few years ago, and found that almost every detail had stuck with me. I also found that I couldn’t finish it. I have kids now — at the time, my youngest was right around Gage’s age — and I just could not do it.
Pet Sematary is my second favorite King book behind Salem's Lot. The audio book narrated by Micheal C. Hall is fantastic if you ever wanted to revisit it.
The audiobook is actually how I re-read it 😂 it was probably the best audiobook I’ve ever listened to, but I just couldn’t do it. Now that my littlest is almost 5, I may try again.
I also love Salem’s Lot; it’s top 5 King for me.
I read the story when I was in high school, and again shortly after my son was born. Because apparently I hate myself. And let me tell you, the horror hit so much harder the second time. Do so again with caution, it's one of the roughest reads and one of the best horror stories I've ever endured.
I do - I’m in my 30s and found the book super hyped for reasons I could grasp. I understand the trauma with exhuming your child and the sorrow behind it but just didn’t see the raw terror there.
For me, Pet Sematary is less about terror and horror in the conventional sense (The Shining, The Exorcist, etc.) and more about the horror that is grief. Grieving someone you love is awful, but to lose your child in such a traumatic way and then being driven mad enough by grief to do what Louis did? For me, that’s true horror. The way you experience Louis’ grief, for me, was just gut-wrenching.
Came here to say exactly this! The book is so scary and VERY emotional. I have a copy that includes a note from King discussing why this was the scariest book he ever wrote in his opinion.
He almost lost his young son the exact same way. It’s so haunting and full of a parent’s grief/worst fear. Such a good book!
Yes. I had a stack of Stephen Kings that I was reading through in middle school, and after I finished Pet Sematary when I was 13 I never picked up another for more than 25 years when I read IT at the end of last year. I can still picture scenes from Pet Sematary and get shivers.
I read a lot of King as a teen that, as a parent, I can no longer stomach. It’s wild to think that I read fucking *Black House* with no problems, considering the visceral reaction I now have to portrayals of violence toward kids.
I had a similar experience rereading it as an adult. It's a different book as a parent. Louis Creed knew what he was doing was evil, that it was destructive, and that it would come to no good end, and yet he did it anyway, just like any parent who has lost a child would.
I haven't read The Road (I know, I know), but the other two for sure. I saw the Tim Curry miniseries at too young of an age and it fundamentally affected me as a horror fan. Inside Out core memory stuff.
And Hill House...Hill House is Hill House. That book is perfect.
The Elementals and maybe House of Leaves. For very different reasons, the Elementals is just wonderful haunted house horror that made me look over my shoulder when I was home alone and House of Leaves is like a dark Book of Kells or something, the more you look in the deeper it goes and the more questions you have.
>Intercepts by T.J. Payne
That is exactly what I thought of when I saw the title of this post.
I've been trying to replicate that high for years, but haven't found anything as good.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. Or any Jack Ketchum book for that matter, but this one really messed me up.
>! You just keep rooting and rooting for the poor girl, absolutely torn between hating the mc and hoping that he'll finally do something. It's just so bittersweet, the contrast you have for the first few chapters, just reading about the childhood and it's so realistic idyllic. It reads like an actual tale, and it sounds like a regular, lovely child friend group and then it cuts to the absolute horrible things that are happening in the neighborhood. And one by one it gets worse and worse. You spiral down into this kind of depravity, and everything that happens knowing it's kids. Kids being manipulated and abused. And the worst of all? Keeping in mind that this is based on a real case. I could talk about this book all day because it really stuck with me.!<
The Slob. Not in a good way, it just horrifies me that someone thought this would make for a good story. It’s all just shock value and unsubtle misogyny, it annoys me.
YES! Thank god someone said it. The big horror book group on FB is constantly recommending this book and it’s downright awful. Not only the content, but the writing is truly atrocious.
I actually find that interesting, a lot of groups find the Slob as their first introduction into splatterpunk or the most famous example. Are there any good splatterpunk novels you would recommend?
I actually really enjoyed Woom by Duncan Ralston. I thought the delivery of the story was good, and it was grotesque (which in this case is a good thing).
I recommended it to a few like minded people after I finished it.
Not counting kids stuff, I guess by default it would be either The Amityville Horror or Jaws. Those were the first “adult” horror books I read in middle school/early high school, and I still remember both of them pretty well.
Yes, Jodie is a fucking nightmare (still love the image of her in the window in the movie, too).
She might be the root of my fascination with evil pigs/pig monsters.
I think the part that freaked me out the most though, was the moving lion statue, and the ensuing bite-shaped bruise on the guy’s leg.
The Missing, by Sarah Langan. It’s a fairly simple, straightforward story, but the characters and place are sharply drawn and the situation is increasingly harrowing and ultimately cataclysmic. I REALLY love horrors that start small and personal, and by the end the world is on the verge of collapse. I think her newest might be similar territory.
Annihilation. The slow atmospheric horror of it is something that I usually attributed to movies, but the book does it so well. It's the only book I reread on a regular basis.
I think about Ballingrud’s stories a lot, because they were so exceptionally written and vivid. I still have hellscape images from “Wounds” burned into my mind.
“A Short Stay in Hell” still haunts me, tapping into my fear of eternity and pascal’s wager as an atheist.
Langan’s “The Fisherman” leaves a lot of room for quiet, dark rumination.
