A lot of Roald Dahl short stories manage this for me. There's sometimes just one sentence that lets you know something is very, very wrong, but the narrative lets you figure it out for yourself.
Wes Anderson has an absolutely lovely series of shorts on (I think) Netflix in which an ensemble of A list actors including Ben Kingsley and Benedict Cumberbatch narrate and act out Roald Dahl short stories verbatim in a "filmed theatrical production" type manner.
They're excellent little movies.
There's a sentence towards the end of We Need to Talk About Kevin when I realised a certain thing was coming that made my stomach drop and all I could do was just mumble "no, no, no!" myself. I still think about it nearly 20 years later.
The book is harrowing! It's amazing. The scene that puts everything in context is so upsetting, in a good way. There are many scenes that feel like you're watching a still image from just before or just after disaster.
The movie is done so well, and the book is even better. I’d highly recommend reading it. The narrator/main character and the way she contemplates parenthood is just so interesting. It’s also terrifying, as I’m sure you can imagine if you’ve see the film.
Lionel Shriver is such a great writer. I don’t love her as a personality, she kinda sucks sometimes, but her writing’s impeccable. There’s a scene in So Much For That that makes my stomach fall into a pit every time I think about it. One of those bits of writing that leaves an indelible mark on your consciousness.
I saw a quote recently about Matt Haig using words like a tin opener, with readers being the tin.
I recall thinking that Lionel Shriver would be a better candidate for this phrase. Her books, no matter the setting or the characters have a laser focus narration style that makes you question yourself and your way of being.
Definitely check out the book! It is wayyyyy better than the movie. It explains a lot more and it’s so detailed you can picture everything perfectly in your head.
Please do. The movie ok, because Tilda Swinton, but it loses a lot of nuance and characterisation. I didn't recognise Book Eva in Film Eva. She went from being a complex, unreliable narrator to a muted prop in her own story.
Ok which moment is everyone talking about? I’ve read it a few times but I can’t remember like a moment of figuring out what happened (it’s been years so maybe I’m forgetting). Cover it with a spoiler block!!
I’m not the op but I think it’s when the narration says >!it would’ve been ok if I had been allowed to keep Celia and you realise that the epistolary format to the husband is actually posthumous!<
Exactly this - I might be misremembering but I've a feeling the film didn't mislead you like this and it completely ruined the main point of the story for me. Like, most of the book I was reading it with hope of their reconciliation and then... that. Heart-wrenching. It's the book I always think of when people ask "what do you wish you could read again with no memory of the plot" because it had such incredible weight.
I’m reading this book right now! I already saw the movie because I didn’t know it was a book. So I do know the twist, but I’m still looking forward to reading it
God yes. That book hides the gut punch so well. It's up there for me next to the Red Wedding where you just want to scream and stop the events from happening.
There's a part of *House of Leaves* where the block of text gets smaller and smaller when you turn the pages as a character is walking down a pitch-black corridor. That's the only time I've ever feared a jump scare while I've been reading.
There’s another part where the text is getting smaller and harder to read (or maybe it’s the same part and I’m misremembering) and then there’s sudden reference to something over your (the reader’s) shoulder. That really got me.
The part where he puts down the book on the wall to wall bookshelf and it falls over and knocks down the other books in a domino effect and the last one falls off the end of the shelf...
THE END OF THE SHELF AHHHHHH that was the one that got me in that book
According to my library "On a dark night I left my silent house" is supposed to be similar but I haven't picked it up yet. John Dies at the End doesn't have any typographical tricks but it carries the same uneasy feeling.
Yeah, that book managed to get to me. I was reading it right after 9/11, during the anthrax scares, and living alone. I think my anxiety got channeled through the book and a couple of the passages still cause a nameless dread in my stomach.
No other book has made me feel actual unease before. I read a lot of horror but have never felt a sense of dread or suspense from a book, and then BOOM House of Leaves
That book was my intro to King, read it when I was around 13. I remember reading the last couple pages over again after my initial shock and goosebumps wore off...shocked me just as much the 2nd time. Great ending!
I read it at a similar age and loved it, and found it genuinely frightening. I recommended it to my dad, and he read to a certain point and then gave me it back, saying “I couldn’t get through >!the death of Gage!< - you’ll understand when you’re a parent. I’m a parent now and I totally understand.
The Haunting of Hill House. I was reading it on a train and there was a particular moment when I realised that I could literally feel my pulse racing in panic, just sitting there on a crowded train on a kindle.
Have you read Hangsaman by Jackson? There’s a scene in that book that had my heart racing. I don’t get overly anxious reading very often, but that scene always comes to mind when I see prompts like this. Shirley Jackson is the master of those very subtle scares that kind of sneak up on you.
David Mitchell’s *Slade House* and Agatha Christie’s *And Then There Were None.* Modern horror doesn’t do much for me but I found SH oddly unnerving. Christie of course is a dab hand at dark twists.
Yes, I remember reading And Then There Were None in the middle of the night as a teenager and having to go sit in the bathroom, with all the lights on and the door locked, so that I could feel secure enough to finish.
I had to read it over the summer for school. It was a hot July day, but I still remember feeling like I had ice in my veins reading some of those scenes.
IT had a few moments like this for me, when my stomach drops as you realise it's Pennywise. NOS4A2 by Stephen King's son also had some sudden shocks.
I think both were effective because they're long books with meandering normal scenes, and suddenly you realise it's *not* a normal scene. Most other horror books can be creepy or even scary, but because they're usually short and fast-paced they don't have the surprise factor because you're very much expecting it to be scary.
Pennywise was the biggest shock I've ever felt reading and it wasn't even in *IT*-- it was in 11/22/63 when the main character feels an utterly alien out-of-place evil emanating from underground in Derry.
SAME, I felt tension wrt pennywise when reading IT but the big shock panic moment when it appeared really came when the main character rolled into Derry in 11/22/63. Just the sense of utter dread i felt when i realized was insane.
Yeah not only Derry but the CRIME he goes there to prevent is so harrowing you’re like yep 👍🏻 makes sense this would happen in Derry
Also I’m a dummy but I found the >!cameo where he meets >!Bev and Richie was very charming!<
I love 11/22/63 a lot, one of my favorite King books. I was super skeptical that King would do a good job with a time travel narrative, but he really did, and even answered a lot of the sci-fi nerd questions I had.
