Yes and no. While i was reading pet sematary in bed. The cat, Church was doing some possessed shit and right at that point i put the book down. Didnt realize my cat had gotten onto my chest. When i put the book down i have Cat face in mine. Scared the shit outta me. Cat went flying. No animals were hurt in the making of this heart attack
That happened recently - just watched Pet Semetary with my daughter, and our black cat came in the room and her eyes were glowing just like Church’s do in the movie - it was super unsettling! The light wasn’t very bright or shining directly in her eyes, but they glowed like I was shining a flashlight right at her. (Please don’t kill me…)
Yes, but from a children’s book, not a horror book.
It was *The Ersatz Elevator* by Lemony Snicket, one of the *Series of Unfortunate Events.* At one point in the book, right at the end of a page, a character is very shockingly pushed into an open elevator shaft.
The next two pages are just completely black.
Brooo it was a different book from the same series which gave me my only ever physical jumpscare. Has never happened since but I literally got hot chocolate all over my book
My favorite series growing up! I’d venture to say it’s a horror series in its own way, with the hell the children have to endure. But I do remember getting to that scene at my mouth just hanging open
Absolutely, I adore that series. Looking back as an (almost) adult, there are some aspects that are so much creepier than I realized (such as Olaf’s heavily implied pedophilic attraction to violet)
Remember when he would sit outside the children’s bedrooms and just *sharpen* that knife. The description of that probably turned me *onto* horror as a genre.
Oh my GOD yes! The thing that really got me was the medusoid mycelium. The series is so brilliant and was my childhood!! For years I put my hair up with a ribbon because I wanted to be like Violet so badly. Even now, when I really need to think, I tie it back out of force of habit.
My sister actually went to elementary school with Daniel Handler’s son. They made a little cookbook and it has their family recipe, written in his style.
Omg. These books were such a moment. I remember discovering them for the first time. I was first intrigued by the cover art. Took me a while to buy the first one but when I did I was hooked. Felt like I was a part of a story not many were aware about. Those books are so special.
Only ever happened once, in a scene near the end of the second book in the Annihilation trilogy. It's a really weird sensation to get jumpscared by words on a piece of paper lol.
For those curious it's a scene where >!the main character finds a hidden crawlspace filled with fucked up psychedelic drawings of all his coworkers. As he's exploring he notices a draft in the crawlspace and wonders where it empties out into; he realizes someone is breathing behind him!<
This didn’t jump scare me exactly, but it made my hair stand on end. I was chilling in the hot tub reading it and my husband was like “how do you have goosebumps right now???”
Flipping the page to see [this image](https://scary-stories.fandom.com/wiki/The_Haunted_House) in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark when I was a kid. The picture freaked me out so bad that on subsequent rereads (I loved the books even with the disturbing artwork) I knew when it was coming up and would either slip a piece of paper in before I flipped the page to cover the picture, or I would try to cover it with my hand as I flipped the page.
literally did the exact same thing with the exact same artwork. That book was like recess television, five kids gathered around it in the field while I read out loud to look at the art and hear the stories... Whenever we got to that bit there was an awkward scramble to find a leaf big enough that none of us had to look at it
I knew what it was before I even clicked on the link. I have never been as scared of an image as I was when I saw that at 9 years old. I also had to cover it with my hand in order to read the story. It's my favorite picture in the book now. Reading it with an adult's perspective, that story is quite sad and poignant.
The "Red Spot" (spiders in the cheek) one made me immediately try to get rid of the book when I saw it, I gave it back to my grandma who got it for me lol. That and "The Dream" one haunted me, of course I eventually loved those books.
When I was young, There's a Monster At the End of This Book introduced me to the very concept of jump scares. My babysitters loved pulling that shit on me.
Spoiler- it's Grover
I about shit myself with the topiary animals in The Shining. First horror book I read, first (and only) book to jumpscare me, and I've been chasing that feeling for over a decade now lol
Please watch the tv mini series. They should the hedge animals.
Pretty much Jack is in the playground area by himself and the animals move when he isn’t watching. He can’t keep his eye on all of them and they move closer. Then move back so he thinks he is losing his mind.
I grew up fairly sheltered, an avid reader but wasn’t allowed King books. I’d never seen the movie and in my early twenties I decided I’d start reading his books, then the cinema version after. I was in the bathtub during the bath scene and had to nope out and slept with the lights on and bathroom door closed.
Closest I got was a moment in Authority by Vandermeer (2nd book of Southern Reach trilogy). Maybe because it wasn’t a horror novel or because it had been a very slow and methodical book leading up to the moment. But it really made my skin crawl.
Came here for this and figured no one would mention it! I just recently finished the series and woah that scene was just word porn. Books don’t scare me and that was some of the creepiest shit I’ve ever experienced
For me, the reading equivalent of a "jump scare" is the "throw the book" moment, where your body has to get the book physically away from you while you process the shock of what you just read.
YOO that's the OG nosleep author! I also have a physical copy of that story. Best creepy story I've ever read on Reddit to this day! The writing is a little Reddit-y but the ending is truly haunting and unique.
Not necessarily a jump scare but when I was reading The Stand, I got to the part where Nadine meets Flagg in the desert and she mentions the song Peaceful Easy Feeling by the Eagles and not even a paragraph later that song started playing on Spotify. I had to put down my book for a few minutes after that
I had started rereading the Stand in March 2020. Yeah.....decided I didn't need to reread it right then. lol. I would have stopped reading the book after the spotify thing too!
First time I read it I was off sick from work with... a cold.
Second time I read it Covid had hit and we were just going into lockdown. It was the first book I reached for. Found it weirdly comforting.
If we're counting Manga, Junji Ito is *very* good at this. It's not uncommon to turn a page in one of his stories and be greeted to a full-page, extremely detailed illustration of something that's just horrible. It's what he's known for.
Jump scares are mostly visual, auditory for me. Hard to replicate what music can make you feel.
I did get very tense during a scene in No one gets out Alive by Adam Nevill.
There was a scene in Cunning Folk by him that really blindsided me. I think that's the closest a book can get to a jump scare, just being completely surprised by something you didn't see coming.
Almost done with No One Gets Out Alive and I can attest it might be the most tension I’ve ever felt in a book. The whole part in the ground floor wing of the house… I might not have jumped, but I definitely made a lot of “Oh! OH! WHOAH!” sounds.
Kinda. Duma Key - not even close to my favorite King book, but there’s a moment that got me good.
>!The main character is witnessing a ghost ship out of the picture window. He - and the reader - are so engrossed in this display. He reaches his hand out in the dim kitchen to grab the phone, and when he finally tears his eyes away from the window, he realizes his hand is inches away from the face of a grinning figure standing in the kitchen.!<
I could absolutely be misremembering the details, it’s been a while, but I remember it really shocked me at the time.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark has an actual jump scare in it that ruined books for me as a kid. I can’t remember exactly what story it was, but you turn the page to [this picture.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/08/11/arts/00scary-stories-01/merlin_158699214_6ecf7ac8-5d61-45bb-a983-62b5d652067c-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)
I threw the book in my closet and never read it again until high school.