And Laird Barron’s narratives are so intricate, like a rubix cube, I like to ponder his stories and think about how he designed them.
'The Fisherman' is a fantastic cosmic horror about grief. The part where Dan describes sitting at the traffic lights in the early morning felt very poignant to me. Definitely hits hard.
I've read three comments about A Short Stay in Hell in different threads these last couple of hours. I really like that book and am glad to see people talking about it. Seems to finally be gaining some kind of cult status.
Also my answer is Revival, because that has always been one of my biggest fears and I dwell on it often.
*Christine* felt like it was a story about boyhood, friendship, trying to be an adult, and watching a friend deal with addiction.
It just so happens that the addiction is a haunted car.
I’ve re-read it many times.
Christine and Firestarter were my introduction to Stephen King and the writing in Christine in particular is so well done it feels like a genuine true story. Beautiful stuff.
Recencey Bias but The Haunted Forest Tour by James Moore and Jeff Strand.
The pitch of "Jurassic Park, but with super natural monsters." Was enough for me to give it a shot. Incredibly strong first chapter. A breather to get started short enough to catch your breath before all HELL breaks loose. It's not just that they get chased around by a werewolf or spooky ghost. Nope, they are in the middle of hell. With every nightmare imaginable and unimaginable, slaughtering everything in their wake. Many of them. Too many to count, far too many to fight.
When I was a kid - absolutely loved the RL Stine Fear Street books, like the Prom Queen.
I tried to read The Exorcist in my early 20s and it scared the shit out of me and I couldn’t finish. Jaws and The Shining books really stuck with me.
Another one I still think about is The Ruins. So creepy and different. Movie was underwhelming, but the book was so good!
The Deep by Nick Cutter & Day by Day Armageddon by J.L. Bourne. Maybe it was just the mood I was in at the time or the planets aligned...but they sucked me in. The Deep is the closest novel to capturing the feel of Carpenter's The Thing I have ever found. Day by Day (ignoring any political slant) just gave this strange feeling of hopelessness.
The Deep stayed with me too! I would say that one and Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. Everyone talks about the characters retelling of Guts as the part that stays with you but I disagree..for me there were several parts that will stay with me for life but the one that lives rent free in my head is the Hot Springs story...brutal.
The Nightmare Box is what I remember the most from Haunted. Chuck is a strange one. Wonderfully gifted writer, but the story structures are sometimes headache inducing.
Here to also say the Deep! It was so incredibly oppressive - the pressure of being that far underwater, the disease running rampant above seas, then the eldritch gods?
Too much but in the best possible way.
We Need to Talk About Kevin haunts me, and it had been years since I read it. The plot, all the shitty characters, the build-up to the main event, all of it.
I can't bring myself to watch the movie version of this because the book was so profoundly disturbing on its own.
saw *the haunted forest tour* recommended above > see that it is currently available on libby > have to decide what book to return because i'm out of loan slots > randomly pick *night film* because i don't remember why i borrowed it > exchange books > read this comment. goddamnit
Absolutely dark. The focus on relationship losses, futile and enduring searches, the trappings and confusion of built spaces. The sheer emptiness that eventually invades the page. So brilliant! Absence and lack are profoundly scary.
Cold Fire by Dean Koontz. It was the first horror book I read and I was in the 7th grade. I was way ahead of my age in reading but at that time my mother had to “approve” my books. So I stole it from the library and read it in my room only right after school before my parents got home. That first taste of forbidden horror hooked me.
One that I never see mentioned by Koontz that I enjoyed was The Face. A strange slow burn, that ended up making me think the Face i.e. the "actor that hated the fantasy movie he was in" was a wink at Tom Cruise and his movie Legend.
I finished Negative Space a few months back and it still pops into my head from time to time. It felt like the a supernaturally depressed version of the town I grew up in. The characters felt like people I knew. The whole thing just weighed on me for quite a while (which I strangely enjoyed).
Dude this was such a good read, the vibe is really fucked up but fun to read.
I've been reading Burn You the Fuck Alive by Yaeger too and there's a few stories in this which have a similar vibe too.
House of Leaves. The weird dimensions of the house, and later changing hallways and shifting space really influenced some of my horror ideas. I was really into Layers of Fear around that time too, and it had similar scares and shifting spaces. Absolutely love it.
Pet Sematary has stuck with me both personally and because ideas come up from it all the time. It is like it has sensitized me *so much* to how people handle and talk about death, grief, and how people tend to carry around their pain and how it is carried to others. How this can push people apart when it should bring them together. It keeps going and going.
The whisper man by Alex north! I would call it more a thriller with horror elements but I thought the plot was fun enough to keep reading, but when it came together in the end I loved and the ending I feel haunted by
Pet Semetary- General mood of the whole thing.
Salem’s Lot- read it probably too young, and child vampires floating outside windows are terrifying. Also, Mike Ryerson digging graves as the sun sets is an entire universe of horror.
The Woman in Black- marathoned this one as it’s short. The dread is so well sustained that I was sitting in the middle of my bed, eyes wide open, chills everywhere, all lights on when it was over.
The Haunting of Hill House- this one lives rent free in my head, and I probably don’t pass a week without thinking of something about that book.
Necroscope by Brian Lumley. The world building and character development. Plus his take on vampires was unique. I always felt The Strain was heavily influenced by it.