The water tower scene in IT scared me a lot while I was reading! I always remember that part making me actually unsettled. It’s not even that significant but it really made me uneasy
The wet slapping feet. The calliope music. Steven King TAKES me to the world he creates. I was there with Stan, looking for the Robin at the watering fountain. I was just as startled as he was when the door to the Stand Piper burst open. I could feel the air getting heavier and hear the sounds of the feet. Hear that creepy music.
I should reread that book. The Losers Club feels like old friends. I should visit them.
When I read Coraline as a kid, there's a suspenseful part and then you turn the page and there is a giant disembodied hand illustration. I'm pretty sure I threw the book lol
I know the exact 1984 scene you mean. Same exact reaction from me when I read it in high school!
I don't know if it'll be the same but Gillian Flynn's books take me on a ride. Especially sharp objects.
>!If I remember the book correctly, it's almost certainly the scene where they, with basically no foreshadowing, discover that their "secret" apartment has been monitored by the state the entire time, with a very abrupt tonal shift. !<
>!'Do you remember,' he said, 'the thrush that sang to us, that first day, at the edge of the wood?'!<
>!'He wasn't singing to us,' said Julia. 'He was singing to please himself. Not even that. He was just singing.'!<
>!The birds sang, the proles sang. the Party did not sing. All round the world, in London and New York, in Africa and Brazil, and in the mysterious, forbidden lands beyond the frontiers, in the streets of Paris and Berlin, in the villages of the endless Russian plain, in the bazaars of China and Japan -- everywhere stood the same solid unconquerable figure, made monstrous by work and childbearing, toiling from birth to death and still singing. Out of those mighty loins a race of conscious beings must one day come. You were the dead, theirs was the future. But you could share in that future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed on the secret doctrine that two plus two make four.!<
>!'We are the dead,' he said. 'We are the dead,' echoed Julia dutifully. 'You are the dead,' said an iron voice behind them.!<
The Road is just horror after horror.
I started reading it and have had to take a break halfway through to mentally prepare myself for that bit. It's a brutal book.
Twenty years ago I audible gasped near the end of Game of Thrones. Up until that moment it has been a good fantasy, but that shock of THE main character dying was massive.
Without me saying anything, husband, who had already read it, turned to me and said, "Crazy right? This series is wild."
I'm surprised that's not higher up.
That ending didn't startle me so much, but the Red Wedding just stunned me. I had to go back a few pages to make sure I had read it right, and then I felt like throwing the book against the wall.
I wouldn't say it was a jump scare, but it was definitely a huge shocking moment. I love that books can do that.
It's totally this for me, I finished the Red Wedding scene about 2 minutes before I finished my lunch break at work...my coworker, who was a few chapters ahead of me, took one look at my face and said "I KNOW! I threw the book when I read it!".
I had that horrified "witnessing car crash and I can't stop it" feel in my stomach when Catelyn felt the chain mail.
Also, Oberyn Martell vs the Mountain. I thought I knew how it was gonna go, and then... wait what???
It’s this one. That one moment changed the genre, upped the ante.
I read aGoT when it came out, so no one was really talking about it. I knew it was a realistic, brutal fantasy series, but the audacity of that scene! Not the twist you would see in WoT (the other massive series of that era). But you would have seen it if you paid attention.
For me GoT (show, I'm just now going back and reading the books) was fine until >!Oberyn Martell gets fckn watermeloned by The Mountain. !< I literally jumped up and said *holy shit* when I watched that scene, all the dramatic momentum indicated he was going to win, until he started taunting him, then I got an uneasy feeling, and next thing I knew, BAM 👏 instant trauma lol
>!Ned Stark dying so abruptly in the first few chapters of the first book made me literally throw the book across the room. I thought he was going to be the MAIN CHARACTER OF THE ENTIRE SERIES!!! And then he was just DEAD!!!!!!<
It’s been a long time since I’ve read the books, but I thought this took place near the end of the first book after he spent most of his chapters working out his theory.
Okay this one is lame but when I was reading Cold Sassy Tree in school, there's a scene where he's up on a train trestle and has to lay down while the train moves over him. It describes the smell and heat and sparks falling on his shirt and for some reason I broke out in a sweat and like couldn't breathe. It was crazy
Never have I ever been as jumpy/anxious/excited reading something as I was with “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”
Incredible story, so well thought out, and the events of the book will definitely get your heart rate up.
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones didn't have like a jump scare type scare but there were some scenes that were very viscerally disturbing and I felt fear in my chest. I also was really creeped out by The Hollow Places by T Kingfisher. Both horror, both really got me in my giblets.
The Twisted Ones by T Kingfisher has a pretty genuinely jump scare - I’ve seen other readers mention the same specific moment as a jump scare. I think I said “what the fuck!” Out loud.
Ooh, I couldn’t finish The Hollow Places. It’s legitimately the only book I’ve put down because it was too scary—about halfway through with the scene with the guy in the water. I was just done.
The Only Good Indians is one of the only books I've ever not finished. I got a good way through it and it was just too fucking rough for me to continue reading.
I remember the book Jurassic Park had a scene where one of the dinosaurs comes through a wall or a window or something. That I remember scaring me quite a bit in much the same way.
Any book you are reading where a spider lands on the page while you are so engrossed in reading it you end up flinging the book away and flailing around in terror. Hypothetically of course, I would def not be this scared. Nope.
I literally gave it away so I didn’t have to finish it. I was reading it at work at lunch and I got to the scene and I was just done. The guy next to me said “oh, I’ve been wanting to read that” and I closed it and gave it to him and told him to NEVER give it back to me.
Lol, I read IT when I was 14 & babysitting. I got to one part [Georgie], and it scared me so bad I threw the book across the room. It's probably still there. That was the *only* time I had anyone walk me home after babysitting. I've never picked up that book again, and I never will. Even describing this now is making my heart race.
Holy crap! I read that book a couple of times before I had kids, and though I've reread most of his works, THAT one, after I became a father... no way could I reread it. I mean, NO!
OooooooOoOOh. Prey by Michael Crichton
"When I looked back at the mound, I saw four figures coming out of the interior. They moved apart, each heading to a different area of the mound. They all looked like Ricky. One of the figures was coming in my direction. As it approached, I saw it veer off to the right. It was going to the place where I had been before. When it reached my last hiding place, it stopped, and turned in all directions.
