Thread: What's the scariest/creepiest book you've ever read?

Well, the title says it all really. Even without visuals to make things more vivid, words written down on paper can sometimes freak me out. The creepiest book I've ever read was 172 Hours on the Moon, by Johan Harstad. There are many references to creepypastas/urban legends, and the main plot is quite creepy too. It didn't scare the ---- out of me, but I never really do read horror stories.

So, post the scariest book you've ever read, and why you think it's scary/creepy.

This is great, I'll use it as my reading list. Hmm...I guess it could be Incarceron by Catherine Fisher (aka Catfish). I read adult horror, but that book has always stuck with me, 'cause Incarceron's so evil, weird, sadistic, and practically inescapable.

The Magician's Nephew, one of the Narnia books, was more than a little nightmarish in terms to the description of a post-apocalyptic world. It features two kids (Digory and Polly), who are only like 11 or 12, and they enter this dead world called Charn, where all life has disappeared. To make things worse, the sun is old, red, dim, and considerably larger than ours. The kids see a hall of images of the rulers of Charn. The images start out friendly, but gradually become meaner and meaner until the last one, who is almost monstrous in how cruel she looks. Digory rings a bell that is located nearby, and the evil queen awakens. (She turns out to be Jadis, the White Witch.) Jadis explains that she destroyed Charn through the use of an evil word. She used it after she was defeated in battle, and it killed everything except herself. Jadis describes the use of torture in her world, which she takes pleasure in. Later on, it is implied that Charn's sun died and the world ended. Honestly, for a fantasy series that seemed lighter than Tolkien's, I thought that was much darker than them.

Not scary (or creepy), but reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy was an... experience. Pretty sure the writers were on acid or something as they wrote it.

"Lisey's Story," by Stephen King. I'm sure there are creepier books out there (1984, for instance) but this one definitely stayed with me. It's a very complicated plot for me to explain, but suffice it to say that he uses imagery and haunting dialogue to keep you up at night.

Well this may seem silly to some but Coraline. And this was back in 8th grade for me before it was animated so the creepy pictures and the thought of having buttons sewn onto my eyes sent shivers down my spine when I was younger. >.<

50 Shades of Grey lol jk

here in our place there is a book series with true short ghost stories around the country. some are pretty scary especially ones about places that i know are close to home. I have the complete 1-5 books, book 12-16, 20, 24 and 27. I stopped collecting since money became tight around last year might buy another one this month if i get bored.

I don't actually remember the name. I got it after me and my friend kinda broke into an empty house across the street. The owners had moved out and left some stuff behind for the skip. I found a book about fish and a book that had a collection of ghost stories. They were quite desturbing and I was only about 8. The book just felt creepy, I think it was also because of finding it in an empty house that looked quite scary, it was old and could of passed for a haunted house XD

The kind of fiction I like tends to lend itself to a creepy or bleak atmosphere, so no book really stands out to me as particularly scary, only sufficiently so. xD

If I really had to pick one, I'd choose World War Z by Max Brooks, since it has the most disturbing visualization to it.

They don't scare me anymore, but the Goosebumps series when I was a kid.... wow.

This is only a short story, but certainly the most chilling thing I've ever read was I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison. It really unsettled me.

Actually, you know what? Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is the one book that's genuinely scared me.

I don't read many horror books, so Star Wars: Death Troopers for me.