Top 10 Scariest Books of All Time

The Top Ten
1 It (Stephen King)

This is the most brilliant book I've ever had the pleasure to read! It's amazing how much character development there is here. Stephen King is a genius! You really start caring and rooting for the characters. I thought The Shining was the most horrifying book ever, until I read IT. Thank you for the creeps and goosebumps, King!

An amazing mixture of terrifying scenes with bouts of brilliant description and writing, characterization, and pure genius in the flow of the plot itself. It will forever haunt my dreams from time to time, a good souvenir from this massive journey.

It is fear. It is pure fear. Everything in this book revolves around fear. The reason this book was even made is to scare people. Also, there is a sewer orgy.

2 The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty)

Hated reading it, but just couldn't stop.

This is absolutely terrifying!

3 The Shining (Stephen King)

The scariest scene is Here's Johnny!

4 Pet Sematary (Stephen King)

You see, if you bury your dead kid and he comes back and kills your best friend and his wife, maybe, just MAYBE, you shouldn't make the same mistake with your wife. But all in all, this is a great book. Read it when I was 12.

5 The Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson)
6 Books of Blood (Clive Barker)

Chilling and very original collection of short stories.
Everyone's a book of blood.

7 The Silence of the Lambs (Thomas Harris)

While the present tense may take a while to get used to ('Sterling looked down the empty corridor'), Thomas Harris' thriller is amazing and surprisingly terrifying, beautifully made into a suspenseful movie.

8 Ghost Story (Peter Straub)
9 Jaws (Peter Benchley)

You're gonna need a bigger boat.

10 At the Mountains of Madness (H.P. Lovecraft)
The Contenders
11 The Turn of the Screw (Henry James)
12 Carrie (Stephen King)
13 Afraid (Jack Kilborn)
14 Salem's Lot (Stephen King)
15 Dracula (Bram Stoker)
16 Misery (Stephen King)
17 Cujo (Stephen King)
18 Psycho (Robert Bloch)

It is the scariest horror book I have ever read.

19 Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
20 1984 (George Orwell)

This beats the crap out of everything above it. Most chilling novel I've ever read.

21 Christine (Stephen King)
22 Revival (Stephen King)

I read a lot of Stephen King books, and this is the only one that actually terrified me. I'm not going to tell you what happens, but I'll tell you it is completely unlike any other Stephen King book.

23 Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury)
24 Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror (Steve Alten)

Shut up, Meg. Only reason I voted here...

25 I Am Legend (Richard Matheson)

Not quite as terrifying as IT, but this book (and the movie for that matter) are some of the most terrifying things that I have ever read.

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