Through the goggles I saw the figure’s eyes move, and blink. The surface of the face now had the texture of skin. The hair appeared to be composed of individual strands. The lips moved, the tongue licked nervously. All in all this face looked very much like Ricky—disturbingly like Ricky. When the head turned in my direction, I felt that Ricky was staring right at me.
And I suppose it was, because the figure began to move directly toward me."
I think it's Sum of All Fears (could be a different title) by Tom Clancy where there is a buildup to a potential nuclear conflict. The president is obtuse and not too bright and misinterprets all the data and seems intent on worldwide nuclear annihilation. I literally threw the book across the room because I actively dreaded the outcome. I picked it up later and finished it but it scared the shit out of me because it was so plausible. And this was long before the current lunacy in US politics. I'm sure it would be even scarier today.
And the end of Debt of Honor was a great big shock too, and a little creepy, given the real world events to come a bit later. I love all the Tom Clancy books, it still weirds me out that he died under mysterious circumstances.
I rarely if ever have a visceral reaction to a book but King has done it twice to me. Misery and The Green Mile. The Green Mile made me cry.
"I'm tired, boss. Tired of being on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. I'm tired of never having me a buddy to be with to tell me where we's going to, coming from, or why. Mostly, I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world...every day. There's too much of it. It's like pieces of glass in my head...all the time. Can you understand?”
I watched the movie and knew it was coming and still cried during that scene.
I remember gasping out loud on a city bus while reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. I can’t remember exactly what part, but that’s a reading experience I won’t forget!
Not necessarily scary per se, but horrifying in its own way, is the plot twist (you know the one) in Mockingjay, the 3rd volume of The Hunger Games trilogy. Especially if you didn't know that happened or foresee it coming.
In 2001: A Space Odyssey, when >!HAL attacks Frank when Frank is outside the ship fixing the antenna!<. The way it's described is brilliant, >!you're all alone in space and you don't expect something to come flying at you out of nowhere!<. I wish the movie did it that way.
The end of the short story Nightfall by Asimov was another vivid shocker.
while we’re on Grady Hendrix, there’s a certain moment in How to Sell A Haunted House that had me nearly reacting the same way the protagonist does…a subversion of a horror trope I truly did not see coming
In Desolation Island, the fifth book in the Aubrey-Maturin series, there is a depiction of a sea battle between two ships. The battle takes place during a period of extremely high seas where the ships lose sight of each other between immense waves and then take turns firing at each other when they find themselves on the backside or near side of a wave crest. The added threat to both ships is the possibility that a cannonball will disable a mast which will prevent the impacted ship from keeping itself pointed into the waves to avoid capsizing.
I primarily listen to audiobooks on my commute to and from work and I’ve never in thousands of hours of listening, found myself leaning forward on my steering wheel, total enraptured by what was playing out through my speakers. I turned off the book and just thought about it for the last 10-15 min of my ride home. Just stellar.
There's a bit in the Wasp Fatory by Ian Banks that literally made me throw the book across the room and sit there staring at the wall, questioning my reading choices. It gives me shivers to just think about it.
Recently read Cormac McCarthy's *The Road.*
There are several horrific moments in that, but the two that will forever stick in my mind are the parts involving the basement and when the man and boy followed those people into the woods. Jesus. I have never seen the film adaptation and I am not sure I can ever face it.
McCarthy's writing is so hauntingly descriptive that the imagery formed perfectly in my mind before I knew what was happening. An excellent, but terrifying, novel.
There’s a scene in “Derry Girls” where the school mistress (who is a nun) is reading it on the bus and cracking up. I always think of that when it comes to that book.
The book, *In the Cut.* (If you've only seen the lurid film, the book is much better.) The ending. Like, literally the last paragraph. I was reading with increasing anxiety, got to the last sentence, screamed, and threw the book behind the couch. Then I retrieved it, reread to make sure I understood what I was reading, then threw it back behind the couch, where it stayed until I returned it to the library.
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen which I read in middle school
>!The part where Brian swims down to the plane and finds the dead pilot. The skull kind of bouncing around, and the fish eating the leftover flesh. Visceral.!<
Yes I scrolled so far looking for this. I’m sure it must be the same scene I’m thinking of - prior to that I hadn’t enjoyed Authority as much as Annihilation, but that one scene was so viscerally frightening it won me over entirely.
Yess! I was looking for this comment! I cant wait for the 4th book that comes out in october :D literally gasped when i saw there was a release date!
For me i could tell something like that was going to happen and it still jumpscared me! Magical how a book manages to do that
World War Z when the one lady talks about when her and her family were that campsite when she was younger. The reveal at the end of that particular story......oh boy
The Parable of the Sower (and the sequel, Parable of the Talents). Octavia Butler has a way of storytelling where you are dreading turning the page or starting the next chapter in fear of what’s to come, but it’s also so addicting you can’t put it down.
In the Screwfly Solution, a virus has made all the men on earth violently murderous towards women. It's told in segments as the plague moves through the planet. In one, before its completely spread, government scientists are traveling to an affected region to study it. One of the scientists is a woman. It's advised she stays behind at a checkpost with a guard for her safety. Nothing that happens to her is shown on screen or even fully explained, but it's one of the most upsetting things I've ever read in a short story.
House of Leaves. I read it once. Didn’t sleep that week. By the end of the week I was staying awake in the closet with the lights on in my sleeping bag so nothing could get me. Then I slept for a week and threw the book away.
But I had to finish it because I couldn’t tell if I was going insane or the main character was or the other main character who was reading the book inside the book and journaling his descent into insanity on the edges of the pages was actually insane.
And I know several other people this has happened to.
Not a scare but a visceral shock - One Day by David Nicholls. I was reading it on the train home from work and noticed a lady sitting facing me kept looking over. I reached >!the part where Emma is hit by the car !< and audibly gasped and sat back in my seat, probably looking stunned. The lady caught my eye and said something like “>!bike?!<“. I nodded and she said she thought I must be around there, from how far in I was. She asked me if I was ok, which I thought was lovely.
I remember reading “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” and the page that is just a full page of the sentence “What are you waiting for?” repeated over and over gave me full body chills
I love the way George Orwell writes, his prose are some of my favorite. I just wish all his works were not so bleak. The novels he wrote are important and I'm glad he did. I just wish one day, there will be found a unpublished manuscript titled something like "A story about an interesting fellow who did some interesting things, but no one dies and the themes are not so dark for a change"
I believe I know which part you're talking about.
