The Reviewers' Roundtable- Halloween Edition

 

The Reviewers' Roundtable is a weekly discussion feature hosted by me and Emily from Read Your Bookcase.  Each week we discuss a different bookish/blogging topic and hope you guys will share your thoughts too! 

Go HERE to find a list of past/future topics.

The Hosts:

Emily at Read Your Bookcase

Michelle at Pink Polka Dot Book Blog

Books That Freaked You Out

I've already done Top Ten lists of Halloween books and books that scared the heck out of me.... so in line with that, I'm going to highlight a few of those books and tell you why they freaked me out.

1.  The Shining by Stephen King

-He's the master of scary shit.  If it's not monsters and demons, it's the end of the world or supernatural stuff.  The Shining freaked me out for multiple reasons.  First it is a freaky-scary book.  And a freaky-scary movie.  One of the best.  But there is something about The Shining in general that I feel connected to.  Something about it that I felt like when I was reading it, I was reading something I was meant to read.  It sounds weird, but I have story about a copy of The Shining that I've told before on this blog.  If you haven't read the story before here it is:  

I got this hardback copy of The Shining and I'm not even sure where, but there's something weird about it.  I've moved quite a bit in the last 10 years and every time I move my books go into boxes and these boxes end up who knows where... well 2 separate times I've gone looking for books and ended up finding The Shining and when I picked it up pictures fell out.  Pictures of little kids that I have never seen before.  And no one I know has ever seen these kids before.  One time it was white kids and another time it was black kids.  I currently don't know where the book is, but I'm scared to find it again... where did these pictures come from?  I still don't know.  And little kids freak me out!!

2.  Zombie Books

-I know zombies aren't real.  Like rationally I know this.  And I know they aren't ever going to be.  It's completely implausible.  But whenever I read a zombie book I get completely scared and it takes over my life.  Let's say it takes me 3 days to get finished with the book... well for those 3 days I'll be having nightmares about zombies and end of the world scenarios.  I'll be cooking dinner and thinking about how much food we have in our cupboards and how long it would last us if something crazy happened.  And then I get to a point where I just have to finish the book so I can stop feeling all out of control.

3.  Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi

-Serial killer stuff is one of my vices.  I am completely interested in a morbid way how someone could be a serial killer.  But at the same time I am completely freaked out by it.  I read Helter Skelter (it's the story of The Manson Murders in case you didn't know) in college one night while I was at my house alone.  Stupid.  I ended up being super freaked out and checking all the windows and doors a million times.  What freaked me out so much was that the houses the Manson killers went into and killed at were pretty much chosen at random.  And that's also what freaks me out about serial killers in general.  They usually don't know their victims... they look for opportunity.  If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you might not even know it, but you catch their eye.... well you could be dead.  Scary real life stuff!!

4.  Ashfall by Mike Mullin

-Ok so maybe I'm a baby.... but this book scared me!!  I know about Yellowstone and all that, but I never gave thought to it actually blowing up.  And then I started reading this book and I'm like "we're all going to die".  And then most of the people in the book are completely horrible to each other and it made me sad for humanity.  It made me think how evil human nature really is sometimes... and it made me contemplate stuff like why were we made this way and all sorts of weird stuff.  It's like I want to believe people are mostly good deep down... but are they?  Anyway this book messed with my head (and I sort of loved it).

5.  Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz

-The cover is scary as hell to a 7 year old.  And then throw in reading it out loud at sleepovers with flashlights, and I was totally scared by it.  I honestly couldn't even look at it unless I was around a bunch of people because it scared me so bad!  I found it at a yard sale over the summer and bought it.  I might read it again soon just to see if all my 5th grade fears were for a good reason or not?!

Happy Halloween!!!  Hope you read a scary book and freak yourself out... it's what this time of year is all about right??  Oh yeah and eat a lot of candy!

What books freak you out??  Let me know!!