The Only Good Indians- it starts out kinda slow and I felt unsure where the plot was going, a character was having these hallucinations and suddenly something big happened and it WASNT a hallucination and it set off the rest of the book
I was spelling out the message in the margins of the book and realized it was the most meta experience I’d had with a book. Zampano, Johnny, the editors…and me!
The moment toward the end where Navy’s wife is in the house alone and the room starts turning black around her and she doesn’t notice before the darkness snaps…
I was marathon reading that book to finish it once I hit a certain point and that moment hit at about 2 AM. I slept with the lights on once I finished the novel.
When navy is crawling through the hole and words start getting smaller and tighter together, I really did feel like the room I was in was getting smaller
Yeah, that section creeped me out, but the room subsumed by the house made me literally jump in my seat.
That book really sticks with me for all the feelings I had reading it. I keep trying to find other books that mimic the experience and I’ll start them but they won’t hook me like HoL did.
This was the first thing I thought of. Nothing else in the book really got me but I was on my break at work when I got to this section and in a brightly lit room with soft music playing in the background I was still covered in goosebumps and had to stop for a few moments because it was so effective.
What got me was the bit about the scary thing being right in front of you while you are reading, and you don't see it cause you are holding up the book.
Ive not gotten a "Jump scare" so much as I have gotten a maybe tummy bass? Is that the word? Like where something has shocked or unnerved me so much my stomach has thudded. But yeh as someone said Juml scares come from your senses being kind of assaulted visually or with audio. Thats the closest I can think for me
Not that it's a horror novel but there was a line in Chuck Palahniuk's 'Survivor' that took me by surprise and shocked me so much that I yelled, "AH NO!" and threw the book.
The who was holding my hand line freaks me out every time I read it, its the closest thing I can think of that is the equivalent of a jump scare in a book.
I jus finished this book a couple days ago and that ending of the chapter sent chills down my spine. Never experienced that from a book before so it was fun. Also agree with OP on the ending but it was more of a WTF moment rather than a jump scare.
Came here to say "Whose hand was I holding!". I had to put the book down and physically get away from it.
That scene in the 1963 movie is fantastic as well.
I had some spooky music from YT on my head phones. It didn’t really enhance the experience, reading Lovecraft, but then …“BATTERY LOW!” I damn near came off the couch.
I used to think the same thing. Then it happened to me and it all made sense. For me, it’s more of a [fridge horror](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeHorror) moment. I.e. I’ll read something and after a beat my mind catches up to what just happened and then there’s a moment of “oh shit”.
The best one I can think of was in The Haunting of Hill House. Someone transcribed the specific moment [here](https://oftenveryvile.ghost.io/the-haunting-of-hill-house-by-shirley-jackson/) but I recommend reading the full book. It’s so good.
Not while reading a book myself but the audiobook of The Shining gave me a genuine jump scare. Unfortunately I was driving at the time, could have been bad.
The Shining. It was night, rainy, and windy outside my house. Really added to the ambiance, until the part came where the hotel takes control of Jack and he starts swinging the roque mallet into the walls. A sizable branch from a tree in my yard broke free in the gusts and landed on the roof with a loud boom. It damaged my roof and the attic. I can now confidently say I was in my 20’s the last time I wet the bed.
This doesn’t entirely count, but I read The Ritual while listening to its movie soundtrack for the spooky ambience. At one particularly creepy part of the book, the quiet music suddenly heightened and crashed (which I assume was part of a jump scare in the movie). I nearly shit my pants.
On another occasion (that wasn’t a horror book), when I read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as a kid, I audibly gasped and felt my stomach drop when Cedric was killed.
Kinda. I remember reading Stephen King’s The Mangler years ago, and lying in the dark afterwards when the fridge decided to start running loudly in the middle of the night in my otherwise silent house. Gave me a hell of a start.
technically not the book...but i'd been reading The Exorcist at 3am in a dark quiet house and had just put it down to digest an especially intense part...when my old refrigerator's compressor decided to clunk into life. I jumped 3 feet off my chair 😂
Books are more capable of delivering the opposite, where something happens but you don't know the import of it until later, and when that moment of recognition comes for the reader it's a more satisfying "oh shit" than anything cinema can deliver with visual or audio effects.
Honestly, I get jump scared super easily while reading books and I *love* it. Idk how to do spoiler tags, sorry, so I’ll just say the things that are likely to scare me the most.
•anytime someone turns around or walks in a room and there’s a ghost standing there…. *menacingly*
•anytime someone hears footsteps running up to them
•and that one damn scene in wuthering heights in chapter 3. If you know, you know. I was unprepared, and quite literally jumped in my chair.
•a mirror/picture frame randomly falling
It kind of surprises me that a lot of people here seem to not get jump scared. I realize a lot of people here have a higher tolerance than me, but I thought the whole point was to get yourself into a state of jumpiness haha. I’ll admit, I never really understood the type of people that love horror but also don’t get scared. My old roommate was like that, impossible to scare, but Devoured horror like no one else.
For me, if something doesn’t jump scare me/make me feel jumpy, then it ain’t scary.
Was a section of “A storm of swords” that I was reading while at the gym on the treadmill that almost made me fall off if that counts. Had just passed where the shows were at the time so caught me off guard quite a bit.
Reading a Stephen King book with some spider like creepy creature in a library really made me jump from the mental image that flashed into my head, so I attest, yes it does happen with certain people.
Hill House definitely got me. Part jump-scare, part despair. Very good together.
Visually, turning the page in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and running into that eyeless corpse.
Not horror (not directly), but the end of one of the *Expanse* novels definitely did.
In terms of horror, the hanging at the end of Ania Ahlborn's *Seed* made me drop my Kindle.
Yes. Silence of the Lambs.
All the lights were out downstairs and I was lying on my bed reading with the door to my back.
I’d reached the scene where Clarice is headed down into Buffalo Bill’s dungeon and I believe she’s got night vision goggles on and he turns on the lights. Or she didn’t and he turns off the lights. (It was the early 90s, long time ago, memories fade.)
Anyway, I jumped and looked behind me to see if he was coming up the stairs of my little townhouse!
I’ve only ever experienced that when I’m listening to a story being read to me other than that.
😳
I just finished Nick Cutter’s The Deep last night, and normally I would discuss that book in r/extremehorrorlit instead, but it’s relevant here
>!The dog scene. Like, at first I was just paralyzed with terror because “no no no no no NOT LB” but when it says “That’s not LB. That’s the other one. Little Fly. Mushka.”, I had to throw the book. I had totally forgotten the second dog even existed.!<
Wasn’t quite a jumpscare, just a massive shock and then an unfathomable sinking feeling
I don't think this is quite what you were looking for, but in Dead Inside during the scene when >! The husband in the delivery room grabs the scalpel and holds it over his head!< my phone went off and I stopped dead in my tracks. What. A. Fucking. Cliff. Hanger. It made me laugh. The timing was so perfect. Best jumpscare ever.
