The Beach, Alex Garland
So this book made us never want to deviate from the guidebook again. Richard, a young Englishman travelling in Thailand, is given a secret map to an island no tourists ever find — the kind of place an adventurous tourist can’t resist, of course. As it turns out, the island is home to a tight community led by a powerful woman dead set on keeping their lives a secret from the outside world. Of course, the borders of no utopia can ever hold for long, so after a few weeks of paradise the world begins to come apart at the seams, the residents devolving into violence, paranoia and backstabbing. Richard and his friends escape with their lives, but barely. We’d rather just go to Disneyland.
Comments (26)
House of Leaves?
Most terrifying book? ~ Definitely “Hostage to the Devil” by Malachi Martin, because the content is all true. Satan lives…..
The Road gave me nightmares while I was reading it. The only other book to do that was Salem’s Lot.
Hilary Mantel’s ‘Beyond Black’. That book is insiduous – making you think you’re reading a comedy. And then worming its way into you in some altogether other form. Then it gets funnier as it gets darker, and that fact alone just takes it to a whole other level of creepiness.
Darkness. Imprisoning me. All that I see: Absolute torture. I cannot live. I cannot die. Trapped in myself. Body my holding saay-ee-yay-yaill!
“The Stepford Wives”? I didn’t look any man in the eyes for a week after reading it.
Thanks for all the spoilers…
Inserting “-spoiler alert-” into the middle of a sentence doesn’t give anyone enough space to avoid the spoiler. C’mon, guys.
The Yellow Wallpaper reminds me a lot of the movie “Repulsion.” Wonder if they’re related.
Wish I could print this lut as a list for my library.
Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons is the scariest book I’ve ever read. Seriously scared the shit out of me and stayed with me for years.
Flowers in the Attic?
We Have Always Lived in the Castle!
I’ve always felt that Wasp Factory was one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read.
On the Beach: read it as a teenager and still scares the you know what out of me.
Yeah, I call foul Flavorwire. House of Leaves seriously scared the _____ out of me. Its terror was unseen and indescribable making it that much more scary than any of these other works.
Who reads a list like this and is surprised by spoilers? Jeez.
Johnny Got His Gun and We Need to Talk About Kevin are two of my favorite books of all time. I would never have thought to put them on this list. But now that I’m thinking about it, I can’t come up with ANYTHING to put on this list. Hrm. Drood by Dan Simmons gave me a lovely sense of creeping dread sometimes. Oh! Brainchild by Andrew Neiderman properly freaked me out.
I have to second James, the Wasp Factory is the most disturbing book I’ve read so far. Animals, by Simon Beckett is pretty terrifying, too.
Yes a few too many spoilers sigh… But thanks it’s an interesting list. Salems lot is hard to ignore as a perfect Halloween novel.
[...] Creepy Reads: Get your goosebumps going — it’s Halloween week! Check out these spine-tingling reads. (Flavorwire) [...]
Audacity of Hope
For me it was Dean Koontz’s INTENSITY.
Going Rogue! Take that, Ignatius.
[...] Happy Reading: 10 Utterly Terrifying Books for Your Halloween Reading: http://flavorwire.com/222329/10-utterly-terrifying-books-for-your-halloween-reading [...]
[...] Happy Reading: 10 Utterly Terrifying Books for Your Halloween Reading: http://flavorwire.com/222329/10-utterly-terrifying-books-for-your-halloween-reading [...]
It defeats the purpose of creating a reading list if you’re going to ruin all of the entries by telling everything that happens in each of them. One or two minor spoilers, sure, but at his level it’s self-defeating.
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