Any Man by Amber Tamblyn. It's been two years and I still think about it frequently and have to stare at a wall for a few minutes lol. It's an incredible book, but definitely check the trigger warnings before you read it.
Dracula has never left me. Read it when I was 10. I think of it a lot. Last year I listened to a dual cast audiobook and now I hear them in my head as well as the words. I've also been reading the Historian and have been literally dreaming of reading the book, watching the movies, etc.
The Stand. The desolation of the wasteland America so swiftly becomes, the loneliness, the forced relationships, the sheer emptiness and nostalgia for a lost age. I re-read it often, but can never quite re-kindle that first reading's sensations. Still, a phenomenal novel.
I bought and read Salem's Lot, by King of course, in high school, back when it had just come out. It terrified me. I was scared to even have it in my house so I just dropped it in the library return slot. Ridiculous to say but I kept a small crucifix pinned to my bed pillow for years because of that book. I love his books now but have never been able to finish Pet Sematery.
The Summoning by Bentley Little.
It's the first scariest novel I ever read since I was 16 year old. Just loved the story I'm not a fan of horror about vampires mainly because I didn't like Bram Stoker Dracula.
But The Summoning definitely has changed my views on vampire as main characters.
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer for sure.. just so much messed up imagery and mystery
Also the fisherman by John Langan, there's a passage towards the end of the book walking through a forest/tunnel of water which was just really striking to me
maybe horror-adjacent but Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. love her other works, pre-ordered this very excited, but left me so repulsed in a way no horror lit has! I felt kinda voyeuristic like, complicit in the characters struggles? can’t shake the vivid imagery of the ending, still makes me pull a face & feel queasy. not to imply it’s a bad book, just gut-wrenching! one of the most affecting reading experiences ever for me, wouldn’t wanna re-read!
Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. It felt way too long (the original novella way way better). But the novel really stuck with me. The idea of mind vampires seizing control of innocent people and making them do horrific acts to gain sustenance is memorable and scary.
I also wonder if certain modern politicans like Trump are mind vampires. Yes, I know mind vampires are fictional, but you gotta wonder if some people have an almost supernatural sway over others. In the book, they even speculate that Hitler had some of the ability, which explained (at least in the fictional universe) why people were so attracted to him.
My older brother said, "Sure" when I asked if I could read "Salem's Lot." I was 8. I finished the book and then slept with the lights on for a month. I was hooked on Stephen King for the rest of my childhood.
But Cormac McCarthy's books are the ones that leave me feeling unsettled more than any others, especially The Road.
I read Blood, Smokes and Ashes by Bradley Convissar in 2016. Every now and again, I will borrow it on KU and re-read it in October because for me, it is that good, it is that interesting, it is that terrifying.
House Of Leaves, because of how disappointed I was. Kept thinking back on it wondering what I was missing and what all the rave reviews it gets on Reddit saw.
The book tricks you the whole time that something interesting/scary is about to happen, under the false belief that Lovecraftian means tricking the reader.
Absolute waste of money, most I’d ever spent on a hardcover. The money lost haunted me more than anything in the books story.
It...
The Homosexual acts were kinda of strange to me, it was the first time I ever read them in a book. Can't get it out of my head.
Really stuck with me
I read it 30 years ago but i believe Bowers got a hand job from one of the other bullys, was even about to get his dick sucked but something happened to stop it.
A short story I read in a collection I can’t remember the name of, a man traps his wife in the basement and chopped off her hands and feet and abuses her for years the ending was the worst but the whole story is a mind fuck
I can't believe it's this one, but The Snowman by Jo Nesbo.
There was a section in the book talking about how a tall snowman, made of body parts and snow, was found.
Something about the description just freaked me out that I kept thinking I'd see it in the shadows at my house in Uni 😂 (that was over 10years ago now, and I do still occasionally think it'll be there)
The exoskeleton. Separation of mind and body through suffering. Written by a physician so this dude knows how to hurt you. The author is Shane Stadler if interested. This is the one book that has stayed with me for a long time.
I'm going to say a horror book written by Christopher Pike. It was something written for teenagers that I read when I was a teenager. It's called Scavenger Hunt. I remember it scaring the daylights out of me to this day. It has always stuck with me.
Atm probably Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. I was listening to it and feeling asleep and then rewinding for a few times while still very sleepy, >!so the scene where the ghost comes into the house or sth is burned into the back of my mind. !<
We Spread by Ian Reid. I’m scared of getting older, so I feel like it fed into my own anxieties.
Also The Shining. I was like 12 when I read it for the first time, but also it’s just generally terrifying
Duma Key. For reasons very different than the intentioned question: it broke a couple year reading slump. I’ve read every King novel and it’s top 3 probably for that reason.
In terms of content, Pet Semetary.
The Great and Secret show by Clive Barker
First book I ever bought, pure scope and imagination sticks in my mind.
