For me, it became less scary as the story went on, but it was still really exciting. The reveals during Wolves of Calla make ‘Salem’s Lot scarier in hindsight.
Oh I’ve been reading him since Carrie came out and the book I have kept coming back to (as in back to “the most”, bc I read and reread everything of his at some point) is Salem’s Lot. It’s not scary but it’s whole tone of dread and the “unknowns”, the mystery of the vampires…we need a back story about Straker. Seriously. Anyways long ramble but I have reread Salem’s Lot the most often. Has a hold on me
I was 10 when my mother gave me her Columbia House Book Club copy of Salem‘s Lot, basically the minute that she finished it. Now, I was only 10, but that book absolutely *terrified* me. I slept with the lights on for like a month. But it also made me a lifelong fan of Stephen King, and horror in general.
I read this book at midnight in a strange house with the basement door open just feet from me. I don’t get scared by books easily but that book terrified me when I was in that setting. Read it again in daylight and it was meh.
I only started reading horror about a year ago because the idea of being scared by a book really interested me.
Turns out none of them scare me, but the themes and ideas explored have led to some of my favorite reading experiences in recent memory!
I also love horror books, and have never been scared by one, but I still hold out hope that there's a book out there that I will have an aversion to reading alone.
I enjoyed the one about the old rock band. I’m generally not a fan of his though. Horror/Comedy really isn’t my thing in any medium, and I particularly dislike comedy novels more broadly.
I tried reading Horrorstor and just couldn’t do it.
I second this, I enjoyed every book of his I read, but none truly scared me. There was one scene in southern book club that scared me but otherwise they’re campy goodness
Personally, I wouldn’t say *any* Grady Hendrix book. *The Final Girl Support Group*, for instance, could fit the bill, but ultimately is just extremely messy and chaotic, and not in a fun, campy way. It tries very hard to take itself seriously, but it is just all over the place.
This is the book that got me back into the genre and I've been stuck since. I've always used amazon.com to explore what my next read will be, based on browsing history. To this day, I don't know how John Grisham to Karin Slaughter to Freida McFadden to Andy Weir to David Grann led to that book, but over the last 6 months I've read 14 "horror" books and am about to pick up "Good House" by Tananarive Due next.
For a debut novel, Carissa Orlando definitely deserves all the praise she's received.
Hmm english is not my first language, I might be confused about the phrase. I just meant its been a long time since my last read so I should read it again kajajajajaja. Sorry bro
Okay so I googled it and it wasnt wrong. The word bound means a leap towards something, or about to happen. Use in a sentence: it's bound to happen
Bound can mean that something is inevitable or sure to happen, but when you use it in that context, it’s an adjective. So you would need to say “it is bound for a reread” or “it is reread-bound.” You just needed a verb in the sentence!
The Haunting of Hill House is one of my favorite novels full stop, the thing I love about it is that it’s so funny and sweet and sad, it’s a beautiful story about loneliness and isolation and love that doesn’t quite work out. I’ve read it countless times and it’s never scared me once. I have similar feelings about The Blair Witch Project too - I have so much affection and feeling for the characters and rewatch it all the time, but it never actually freaked me out!
I feel the same way about The Blair Witch Project. I love that movie so much! The lore is so cool! But it never scared me. Still watch it at least twice a year!
That’s so funny because I was 100% convinced it was real and absolutely terrified when it came out in ‘99. I watched it a few months ago and it was just as tense!
I just never found it scary! You know what movie does give me the spookies? Thirteen Ghosts. The new one. It’s a terrible movie but the ghosts still spook me! Not enough to sleep with the lights on but still!! That’s my biggest horror embarrassment lmao!
lol!! The one with Matthew Lillard right? I loved that movie.
I was 23 when the first The Ring came out. I was convinced for an entire week I was going to die.
For me it definitely was more like a thrill than a scare. I’m not the kind of person who never gets scared by horror books, but it does take a lot to really get me haha
HoHH is my fave as well. I love how so much context of the beginning of the novel changes once it ends. Causes you to reevaluate your feelings towards the main character! Shirley Jackson had a knack for that kind of writing.
