We are readers, there is no doubt about that and for that reason we like to venture out to get the best literary recommendations that our friends make us. However, within all the genres there is one that we carefully analyze and even seek more opinions about it because we do not want to feel disappointed.
Of course, we are referring to horror literature, the kind that we choose to read just before going to sleep as a show of courage and without fear that the worst villains that have been invented in the authors’ fantasy will appear in our dreams. But sometimes they exceed our expectations and we better turn the page because they are really terrifying. That’s why this time we wanted to make a list of the books that, according to some readers, have given them so many nightmares that they better stop reading.
1. Box in form of heart by joe hill
I read it while waiting for jury selection and in a brightly lit room full of people I was still so scared I had to put the book away. It scared me so much that I got rid of the book as fast as I could! I didn’t even like to see him in my house.
2. misery by stephen king
Her breaking her legs made me squirm. Also, he was on drugs and tried to escape and all that. I still don’t know how it ended.
3. life as we know it by Susan Beth Pfeffer
I had to stop reading, which is funny because it’s written for high school students. It was too plausible and depressing.
4. The bone Collector by Jeffery Deaver
I was on a plane reading about people being picked up at the airport by a taxi driver who ends up killing them. I had to stop after the first chapter or so. No, thanks.
5. The Radio Girls by Kate Moore
The fact that this is a true story shook me to the core. As a hypochondriac this was an absolute nightmare to read. I couldn’t finish it. I kept thinking: ‘Is plastic the ‘radio’ of today?’.
6. The way by Cormac McCarthy
When I was an impressionable freshman in high school, “The Way” was required reading. I had to stop because I started having nightmares about cannibals and my English teacher was NOT happy that I didn’t finish the book.
7. a bag of bones by stephen king
That book left me so mentally unhinged that I had to stop halfway through and haven’t read it since.
8. Final Truth: The Autobiography of a Serial Killer by Donald H. Gaskins and Wilton Earle
It is a very detailed account of the life of Donald Gaskins, a serial killer from South Carolina. Some of his murders were truly heinous and hard to swallow.
9. 1984 by George Orwell
I could see too many similarities with what is happening in the world today and I couldn’t deal with that reality. No, thanks.
10. the house of leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
I can’t even begin to describe this book. I hid it in my trunk so it wouldn’t be in my house and eventually had to throw it away because I felt like it was still haunting me. I wasn’t even close to finishing it. Some friends who were reading it with me suggested not reading specific chapters while I was home alone.
eleven. animal graveyard by stephen king
I have tried countless times to finish it and have never been able to because it is so creepy and disturbing. It is the only Stephen King book that I have never been able to finish.
12. Monuments to the Grimm by R. Patrick Gates
After each time I put it down, I felt the need to wash my hands.
13. milk teeth by Zoje Stage
A seven-year-old daughter continues to try to murder her mother so she can have her father alone, it’s creepy.
14. You by Caroline Kepnes
The show was creepy, but the book was too much. It made me so uncomfortable that I had to get out of bed five times a night to make sure my doors were locked.
fifteen. The glow by stephen king
Nothing has puzzled me as much as ‘The Shining’. Just the palpable feeling of coldness and isolation is enough to make you uncomfortable, but then he added those hedge animals and whatever was hiding in that tunnel on the playground. One hundred percent nightmare fuel.