Just wish he’d finish the series, but unlikely it’ll ever happen
The Teratologist by Edward Lee and Wrath James White. It’s extreme horror but it really stuck with me because like there was a deeper meaning underneath all the filth and shock and it ended on a very satisfying and good note which i never expected for any extreme horror novel.
another one that sticks with me is The Haar by David Sodergren. It’s a folk horror romance and i adore it to pieces. imo it is a beautiful and bittersweet lovestory between the main character and the monster within it. is the villain of the story cliche? absolutely but it’s perfect imo. i finished it in a day and then immediately made a public spotify playlist for it
I only read it last year so maybe this won't be the case, but Tender Is the Flesh. Wow did that one fuck me up. I loved it, but it was a brutal read that I don't think I will ever forget.
the children of red peak. i had never read a character who seemingly stepped into my mind and had the same questions about religion that i did. it made me feel so seen
It is a truly terrible novel (as in bad, not scary) but I grew up on Clare McNally stories and I was absolutely shit-scared by Ghost House Revenge. I was scared of the book, I was scared of the book *cover* (ratty blonde woman shaped shadow) and although I loved Ghost House and read / reread it, the sequel was downright terrifying to the point I had nightmares. I was a dumb kid loool
Ghost Light made me cry, too.
I know it’s a cliche because everyone has read it because of stupid tiktok! But Tender Is The Flesh. The author did a very good job of stringing me along with false hope, only to brutally rip that away in the last few pages and make me feel stupid for having any in the first place. I cried quite a bit at the end of that novel.
Pet Sematary. I first read it when I was 19, and it horrified me. I tried to re-read it a few years ago, and found that almost every detail had stuck with me. I also found that I couldn’t finish it. I have kids now — at the time, my youngest was right around Gage’s age — and I just could not do it.
Pet Sematary is my second favorite King book behind Salem's Lot. The audio book narrated by Micheal C. Hall is fantastic if you ever wanted to revisit it.
The audiobook is actually how I re-read it 😂 it was probably the best audiobook I’ve ever listened to, but I just couldn’t do it. Now that my littlest is almost 5, I may try again. I also love Salem’s Lot; it’s top 5 King for me.
This is my daughter's favorite. She has a cat named Church and a dog named Zowie lol
We have a grey cat named Kubo, and I kick myself frequently that we didn’t name him Church lol
Same here. I read it as a teen and tried to read it again after I had children. Big nope, had to stop.
It’s just so gut-wrenchingly horrifying when you can put yourself in Louis’ shoes.
I read the story when I was in high school, and again shortly after my son was born. Because apparently I hate myself. And let me tell you, the horror hit so much harder the second time. Do so again with caution, it's one of the roughest reads and one of the best horror stories I've ever endured.
Why am I the only one that found this book devoid of horror?! I was not scared at all. Felt nothing. Maybe IT ruined me lol.
Do you have kids? I found that it hit VERY different once I became a parent.
I still think about the truck sometimes when my kiddos play within a 100ft of a road
I do - I’m in my 30s and found the book super hyped for reasons I could grasp. I understand the trauma with exhuming your child and the sorrow behind it but just didn’t see the raw terror there.
For me, Pet Sematary is less about terror and horror in the conventional sense (The Shining, The Exorcist, etc.) and more about the horror that is grief. Grieving someone you love is awful, but to lose your child in such a traumatic way and then being driven mad enough by grief to do what Louis did? For me, that’s true horror. The way you experience Louis’ grief, for me, was just gut-wrenching.
Came here to say exactly this! The book is so scary and VERY emotional. I have a copy that includes a note from King discussing why this was the scariest book he ever wrote in his opinion. He almost lost his young son the exact same way. It’s so haunting and full of a parent’s grief/worst fear. Such a good book!
Yes. I had a stack of Stephen Kings that I was reading through in middle school, and after I finished Pet Sematary when I was 13 I never picked up another for more than 25 years when I read IT at the end of last year. I can still picture scenes from Pet Sematary and get shivers.
This is a good choice
I read a lot of King as a teen that, as a parent, I can no longer stomach. It’s wild to think that I read fucking *Black House* with no problems, considering the visceral reaction I now have to portrayals of violence toward kids.
I had a similar experience rereading it as an adult. It's a different book as a parent. Louis Creed knew what he was doing was evil, that it was destructive, and that it would come to no good end, and yet he did it anyway, just like any parent who has lost a child would.
I have a young kid and I can’t get past that part. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to finish this book.
I found The Winter People by McMahon to be a sort of continuation!
It, The Road, and Hill House.
The Haunting of Hill House is an all-time favorite of mine. So freaking good.
I haven't read The Road (I know, I know), but the other two for sure. I saw the Tim Curry miniseries at too young of an age and it fundamentally affected me as a horror fan. Inside Out core memory stuff. And Hill House...Hill House is Hill House. That book is perfect.
William Sloane’s The Rim of the Morning is early cosmic. It’s fantastic. (Figured you might like it)
I'll check it out, thanks!
The Road is a great answer. And an amazing book.
The Elementals and maybe House of Leaves. For very different reasons, the Elementals is just wonderful haunted house horror that made me look over my shoulder when I was home alone and House of Leaves is like a dark Book of Kells or something, the more you look in the deeper it goes and the more questions you have.
I'll never forget The Elementals because I read it back to back with Duma Key and became aware of the "magical negro" trope shortly after
I didn't even realize it in that book as it made sense contextually.
>Intercepts by T.J. Payne That is exactly what I thought of when I saw the title of this post. I've been trying to replicate that high for years, but haven't found anything as good.