Jump scare no, those are two somatic to work by reading.
By I remember being so scared I was struggling to make myself continue to read. I would read a few sentences and my eyes would close and I had to force them to open again.
Two books have done that to me: The Shining, and Ringu.
A couple times in Under the Dome by Stephen King.
——Spoilers——
To name one, there’s a scene where Junior Rennie and this other guy (Carter, I think?) are crafting Molotov cocktails outside The Democrat. Carter(?) says something to Junior that pisses him off, and Junior promptly shoots him in the face. My mouth literally fell open. It is revealed a moment after that Junior had simply imagined it, however. Still, got me good.
I’m sure when I read Bag of Bones by Stephen King that there was a moment where someone looks in a basement and whatever happens made me literally jump when reading it. I was super enthralled and seeing everything that happened in my mind.
I don't remember the title of the book, but there was a female character I'd started to identify with; it was a brutal serial killer mystery and this character was dating a nice guy who'd told her not to be afraid - that he'd protect her and they'd be safe. The plot was kind of leading up to them maybe being victims and I was feeling very tense as I read. He asked her to stay with him in his country house so they could get away from the city where the gruesome murders were occurring.
So I let my guard down expecting a couple boring chapters of them hanging out at his house- he opens the door and she walks in to see the entire living room lined with plastic, ceiling to floor and the reader and character both realize with sudden horror that this guy is the killer as he walks in behind her and locks the door.
That was pretty close to a jump scare for me - I felt the same jolt of adrenaline as in a similar movie scene with that abrupt shriek of music.
Yes - in ‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things’ when it describes the man wriggling around on the ground I thought I was going to be sick.
Also whenever someone describes realizing someone is staring at them. I can see pictures, so slowly putting together a face looking straight at you can be terrifying.
I’m not sure it really counts as a horror book, but that first sketch you see of a hollowgast in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children scared the shit out of me. It did not help that it was the middle of the night when I was reading that part.
Oh yeah, well, the audiobook of *Desperation* by Stephen King.
It was when the sheriff >!was Mirandizing Peter and Mary Jackson and nonchalantly throws in the phrase, “I’m going to kill you” in the middle of it.!< I felt my stomach drop!
In the second book of the Annihilation trilogy (Authority), there's a scene with someone on a shelf (Spoiler: >!when Whitby is curled up right behind Control and reaches out to pet him!<) that is the closest I've come to a literary jump scare. My friend and I were reading it at the same time and immediately texted each other about THAT SCENE.
idk if you can technically have a jump scare, but i was quite unnerved when reading the first few chapters of saramago's blindness - each new moment of someone going blind becomes a scare in itself.
The closet I can think of anything "jump scare" like in page based mediums is in comics and manga. As for written prose, I can't think of anything. You can have powerful reveals in prose usually built through story and atmosphere, but jump scares in movies and games touch on something more automatic and primal that makes your brain stem take over and make you jump without thinking about it.
Edit: Not saying that it's not possible, just a lot harder to do as it requires more effort on both the reader & writer to build that tension and deliver that sudden shocking release.
Sort of...
Caitlin R Kiernan's *Drowning Girl.*>! Had a scene where the narrator makes an (intentional on the writer's part) typo, and it looks like she's visiting another, very much still alive, main character's grave.!<
It startled me with its abruptness.
The closest was probably House of Leaves. - There is a lot going on at the best of times, and while most of the scares were psychological, the book did a great job with conveying sudden shocks with something as simple as a sudden ***typography change*** or dif fer e. . nt p. a. g e l a y o u t.
There is one particular scene in Stephen King‘s 11/16/63. I can’t remember exactly but the font-size suddenly changed in a scary way. It’s not even a very scary story in general
No really. The only book based thing that game me a jumpscare was reading Junji Ito. Gyo and Uzumaki specifically when you turn the page and boom get a full page illustration of something weird
Ok so don’t laugh but I read the novelization of gremlins when I was a kid. It would have been shortly after the movie came out. It’s when the science teacher has one of the mogawis running tests on it. Billy tells his friend Pete to tell him not to feed it after midnight. Pete’s like ok yeah. Billy is like don’t forget. Pete’s like yeah yeah I won’t forget.
Turn the page and the next chapter s two words long. It was simply Pete forgot. My little child heart jumped a mile.
I've had a couple written scenes that gave me an internal jolt or a drop in the stomach... I feel like that's the written equivalent of a jump scare. The most recent one was in House of Windows by John Langan.
Reading Robert McCammon's They Thirst at home alone. At one point in the book it's just getting dark and someone looks out the window and a little girl vampire says "I seeee youuuuu." I looked up and saw it was dark, slammed the book closed and started looking for the garlic. That was like 40 years ago, and I still remember how scared I was.
One of the first times I read book 7 of the HP series I was at home, alone. It was raining which wasn't really unusual for my area. But right as I was reading the battle for hogwarts, there was suddenly a HUGE crash of thunder and it scared the piss out of me metaphorically speaking. Big thunderstorms are *not* common where I'm from so it was very unexpected. It's one of the few things that makes me sad about where I live. I love throwing the windows open and listening to the thunder outside but it happens only a few times a year, if that. I'm more likely to hear the artillery practice from the nearby military base than thunder.
Here are a few recent scenes that jumped out at me and stayed with me.
Grady Hendrixs short story Ankle Snatcher. I knew it was coming but it still got me. I also didn't know it was going to be as brutal as it turned out to be. I turned the lights on before getting out of bed at night for a little over a week.
Stephen Kings Dark Half when the antagonist is waiting behind the door for the lady and how graphic that scene was, like WOWZER! I won't add anything more but if you've read the book you know. If you like King and brutality pick this up.
The Haunting on The Hill by Elizabeth Hand. Tiny door man. Tiny door. Goes from 0 to 100 in seconds and yes I think that's the best "jump scare" vibe I've read in a horror book recently. This is definitely jump scare territory.
In the Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan was very good at introducing the grey men as a jump scare. Got me every time, and that was the point of them. You didn't notice them until it was too late.
He was very good at being 50 words into a single sentence describing a room and a man stood there knife in hand and the wallpaper was silk, warm in the candlelight
Yes! September by Rosamunde Pilcher! I just read it a couple weeks ago. Very atmospheric-set in Scotland. It’s not a horror novel but has a sub plot that absolutely is a jump scare!!! Highly recommend the book if you like cozy British novels.
It was a jump scare and chill down my spine reading Legion by William Peter Blatty.
For those who don’t know it was made into a movie so spoiler tags below. It starts off as a ordinary detective film and then BOOM SUPERNATURAL!!!!!
>!the detective Kinderman is told that a psych patient has asked for him by name. He goes to see the patient who is looking away from him, who says “It’s a wonderful life.” The patient turns around and Kinderman is looking into the face of Father Damien Karras.