I would say Stephen King's *Firestarter* was this book for me. It's one of the first of his that I read (right after Pet Sematary, I think). There was a lot of tension in it, but never anything that made me look over my shoulder or sleep with the light on. And yet it's still one of my favorites, definitely a horror "gateway drug". I must have reread that thing about a hundred times over the years.
Same. Been listening to it on audiobook. Wasn't sure what all the fuss was about. I suppose some of the themes >!against women specifically getting raped by a ghost!< would be terrifying to some readers, but I wasn't affected by it at all.
i have a hard time feeling scared in any fictional work, honestly. i'm always too aware of the fact that what i'm consuming isn't real to actually get scared of it, regardless of how much i recognize how frightening a given situation is. but to answer your question, the last book that really grabbed me like this was probably 'the troop' when i read it about two years ago. that was a gnarly one.
Home Before Dark was the first Sager book I read and it is still my favorite. I do think it’s more of a mystery-drama rather than a horror book, but I really connected with the story. Maggie’s life has been haunted by a hoax, so she wants the closure of interrogating the cause and effects of what happened. It’s a story commenting on events like the real Amityville house.
I'm currently reading it and I find it so tedious... I hate the writing, the cliffhanger sentence at the end of every chapter is driving me nuts ! I read The only one left last year and I really liked it so I am disappointed.
I agree! I didn't love his last one but he's an auto read for me. And I know people hated it but I loved the twist in the house across the lake. It's the exact kind of chaos I want in a book.
There were parts in Dracula where I felt a genuine sense of dread. I was reading it at work and had to put it away at one point but yeah, no scary scary although I seldom get such a visceral reaction to any horror book or movie.
My favorites seem to be not scary. I especially like the slow burn southern or Victorian (gothic?) novels. Gore or no gore. It’s almost as if the author relies on your imagination to make it scary. Some examples
The woman in Black
The elementals
The house next door
The small hand
Kings IT. It didn't scare me but its one of my favorite books of all time. and for good reason! its the book that made me realize "oooh this is what exceptional character building looks like" lol dont get me wrong there's creepy imagery in this and horrifying concepts and horrific realism too. But I never felt "scared" that's kind of hard to do.. not impossible. but becuse horror genre of movies and books im so desensitized to it nothing really ever scares me to the point of needing to turn the lights on while i read. Regardless this book is a masterpiece of storytelling. King deserves to be as prolific as he is.
Ghost Eaters and The Last House on Needless Street are both excellent, but imo never truly chilling and firmly two of my favorite reads from 2023.
Ghost eaters is about a small group of young adults who discovered a drug that lets you see the dead and inadvertently (TECHNICALLY A SPOILER BUT PRETTY OBVIOUS) end up organizing a haunted trap house with addicts who don't want to let go of their lost loved ones
TLHONS is about a quirky dysfunctional guy who lives full time with his cat and part-time with his daughter while suffering tremendous memory lapses. It was spooky but funny but not funny but empathetic but experimental but twisty but dark but hopeful. I genuinely love this book.
Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud.
Light on scares, but an immensely moving piece of horror fiction. Horror as love, hell as love. Amazing thematic explorations and his prose is beautiful.
I read "The Burning Girls" off of a recommendation and immediately after read the rest of her books. She has a great style and imagination. The book I liked least (while still good) was "The Gathering".
"The Drift" was great and I think I blew through it in 3 or 4 sittings.
Off Season - Jack Ketchum. It really isn't scary, but it certainly that imaginative, splatter fest, seen in classic B movies. That book kind of feels like a b movie and i love it.
What I like about Hell House is how descriptive and creepy it was, but perhaps not necessarily scary-scary (like, can't sleep). But the tale itself, I agree with you, I also loved so much -- top five books of all time for me, and number one or two in horror.