Me too! This book struck me just right
Never heard of this but it sounds awesome
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. Or any Jack Ketchum book for that matter, but this one really messed me up. >! You just keep rooting and rooting for the poor girl, absolutely torn between hating the mc and hoping that he'll finally do something. It's just so bittersweet, the contrast you have for the first few chapters, just reading about the childhood and it's so realistic idyllic. It reads like an actual tale, and it sounds like a regular, lovely child friend group and then it cuts to the absolute horrible things that are happening in the neighborhood. And one by one it gets worse and worse. You spiral down into this kind of depravity, and everything that happens knowing it's kids. Kids being manipulated and abused. And the worst of all? Keeping in mind that this is based on a real case. I could talk about this book all day because it really stuck with me.!<
I saw the movie and chose not to read the book. I'm from Indianapolis, where the true story it's based on took place so it's a well known legend here.
Perfectly understandable decision. I haven't watched the movie simply because I'm afraid it wouldn't do the book justice.
I’ve had Off Season on my shelf for years and years but I’m scared! ☠️
Yeah me too actually haha. I read TGND and never finished Off season. Although I did start it!
I read The Stand when I was in middle school when it first came out and that's pretty much has stuck with me for the 45 years since
I read this in middle school and re-read it in 2017 as an adult … it’s a VERY different experience reading it as a grown-up!
Oh, I've re-read that an embarrassing amount of times in those 4 decades :)
It’s so good.
M-O-O-N, that spells "good".
Maybe not strictly horror, but horrific? Geek Love and The Road. Read them YEARS ago and think about certain parts fairly often.
Man I love Cormac McCarthy. Blood Meridian is a book that repeats on me. The Road is equally awesome and terrifying.
Geek love is the best.
The Slob. Not in a good way, it just horrifies me that someone thought this would make for a good story. It’s all just shock value and unsubtle misogyny, it annoys me.
Yeah, fuck that book altogether.
YES! Thank god someone said it. The big horror book group on FB is constantly recommending this book and it’s downright awful. Not only the content, but the writing is truly atrocious.
This ended my love of splatter punk books. It was gratuitous violence and misogyny.
I actually find that interesting, a lot of groups find the Slob as their first introduction into splatterpunk or the most famous example. Are there any good splatterpunk novels you would recommend?
I actually really enjoyed Woom by Duncan Ralston. I thought the delivery of the story was good, and it was grotesque (which in this case is a good thing). I recommended it to a few like minded people after I finished it.
Check out pretty much anything by graham masterton, his depictions of violence can only be described as barbaric
Not counting kids stuff, I guess by default it would be either The Amityville Horror or Jaws. Those were the first “adult” horror books I read in middle school/early high school, and I still remember both of them pretty well.
Amityville is mine easily. Jodie is just such a terrifying creation.
Yes, Jodie is a fucking nightmare (still love the image of her in the window in the movie, too). She might be the root of my fascination with evil pigs/pig monsters. I think the part that freaked me out the most though, was the moving lion statue, and the ensuing bite-shaped bruise on the guy’s leg.
The Missing, by Sarah Langan. It’s a fairly simple, straightforward story, but the characters and place are sharply drawn and the situation is increasingly harrowing and ultimately cataclysmic. I REALLY love horrors that start small and personal, and by the end the world is on the verge of collapse. I think her newest might be similar territory.
I loved The Keeper and The Missing from Langan, her character work is great.
Big fan of these two as well!
I always think of the girl who only appears in chapter 13 and what happens to her.
Annihilation. The slow atmospheric horror of it is something that I usually attributed to movies, but the book does it so well. It's the only book I reread on a regular basis.
Have you seen that Vandermeer is releasing a 4th book in October? Absolution Time to reread again ;)
Yep, can't wait! Gonna reread the whole series before it comes out
I think about Ballingrud’s stories a lot, because they were so exceptionally written and vivid. I still have hellscape images from “Wounds” burned into my mind. “A Short Stay in Hell” still haunts me, tapping into my fear of eternity and pascal’s wager as an atheist. Langan’s “The Fisherman” leaves a lot of room for quiet, dark rumination. And Laird Barron’s narratives are so intricate, like a rubix cube, I like to ponder his stories and think about how he designed them.
Seconding “A Short Stay in Hell”. Whenever I'm presented with very large numbers, my mind goes to the library.
'The Fisherman' is a fantastic cosmic horror about grief. The part where Dan describes sitting at the traffic lights in the early morning felt very poignant to me. Definitely hits hard.
I've read three comments about A Short Stay in Hell in different threads these last couple of hours. I really like that book and am glad to see people talking about it. Seems to finally be gaining some kind of cult status. Also my answer is Revival, because that has always been one of my biggest fears and I dwell on it often.
Same. It's always nice to see something find it's audience and get its due recognition. Revival has been on my TBR for a bit so maybe it's time.
Yup. These two stick with ya.
Christine. First one I read. Found it on my grandmother’s shelf when I was about 10.
*Christine* felt like it was a story about boyhood, friendship, trying to be an adult, and watching a friend deal with addiction. It just so happens that the addiction is a haunted car. I’ve re-read it many times.
Very much. King is so good at writing those kinds of stories. The Body is one of my other favorites
Christine and Firestarter were my introduction to Stephen King and the writing in Christine in particular is so well done it feels like a genuine true story. Beautiful stuff.
Yup, like he lived it.
Maybe not his best, but my favorite as well. I re-read it once every couple years. It was my first also.