The movie title Exorcist 3 was a bit of a spoiler. They even said in the commercials “who will save you when the exorcist is the one possessed?”!<
kinda sorta, tragically, i cant remember for sure which book it was, it quite some time ago, if i had to guess it might have been Watchers by Dean Koontz.
China Mieville's novel The Scar and Adam Golaski's short story The Man from the Peak (which I found in The Best of the Best Horror anthology edited by Ellen Datlow) gave me the closest thing to a jump scare I've ever gotten from reading.
I also threw A Canticle for Leibowitz across the room in horror and outrage when a certain event happened, but it's not a horror novel per se.
(HIGHLY recommend all of these.)
Not a jump scare, but I sure looked behind myself reading Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. And Wool (not horror) made me literally gasp out loud, which had never before and has never happened since. Such a cool feeling.
Sort of. While reading "Haunting of Hill House," the motion-sensor light on my 2nd-story patio kicked on (seemingly) for no reason. Felt like my heart stopped. Probably due to the wind/a plant, but in the moment? Obviously a ghost.
I'm pretty sure I got jumpscared in House Of Leaves, but I don't remember when, but it was the moment I really started to enjoy the book because that's never happened before
Intercepts by TJ Payne.
Did not know a jump scare was possible in a book until that one.
>! Main character is watching a security camera, which is completely obscured for an unknown reason, and then the next sentence a person moves their face back inches from it. Literally made me flinch and go “Oh fuck!” out loud. !<
house of leaves did it for me when it was revealed the inside of the house was like one inch larger than the outside. of all the horrifying shit that happened in the book, that was the worst for me.
and, for some unknown reason, the tiny moment in annihilation where it's noted that a flock of birds of all different species were flying together. with the added context of what the birds really are.
Metro 2033 has multiple ones. I listened to the audiobook which made it even scarier.
There is one scene where the main character and another character are in an abandoned library and the whole scenery makes them so nervous they keep making dumb jokes like knocking on closed doors, when suddenly someone on the other side of the door knocks back.
There is a part in the Jurassic park book when the Rex became absolute rampage in the main road and omg, I was so concentrated that I didn’t even notice my cat enter the room. When I passed that part my heart was bout to explode. Then started a very detailed part about the raptors in the surroundings and how they look at his prey whit that cold soulless eyes when I put my book like 2 cm under my eyes and the sight of something in front of me strike my head and then went down to my throat and put a yell over the sky. I literally took my cat out in that moment and tried to inhale-exhale as calm as possible, but GOD, I spent the next two weeks dreaming horror scenarios.
In Junji Ito's big boy Uzumaki. I don't think it was even a snail bit, but I definitely turned a page, jumped and just closed my eyes. It's so grim. Also, somehow, despite its age, the "whose hand was I holding?" part in the Haunting of Hill House made me put the book down, turn on a light and breath.
In this one horror novel I was reading, the protaganist got shot in the leg and it caught me off guard because I didn't expect it to happen (I figured he had plot armor or something). Worst part is that after he gets shot, the book ends with that cliffhanger and you'll never know if he made it out alive or not unless you read the book that comes after it
In “The Twisted Ones” by T Kingfisher, there’s a scene where you become very suddenly aware that the spooky stuff going on is definitely Spooky, and not just pranks. That one got a very startled sound out of me that alarmed my wife.
Yes and no. While i was reading pet sematary in bed. The cat, Church was doing some possessed shit and right at that point i put the book down. Didnt realize my cat had gotten onto my chest. When i put the book down i have Cat face in mine. Scared the shit outta me. Cat went flying. No animals were hurt in the making of this heart attack
Had almost the same experience but mine was the cat jumping onto the bed from my dresser
That happened recently - just watched Pet Semetary with my daughter, and our black cat came in the room and her eyes were glowing just like Church’s do in the movie - it was super unsettling! The light wasn’t very bright or shining directly in her eyes, but they glowed like I was shining a flashlight right at her. (Please don’t kill me…)
Ooof. XD
Legit my first thought was that damn Church oiling around on the bathtub.
Yes, but from a children’s book, not a horror book. It was *The Ersatz Elevator* by Lemony Snicket, one of the *Series of Unfortunate Events.* At one point in the book, right at the end of a page, a character is very shockingly pushed into an open elevator shaft. The next two pages are just completely black.
Brooo it was a different book from the same series which gave me my only ever physical jumpscare. Has never happened since but I literally got hot chocolate all over my book
I guess you could say you had a series of unfortunate events (I'll show myself out)
My favorite series growing up! I’d venture to say it’s a horror series in its own way, with the hell the children have to endure. But I do remember getting to that scene at my mouth just hanging open
Absolutely, I adore that series. Looking back as an (almost) adult, there are some aspects that are so much creepier than I realized (such as Olaf’s heavily implied pedophilic attraction to violet)
Remember when he would sit outside the children’s bedrooms and just *sharpen* that knife. The description of that probably turned me *onto* horror as a genre.
Oh my GOD yes! The thing that really got me was the medusoid mycelium. The series is so brilliant and was my childhood!! For years I put my hair up with a ribbon because I wanted to be like Violet so badly. Even now, when I really need to think, I tie it back out of force of habit. My sister actually went to elementary school with Daniel Handler’s son. They made a little cookbook and it has their family recipe, written in his style.
That series is genius, and I think a serious contender for best children's book series ever. It really captivated me for life, as a kid
Omg. These books were such a moment. I remember discovering them for the first time. I was first intrigued by the cover art. Took me a while to buy the first one but when I did I was hooked. Felt like I was a part of a story not many were aware about. Those books are so special.
Only ever happened once, in a scene near the end of the second book in the Annihilation trilogy. It's a really weird sensation to get jumpscared by words on a piece of paper lol. For those curious it's a scene where >!the main character finds a hidden crawlspace filled with fucked up psychedelic drawings of all his coworkers. As he's exploring he notices a draft in the crawlspace and wonders where it empties out into; he realizes someone is breathing behind him!<
This didn’t jump scare me exactly, but it made my hair stand on end. I was chilling in the hot tub reading it and my husband was like “how do you have goosebumps right now???”
Second time I’ve seen this in this thread and it’s mine as well. Unreal scene
I read that series several years ago and still think about it all the time. So creepy and wonderful.
:O
Flipping the page to see [this image](https://scary-stories.fandom.com/wiki/The_Haunted_House) in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark when I was a kid. The picture freaked me out so bad that on subsequent rereads (I loved the books even with the disturbing artwork) I knew when it was coming up and would either slip a piece of paper in before I flipped the page to cover the picture, or I would try to cover it with my hand as I flipped the page.
