# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![Danalan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@Danalan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danalan)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/61 "2006-05-10T21:28:28Z")
I think I may have scarred some fellow students with a reading from “The Green Berets” back in high school. I read the torture scene, with the pink-headed hatpin being thrust under the prisoners thumbnail, aloud in some random speech class. One of the girls fainted. The story never freaked me out, perhaps due to my earlier reading experiences, but I knew it was a powerful scene. It seemed like a good choice for a reading, but as it turns out, not everyone is inspired by fine storytelling. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Scupper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Scupper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scupper)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/62 "2006-05-10T21:44:20Z")
> [@Cockatiel](#): > > I don’t get freaked out too easily. I read Stephen King all the time at night, turn off the lights, and go right to sleep. I’m pretty used to horror. Yet there was this scene in a book called _Vitals_ by Greg Bear that really squicked me out. It’s not even a horror book. It’s been four years since I’ve read it so the details are sketchy, but I remember it involved a Soviet plot to develop mind control technology. Maybe halfway through the book, a character finds a film reel about one of the mind control experiments conducted on a small town in Russia and watches it. > > The title card of the film reads “City of Dog Mothers,” and then it cuts to a scene of dozens of women walking around naked, suckling puppies at their breasts. One of the women smiles and talks to the cameraman, holding two puppies and smiling, totally unaware of what’s going on. I don’t do the scene justice by describing it, but it’s truly disturbing. > > I shut the book right there, put it down, and never picked it up again. No other scene has made me do that. I still don’t know why that affected me the way it did, but it makes me feel icky thinking about it even now. > > Gah. That book was pretty hard to take. I don’t know whether you got to the part where his brother’s wife seduces him and then wipes various body parts on him to assure he gets infected with the mind-controlling bacteria, then, once he’s under the influence, gives him a box of matches and “suggests” he light the bed on fire and take a nap after she leaves. Damn, but that book was freaky. But another book of his freaked me out pretty well, too. _ **Darwin’s Radio** _, which I made the mistake of reading when my wife was pregnant. Probably explains why I can’t even pick up the sequel. ---
**Author:** ![Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boulter_s_Canary)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/63 "2006-05-10T22:18:25Z")
I don’t know about ‘scarred for life’, but some short stories that disturbed me more than somewhat: \*\*‘The Night They Missed the Horror Show’ \*\* by Joe R Lansdale. Mainly the knowledege that there _are_ people like that out there - far too many of them. **High Eight** by Keith Roberts. A ghost story about electricity. Man, electricity scares me enough without bringing the supernatural into it. **Blackham’s Wimpy** by Robert Westall. The awful death of the German fighter pilot. And just about anything by M R James but the worst is probably the ‘leather sack’ in **'The Treasure of Abbot Thomas’** ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/64 "2006-05-10T23:24:17Z")
In _The Witching Hour_ by Anne Rice:They unroll a carpet and find a skeleton. And the part of the rug that was near the skeleton’s teeth had a hole chewed in it. ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/65 "2006-05-11T02:33:17Z")
> [@M. Meursault](#): > > 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_ I couldn’t get over the fact that the entire premise of the story was physically impossible. Otherwise, it was pretty gross, though. ---
**Author:** ![Whifton\_Polekitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/97f17d/32.png) [@Whifton\_Polekitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whifton_Polekitty)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/66 "2006-05-11T02:41:45Z")
> [@awldune](#): > > Horrifying. I would have been happy enough not to be reminded of that one. Mrs. Polekitty, who somehow conned me into reading THM, says "You’re welcome!: She’s a little evil like that. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/67 "2006-05-11T02:58:27Z")
Dracula has been around a hundred years.there is a good reason. ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/68 "2006-05-11T03:21:17Z")
**The Sparrow** by _Mary Doria Russell_. The description of what happened to the main characters hands. :eek: I ---
**Author:** ![manx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@manx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manx)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/69 "2006-05-11T09:07:34Z")
> [@Vagus](#): > > **The Sparrow** by _Mary Doria Russell_. The description of what happened to the main characters hands. :eek: Oh god yes! I’d forgotten all about that, now I’m all shuddery. ---
**Author:** ![auRa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@auRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auRa)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/70 "2006-05-11T11:41:26Z")
> [@Vagus](#): > > **The Sparrow** by _Mary Doria Russell_. The description of what happened to the main characters hands. :eek: > > I Not to mention the other things that happened to the main character… Also, in the sequel, when Emilio’s just beginning to adjust to life outside the priesthood and has found a new love, and then they kidnap him onto the craft headed for Rakhat… That was just so massively, colossally unfair. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/71 "2006-05-11T11:57:01Z")
> [@BoBettie](#): > > Speaking of King, how about “Rainy Season” with the huge killer toads raining down from the sky? Gah! Speaking of King, “The Mist”. The image of his wife’s face with the mist approaching in the background… that story hides in teh back of mind and pops out on foggy evenings. The other one is The Stand- read it during cold-and-flu season so everyone around me is sneezing! The Stephen King stories that really get me are the wrong-place-wrong-time stories. Non-Stephen King stories- _The Other_ and a creepy short story where someone breeds snails and forgets about them, he goes into his office after months and _drowns_ underneath all those snails. I hate snails and slugs- what a way to go! ---