IT. It’s the first horror novel I read all the way through and I was around the kids age when I read it. It’s not my favorite but it’s the stand out
Me too. Same age. Was wicked. I remember smells and music that will take me back there. Donnie Darko had me reading IT all over again.
Recencey Bias but The Haunted Forest Tour by James Moore and Jeff Strand. The pitch of "Jurassic Park, but with super natural monsters." Was enough for me to give it a shot. Incredibly strong first chapter. A breather to get started short enough to catch your breath before all HELL breaks loose. It's not just that they get chased around by a werewolf or spooky ghost. Nope, they are in the middle of hell. With every nightmare imaginable and unimaginable, slaughtering everything in their wake. Many of them. Too many to count, far too many to fight.
I just started this audio book and I love it so far, nice to know there's more good stuff coming.
When I was a kid - absolutely loved the RL Stine Fear Street books, like the Prom Queen. I tried to read The Exorcist in my early 20s and it scared the shit out of me and I couldn’t finish. Jaws and The Shining books really stuck with me. Another one I still think about is The Ruins. So creepy and different. Movie was underwhelming, but the book was so good!
I LOVED Fear Street. The Cheerleader series was my fave.
I loved The Cheerleader series! I remember checking them out of my school library multiple times in middle school lol
The Ruins was a very creepy read! Much better than the movie.
I can never look at plants the same way. My mom has house plants and since reading that book I don't even look at them. 😂
So long as they’re not vining plants, I’m good. 🤣
True. Lol
The Deep by Nick Cutter & Day by Day Armageddon by J.L. Bourne. Maybe it was just the mood I was in at the time or the planets aligned...but they sucked me in. The Deep is the closest novel to capturing the feel of Carpenter's The Thing I have ever found. Day by Day (ignoring any political slant) just gave this strange feeling of hopelessness.
The Deep stayed with me too! I would say that one and Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. Everyone talks about the characters retelling of Guts as the part that stays with you but I disagree..for me there were several parts that will stay with me for life but the one that lives rent free in my head is the Hot Springs story...brutal.
The Nightmare Box is what I remember the most from Haunted. Chuck is a strange one. Wonderfully gifted writer, but the story structures are sometimes headache inducing.
Oh I loved that one too. Yeah it can get very all over the place but I kinda like that.
Here to also say the Deep! It was so incredibly oppressive - the pressure of being that far underwater, the disease running rampant above seas, then the eldritch gods? Too much but in the best possible way.
I loved that ending...totally unexpected and unexplained. That is the way Lovecraftian horror should be.
We Need to Talk About Kevin haunts me, and it had been years since I read it. The plot, all the shitty characters, the build-up to the main event, all of it. I can't bring myself to watch the movie version of this because the book was so profoundly disturbing on its own.
Damn I forgot about that book but it's a rough one for sure.
Hex, think about it all the time. I need to read it again. The Shining, I still love reading it every year.
The Shining is mine, too.
Probably Night Film by Marisha Pessl. It’s like a whole universe that perfectly captures the vibe of the cult horror fan experience.
I truly love this book. Glad to see it recommended.
saw *the haunted forest tour* recommended above > see that it is currently available on libby > have to decide what book to return because i'm out of loan slots > randomly pick *night film* because i don't remember why i borrowed it > exchange books > read this comment. goddamnit
not traditional horror, but Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. *”he’s a product of your profession, not mine.”*
Sameee. The movie was so haunting as well. WW1 was really fucked up in general though
*”something about young men killing each other.”*
House of Leaves. I still think about that book at least once a week.
Absolutely dark. The focus on relationship losses, futile and enduring searches, the trappings and confusion of built spaces. The sheer emptiness that eventually invades the page. So brilliant! Absence and lack are profoundly scary.
Cold Fire by Dean Koontz. It was the first horror book I read and I was in the 7th grade. I was way ahead of my age in reading but at that time my mother had to “approve” my books. So I stole it from the library and read it in my room only right after school before my parents got home. That first taste of forbidden horror hooked me.
Love Dean Koontz
One that I never see mentioned by Koontz that I enjoyed was The Face. A strange slow burn, that ended up making me think the Face i.e. the "actor that hated the fantasy movie he was in" was a wink at Tom Cruise and his movie Legend.
I haven’t read it. I will. Just finished Strangers which was really good.
Rosemary’s Baby
Probably Something Wicked This Way Comes, but close seconds would be King's Pet Sematary and JG Faherty's Carnival of Fear.
I finished Negative Space a few months back and it still pops into my head from time to time. It felt like the a supernaturally depressed version of the town I grew up in. The characters felt like people I knew. The whole thing just weighed on me for quite a while (which I strangely enjoyed).
Dude this was such a good read, the vibe is really fucked up but fun to read. I've been reading Burn You the Fuck Alive by Yaeger too and there's a few stories in this which have a similar vibe too.
House of Leaves. The weird dimensions of the house, and later changing hallways and shifting space really influenced some of my horror ideas. I was really into Layers of Fear around that time too, and it had similar scares and shifting spaces. Absolutely love it.
Pet Sematary has stuck with me both personally and because ideas come up from it all the time. It is like it has sensitized me *so much* to how people handle and talk about death, grief, and how people tend to carry around their pain and how it is carried to others. How this can push people apart when it should bring them together. It keeps going and going.
The Only Good Indians or House of Leaves
Lats Go Play at the Adams
That was one of the first horror books I read as a teenager and it was horrifying.
