# Book moments that scarred you for life **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 9, 2006, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111 "2006-05-09T19:52:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/41 "2006-05-10T04:31:43Z")
In Dennis Etchison’s collection, _The Dark Country_, there’s a story called (IIRC) “They Only Come Out at Night.” Read it and you’ll never want to stop at a roadside rest stop in the Arizona desert at night again. ---
**Author:** ![NicePete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee7513/32.png) [@NicePete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NicePete)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/42 "2006-05-10T04:35:49Z")
The first thing that jumps to mind is Roald Dahl’s short (very short) story [In the Ruins.](http://www.roalddahlfans.com/shortstories/inthtext.php) Disturbing! ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/43 "2006-05-10T05:08:04Z")
I don’t remember old young I was when I read Bugliosi’s _Helter Skelter_, but the idea that normal people weren’t safe in their homes, and that normal people can turn into monsters took away my youthful feeling of security. StG ---
**Author:** ![Denis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@Denis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Denis)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/44 "2006-05-10T06:46:39Z")
Harlan Ellison’s short story, “I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream.” _Nasty_ bit of work. ---
**Author:** ![Marlitharn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/45 "2006-05-10T07:12:36Z")
> [@NicePete](#): > > The first thing that jumps to mind is Roald Dahl’s short (very short) story [In the Ruins.](http://www.roalddahlfans.com/shortstories/inthtext.php) Disturbing! Holy cow. Disturbing is an understatement! I can’t remember the name of the story or the author, but it was about a Jewish mother, daughter, and toddler during the Holocaust. The mother was hiding the toddler in a shawl - the Nazi guards didn’t know she was there, and as long as the toddler had her shawl she was quiet and content. One night the older sister got cold and swiped the shawl. When the toddler woke up and found it gone she started wailing, the guard came with a bayonet, and…well. I hate stories where bad things happen to children. ---
**Author:** ![Pixiesnix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/898d66/32.png) [@Pixiesnix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixiesnix)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/46 "2006-05-10T07:50:41Z")
My librarian mother gave me a book of short stories for children. In one of the stories, a little boy befriends a little girl who always wears a green ribbon around her neck. They grow up, fall in love, and get married. Through it all, the girl always wears the green ribbon despite the boy’s pleas that she take it off. On their wedding night, however, she finally agrees to take off the ribbon… and her head falls off. As an eight-year-old, this was just chilling. Haunted me for years. ---
**Author:** ![some\_white\_dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b487fb/32.png) [@some\_white\_dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/some_white_dude)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/47 "2006-05-10T08:06:57Z")
I’ve read that one with the green ribbon, and now it’s really bugging me because I can’t place the author. The only one that comes to mind is R.L. Stine. ---
**Author:** ![Pixiesnix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/898d66/32.png) [@Pixiesnix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixiesnix)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/48 "2006-05-10T08:17:12Z")
I can’t remember the title of the book or the author, so we can suffer together. ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/49 "2006-05-10T08:42:51Z")
> [@Team of Scientists](#): > > I’ve read that one with the green ribbon, and now it’s really bugging me because I can’t place the author. The only one that comes to mind is R.L. Stine. I don’t remember the author, but I remember the story… wasn’t it in a compilation of stories, in a book called something like “In a Dark Dark Room”? And the girl’s name was Jenny… I think. ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/50 "2006-05-10T09:08:32Z")
Lots of Stephen King in here. If I may add another…When I was 10 or 11 I read _The Tommyknockers_. I had to talk myself out of the idea that I was going to be abducted by aliens in my sleep for quite a while. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/51 "2006-05-10T09:25:01Z")
> [@Anastasaeon](#): > > I don’t remember the author, but I remember the story… wasn’t it in a compilation of stories, in a book called something like “In a Dark Dark Room”? And the girl’s name was Jenny… I think. “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” I think. There were some pretty screwed up stories in there. Mine was the one where a bride and her maids of honor are playing hide-and-go-seek before a wedding, and the bride disappears. They find her body years later locked in a chest in the attic, where apparently she had attempted to hide and been unable to free herself. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/52 "2006-05-10T09:44:20Z")