**Author:** ![as\_u\_wish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@as\_u\_wish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/as_u_wish)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/72 "2006-05-11T11:58:33Z")
The children’s classic **Babar** has a picture where the elephant king eats a poison muschroom, turns green, and dies. He DIES. After turning **GREEN**. This was a bedtime story read to us by a mother who insisted we eat everything on our plates, including . . . mushrooms. Fifty years later, that illustration still gives me the shakes. The mushroom is red with white spots. Shudder. At about 11 or 12, I came across a book called **Love Poems for the Very Married** that shocked me at the time. It’s very tame but not to a pre-teen. There are images from it that are still vivid in my mind. We also had a copy of the \*\*Wizard of Oz \*\* with a very cute picture of the Wicked Witch of the West. The cute witch scared me much worse than the one in the movie. The descriptions of the civil war prisoner of war camp in **Andersonville** horrified me in high school. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/73 "2006-05-11T14:16:56Z")
The one about the girl with the green ribbon is very familiar, but I can’t remember if I actually read it or heard it at a sleepover or something. I’m wondering if it was in a book of short stories I read, I think it must have been early to mid 70s. I looked up “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” but didn’t see anything that seemed to be what I’m thinking of. The story that comes to my mind is about a character (don’t even remember if it was male or female) home alone on a dark and scary night (well, duh) and he’s doing a jigsaw puzzle. As he gets more and more of the puzzle done, the picture turns out to be of the room he’s in. He can see the all the furniture and the moon coming in the window, etc…, and as he completes the last part he sees a ghastly face in the window behind him. Somebody please tell me this sounds familiar! There was also a story in the same book where all I can remember is a solitary character keeps hearing a sound that is described as “scriiiiiiiitch” and in the end the sound was the monster / murderer sharpening his axe on a grinding wheel thingy. Anyone…anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/74 "2006-05-11T14:19:01Z")
> [@Vagus](#): > > **The Sparrow** by _Mary Doria Russell_. The description of what happened to the main characters hands. :eek: > > I If it doesn’t scare you too much, can you tell us in a spoiler box? ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/75 "2006-05-11T15:04:44Z")
**Coraline** by Neil Gaiman. Yeah, it’s a kiddy book. But still…that kind of unreality…it’s why In The Mouth Of Madness was creepy. ---
**Author:** ![Pazu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pazu/32/15522_2.png) [@Pazu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pazu)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/76 "2006-05-11T15:25:12Z")
A lot of my candidates have already been mentioned, so I’ll toss a new one out: _John Dollar_ by Marianne Wiggins. I read a lot of horror fiction, and it takes a lot to creep me out, but this book (which isn’t classified as “horror” to begin with) definitely contains a number of scenes I can’t manage to scrub out of my brain. I suppose it’s a testament to how well it’s written, but I never want to read it again. ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/77 "2006-05-11T17:00:01Z")
I don’t know if any of you are familiar with a German book called **Strumpelpeter**. It was actually written in the 19th century and is a moral primer for children. Essentially it is a series of short stories about terrible things that happen to children who disobey. Each story ends with the disobeying child being orphaned, dismembered, or killed in some grisly fashion. Many people laugh at it now and it is kind of a novelty book these days. Anyways, when I was living there I was reading it and there is a story about a little boy who never cut his finger nails or trimmed his hair. I don’t remember exactly what happend to him (he may have been impaled on his own fingernails). He is the boy with the, obviously, [long hair and nails](http://www.lambertvillepeace.org/artshow2005/gallery/strumpelpeter.jpg) on the lower right. That night, after having read the book earlier, I was getting out of the shower and going back to my room. I lived in a basement apartment with the shower in a separate room. So I had to walk back through the _pitch black_ basement to get back to my room. As I stepped out of the bathroom and shut off the light, as the Magical Sky Pixie as my witness, that kid was standing right in front of me there in the basement. I still have a hard time even looking at that picture. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/78 "2006-05-11T17:04:38Z")
[QUOTE=Ol’Gaffer] I don’t know if any of you are familiar with a German book called **Strumpelpeter**. It was actually written in the 19th century and is a moral primer for children. [/QUOTE] [Chandler] What the hell kind of scaryass books did you have in your childhood?[Chandler] Wow, that _is_ creepy! ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/79 "2006-05-11T17:32:44Z")
[QUOTE=Marlitharn] 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. [/QUOTE] Was it The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick? I read that in college. It made me cry. ---
**Author:** ![moonstarssun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@moonstarssun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonstarssun)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111/80 "2006-05-11T17:55:40Z")
[QUOTE=WOOKINPANUB] The story that comes to my mind is about a character (don’t even remember if it was male or female) home alone on a dark and scary night (well, duh) and he’s doing a jigsaw puzzle. As he gets more and more of the puzzle done, the picture turns out to be of the room he’s in. He can see the all the furniture and the moon coming in the window, etc…, and as he completes the last part he sees a ghastly face in the window behind him. Somebody please tell me this sounds familiar! [/QUOTE] Not from a book, but I remember this from something I saw on TV not too long ago…_Supernatural,_ maybe? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356111.md?page=5)