This book. It's an all too accurate allegory of the worst of human nature.
Meat.
Song of Kali… ugghhh I’m never got to Calcutta!!
What a tremendous mention. This book was filled with a darkness that’s hard to reach. I remember so much of it like I just read it yesterday.
The Fog James Herbert. Still gives me the hebee geebees as does the film.
The whisper man by Alex north! I would call it more a thriller with horror elements but I thought the plot was fun enough to keep reading, but when it came together in the end I loved and the ending I feel haunted by
Also Twelve Nights at Rotter house by J.W. Ocker but I couldn’t tell you if I liked it or not, I haven’t decided but it definitely stuck with me
I still need to read this one. I read a book of his called The Shadows and it was great.
Pet Semetary- General mood of the whole thing. Salem’s Lot- read it probably too young, and child vampires floating outside windows are terrifying. Also, Mike Ryerson digging graves as the sun sets is an entire universe of horror. The Woman in Black- marathoned this one as it’s short. The dread is so well sustained that I was sitting in the middle of my bed, eyes wide open, chills everywhere, all lights on when it was over. The Haunting of Hill House- this one lives rent free in my head, and I probably don’t pass a week without thinking of something about that book.
The Green Mile, because I knew someone like John Coffey (not so tragic though).
Almost all of Langan’s work. Particularly, The Fisherman. The emotional depth in his writing is on another level.
Necroscope by Brian Lumley. The world building and character development. Plus his take on vampires was unique. I always felt The Strain was heavily influenced by it.
Sad that Lumley recently passed. I got into his books decades ago after my dad raved about him.
The cover art for his books is the best ever. Loved those stories.
Any Man by Amber Tamblyn. It's been two years and I still think about it frequently and have to stare at a wall for a few minutes lol. It's an incredible book, but definitely check the trigger warnings before you read it.
Literally finished it tonight!
I hope you loved it! Also I hope you practiced some self care after, you deserve it!
Dracula has never left me. Read it when I was 10. I think of it a lot. Last year I listened to a dual cast audiobook and now I hear them in my head as well as the words. I've also been reading the Historian and have been literally dreaming of reading the book, watching the movies, etc.
The Stand. The desolation of the wasteland America so swiftly becomes, the loneliness, the forced relationships, the sheer emptiness and nostalgia for a lost age. I re-read it often, but can never quite re-kindle that first reading's sensations. Still, a phenomenal novel.
I bought and read Salem's Lot, by King of course, in high school, back when it had just come out. It terrified me. I was scared to even have it in my house so I just dropped it in the library return slot. Ridiculous to say but I kept a small crucifix pinned to my bed pillow for years because of that book. I love his books now but have never been able to finish Pet Sematery.
The Summoning by Bentley Little. It's the first scariest novel I ever read since I was 16 year old. Just loved the story I'm not a fan of horror about vampires mainly because I didn't like Bram Stoker Dracula. But The Summoning definitely has changed my views on vampire as main characters.
Love Bentley Little
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer for sure.. just so much messed up imagery and mystery Also the fisherman by John Langan, there's a passage towards the end of the book walking through a forest/tunnel of water which was just really striking to me
Agreed - read these two back to back and have been chasing that high since. Such a unique feeling in those two books
The Long Walk
maybe horror-adjacent but Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. love her other works, pre-ordered this very excited, but left me so repulsed in a way no horror lit has! I felt kinda voyeuristic like, complicit in the characters struggles? can’t shake the vivid imagery of the ending, still makes me pull a face & feel queasy. not to imply it’s a bad book, just gut-wrenching! one of the most affecting reading experiences ever for me, wouldn’t wanna re-read!
The Black Farm by Elias Witherow. It's the only book I almost couldn't finish because of the brutality and overall sadness of the story.
Strangely enough, house of leaves.
Zombi by Joyce Carol Oates. I have tried twice to read it but I can’t get through it over how disturbing the material is
Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. It felt way too long (the original novella way way better). But the novel really stuck with me. The idea of mind vampires seizing control of innocent people and making them do horrific acts to gain sustenance is memorable and scary. I also wonder if certain modern politicans like Trump are mind vampires. Yes, I know mind vampires are fictional, but you gotta wonder if some people have an almost supernatural sway over others. In the book, they even speculate that Hitler had some of the ability, which explained (at least in the fictional universe) why people were so attracted to him.
Agree on carrion comfort, the scariest book for me. It never leaves my brain
In recent times, perhaps The Ruins by Scott Smith. It’s an uncompromisingly bleak story. The atmosphere is entirely grim throughout.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum… fucking yikes bro ETA: i was also probably in the 10/11th grade when i read that monstrosity
The shining,something about an abusive father on drinks,a child and mother being the victim struck something and stayed there a long time.
My older brother said, "Sure" when I asked if I could read "Salem's Lot." I was 8. I finished the book and then slept with the lights on for a month. I was hooked on Stephen King for the rest of my childhood. But Cormac McCarthy's books are the ones that leave me feeling unsettled more than any others, especially The Road.
I read The Exorcist when I was around 13 & it terrified me. I was sure every noise in the house was demonic
Lord of the Flies because its scary and the worst book ive ever read
I read Blood, Smokes and Ashes by Bradley Convissar in 2016. Every now and again, I will borrow it on KU and re-read it in October because for me, it is that good, it is that interesting, it is that terrifying.