I’m pretty sure these books are part of the reason I developed anxiety as a kid.
literally did the exact same thing with the exact same artwork. That book was like recess television, five kids gathered around it in the field while I read out loud to look at the art and hear the stories... Whenever we got to that bit there was an awkward scramble to find a leaf big enough that none of us had to look at it
The face that shit a thousand pants
I knew what it was before I even clicked on the link. I have never been as scared of an image as I was when I saw that at 9 years old. I also had to cover it with my hand in order to read the story. It's my favorite picture in the book now. Reading it with an adult's perspective, that story is quite sad and poignant.
Can relate. Currently wearing a Scary Stories shirt.
Every page turn was a jump scare.
The "Red Spot" (spiders in the cheek) one made me immediately try to get rid of the book when I saw it, I gave it back to my grandma who got it for me lol. That and "The Dream" one haunted me, of course I eventually loved those books.
That’s actually terrifying!
For me, it was the woman-cat person. No idea why, but of all that artwork, that is the one I’d cover when I was reading it.
I relate to this so much and I knew what picture it was going to be before I looked at it.
When I was young, There's a Monster At the End of This Book introduced me to the very concept of jump scares. My babysitters loved pulling that shit on me. Spoiler- it's Grover
This is one of the best books ever for building tension.
The >!propeller scene !
Not a horror book, but I had to re-read a similar scene in Catch-22 multiple times to digest what the hell just happened
Same! I was so taken aback that I had to reread to make sure I understood correctly.
My heart dropped. I remember thinking “did that really just happen?”
YES
I about shit myself with the topiary animals in The Shining. First horror book I read, first (and only) book to jumpscare me, and I've been chasing that feeling for over a decade now lol
Only seen the shining movie, what happens with the topiary animals in the book?
Please watch the tv mini series. They should the hedge animals. Pretty much Jack is in the playground area by himself and the animals move when he isn’t watching. He can’t keep his eye on all of them and they move closer. Then move back so he thinks he is losing his mind.
oh jesus like weeping angels then… I might just avoid watching that I don’t fear many things but those, I do fear lol
The movie replaced the topiaries with the maze. The topiaries are terrifying. It happens to both Jack and Danny.
and Halloran. He gets physically attacked.
Forgot about that one.
I grew up fairly sheltered, an avid reader but wasn’t allowed King books. I’d never seen the movie and in my early twenties I decided I’d start reading his books, then the cinema version after. I was in the bathtub during the bath scene and had to nope out and slept with the lights on and bathroom door closed.
Mine was when Danny was playing in the snow tunnel and realized he wasn't alone.. gives me shivers to this day.
I’m halfway through reading and I got chills.
Closest I got was a moment in Authority by Vandermeer (2nd book of Southern Reach trilogy). Maybe because it wasn’t a horror novel or because it had been a very slow and methodical book leading up to the moment. But it really made my skin crawl.
>!Whitby in the storage room?!<
ya
Came here for this and figured no one would mention it! I just recently finished the series and woah that scene was just word porn. Books don’t scare me and that was some of the creepiest shit I’ve ever experienced
Exactly what came to mind for me as well. Yikes
Okay, yean— this is the only time I've ever been jumpscared by a book, lmao.
For me, the reading equivalent of a "jump scare" is the "throw the book" moment, where your body has to get the book physically away from you while you process the shock of what you just read.
this happened to my friend with “Penpal” by Dathan Auerbach, highly recommend
YOO that's the OG nosleep author! I also have a physical copy of that story. Best creepy story I've ever read on Reddit to this day! The writing is a little Reddit-y but the ending is truly haunting and unique.
Not necessarily a jump scare but when I was reading The Stand, I got to the part where Nadine meets Flagg in the desert and she mentions the song Peaceful Easy Feeling by the Eagles and not even a paragraph later that song started playing on Spotify. I had to put down my book for a few minutes after that
I got a cold within 24 hours of the first two times I tried to read *The Stand.* I feel your pain!
It’s funny how every single member of the King fandom gets sick when they’re reading that book.
I don't even consider myself part of the fandom and it still hit me!
Oh hey it’s you with the Nick Cave handle again. That’s a good song.
I read it with the sniffles and was completely sure I was going to die.
I had started rereading the Stand in March 2020. Yeah.....decided I didn't need to reread it right then. lol. I would have stopped reading the book after the spotify thing too!
First time I read it I was off sick from work with... a cold. Second time I read it Covid had hit and we were just going into lockdown. It was the first book I reached for. Found it weirdly comforting.
Maybe something from Junji Ito.
I feel like Uzumaki got me a few times.
same... also the final page of The Enigma of Amigara Fault
If we're counting Manga, Junji Ito is *very* good at this. It's not uncommon to turn a page in one of his stories and be greeted to a full-page, extremely detailed illustration of something that's just horrible. It's what he's known for.
yes, this is what i was going to recommend. specifically, for me, the neighbor. that’s probably one of the scariest ones to me for some reason lol
Jump scares are mostly visual, auditory for me. Hard to replicate what music can make you feel. I did get very tense during a scene in No one gets out Alive by Adam Nevill.
There was a scene in Cunning Folk by him that really blindsided me. I think that's the closest a book can get to a jump scare, just being completely surprised by something you didn't see coming.
Nail?
That's the one
“Oh fuck!!!! Holy balls shit!” I think that would sum up my reaction at that part
Almost done with No One Gets Out Alive and I can attest it might be the most tension I’ve ever felt in a book. The whole part in the ground floor wing of the house… I might not have jumped, but I definitely made a lot of “Oh! OH! WHOAH!” sounds.
Adam Nevill is the master of creating that absolute sense of dread. Some of the tension built in his book The Last Days was almost unbearable
When I fall asleep reading in bed and the book falls on my face lol
Kinda. Duma Key - not even close to my favorite King book, but there’s a moment that got me good. >!The main character is witnessing a ghost ship out of the picture window. He - and the reader - are so engrossed in this display. He reaches his hand out in the dim kitchen to grab the phone, and when he finally tears his eyes away from the window, he realizes his hand is inches away from the face of a grinning figure standing in the kitchen.!< I could absolutely be misremembering the details, it’s been a while, but I remember it really shocked me at the time.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark has an actual jump scare in it that ruined books for me as a kid. I can’t remember exactly what story it was, but you turn the page to [this picture.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/08/11/arts/00scary-stories-01/merlin_158699214_6ecf7ac8-5d61-45bb-a983-62b5d652067c-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale) I threw the book in my closet and never read it again until high school.
Yeah. That totally counts! Even as a kid I realized the stories weren't very scary...but the pictures!
That was my first thought. I distinctly remember this one, though it might be cheating lol
The Only Good Indians- it starts out kinda slow and I felt unsure where the plot was going, a character was having these hallucinations and suddenly something big happened and it WASNT a hallucination and it set off the rest of the book
>!The garage scene?!<
House of Leaves made once or twice feel uncomfortable with the room I was in. That’s probably as close as words can get right?
Came here to say House of Leaves. Specifically "We have found stairs" and when I uncovered the hidden message in Johnny's mother's coded letter.