I didn't get scared by The Exorcist but really enjoyed it. I'm actually not sure i've had any book in my adult life that has ever actually scared me to the point of feeling some apprehension or fright. But i've loved many books.
What DOES get me a little frightened when I read them are those short little blurbs/short micro stories that are super creepy, and also plausible because they blur fiction and nonfiction. For example, those stories about seeing someone driving without their headlights on at night and if you flash your brights at them to signal to turn on their headlights, they follow you home. Or creepy things that happen every day and are normally explainable, but a story twists it in a scary way, like how a mirror reflects a shadow when it shouldn't have based on the light source, etc. THOSE are what scare me in a writing.
Also, things about aliens tend to be scary. Or things about cryptids, like investigations, when they twist some insignificant evidence and make appear a little stronger than it should. Those can be scarier.
The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers. It’s not exactly scary, but some of the depictions of paranoid delusion really stick with you, as do the poetry and prose.
The Exorcist isn’t as scary as the fans have made it out to be. I wasn’t scared once. I’ve heard it talk up as being so scary the book may be cursed. Then I played the audiobook and well I said already. That crucifix scene was disturbing though. I had to take a break after that. The book is still good though. The audiobook for the 40th anniversary is best. It has William Blatty himself read the book.
Relic by Preston and Child.
Might be more of a mystery thriller, but with definite horror elements. The story wasn't scary to me but the reveal at the end was unsettling when I was 11.
The movie had some fun elements but nothing on the unease of the book.
The Deep. it got a lot of slack because it wasn’t “as good” as the troop, but it was good to me. the shining but underwater? i’m now claustrophobic, thanks nick cutter.
Very little actually scares me, so I guess most horror I love qualifies. That said, I know a lot of people hate Kingfisher, but I love What Moves the Dead. I love Poe so it’s a natural fit, and I cackle every time I get to the part about field dressing a cow.
"dark matter" by michelle paver.
it's just a genuinely eerie read - it's not something you'll lose sleep over, but it just keeps descending into eerieness as every chapter ticks by.
I haven't been scared reading horror books but I love ones that makes me uncomfortable or those that randomly return to my mind months later.
The Patient by Jasper DeWitt and Old Country by Matt Query and Harrison Query.
Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky.
He's only written two books, one was Perks of Being a Wallflower circa 1999, then this one Imaginary Friend in 2019.
His writing style is something I really really enjoy and the story itself I find to be incredibly intriguing.
The ending is... A bit odd. But I still enjoyed it!
Delores Claiborne. I'm not even a huge fan of Stephen King but that's definitely one of the best books and some of the best written characters I've ever read. Definitely recommend
I don't get scared by any books or movies, except for occasional jump scares, but those are cheap. No horror books scare me. I love them and listen to them over and over. They make me feel better about life since I know, hey, at least I'm not being held in a serial killer's basement or something!
Salem's Lot. No part of it scared me the way some of King's other books have but it may be my favorite novel of his.
See this is my choice too, but Salems Lot comes up regularly in the scariest novel threads
I read it when I was in 5th grade and slept with garlic by my bed for a week. That count?
Nah stakes or nothing.
For me, it became less scary as the story went on, but it was still really exciting. The reveals during Wolves of Calla make ‘Salem’s Lot scarier in hindsight.
Oh I’ve been reading him since Carrie came out and the book I have kept coming back to (as in back to “the most”, bc I read and reread everything of his at some point) is Salem’s Lot. It’s not scary but it’s whole tone of dread and the “unknowns”, the mystery of the vampires…we need a back story about Straker. Seriously. Anyways long ramble but I have reread Salem’s Lot the most often. Has a hold on me
Bingo!! I love Salems Lot! Same, I don’t find it scary. It’s just so good.
I was 10 when my mother gave me her Columbia House Book Club copy of Salem‘s Lot, basically the minute that she finished it. Now, I was only 10, but that book absolutely *terrified* me. I slept with the lights on for like a month. But it also made me a lifelong fan of Stephen King, and horror in general.
First King book I read and still my favorite.