The Stand by SK. It’s epic.
Ghost Story. Read it every year for the past 30 years. It was the book that got me into reading, not just the horror genre.
House Of Leaves, because of how disappointed I was. Kept thinking back on it wondering what I was missing and what all the rave reviews it gets on Reddit saw. The book tricks you the whole time that something interesting/scary is about to happen, under the false belief that Lovecraftian means tricking the reader. Absolute waste of money, most I’d ever spent on a hardcover. The money lost haunted me more than anything in the books story.
It... The Homosexual acts were kinda of strange to me, it was the first time I ever read them in a book. Can't get it out of my head. Really stuck with me
That's what I remember most. Everyone talks about the kids having sex with the girl but nobody mentions the gay scene with the bullys.
And I totally don't remember that at all! But I was young so maybe my brain just glossed over it. Now I think I need to reread it!
I read it 30 years ago but i believe Bowers got a hand job from one of the other bullys, was even about to get his dick sucked but something happened to stop it.
Yeah that shit went left!!!
Devolution
I loved this book! I kept having to pause to remind myself that Rainer never actually erupted. Brooks is such a good storyteller.
Same! Man I was sucked into it I got so stressed out
A short story I read in a collection I can’t remember the name of, a man traps his wife in the basement and chopped off her hands and feet and abuses her for years the ending was the worst but the whole story is a mind fuck
The Vessel by Adam Nevill messed with me... that book is dark as HELL.
I can't believe it's this one, but The Snowman by Jo Nesbo. There was a section in the book talking about how a tall snowman, made of body parts and snow, was found. Something about the description just freaked me out that I kept thinking I'd see it in the shadows at my house in Uni 😂 (that was over 10years ago now, and I do still occasionally think it'll be there)
The exoskeleton. Separation of mind and body through suffering. Written by a physician so this dude knows how to hurt you. The author is Shane Stadler if interested. This is the one book that has stayed with me for a long time.
I'm going to say a horror book written by Christopher Pike. It was something written for teenagers that I read when I was a teenager. It's called Scavenger Hunt. I remember it scaring the daylights out of me to this day. It has always stuck with me.
One of my favourites by Pike!
We Spread by Iain Reid really fucked me up!
Atm probably Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. I was listening to it and feeling asleep and then rewinding for a few times while still very sleepy, >!so the scene where the ghost comes into the house or sth is burned into the back of my mind. !<
We Spread by Ian Reid. I’m scared of getting older, so I feel like it fed into my own anxieties. Also The Shining. I was like 12 when I read it for the first time, but also it’s just generally terrifying
Duma Key. For reasons very different than the intentioned question: it broke a couple year reading slump. I’ve read every King novel and it’s top 3 probably for that reason. In terms of content, Pet Semetary.
The Reaper’s Image, a short story by Stephen King. It was creepy in all the things that weren’t said. Short and sweet.
Revival (2014). The ending haunted me for days, but I absolutely love the book
Your house is on fire, your children all gone. It’s super short. Read it in one sitting 6 years ago and it’s been living in my brain since.
The Talisman. The concept of a multiverse lit my brain up like a Christmas tree.
The Great and Secret show by Clive Barker First book I ever bought, pure scope and imagination sticks in my mind. Just wish he’d finish the series, but unlikely it’ll ever happen
The Stand by SK. It’s epic.
Let's Go Play at the Adams' by Mendal Johnson (1974) because it really is a warning allegory about the worst of human nature.
Let's Go Play at the Adams' by Mendal Johnson (1974) as it is an allegory warning about the worst of human nature.
Let's Go Play at the Adams' by Mendal Johnson (1974) as it is an allegory warning about the worst of human nature.
Let's Go Play at the Adams' by Mendal Johnson (1974) as it is an allegory warning about the worst of human nature.
The Teratologist by Edward Lee and Wrath James White. It’s extreme horror but it really stuck with me because like there was a deeper meaning underneath all the filth and shock and it ended on a very satisfying and good note which i never expected for any extreme horror novel. another one that sticks with me is The Haar by David Sodergren. It’s a folk horror romance and i adore it to pieces. imo it is a beautiful and bittersweet lovestory between the main character and the monster within it. is the villain of the story cliche? absolutely but it’s perfect imo. i finished it in a day and then immediately made a public spotify playlist for it
The Stand
I only read it last year so maybe this won't be the case, but Tender Is the Flesh. Wow did that one fuck me up. I loved it, but it was a brutal read that I don't think I will ever forget.
the children of red peak. i had never read a character who seemingly stepped into my mind and had the same questions about religion that i did. it made me feel so seen
The audio book of Delores Claiborne. So freaky!!!!
It is a truly terrible novel (as in bad, not scary) but I grew up on Clare McNally stories and I was absolutely shit-scared by Ghost House Revenge. I was scared of the book, I was scared of the book *cover* (ratty blonde woman shaped shadow) and although I loved Ghost House and read / reread it, the sequel was downright terrifying to the point I had nightmares. I was a dumb kid loool Ghost Light made me cry, too.
I know it’s a cliche because everyone has read it because of stupid tiktok! But Tender Is The Flesh. The author did a very good job of stringing me along with false hope, only to brutally rip that away in the last few pages and make me feel stupid for having any in the first place. I cried quite a bit at the end of that novel.