Three Books I Slammed Shut

I realize that in yesterday’s post, I told you I have only shut three books that freaked me out. Each time I eventually finished the book, but I figure I should tell you what three books they were.

Book one: The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

When I was a child, I always wanted a pet rabbit. I got little stuffed animal bunnies every year for Easter, but Dad said I had to wait until I owned my own house before I could have a pet bunny. (Which I now have.) So when I read the classic children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit, and it got to the part where they were going to burn up the beloved stuffed bunny because it had been exposed to the child’s illness, just like the bedclothes, I slammed the book shut. I had been reading it at the school library, so I just left it there. I didn’t finish it until I was 20 years old, and took care of a little girl in exchange for a place to stay. She checked it out of the library, and I had to read it to her. Well, with big hazel eyes hanging on my every word I had to keep going, and imagine my relief when the bunny gets to be real! Whew! 

Book two: The Books of Blood: Book 1 by Clive Barker

I have been a horror and science fiction fan since I can remember, so picked up this book from the “New Releases” section of the Newton Library. I don’t remember precisely the story – it’s a collection of short stories – that made me slam the book shut, but I clearly remember thinking Do the librarians KNOW what is in this book they put on their shelves? Still, the stories were good, if completely gross in parts, and I had checked it out, so finished the book so I could return it to the library. And I have read everything of his I could find since then, and even met him at a BEA signing, and he was a perfectly nice person. Of course then he was signing Abarat, a far nicer story!  

Book three: Misery by Stephen King

 Okay, you’ve probably all seen the movie, but have you all read the book? Like all King’s books that make it to movie form, things get changed. I have never seen the movie, but I have seen snippets enough to now that, in the movie version, she takes a sledge hammer to the author’s leg or legs, so he cannot leave her. But in the book, it’s an axe. I physically jumped when the axe severed his lower leg, slammed the book shut and left the room, horrified. An hour or so later, I picked the book back up, and finished it, but that was the first and last time a book made me jump.

Any books ever freaked you out?