I read 1984 along to a dramatized audiobook, and the sudden shift of tone definitely caught me off guard and gave a me a good scare like no other book has.
The most shocking response I've had with a book was with the ending of 'Bee Sting'. It's a hefty book so will take you a while to get to it, but well worth the wait! I still think about that ending sometimes and I finished it months ago.
The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy , both book and movie did that to me. It was the part when the nuke went off. I went to see the movie when it first came out, and when the nuke exploded, I think I almost jumped out of my seat because I wasn't expecting it. When I was reading the book, that same part made me jump out of my chair too.
In the science fiction novel Blindsight, you follow a crew of enhanced humans through a space flight to meet an unknown entity that has appeared in the solar system. It's the only book I've ever read that cited it's sources and was all the more terrifying for it. Every horrific reality it depicted was perfectly plausible, and the author took great care in explaining the realism to the audience. It honestly changed my perspective on consciousness and identity in a shocking, mind-altering way. 10/10
I don't think I've been jump scared by a book, usually only creeped out. However, Abed by Elizabeth Massie did get an aggressive dry heave out of me at one point.
Several times during George RR Martins Fire and Blood I audibly gasped and went WTF. People who've never read the books are about to have their timbers shivered, when they watch the next two seasons of House of the Dragon. I've read the book twice and both times there were moments I had to put the book down. It's like being Red Wedding'd several times in one book.
For myself (and many others from what I've seen online) the Red Wedding in the Game of Thrones gripped me. The scene in the show was even more PTSD inducing.
In The Terror by Dan Simmons there were two moments- one was less of a shock more a feeling of building dread that got so bad I was holding my breath. Even though the scene was set to be a joyous one, you could feel the tension so thick you could cut it with a knife.
The other was a whole short chapter that was hands down one of the sadest, most horrific insights into a dying mans thoughts. I had to put the book down after finishing that scene.
John Dies at the End and it's sequels all usually have at least one each, and I swear I get a different one each time I read them. Dave's McDonald's hallucination got me the first time I read it (that's quite the sentence)
🔵House🔵 of Leaves also jump scared me with a certain checkmark
Joseph Conrad's shipwrecks at sea during bad storms gave me such bad panic attacks I had to stop reading. It's like the Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald that goes on for pages and pages.
It.
There is a point where one of the protagonists is walking in a library following buddy clown shoe prints and looks up to see a red balloon. I screamed out loud and freaked out everyone in the house.
The Three Body Problem trilogy has several such moments. The one that hit me the hardest is in the second book, Dark Forest. There's a part that's just... Oooh boy, it's a lot.
A lot of Roald Dahl short stories manage this for me. There's sometimes just one sentence that lets you know something is very, very wrong, but the narrative lets you figure it out for yourself.
Wes Anderson has an absolutely lovely series of shorts on (I think) Netflix in which an ensemble of A list actors including Ben Kingsley and Benedict Cumberbatch narrate and act out Roald Dahl short stories verbatim in a "filmed theatrical production" type manner. They're excellent little movies.
Just a warning for anyone expecting the short stories to be like his books - they definitely are not
For sure. He was not just a children’s author. His real life was also fascinating, but he wasn’t always a great person. (Understatement)
Such a good shout. The one with the gambler and the missing fingers gives me the creeps!
Would also love some recommendations!
Kiss Kiss is a collection of his short stories that have shocking moments. I'd probably start there.
You’ll never look at lamb roast the same way again. Or honey for that matter.
Can you recommend a few?
If you're specifically looking for Roald Dahl short stories, the Landlady is great. The Man from the South and Lamb to Slaughter are good too.
There's a sentence towards the end of We Need to Talk About Kevin when I realised a certain thing was coming that made my stomach drop and all I could do was just mumble "no, no, no!" myself. I still think about it nearly 20 years later.
Never knew it was a book first. The movie was definitely unsettling. Gonna have to check out the source now.
The book is harrowing! It's amazing. The scene that puts everything in context is so upsetting, in a good way. There are many scenes that feel like you're watching a still image from just before or just after disaster.
I haven't even seen the film yet because I read the book after having my first kid 7 years ago and I'm still fucked up from it haha
Good thing you read it after having a kid. It seems like great birth control.
Wow. I didn't either. That movie sticks eith me. Her picking out the egg shells from her eggs haunts me
The movie is done so well, and the book is even better. I’d highly recommend reading it. The narrator/main character and the way she contemplates parenthood is just so interesting. It’s also terrifying, as I’m sure you can imagine if you’ve see the film.
Lionel Shriver is such a great writer. I don’t love her as a personality, she kinda sucks sometimes, but her writing’s impeccable. There’s a scene in So Much For That that makes my stomach fall into a pit every time I think about it. One of those bits of writing that leaves an indelible mark on your consciousness.
I saw a quote recently about Matt Haig using words like a tin opener, with readers being the tin. I recall thinking that Lionel Shriver would be a better candidate for this phrase. Her books, no matter the setting or the characters have a laser focus narration style that makes you question yourself and your way of being.
Definitely check out the book! It is wayyyyy better than the movie. It explains a lot more and it’s so detailed you can picture everything perfectly in your head.
Please do. The movie ok, because Tilda Swinton, but it loses a lot of nuance and characterisation. I didn't recognise Book Eva in Film Eva. She went from being a complex, unreliable narrator to a muted prop in her own story.
People don’t talk about this aspect of this book enough. I didn’t guess what the twist was and it hit me like a freight train.
I like how the moment is hinted to throughout the book and you kind of know what's coming, but when it hits it's so much worse than you expected.
I know exactly what you’re talking about. That horrible moment. And you have to keep reading but really really you don’t want to
Ok which moment is everyone talking about? I’ve read it a few times but I can’t remember like a moment of figuring out what happened (it’s been years so maybe I’m forgetting). Cover it with a spoiler block!!
I’m not the op but I think it’s when the narration says >!it would’ve been ok if I had been allowed to keep Celia and you realise that the epistolary format to the husband is actually posthumous!<
Exactly this - I might be misremembering but I've a feeling the film didn't mislead you like this and it completely ruined the main point of the story for me. Like, most of the book I was reading it with hope of their reconciliation and then... that. Heart-wrenching. It's the book I always think of when people ask "what do you wish you could read again with no memory of the plot" because it had such incredible weight.