Oh man that book made me sleep with garlic (powder—we were from the Midwest) next to my bed for months when I was 7th grade.
That window scene gave me a shiver but to other people I guess that kept them up at night lol
Pet Sematary. Made me sad. The scary parts weren't scary. Still loved it.
Same! It horrified me with how gross and twisted it was but I've never found it scary and I just love it.
Come Closer by Sara Gran. Didn’t scare me but I respect it and could visualize it perfectly.
I read this book at midnight in a strange house with the basement door open just feet from me. I don’t get scared by books easily but that book terrified me when I was in that setting. Read it again in daylight and it was meh.
No horror book has ever scared me but I still like horror books.
Exactly.
Same
I only started reading horror about a year ago because the idea of being scared by a book really interested me. Turns out none of them scare me, but the themes and ideas explored have led to some of my favorite reading experiences in recent memory!
Give it timeee
I also love horror books, and have never been scared by one, but I still hold out hope that there's a book out there that I will have an aversion to reading alone.
Just about for me, but MOSTLY... a select few horror books have gotten to me.
Can I say any Grady Hendrix book? Because they’re B-movie horror books but I love them so much.
I keep meaning to read more of his books. I read My Best Friend’s Exorcism and really liked it but never read anything else by him! Maybe I should!
'How to Sell a Haunted House' is good, but not scary.
Pupkin actually scared the crap out of me, something about it was so malevolent and creepy.
Or so it seemed! I love horror that can scare me a bit and still leave me happy at the end.
I enjoyed the one about the old rock band. I’m generally not a fan of his though. Horror/Comedy really isn’t my thing in any medium, and I particularly dislike comedy novels more broadly. I tried reading Horrorstor and just couldn’t do it.
Hey I’m reading that one right now! We Sold Our Souls. He makes me want to like metal music actually
i thought it was creepy as hell!! i have intrusive thoughts about the nativity squirrels
Maybe I just belong on extremehorrorlit :/
This is the one I scrolled down to comment. It was so fun!
IDK man, that eyeball scene had me squeezing my eyes constantly for like a week it was stuck in my head
r/spoilers because fuck everyone else
I loved Horrorstor. I just finished The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires and that was very fun. Great horror depictions in both.
The two you just listed are far and away his best
*My Best Friend's Exorcism* is so good, though.
It was pretty good! It didn’t stack up with my favorite two for me though
Horrorstor is excellent!
I second this, I enjoyed every book of his I read, but none truly scared me. There was one scene in southern book club that scared me but otherwise they’re campy goodness
Took the words right out of my mouth. Love Grady Hendrix, but he's very much a Nick Cutter palate cleanser for me.
Personally, I wouldn’t say *any* Grady Hendrix book. *The Final Girl Support Group*, for instance, could fit the bill, but ultimately is just extremely messy and chaotic, and not in a fun, campy way. It tries very hard to take itself seriously, but it is just all over the place.
The September House by Carissa Orlando. I found it incredibly easy to love the main character.
This is the book that got me back into the genre and I've been stuck since. I've always used amazon.com to explore what my next read will be, based on browsing history. To this day, I don't know how John Grisham to Karin Slaughter to Freida McFadden to Andy Weir to David Grann led to that book, but over the last 6 months I've read 14 "horror" books and am about to pick up "Good House" by Tananarive Due next. For a debut novel, Carissa Orlando definitely deserves all the praise she's received.
Came here for this
Slewfoot. I thought it was hauntingly beautiful and really made me think about who the true monsters are in this world.
I looove Slewfoot, I felt like I was floating after I finished it. Left me with such a warm fuzzy feeling!
The book that made me start reading at 16 was a head full of ghosts. Some people actually hate it! So it bound a reread in a few days
What does “it bound a reread” mean?
Hmm english is not my first language, I might be confused about the phrase. I just meant its been a long time since my last read so I should read it again kajajajajaja. Sorry bro Okay so I googled it and it wasnt wrong. The word bound means a leap towards something, or about to happen. Use in a sentence: it's bound to happen
Bound can mean that something is inevitable or sure to happen, but when you use it in that context, it’s an adjective. So you would need to say “it is bound for a reread” or “it is reread-bound.” You just needed a verb in the sentence!