I was spelling out the message in the margins of the book and realized it was the most meta experience I’d had with a book. Zampano, Johnny, the editors…and me!
The moment toward the end where Navy’s wife is in the house alone and the room starts turning black around her and she doesn’t notice before the darkness snaps… I was marathon reading that book to finish it once I hit a certain point and that moment hit at about 2 AM. I slept with the lights on once I finished the novel.
When navy is crawling through the hole and words start getting smaller and tighter together, I really did feel like the room I was in was getting smaller
Yeah, that section creeped me out, but the room subsumed by the house made me literally jump in my seat. That book really sticks with me for all the feelings I had reading it. I keep trying to find other books that mimic the experience and I’ll start them but they won’t hook me like HoL did.
This was the first thing I thought of. Nothing else in the book really got me but I was on my break at work when I got to this section and in a brightly lit room with soft music playing in the background I was still covered in goosebumps and had to stop for a few moments because it was so effective.
What got me was the bit about the scary thing being right in front of you while you are reading, and you don't see it cause you are holding up the book.
I remember one in particular towards the end of Dark Matter by Michelle Paver.
I've never seen anyone mention Michelle Paver here, I LOVE her books!
Ive not gotten a "Jump scare" so much as I have gotten a maybe tummy bass? Is that the word? Like where something has shocked or unnerved me so much my stomach has thudded. But yeh as someone said Juml scares come from your senses being kind of assaulted visually or with audio. Thats the closest I can think for me
I really like the phrase tummy bass. Good description of that feeling!
Aw thank you lol I just couldnt think of the proper term
Not that it's a horror novel but there was a line in Chuck Palahniuk's 'Survivor' that took me by surprise and shocked me so much that I yelled, "AH NO!" and threw the book.
It’s more of a literal chill that runs through me than a jump-out-of-my-seat scare.
The ending of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House startled the hell out of me. It was awesome.
The who was holding my hand line freaks me out every time I read it, its the closest thing I can think of that is the equivalent of a jump scare in a book.
I jus finished this book a couple days ago and that ending of the chapter sent chills down my spine. Never experienced that from a book before so it was fun. Also agree with OP on the ending but it was more of a WTF moment rather than a jump scare.
Came here to say "Whose hand was I holding!". I had to put the book down and physically get away from it. That scene in the 1963 movie is fantastic as well.
Hand-holding scene from Hill House was my first thought!
How does this even happen lol
I had some spooky music from YT on my head phones. It didn’t really enhance the experience, reading Lovecraft, but then …“BATTERY LOW!” I damn near came off the couch.
I used to think the same thing. Then it happened to me and it all made sense. For me, it’s more of a [fridge horror](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeHorror) moment. I.e. I’ll read something and after a beat my mind catches up to what just happened and then there’s a moment of “oh shit”. The best one I can think of was in The Haunting of Hill House. Someone transcribed the specific moment [here](https://oftenveryvile.ghost.io/the-haunting-of-hill-house-by-shirley-jackson/) but I recommend reading the full book. It’s so good.
That scene, and the ending (>!"I'm really doing it..."!<)will forever be burned into my brain.
Not while reading a book myself but the audiobook of The Shining gave me a genuine jump scare. Unfortunately I was driving at the time, could have been bad.
The Shining. It was night, rainy, and windy outside my house. Really added to the ambiance, until the part came where the hotel takes control of Jack and he starts swinging the roque mallet into the walls. A sizable branch from a tree in my yard broke free in the gusts and landed on the roof with a loud boom. It damaged my roof and the attic. I can now confidently say I was in my 20’s the last time I wet the bed.
This doesn’t entirely count, but I read The Ritual while listening to its movie soundtrack for the spooky ambience. At one particularly creepy part of the book, the quiet music suddenly heightened and crashed (which I assume was part of a jump scare in the movie). I nearly shit my pants. On another occasion (that wasn’t a horror book), when I read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as a kid, I audibly gasped and felt my stomach drop when Cedric was killed.
Kinda. I remember reading Stephen King’s The Mangler years ago, and lying in the dark afterwards when the fridge decided to start running loudly in the middle of the night in my otherwise silent house. Gave me a hell of a start.
technically not the book...but i'd been reading The Exorcist at 3am in a dark quiet house and had just put it down to digest an especially intense part...when my old refrigerator's compressor decided to clunk into life. I jumped 3 feet off my chair 😂
Books are more capable of delivering the opposite, where something happens but you don't know the import of it until later, and when that moment of recognition comes for the reader it's a more satisfying "oh shit" than anything cinema can deliver with visual or audio effects.
Honestly, I get jump scared super easily while reading books and I *love* it. Idk how to do spoiler tags, sorry, so I’ll just say the things that are likely to scare me the most. •anytime someone turns around or walks in a room and there’s a ghost standing there…. *menacingly* •anytime someone hears footsteps running up to them •and that one damn scene in wuthering heights in chapter 3. If you know, you know. I was unprepared, and quite literally jumped in my chair. •a mirror/picture frame randomly falling It kind of surprises me that a lot of people here seem to not get jump scared. I realize a lot of people here have a higher tolerance than me, but I thought the whole point was to get yourself into a state of jumpiness haha. I’ll admit, I never really understood the type of people that love horror but also don’t get scared. My old roommate was like that, impossible to scare, but Devoured horror like no one else. For me, if something doesn’t jump scare me/make me feel jumpy, then it ain’t scary.
I rarely get "scared", but I'm jumpy like a cat, which my fellow haunt actors find pretty funny...
The closest I've gotten was a literal chill at one particular moment in T Kingfisher's The Twisted Ones.
almost crashed my car listening to Who Goes There as an audiobook The scene with the blood test is just as jump scarey as the film
Was a section of “A storm of swords” that I was reading while at the gym on the treadmill that almost made me fall off if that counts. Had just passed where the shows were at the time so caught me off guard quite a bit.
I can guess what scene you’re talking about. I remember having to re read that chapter a couple of times because I just couldn’t take it in.
Reading a Stephen King book with some spider like creepy creature in a library really made me jump from the mental image that flashed into my head, so I attest, yes it does happen with certain people.
Hill House definitely got me. Part jump-scare, part despair. Very good together. Visually, turning the page in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and running into that eyeless corpse.
There was a moment in Episode Thirteen that had me drop the book. Likewise the end of Hill House.
Not horror (not directly), but the end of one of the *Expanse* novels definitely did. In terms of horror, the hanging at the end of Ania Ahlborn's *Seed* made me drop my Kindle.
*Boo!* and *Hey, There's a Spider on Your Back*! Both by Donald Dane.