The movie did mislead you too. You thought they had just separated or something until the end
Yep. That’s what I was talking about
I have read a lot of books and that is one of the few that have really stuck with me. I can't bring myself to watch the movie.
I’m reading this book right now! I already saw the movie because I didn’t know it was a book. So I do know the twist, but I’m still looking forward to reading it
God yes. That book hides the gut punch so well. It's up there for me next to the Red Wedding where you just want to scream and stop the events from happening.
There's a part of *House of Leaves* where the block of text gets smaller and smaller when you turn the pages as a character is walking down a pitch-black corridor. That's the only time I've ever feared a jump scare while I've been reading.
Many times I questioned if I should turn the page. Lol
I felt the same way with The Monster at the End of This Book.
YOU TURNED THE PAGE!!!
No spoilers, please. I haven’t finished it yet
Iconic reply, upvote x10
There’s another part where the text is getting smaller and harder to read (or maybe it’s the same part and I’m misremembering) and then there’s sudden reference to something over your (the reader’s) shoulder. That really got me.
This is the part that got me too! The only time a book has ever made me feel claustrophobic (I don’t even HAVE claustrophobia).
This is not for you.
The part where he puts down the book on the wall to wall bookshelf and it falls over and knocks down the other books in a domino effect and the last one falls off the end of the shelf... THE END OF THE SHELF AHHHHHH that was the one that got me in that book
Is there anything out there like House of Leaves? I read his other books, liked some of them, but none were nearly as good as House of Leaves.
According to my library "On a dark night I left my silent house" is supposed to be similar but I haven't picked it up yet. John Dies at the End doesn't have any typographical tricks but it carries the same uneasy feeling.
Yeah, that book managed to get to me. I was reading it right after 9/11, during the anthrax scares, and living alone. I think my anxiety got channeled through the book and a couple of the passages still cause a nameless dread in my stomach.
No other book has made me feel actual unease before. I read a lot of horror but have never felt a sense of dread or suspense from a book, and then BOOM House of Leaves
Thought the same thing, *House of Leaves* is the only media that has sincerely scared me as an adult
I had a jump scare at the end of Pet Semetary. The only book that has ever done that.
That book was my intro to King, read it when I was around 13. I remember reading the last couple pages over again after my initial shock and goosebumps wore off...shocked me just as much the 2nd time. Great ending!
I read it at a similar age and loved it, and found it genuinely frightening. I recommended it to my dad, and he read to a certain point and then gave me it back, saying “I couldn’t get through >!the death of Gage!< - you’ll understand when you’re a parent. I’m a parent now and I totally understand.
It, The Stand, The Shining and Salem’s Lot all still scare the bejeesus out of me, even after hundreds of reads each over these many years.
The Haunting of Hill House. I was reading it on a train and there was a particular moment when I realised that I could literally feel my pulse racing in panic, just sitting there on a crowded train on a kindle.
Was it "Whose hand was I holding?" I had to close the book and walk away.
Yes! Scarier than anything I’ve ever experienced in a movie.
It's pretty terrifying in the 1963 movie as well!
Have you read Hangsaman by Jackson? There’s a scene in that book that had my heart racing. I don’t get overly anxious reading very often, but that scene always comes to mind when I see prompts like this. Shirley Jackson is the master of those very subtle scares that kind of sneak up on you.
David Mitchell’s *Slade House* and Agatha Christie’s *And Then There Were None.* Modern horror doesn’t do much for me but I found SH oddly unnerving. Christie of course is a dab hand at dark twists.
Yes, I remember reading And Then There Were None in the middle of the night as a teenager and having to go sit in the bathroom, with all the lights on and the door locked, so that I could feel secure enough to finish.
I had to read it over the summer for school. It was a hot July day, but I still remember feeling like I had ice in my veins reading some of those scenes.
Modern horror tends to be only gore. I prefer old-school scares.
IT had a few moments like this for me, when my stomach drops as you realise it's Pennywise. NOS4A2 by Stephen King's son also had some sudden shocks. I think both were effective because they're long books with meandering normal scenes, and suddenly you realise it's *not* a normal scene. Most other horror books can be creepy or even scary, but because they're usually short and fast-paced they don't have the surprise factor because you're very much expecting it to be scary.
Pennywise was the biggest shock I've ever felt reading and it wasn't even in *IT*-- it was in 11/22/63 when the main character feels an utterly alien out-of-place evil emanating from underground in Derry.
My wife and I say "Let's get the fuck out of Derry" if there's somewhere we need to leave in a hurry.
~~CHEESE IT!~~ DERRY!
SAME, I felt tension wrt pennywise when reading IT but the big shock panic moment when it appeared really came when the main character rolled into Derry in 11/22/63. Just the sense of utter dread i felt when i realized was insane.
Yeah not only Derry but the CRIME he goes there to prevent is so harrowing you’re like yep 👍🏻 makes sense this would happen in Derry Also I’m a dummy but I found the >!cameo where he meets >!Bev and Richie was very charming!<
I love 11/22/63 a lot, one of my favorite King books. I was super skeptical that King would do a good job with a time travel narrative, but he really did, and even answered a lot of the sci-fi nerd questions I had.
The water tower scene in IT scared me a lot while I was reading! I always remember that part making me actually unsettled. It’s not even that significant but it really made me uneasy
The wet slapping feet. The calliope music. Steven King TAKES me to the world he creates. I was there with Stan, looking for the Robin at the watering fountain. I was just as startled as he was when the door to the Stand Piper burst open. I could feel the air getting heavier and hear the sounds of the feet. Hear that creepy music. I should reread that book. The Losers Club feels like old friends. I should visit them.
Reading NOS4A2 now! Loving it!
I felt it during the hansel & gretel sequence in IT
I read NOS4A2 last year. Such a good read.
When I read Coraline as a kid, there's a suspenseful part and then you turn the page and there is a giant disembodied hand illustration. I'm pretty sure I threw the book lol
The hand scared me so much as a kid lol. I used to stare at that book as I was falling asleep, as if to be keeping an eye on it.
I know the exact 1984 scene you mean. Same exact reaction from me when I read it in high school! I don't know if it'll be the same but Gillian Flynn's books take me on a ride. Especially sharp objects.