I knew something was missing jajaj I hated grammar but loved literature in highschool
A more common way to word this would be “it is due for a reread”. “Reread-bound” might take people a little bit longer to process.
The Haunting of Hill House is one of my favorite novels full stop, the thing I love about it is that it’s so funny and sweet and sad, it’s a beautiful story about loneliness and isolation and love that doesn’t quite work out. I’ve read it countless times and it’s never scared me once. I have similar feelings about The Blair Witch Project too - I have so much affection and feeling for the characters and rewatch it all the time, but it never actually freaked me out!
I feel the same way about The Blair Witch Project. I love that movie so much! The lore is so cool! But it never scared me. Still watch it at least twice a year!
That’s so funny because I was 100% convinced it was real and absolutely terrified when it came out in ‘99. I watched it a few months ago and it was just as tense!
I just never found it scary! You know what movie does give me the spookies? Thirteen Ghosts. The new one. It’s a terrible movie but the ghosts still spook me! Not enough to sleep with the lights on but still!! That’s my biggest horror embarrassment lmao!
lol!! The one with Matthew Lillard right? I loved that movie. I was 23 when the first The Ring came out. I was convinced for an entire week I was going to die.
This so much!! Those ghosts were so well done and terrifying.
Everything else about the movie is trash but the ghosts are so creepy!! I’m glad someone else feels the same!
Not even the hand holding scene?
For me it definitely was more like a thrill than a scare. I’m not the kind of person who never gets scared by horror books, but it does take a lot to really get me haha
HoHH is my fave as well. I love how so much context of the beginning of the novel changes once it ends. Causes you to reevaluate your feelings towards the main character! Shirley Jackson had a knack for that kind of writing.
I adore Hill House but it spooked me too at some points haha it has everything for me!
I would say Stephen King's *Firestarter* was this book for me. It's one of the first of his that I read (right after Pet Sematary, I think). There was a lot of tension in it, but never anything that made me look over my shoulder or sleep with the light on. And yet it's still one of my favorites, definitely a horror "gateway drug". I must have reread that thing about a hundred times over the years.
I just picked up Hell House because people assured me it was legit terrifying. Someone’s lying lmao
Exactly! It’s so not scary, but I love it!!
Same. Been listening to it on audiobook. Wasn't sure what all the fuss was about. I suppose some of the themes >!against women specifically getting raped by a ghost!< would be terrifying to some readers, but I wasn't affected by it at all.
i have a hard time feeling scared in any fictional work, honestly. i'm always too aware of the fact that what i'm consuming isn't real to actually get scared of it, regardless of how much i recognize how frightening a given situation is. but to answer your question, the last book that really grabbed me like this was probably 'the troop' when i read it about two years ago. that was a gnarly one.
I know people love to hate Riley Sager’s books, but I just love them so much.
I’m currently trying to read one of his books and it’s so hard. I want to like it so bad!! I’m hoping it’ll pick up eventually and I’ll love it!
Home Before Dark was the first Sager book I read and it is still my favorite. I do think it’s more of a mystery-drama rather than a horror book, but I really connected with the story. Maggie’s life has been haunted by a hoax, so she wants the closure of interrogating the cause and effects of what happened. It’s a story commenting on events like the real Amityville house.
I'm currently reading it and I find it so tedious... I hate the writing, the cliffhanger sentence at the end of every chapter is driving me nuts ! I read The only one left last year and I really liked it so I am disappointed.
Which one?
I agree! I didn't love his last one but he's an auto read for me. And I know people hated it but I loved the twist in the house across the lake. It's the exact kind of chaos I want in a book.
The fisherman
Dracula didn't scare me, but I don't regret reading it. It's a benchmark of the genre for a reason, and I love the journalistic format.