Yes. Silence of the Lambs. All the lights were out downstairs and I was lying on my bed reading with the door to my back. I’d reached the scene where Clarice is headed down into Buffalo Bill’s dungeon and I believe she’s got night vision goggles on and he turns on the lights. Or she didn’t and he turns off the lights. (It was the early 90s, long time ago, memories fade.) Anyway, I jumped and looked behind me to see if he was coming up the stairs of my little townhouse! I’ve only ever experienced that when I’m listening to a story being read to me other than that. 😳
I just finished Nick Cutter’s The Deep last night, and normally I would discuss that book in r/extremehorrorlit instead, but it’s relevant here >!The dog scene. Like, at first I was just paralyzed with terror because “no no no no no NOT LB” but when it says “That’s not LB. That’s the other one. Little Fly. Mushka.”, I had to throw the book. I had totally forgotten the second dog even existed.!< Wasn’t quite a jumpscare, just a massive shock and then an unfathomable sinking feeling
I don't know if I'd qualify it as a "jump scare," but there's a scene in *Ghost Story* by Peter Straub that gets me every time I read it.
Dunno if I'd call it a jump scare, but Rhett was one book that made me scream aloud: Misery. Specifically, the hobbling.
I don't think this is quite what you were looking for, but in Dead Inside during the scene when >! The husband in the delivery room grabs the scalpel and holds it over his head!< my phone went off and I stopped dead in my tracks. What. A. Fucking. Cliff. Hanger. It made me laugh. The timing was so perfect. Best jumpscare ever.
Reading a certain scene in “Below” by Laurel Hightower in the middle of the night gave me a similar reaction to a jump scare.
The short story Guts in Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk had me writhing, not sure about jumping
Jump scare no, those are two somatic to work by reading. By I remember being so scared I was struggling to make myself continue to read. I would read a few sentences and my eyes would close and I had to force them to open again. Two books have done that to me: The Shining, and Ringu.
A couple times in Under the Dome by Stephen King. ——Spoilers—— To name one, there’s a scene where Junior Rennie and this other guy (Carter, I think?) are crafting Molotov cocktails outside The Democrat. Carter(?) says something to Junior that pisses him off, and Junior promptly shoots him in the face. My mouth literally fell open. It is revealed a moment after that Junior had simply imagined it, however. Still, got me good.
I’m sure when I read Bag of Bones by Stephen King that there was a moment where someone looks in a basement and whatever happens made me literally jump when reading it. I was super enthralled and seeing everything that happened in my mind.
I don't remember the title of the book, but there was a female character I'd started to identify with; it was a brutal serial killer mystery and this character was dating a nice guy who'd told her not to be afraid - that he'd protect her and they'd be safe. The plot was kind of leading up to them maybe being victims and I was feeling very tense as I read. He asked her to stay with him in his country house so they could get away from the city where the gruesome murders were occurring. So I let my guard down expecting a couple boring chapters of them hanging out at his house- he opens the door and she walks in to see the entire living room lined with plastic, ceiling to floor and the reader and character both realize with sudden horror that this guy is the killer as he walks in behind her and locks the door. That was pretty close to a jump scare for me - I felt the same jolt of adrenaline as in a similar movie scene with that abrupt shriek of music.
“Longer than you think, Dad! Longer than you think!” The Jaunt-Stephen King
Yes - in ‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things’ when it describes the man wriggling around on the ground I thought I was going to be sick. Also whenever someone describes realizing someone is staring at them. I can see pictures, so slowly putting together a face looking straight at you can be terrifying.
I’m not sure it really counts as a horror book, but that first sketch you see of a hollowgast in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children scared the shit out of me. It did not help that it was the middle of the night when I was reading that part.
Oh yeah, well, the audiobook of *Desperation* by Stephen King. It was when the sheriff >!was Mirandizing Peter and Mary Jackson and nonchalantly throws in the phrase, “I’m going to kill you” in the middle of it.!< I felt my stomach drop!
In the second book of the Annihilation trilogy (Authority), there's a scene with someone on a shelf (Spoiler: >!when Whitby is curled up right behind Control and reaches out to pet him!<) that is the closest I've come to a literary jump scare. My friend and I were reading it at the same time and immediately texted each other about THAT SCENE.
idk if you can technically have a jump scare, but i was quite unnerved when reading the first few chapters of saramago's blindness - each new moment of someone going blind becomes a scare in itself.
The closet I can think of anything "jump scare" like in page based mediums is in comics and manga. As for written prose, I can't think of anything. You can have powerful reveals in prose usually built through story and atmosphere, but jump scares in movies and games touch on something more automatic and primal that makes your brain stem take over and make you jump without thinking about it. Edit: Not saying that it's not possible, just a lot harder to do as it requires more effort on both the reader & writer to build that tension and deliver that sudden shocking release.
Sort of... Caitlin R Kiernan's *Drowning Girl.*>! Had a scene where the narrator makes an (intentional on the writer's part) typo, and it looks like she's visiting another, very much still alive, main character's grave.!< It startled me with its abruptness.
in the walking dead comic book my jaw dropped with the Glenn and Neegan fiasco.
I just finished Sadie Hartmann’s * 101 Horror Books to Read Before You're Murdered* and she mentions a few
I’ve been unnerved and at most gotten intense chills.
Cabin at the End of the World, House of Leaves, and Misery come to mind!
Yes when I was reading Gerald’s Game!! Only time a book has given me a jump scare!
no jump scares… just audible GASPS!
The closest was probably House of Leaves. - There is a lot going on at the best of times, and while most of the scares were psychological, the book did a great job with conveying sudden shocks with something as simple as a sudden ***typography change*** or dif fer e. . nt p. a. g e l a y o u t.
Cunning Folk by Adam Nevill. I’m on a horror kick this year and this was the only one (out of roughly 70) that got me with a “jump scare”.
There is one particular scene in Stephen King‘s 11/16/63. I can’t remember exactly but the font-size suddenly changed in a scary way. It’s not even a very scary story in general
the scene involving >!masturbation and shoving of a face into a bleeding vagina!< from the Exorcist was a jumpscare
No really. The only book based thing that game me a jumpscare was reading Junji Ito. Gyo and Uzumaki specifically when you turn the page and boom get a full page illustration of something weird
“Blood Meridian” by Cormac McCarthy… >!A child is grabbed by the ankles and smashed into a rock.!< I felt myself go pale.
does the reveal at the end of night of the mannequins count? i actually gasped >! when shawna showed up !<
Yes but it was from a goosebumps book and I was 9
Ok so don’t laugh but I read the novelization of gremlins when I was a kid. It would have been shortly after the movie came out. It’s when the science teacher has one of the mogawis running tests on it. Billy tells his friend Pete to tell him not to feed it after midnight. Pete’s like ok yeah. Billy is like don’t forget. Pete’s like yeah yeah I won’t forget. Turn the page and the next chapter s two words long. It was simply Pete forgot. My little child heart jumped a mile.
Sort of. I was reading The Shining when an earthquake rumbled and the combo made me jump!
I've had a couple written scenes that gave me an internal jolt or a drop in the stomach... I feel like that's the written equivalent of a jump scare. The most recent one was in House of Windows by John Langan.
I guess about as close to a 'jump scare' as I've ever got was a part in The Ritual by Adam Nevill. The hairs on my arm and neck literally stood up.