Sharp objects is such a great book! There's so much atmospheric wrongness about it. Which scene in 1984 is it? I haven't read it since I was a kid
>!If I remember the book correctly, it's almost certainly the scene where they, with basically no foreshadowing, discover that their "secret" apartment has been monitored by the state the entire time, with a very abrupt tonal shift. !<
>!’We are the dead,’ he says. ‘We are the dead,’ repeats Julia behind him. Suddenly an iron voice declares behind them, ‘You are the dead.’!<
Oof.. I don’t have my copy on me so could someone please quote that section? I need to reread that part now lol
>!'Do you remember,' he said, 'the thrush that sang to us, that first day, at the edge of the wood?'!< >!'He wasn't singing to us,' said Julia. 'He was singing to please himself. Not even that. He was just singing.'!< >!The birds sang, the proles sang. the Party did not sing. All round the world, in London and New York, in Africa and Brazil, and in the mysterious, forbidden lands beyond the frontiers, in the streets of Paris and Berlin, in the villages of the endless Russian plain, in the bazaars of China and Japan -- everywhere stood the same solid unconquerable figure, made monstrous by work and childbearing, toiling from birth to death and still singing. Out of those mighty loins a race of conscious beings must one day come. You were the dead, theirs was the future. But you could share in that future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed on the secret doctrine that two plus two make four.!< >!'We are the dead,' he said. 'We are the dead,' echoed Julia dutifully. 'You are the dead,' said an iron voice behind them.!<
The Road. That one part. Not even the cellar part. the OTHER part. You guys know what part.
I read this book when I was pregnant because I'm very stupid.
Oh no, I couldn't imagine rereading that book while being a parent, let alone pregnant.
The Road is just horror after horror. I started reading it and have had to take a break halfway through to mentally prepare myself for that bit. It's a brutal book.
>!a certain part involving a baby?!<
Twenty years ago I audible gasped near the end of Game of Thrones. Up until that moment it has been a good fantasy, but that shock of THE main character dying was massive. Without me saying anything, husband, who had already read it, turned to me and said, "Crazy right? This series is wild."
I'm surprised that's not higher up. That ending didn't startle me so much, but the Red Wedding just stunned me. I had to go back a few pages to make sure I had read it right, and then I felt like throwing the book against the wall. I wouldn't say it was a jump scare, but it was definitely a huge shocking moment. I love that books can do that.
Yep. I’ll never forget reading the Red Wedding on the subway to work one day, mouth agape, eyes welling up. Rob Stark is still my favourite.
It's totally this for me, I finished the Red Wedding scene about 2 minutes before I finished my lunch break at work...my coworker, who was a few chapters ahead of me, took one look at my face and said "I KNOW! I threw the book when I read it!".
I had that horrified "witnessing car crash and I can't stop it" feel in my stomach when Catelyn felt the chain mail. Also, Oberyn Martell vs the Mountain. I thought I knew how it was gonna go, and then... wait what???
I recall reading the "Red Wedding" and just setting the book down at the end of the chapter and going for a walk.
It’s this one. That one moment changed the genre, upped the ante. I read aGoT when it came out, so no one was really talking about it. I knew it was a realistic, brutal fantasy series, but the audacity of that scene! Not the twist you would see in WoT (the other massive series of that era). But you would have seen it if you paid attention.
For me GoT (show, I'm just now going back and reading the books) was fine until >!Oberyn Martell gets fckn watermeloned by The Mountain. !< I literally jumped up and said *holy shit* when I watched that scene, all the dramatic momentum indicated he was going to win, until he started taunting him, then I got an uneasy feeling, and next thing I knew, BAM 👏 instant trauma lol
>!Ned Stark dying so abruptly in the first few chapters of the first book made me literally throw the book across the room. I thought he was going to be the MAIN CHARACTER OF THE ENTIRE SERIES!!! And then he was just DEAD!!!!!!<
It’s been a long time since I’ve read the books, but I thought this took place near the end of the first book after he spent most of his chapters working out his theory.
Okay this one is lame but when I was reading Cold Sassy Tree in school, there's a scene where he's up on a train trestle and has to lay down while the train moves over him. It describes the smell and heat and sparks falling on his shirt and for some reason I broke out in a sweat and like couldn't breathe. It was crazy
That book was so amazing. Did you know it was adapted into an opera? The train scene isn’t in there, lol.
I felt sweaty and sick while reading Stephen King's short story 1408. Highly recommend.
His short story The Jaunt had a similar effect on me.
Longer than you think.
I had the same reaction to *1408*! I felt nauseated with claustrophobia and existential dread.
1408. Best spooky story I've read.
The Giver gave me nightmares when I was 10 and had to read it for school. The scene with the twin babies makes me feel so sick.
"Relax, little one, I have to find a vein" 😩
Never have I ever been as jumpy/anxious/excited reading something as I was with “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” Incredible story, so well thought out, and the events of the book will definitely get your heart rate up.
This was my answer too. The ending of the book will live in my mind forever
The movie adaptation doesn't get a ton of love, but I thought it was excellent
I was here to say that! Read it twice. Edge of my seat the entire book.
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones didn't have like a jump scare type scare but there were some scenes that were very viscerally disturbing and I felt fear in my chest. I also was really creeped out by The Hollow Places by T Kingfisher. Both horror, both really got me in my giblets.
The Twisted Ones by T Kingfisher has a pretty genuinely jump scare - I’ve seen other readers mention the same specific moment as a jump scare. I think I said “what the fuck!” Out loud.
Ooof The Hollow Places was so unnerving! I loved it!
Ooh, I couldn’t finish The Hollow Places. It’s legitimately the only book I’ve put down because it was too scary—about halfway through with the scene with the guy in the water. I was just done.
The Only Good Indians is one of the only books I've ever not finished. I got a good way through it and it was just too fucking rough for me to continue reading.
Only Good Indians was a great read, I know exactly what you mean
I remember the book Jurassic Park had a scene where one of the dinosaurs comes through a wall or a window or something. That I remember scaring me quite a bit in much the same way.
Any book you are reading where a spider lands on the page while you are so engrossed in reading it you end up flinging the book away and flailing around in terror. Hypothetically of course, I would def not be this scared. Nope.
There are at least two in The Shining. One of them I dropped the book and audibly yelped.
Same. The Shining is the only book I've read that actually caused me to gasp and slam the book shut.
Pet Sematary. I’ve never shut a book before because I was too scared to keep reading until that one!