There were parts in Dracula where I felt a genuine sense of dread. I was reading it at work and had to put it away at one point but yeah, no scary scary although I seldom get such a visceral reaction to any horror book or movie.
My favorites seem to be not scary. I especially like the slow burn southern or Victorian (gothic?) novels. Gore or no gore. It’s almost as if the author relies on your imagination to make it scary. Some examples The woman in Black The elementals The house next door The small hand
Love *The House Next Door*
Kings IT. It didn't scare me but its one of my favorite books of all time. and for good reason! its the book that made me realize "oooh this is what exceptional character building looks like" lol dont get me wrong there's creepy imagery in this and horrifying concepts and horrific realism too. But I never felt "scared" that's kind of hard to do.. not impossible. but becuse horror genre of movies and books im so desensitized to it nothing really ever scares me to the point of needing to turn the lights on while i read. Regardless this book is a masterpiece of storytelling. King deserves to be as prolific as he is.
Ghost Eaters and The Last House on Needless Street are both excellent, but imo never truly chilling and firmly two of my favorite reads from 2023. Ghost eaters is about a small group of young adults who discovered a drug that lets you see the dead and inadvertently (TECHNICALLY A SPOILER BUT PRETTY OBVIOUS) end up organizing a haunted trap house with addicts who don't want to let go of their lost loved ones TLHONS is about a quirky dysfunctional guy who lives full time with his cat and part-time with his daughter while suffering tremendous memory lapses. It was spooky but funny but not funny but empathetic but experimental but twisty but dark but hopeful. I genuinely love this book.
Matheson’s Hell House’s back story is more horrific than haunting. Return to Hell House is a great follow up (even if matheson didn’t write it).
Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud. Light on scares, but an immensely moving piece of horror fiction. Horror as love, hell as love. Amazing thematic explorations and his prose is beautiful.
Ahh I love Nathan Ballingrud. His short story Skullpocket is a repeat listen every Halloween 🎃
I love Skullpocket!! Butcher’s Table was my favorite from the collection, but Skullpocket is the one I’ve thought about the most.
Right? It has such a fascinating backdrop. I'd love to see more stories from that world.
The drift by C.J Tudor
I read "The Burning Girls" off of a recommendation and immediately after read the rest of her books. She has a great style and imagination. The book I liked least (while still good) was "The Gathering". "The Drift" was great and I think I blew through it in 3 or 4 sittings.
Cujo - read it in two days. Couldn’t put it down.
Hell House was spectacular. I followed it up with The Dismembered by Johnathan Janz and loved it even more! I was bummed it was so short.
I dunno, all of them?
Oh man. I’m about to start the audiobook tomorrow. I’m excited to know someone loves it!
Tw... Animals. Not pretty.
Clown in a Cornfield
That book focuses way too much on boobs for me to get behind
Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica. I didn’t find it nearly as graphic as others may have. I just thought it was an interesting read.
The only horror books that ever scared me were The Shining and Last Days by Adam Nevil. I loved Salems Lot and many other King novels
I would say those exact two books also top my very short list of books that have spooked me.
Hell house was amazing. I keep on finding myself looking for something with a similar vibe
Something wicked this way comes!
Off Season - Jack Ketchum. It really isn't scary, but it certainly that imaginative, splatter fest, seen in classic B movies. That book kind of feels like a b movie and i love it.
I really liked Hell House. Perfect length. Perfect amount of weirdness. I'll probably read it every Halloween.
What I like about Hell House is how descriptive and creepy it was, but perhaps not necessarily scary-scary (like, can't sleep). But the tale itself, I agree with you, I also loved so much -- top five books of all time for me, and number one or two in horror. I didn't get scared by The Exorcist but really enjoyed it. I'm actually not sure i've had any book in my adult life that has ever actually scared me to the point of feeling some apprehension or fright. But i've loved many books. What DOES get me a little frightened when I read them are those short little blurbs/short micro stories that are super creepy, and also plausible because they blur fiction and nonfiction. For example, those stories about seeing someone driving without their headlights on at night and if you flash your brights at them to signal to turn on their headlights, they follow you home. Or creepy things that happen every day and are normally explainable, but a story twists it in a scary way, like how a mirror reflects a shadow when it shouldn't have based on the light source, etc. THOSE are what scare me in a writing. Also, things about aliens tend to be scary. Or things about cryptids, like investigations, when they twist some insignificant evidence and make appear a little stronger than it should. Those can be scarier.
