Let's Go Play At The Adams' is the darkest, bleakest, most horrifying novel I have ever read. It will wreck you and leave you walking around feeling like you've been kicked hard in the gut, for weeks. It's not only scary in a suspense-building, sometimes disgusting way, it offers the darkest presentation of childhood and human nature I have ever encountered.

It's about college girl who takes a babysitting job at a home where the parents are supposed to be gone for two weeks. There is at least two very young children, and then some older teens, including the neighbor kids they invite over. As a game, the kids chloroform the babysitter (I think when she was sleeping), and tie her spread-eagle to her bed. When she wakes up, they don't really know what to do, but they gradually start bullying her and testing out their power, and things escalate over the coming days into outright torture. The kind of torture the littlest kids think up, ranging to the kind of torture the teen boy thinks up, and the kids rotate as keeping watch on the girl, which means the individual bits of torture happen with no one watching but the kid or kids inflicting each bit. It ends in the worst possible way.

I've read The Road, which others have done a good job of describing here, and I also find it powerfully dark and disturbing, but...it presents a small note of optimism in the way that there are still (a few) people who remain good when all rules and constraints of society, and society itself, fall away. Let's Go Play At The Adams' suggests that evil is not so far below the surface in everyone, even in happy, pampered children who live in a nice home with wealthy, kind parents.

Anonymous wrote:The backstory of how Capote got to know the perpetrators and their back stories was riveting as well.

Yes. I recommend the movie Infamous with Toby Jones, Catherine Keener and Daniel Craig on the subject. It's about him and Harper Lee going to Kansas to investigate and write the book. Craig plays one of the killers. Capote is a similar movie but I think Infamous is better.

Anonymous wrote:A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh. And the movie by the same name. Chilling.

Yes indeed. Terrifying.

Pet Semetary. Stephen King is, in my opinion, in general not actually that scary, although The Shining certainly has its moments and some of his short stories are bangers. Pet Semetary is uniquely horrifying in King’s work.

Anonymous wrote:Was thinking of reading The Road.

It sounds rough. If I’ve read the Shining and The Atsnd without problems, do you think I could tolerate the Road?

The Road is vastly more disturbing than anything Stephen King has written. It’s not scary per se imo, but it is as bleak and depressing as it gets.

Dracula. Had nightmares for weeks. Heart was racing at the end.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Tell-Tale Heart, Hitchcock short story.

Flowers in the Attic, VC Andrews.

Poe, you ignorant slut.

What did you expect from someone that would put VC Andrews into the same category as Poe?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Tell-Tale Heart, Hitchcock short story.

Flowers in the Attic, VC Andrews.

Poe, you ignorant slut.

What did you expect from someone that would put VC Andrews into the same category as Poe?

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Anonymous wrote:I just read the four page Soft Rains by Bradbury. How does one write a masterpiece in four pages?

This doesn’t answer your question, but I just did a quick search about Ray Bradbury. When he was twelve he had an encounter Mr Electrico, a carnival musician who supposedly tapped him with an energy filled sword and said “Live forever!”. Then he began writing stories every day , four hours/day.

Of course that doesn’t explain his genius and maybe the story was even embellished.

Bradbury is completely underrated as an author IMO, probably because he wrote science fiction. He wove so much social commentary into his novels too. Love his books.

Anonymous wrote:The hot zone

Yes. I read it in middle or HS and still remember the descriptions vividly.

My teenager has read these, including House of Leaves and Truman Capote.

I read Stephen King at her age but have left all horror behind. My brain can't take it. I remember reading books with short ghost stories and "MURDER" was so terrifying. Now murder is every day in the news.

agree with in cold blood and I also found Under the Banner of Heaven to be pretty scary as well.

The backstory of how Capote got to know the perpetrators and their back stories was riveting as well.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In Cold Blood

I've been meaning to read this, was it good? As in- I enjoy well written books and literature, and I enjoy true crime. Is it a good combination of this?

Not PP.

But it is one of the best books ever written in the English language. It is a masterpiece. It is pretty much the perfect "combination" of "well written" and "true crime." In fact, prose does not get any better than the prose written by Capote.

Agreed. The structure alone is perfect. I read In Cold Blood and Fatal Vision back to back many years ago, and while the latter was compelling, it doesn’t hold a candle to the former.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Tell-Tale Heart, Hitchcock short story.

Flowers in the Attic, VC Andrews.

Poe, you ignorant slut.

lol. dp, who loves Poe and noted Premature Burial as one of my top scariest stories read.