I literally gave it away so I didn’t have to finish it. I was reading it at work at lunch and I got to the scene and I was just done. The guy next to me said “oh, I’ve been wanting to read that” and I closed it and gave it to him and told him to NEVER give it back to me.
Yeah I read Pet Sematary waay too young
I picked up skeleton crew at age 10 and it traumatized me
Lol, I read IT when I was 14 & babysitting. I got to one part [Georgie], and it scared me so bad I threw the book across the room. It's probably still there. That was the *only* time I had anyone walk me home after babysitting. I've never picked up that book again, and I never will. Even describing this now is making my heart race.
Holy crap! I read that book a couple of times before I had kids, and though I've reread most of his works, THAT one, after I became a father... no way could I reread it. I mean, NO!
I think it's one of King's scariest, for sure.
OooooooOoOOh. Prey by Michael Crichton "When I looked back at the mound, I saw four figures coming out of the interior. They moved apart, each heading to a different area of the mound. They all looked like Ricky. One of the figures was coming in my direction. As it approached, I saw it veer off to the right. It was going to the place where I had been before. When it reached my last hiding place, it stopped, and turned in all directions. Through the goggles I saw the figure’s eyes move, and blink. The surface of the face now had the texture of skin. The hair appeared to be composed of individual strands. The lips moved, the tongue licked nervously. All in all this face looked very much like Ricky—disturbingly like Ricky. When the head turned in my direction, I felt that Ricky was staring right at me. And I suppose it was, because the figure began to move directly toward me."
My guilty pleasure. Awful awful book that I've read at least 3 times.
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Oh my gosh your comment reminded me of Gerald’s Game. I had the exact reaction!
There's a sound in House of Leaves that made my hair stand on end. Still does when I think about it.
Oh also, Jack and the topiary animals. Fuck.
Plenty of picks in that book got me spooked. What an experience.
I think it's Sum of All Fears (could be a different title) by Tom Clancy where there is a buildup to a potential nuclear conflict. The president is obtuse and not too bright and misinterprets all the data and seems intent on worldwide nuclear annihilation. I literally threw the book across the room because I actively dreaded the outcome. I picked it up later and finished it but it scared the shit out of me because it was so plausible. And this was long before the current lunacy in US politics. I'm sure it would be even scarier today.
And the end of Debt of Honor was a great big shock too, and a little creepy, given the real world events to come a bit later. I love all the Tom Clancy books, it still weirds me out that he died under mysterious circumstances.
I remember reading Misery and taking a moment and putting the book down after she hobbles him.
Yep. I was reading it in class one morning and literally jumped when that happened. Only time a book has ever made me jump.
I rarely if ever have a visceral reaction to a book but King has done it twice to me. Misery and The Green Mile. The Green Mile made me cry. "I'm tired, boss. Tired of being on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. I'm tired of never having me a buddy to be with to tell me where we's going to, coming from, or why. Mostly, I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world...every day. There's too much of it. It's like pieces of glass in my head...all the time. Can you understand?” I watched the movie and knew it was coming and still cried during that scene.
I still remember reading The Lottery by Shirley Jackson in junior high and how shocked and disturbed I was by the ending.
There's a moment like that for me in Slaughterhouse 5 (it's been a while, but it's when they come out of the bunker in Dresden).
Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
I remember gasping out loud on a city bus while reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. I can’t remember exactly what part, but that’s a reading experience I won’t forget!
Not necessarily scary per se, but horrifying in its own way, is the plot twist (you know the one) in Mockingjay, the 3rd volume of The Hunger Games trilogy. Especially if you didn't know that happened or foresee it coming.
In 2001: A Space Odyssey, when >!HAL attacks Frank when Frank is outside the ship fixing the antenna!<. The way it's described is brilliant, >!you're all alone in space and you don't expect something to come flying at you out of nowhere!<. I wish the movie did it that way. The end of the short story Nightfall by Asimov was another vivid shocker.
The Kite Runner. My stomach was in knots and my heart racing for pretty much the entire book. It was so sad and shocking!
Same for A Thousand Splendid Suns
Fucking Southern Book Clubs Guide to Slaying Vampires certainly got me good several times.
The scene at the beginning, with the old neighbor lady in the trash, gave me nightmares for DAYS
while we’re on Grady Hendrix, there’s a certain moment in How to Sell A Haunted House that had me nearly reacting the same way the protagonist does…a subversion of a horror trope I truly did not see coming
In Desolation Island, the fifth book in the Aubrey-Maturin series, there is a depiction of a sea battle between two ships. The battle takes place during a period of extremely high seas where the ships lose sight of each other between immense waves and then take turns firing at each other when they find themselves on the backside or near side of a wave crest. The added threat to both ships is the possibility that a cannonball will disable a mast which will prevent the impacted ship from keeping itself pointed into the waves to avoid capsizing. I primarily listen to audiobooks on my commute to and from work and I’ve never in thousands of hours of listening, found myself leaning forward on my steering wheel, total enraptured by what was playing out through my speakers. I turned off the book and just thought about it for the last 10-15 min of my ride home. Just stellar.
“My God… 600 men”
I am Legend by Richard Matheson stands out for me.
Such a great ending. Just perfect.
There's a bit in the Wasp Fatory by Ian Banks that literally made me throw the book across the room and sit there staring at the wall, questioning my reading choices. It gives me shivers to just think about it.
Recently read Cormac McCarthy's *The Road.* There are several horrific moments in that, but the two that will forever stick in my mind are the parts involving the basement and when the man and boy followed those people into the woods. Jesus. I have never seen the film adaptation and I am not sure I can ever face it. McCarthy's writing is so hauntingly descriptive that the imagery formed perfectly in my mind before I knew what was happening. An excellent, but terrifying, novel.
I read that book shortly after I had a baby. Very bad decision on my part.
I read The Exorcist this year. Didn’t get jumpscared, but definitely some “Holy shit” reactions and stomach-churning moments.
There’s a scene in “Derry Girls” where the school mistress (who is a nun) is reading it on the bus and cracking up. I always think of that when it comes to that book.
The book, *In the Cut.* (If you've only seen the lurid film, the book is much better.) The ending. Like, literally the last paragraph. I was reading with increasing anxiety, got to the last sentence, screamed, and threw the book behind the couch. Then I retrieved it, reread to make sure I understood what I was reading, then threw it back behind the couch, where it stayed until I returned it to the library.