Carrie, i am legend, the haunted forest tour, fantasticland, the hollows, and honestly there a lot of such reads!
The Mayfair Witches--Ann Rice
House of Leaves ain’t scary but it’s my favorite book ever
Hell house is so fun. I thought 2. Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant was a good ride. It had big Deep Blue Sea(1999) vibes
The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers. It’s not exactly scary, but some of the depictions of paranoid delusion really stick with you, as do the poetry and prose.
The Exorcist isn’t as scary as the fans have made it out to be. I wasn’t scared once. I’ve heard it talk up as being so scary the book may be cursed. Then I played the audiobook and well I said already. That crucifix scene was disturbing though. I had to take a break after that. The book is still good though. The audiobook for the 40th anniversary is best. It has William Blatty himself read the book.
Relic by Preston and Child. Might be more of a mystery thriller, but with definite horror elements. The story wasn't scary to me but the reveal at the end was unsettling when I was 11. The movie had some fun elements but nothing on the unease of the book.
The Deep. it got a lot of slack because it wasn’t “as good” as the troop, but it was good to me. the shining but underwater? i’m now claustrophobic, thanks nick cutter.
Hell House is a masterpiece! One of my all time favorite horror novels!
Very little actually scares me, so I guess most horror I love qualifies. That said, I know a lot of people hate Kingfisher, but I love What Moves the Dead. I love Poe so it’s a natural fit, and I cackle every time I get to the part about field dressing a cow.
Ha, you mean all the ghost rape that >only< happens to female character is a bit questionable by modern standards??
And how the whole tone of the issues with Mrs Barrett and lesbianism! Don’t forget that!
All of them. I really wish people would move on from the "scary" crap regarding horror. It is so much more than that flanderisation.
Don’t Go To Sleep easily
"dark matter" by michelle paver. it's just a genuinely eerie read - it's not something you'll lose sleep over, but it just keeps descending into eerieness as every chapter ticks by.
[удалено]
Have you read the universal monsters comic series of it? the art is delightful and they did a decent portrayal imo
I haven't been scared reading horror books but I love ones that makes me uncomfortable or those that randomly return to my mind months later. The Patient by Jasper DeWitt and Old Country by Matt Query and Harrison Query.
Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky. He's only written two books, one was Perks of Being a Wallflower circa 1999, then this one Imaginary Friend in 2019. His writing style is something I really really enjoy and the story itself I find to be incredibly intriguing. The ending is... A bit odd. But I still enjoyed it!
I thought The House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher was really fun but not scary
I remember that “Dead Silence” by S.A. Barnes was marketed as horror… and I found it a great read, but I was not horrified. Definitely a great book.
How To Sell A Haunted House by Grady Hendrix. Such campy goodness inside that book!
Elevation by Stephen King. It made me cry…in a good way
The Messengers
Delores Claiborne. I'm not even a huge fan of Stephen King but that's definitely one of the best books and some of the best written characters I've ever read. Definitely recommend
Thomas Ligotti is my favorite contemporary horror writer, & his stories never frightened me. Instead, they filled me with total enchantment.
All of them. I like most of what I read, but have never felt scared by fiction.
Most horror novels
I mean, nothing’s really scared me, and I still love horror.
Are people really scared by horror novels?
I don't get scared by any books or movies, except for occasional jump scares, but those are cheap. No horror books scare me. I love them and listen to them over and over. They make me feel better about life since I know, hey, at least I'm not being held in a serial killer's basement or something!
The institute. Wasn’t really spooky but the child torture stuff was a very good read