It’s pathos that gets me, and it had to get me young. The chill from horror passes. I even ‘got’ the comedy in American Psycho (skim read only). In Wyndham’s _Day of the Triffids_ there’s a scene: Shortly after the blindness pandemic. There’s anarchy and people are starting to starve. The narrator spots a man hurrying down the street and clutching two large tins to himself, and a tin opener. The tins’ label says ‘paint’. ---
**Author:** ![manx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@manx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manx)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/53 "2006-05-10T10:29:46Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > _The Wasp Factory_, by Iain Banks; the whole damn book creeped me out and has stuck with me. I read that, years ago. The book in itself didn’t freak me out, but when he describes the baby’s brain that was full of maggots I threw the book away from my chair. I was physically repulsed by the text, not even _American Psycho_ had that affect on me. I like Iain Banks, but always aproach him with caution. ---
**Author:** ![M.Meursault](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b487fb/32.png) [@M.Meursault](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/M.Meursault)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/54 "2006-05-10T10:43:32Z")
I remember hearing about people fainting at readings of Chuck Palaunik’s short story “Guts.” I always thought “pansies”…until I read it. Oh my god that’s a disturbing story. I’m getting squicky thinking about it now, and I can’t even type out a spoiler, I’m so icked out. Google it if you want; it’s online somewhere. _shudder_ ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/55 "2006-05-10T11:00:06Z")
> [@Malodorous](#): > > “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” I think. There were some pretty screwed up stories in there. Mine was the one where a bride and her maids of honor are playing hide-and-go-seek before a wedding, and the bride disappears. They find her body years later locked in a chest in the attic, where apparently she had attempted to hide and been unable to free herself. I also had that book, and that particular story was the only one that really scared me. I always had a fear, as a kid, of enclosed spaces and of being trapped inside a confining space. When I was about 7 years old I read a book in which there was a chapter discussing a Soviet prison, and it went into great detail about this tiny solitary-confinement cell known as “the box” which was not wide enough to lie down in, and not tall enough to stand up in. The thought of it scared the shit out of me for years. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/56 "2006-05-10T12:21:11Z")
I read \*Oliver Twist \* when I was 11. Scary damn book for a kid. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/57 "2006-05-10T14:57:05Z")
> [@pinkfreud](#): > > When I was ten years old, I came across a raggedy paperback collection of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories that was mouldering in the garage. I read the book, and it scared the bejabbers out of me. For some reason, the references to bizarre alien geometries (and the arcane horrors that emerge from them) obsessed me. I was a weird kid already, and Lovecraft made me a lot weirder. I found “The Color Out of Space” in a science fiction anthology back in early adolescense. It scared the hell out of me. Since then, I’ve read many works from “The Lovecraft Mythos.” But I’ve never again attempted anything by The Man Himself. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/58 "2006-05-10T15:56:19Z")
Could it be _Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark_? That was a favorite in third grade or so. In one of those Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror books there was a story, I want to say it was called “House Taken Over”, about this couple who lives in this big house, and it’s slowly forced them out of most of the house. The story is about the night they have to leave. It really bothered the hell out of me as a teenager. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/59 "2006-05-10T16:10:09Z")
> [@Dr. Rieux](#): > > In Dennis Etchison’s collection, _The Dark Country_, there’s a story called (IIRC) “They Only Come Out at Night.” Read it and you’ll never want to stop at a roadside rest stop in the Arizona desert at night again. Oh yeah. Stephen King wrote a rest stop story too. No rest stops at night. Ever. Pee in a bottle or something. The Stick Woman by Edward Lee will make you wary of your own children. ---
**Author:** ![Missy2U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@Missy2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Missy2U)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/60 "2006-05-10T17:03:04Z")
I’m another one that can read Stephen King all night long, shut down the lights and sleep like a baby. The one book that really scared me was “The Auctioneer” by Joan Samson. I haven’t picked it back up in some time. I have some unresolved issues from childhood. 🙂 The book has kids being taken away from their parents and being “sold” at what the Auctioneer called private adoptions - I was adopted myself and was always afraid someone would take me away from my parents. Plus, the rest of the book is just downright CREEPY. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111.md?page=4)