What an ending. I had to stare into space for a good ten minutes afterwards
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen which I read in middle school >!The part where Brian swims down to the plane and finds the dead pilot. The skull kind of bouncing around, and the fish eating the leftover flesh. Visceral.!<
I got a similar reaction reading the red wedding in A Storm of Swords for the first time, and when Jon Snow’s conclusion came in the books.
Heart shaped box by Joe Hill. None of his father’s work has ever scared me. But that book scared me. Highly recommend.
There's a scene in Authority by Jeff Vandermeer that did this, I've never been jumped-scared by a book before or since.
This is the exact one I was looking for, only one that's ever actually startled me in a book
Yes I scrolled so far looking for this. I’m sure it must be the same scene I’m thinking of - prior to that I hadn’t enjoyed Authority as much as Annihilation, but that one scene was so viscerally frightening it won me over entirely.
Yess! I was looking for this comment! I cant wait for the 4th book that comes out in october :D literally gasped when i saw there was a release date! For me i could tell something like that was going to happen and it still jumpscared me! Magical how a book manages to do that
Gerald’s Game. About the shadow in the corner. Holy shit. :)
World War Z when the one lady talks about when her and her family were that campsite when she was younger. The reveal at the end of that particular story......oh boy
There's a moment in Fingersmith like this that I have never forgotten.
I read this last week and I know the exact moment you mean - gasped out loud!
The end of part One?
The Parable of the Sower (and the sequel, Parable of the Talents). Octavia Butler has a way of storytelling where you are dreading turning the page or starting the next chapter in fear of what’s to come, but it’s also so addicting you can’t put it down.
In the Screwfly Solution, a virus has made all the men on earth violently murderous towards women. It's told in segments as the plague moves through the planet. In one, before its completely spread, government scientists are traveling to an affected region to study it. One of the scientists is a woman. It's advised she stays behind at a checkpost with a guard for her safety. Nothing that happens to her is shown on screen or even fully explained, but it's one of the most upsetting things I've ever read in a short story.
Pet Sematary and the Kite scene. Mouth dropped.
*Misery* made me gasp out loud at one point and my bf came from the other room to see if I was okay 😆
House of Leaves. I read it once. Didn’t sleep that week. By the end of the week I was staying awake in the closet with the lights on in my sleeping bag so nothing could get me. Then I slept for a week and threw the book away. But I had to finish it because I couldn’t tell if I was going insane or the main character was or the other main character who was reading the book inside the book and journaling his descent into insanity on the edges of the pages was actually insane. And I know several other people this has happened to.
Not a scare but a visceral shock - One Day by David Nicholls. I was reading it on the train home from work and noticed a lady sitting facing me kept looking over. I reached >!the part where Emma is hit by the car !< and audibly gasped and sat back in my seat, probably looking stunned. The lady caught my eye and said something like “>!bike?!<“. I nodded and she said she thought I must be around there, from how far in I was. She asked me if I was ok, which I thought was lovely.
I remember reading “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” and the page that is just a full page of the sentence “What are you waiting for?” repeated over and over gave me full body chills
I love the way George Orwell writes, his prose are some of my favorite. I just wish all his works were not so bleak. The novels he wrote are important and I'm glad he did. I just wish one day, there will be found a unpublished manuscript titled something like "A story about an interesting fellow who did some interesting things, but no one dies and the themes are not so dark for a change"
Penpal by Dathan Auerbach is the only book that genuinely scared the shit out of me.
I believe I know which part you're talking about. I read 1984 along to a dramatized audiobook, and the sudden shift of tone definitely caught me off guard and gave a me a good scare like no other book has.
There's a moment in Gerald's Game that made me gasp audibly, genuinely startled. The only time that has ever happened to me from a book
>!"There was a man standing there."!< I'm betting it's that.
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The most shocking response I've had with a book was with the ending of 'Bee Sting'. It's a hefty book so will take you a while to get to it, but well worth the wait! I still think about that ending sometimes and I finished it months ago.
The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy , both book and movie did that to me. It was the part when the nuke went off. I went to see the movie when it first came out, and when the nuke exploded, I think I almost jumped out of my seat because I wasn't expecting it. When I was reading the book, that same part made me jump out of my chair too.
In the science fiction novel Blindsight, you follow a crew of enhanced humans through a space flight to meet an unknown entity that has appeared in the solar system. It's the only book I've ever read that cited it's sources and was all the more terrifying for it. Every horrific reality it depicted was perfectly plausible, and the author took great care in explaining the realism to the audience. It honestly changed my perspective on consciousness and identity in a shocking, mind-altering way. 10/10
In Lord of the Flies, when Simon comes out of the forest, and is set upon by all the other boys, I literally slammed the book closed.
I don't think I've been jump scared by a book, usually only creeped out. However, Abed by Elizabeth Massie did get an aggressive dry heave out of me at one point.
Several times during George RR Martins Fire and Blood I audibly gasped and went WTF. People who've never read the books are about to have their timbers shivered, when they watch the next two seasons of House of the Dragon. I've read the book twice and both times there were moments I had to put the book down. It's like being Red Wedding'd several times in one book.
“You are the dead” always shakes me up
For myself (and many others from what I've seen online) the Red Wedding in the Game of Thrones gripped me. The scene in the show was even more PTSD inducing.
In The Terror by Dan Simmons there were two moments- one was less of a shock more a feeling of building dread that got so bad I was holding my breath. Even though the scene was set to be a joyous one, you could feel the tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. The other was a whole short chapter that was hands down one of the sadest, most horrific insights into a dying mans thoughts. I had to put the book down after finishing that scene.
John Dies at the End and it's sequels all usually have at least one each, and I swear I get a different one each time I read them. Dave's McDonald's hallucination got me the first time I read it (that's quite the sentence) 🔵House🔵 of Leaves also jump scared me with a certain checkmark
Joseph Conrad's shipwrecks at sea during bad storms gave me such bad panic attacks I had to stop reading. It's like the Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald that goes on for pages and pages.
You mean other than goosebumps yeah?
It. There is a point where one of the protagonists is walking in a library following buddy clown shoe prints and looks up to see a red balloon. I screamed out loud and freaked out everyone in the house.
The Three Body Problem trilogy has several such moments. The one that hit me the hardest is in the second book, Dark Forest. There's a part that's just... Oooh boy, it's a lot.
The Hot Zone. That book wrecked me. Even scarier that it isn't fiction.