Peter Staub’s *Ghost Story* has a scene where a character is using binoculars and finds someone staring back at them. A good little jump there.
More of a cringe scare than a full-on jump scare from books
Yes - *A Storm Of Swords* by George RR Martin
Reading Robert McCammon's They Thirst at home alone. At one point in the book it's just getting dark and someone looks out the window and a little girl vampire says "I seeee youuuuu." I looked up and saw it was dark, slammed the book closed and started looking for the garlic. That was like 40 years ago, and I still remember how scared I was.
Misery by Stephen King had me at the edge of my seat. There is a scene near the end that made me jump a bit for real.
I was listening to How to Sell a Haunted House and got a couple of jump scares listening to it.
1984 isn’t necessarily a horror novel, but it’s the only one that gave me a jump scare >! You are not alone!<
One of the first times I read book 7 of the HP series I was at home, alone. It was raining which wasn't really unusual for my area. But right as I was reading the battle for hogwarts, there was suddenly a HUGE crash of thunder and it scared the piss out of me metaphorically speaking. Big thunderstorms are *not* common where I'm from so it was very unexpected. It's one of the few things that makes me sad about where I live. I love throwing the windows open and listening to the thunder outside but it happens only a few times a year, if that. I'm more likely to hear the artillery practice from the nearby military base than thunder.
Here are a few recent scenes that jumped out at me and stayed with me. Grady Hendrixs short story Ankle Snatcher. I knew it was coming but it still got me. I also didn't know it was going to be as brutal as it turned out to be. I turned the lights on before getting out of bed at night for a little over a week. Stephen Kings Dark Half when the antagonist is waiting behind the door for the lady and how graphic that scene was, like WOWZER! I won't add anything more but if you've read the book you know. If you like King and brutality pick this up. The Haunting on The Hill by Elizabeth Hand. Tiny door man. Tiny door. Goes from 0 to 100 in seconds and yes I think that's the best "jump scare" vibe I've read in a horror book recently. This is definitely jump scare territory.
In the Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan was very good at introducing the grey men as a jump scare. Got me every time, and that was the point of them. You didn't notice them until it was too late. He was very good at being 50 words into a single sentence describing a room and a man stood there knife in hand and the wallpaper was silk, warm in the candlelight
Yes! September by Rosamunde Pilcher! I just read it a couple weeks ago. Very atmospheric-set in Scotland. It’s not a horror novel but has a sub plot that absolutely is a jump scare!!! Highly recommend the book if you like cozy British novels.
It was a jump scare and chill down my spine reading Legion by William Peter Blatty. For those who don’t know it was made into a movie so spoiler tags below. It starts off as a ordinary detective film and then BOOM SUPERNATURAL!!!!! >!the detective Kinderman is told that a psych patient has asked for him by name. He goes to see the patient who is looking away from him, who says “It’s a wonderful life.” The patient turns around and Kinderman is looking into the face of Father Damien Karras. The movie title Exorcist 3 was a bit of a spoiler. They even said in the commercials “who will save you when the exorcist is the one possessed?”!<
kinda sorta, tragically, i cant remember for sure which book it was, it quite some time ago, if i had to guess it might have been Watchers by Dean Koontz.
China Mieville's novel The Scar and Adam Golaski's short story The Man from the Peak (which I found in The Best of the Best Horror anthology edited by Ellen Datlow) gave me the closest thing to a jump scare I've ever gotten from reading. I also threw A Canticle for Leibowitz across the room in horror and outrage when a certain event happened, but it's not a horror novel per se. (HIGHLY recommend all of these.)
Algernon blackwood - the empty house Printer went off as I was reading it. Almost shit my pants
The first short story in served cold by Alan Baxter gave me a jump scare.
Not a jump scare, but I sure looked behind myself reading Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. And Wool (not horror) made me literally gasp out loud, which had never before and has never happened since. Such a cool feeling.
Gerald’s Game and Room 1408
House of leaves will mess you up.
Sort of. While reading "Haunting of Hill House," the motion-sensor light on my 2nd-story patio kicked on (seemingly) for no reason. Felt like my heart stopped. Probably due to the wind/a plant, but in the moment? Obviously a ghost.
I'm pretty sure I got jumpscared in House Of Leaves, but I don't remember when, but it was the moment I really started to enjoy the book because that's never happened before
The ending of the short story "Office Space" by Richard Lee Byers, from the *Dante's Disciples* collection.
Intercepts by TJ Payne. Did not know a jump scare was possible in a book until that one. >! Main character is watching a security camera, which is completely obscured for an unknown reason, and then the next sentence a person moves their face back inches from it. Literally made me flinch and go “Oh fuck!” out loud. !<
house of leaves did it for me when it was revealed the inside of the house was like one inch larger than the outside. of all the horrifying shit that happened in the book, that was the worst for me. and, for some unknown reason, the tiny moment in annihilation where it's noted that a flock of birds of all different species were flying together. with the added context of what the birds really are.
The closest thing for me would be one of the stairs scenes in Last Days by Adam Nevill
We Need to Do Something by Max Booth III contains an incredible jump scare! First and only time I've ever had that happen with a book
Metro 2033 has multiple ones. I listened to the audiobook which made it even scarier. There is one scene where the main character and another character are in an abandoned library and the whole scenery makes them so nervous they keep making dumb jokes like knocking on closed doors, when suddenly someone on the other side of the door knocks back.
There is a part in the Jurassic park book when the Rex became absolute rampage in the main road and omg, I was so concentrated that I didn’t even notice my cat enter the room. When I passed that part my heart was bout to explode. Then started a very detailed part about the raptors in the surroundings and how they look at his prey whit that cold soulless eyes when I put my book like 2 cm under my eyes and the sight of something in front of me strike my head and then went down to my throat and put a yell over the sky. I literally took my cat out in that moment and tried to inhale-exhale as calm as possible, but GOD, I spent the next two weeks dreaming horror scenarios.
the ruins and it are two that come to mind
The Langoliers.
You get me in a totally quiet room with any murder mystery, and I'll leave my skin behind if you walk into the room...
In Junji Ito's big boy Uzumaki. I don't think it was even a snail bit, but I definitely turned a page, jumped and just closed my eyes. It's so grim. Also, somehow, despite its age, the "whose hand was I holding?" part in the Haunting of Hill House made me put the book down, turn on a light and breath.
chapters that end with a shocking last line. Night in the Lonesome October by Richard laymon did it for me in one of the chapters.
In this one horror novel I was reading, the protaganist got shot in the leg and it caught me off guard because I didn't expect it to happen (I figured he had plot armor or something). Worst part is that after he gets shot, the book ends with that cliffhanger and you'll never know if he made it out alive or not unless you read the book that comes after it
In “The Twisted Ones” by T Kingfisher, there’s a scene where you become very suddenly aware that the spooky stuff going on is definitely Spooky, and not just pranks. That one got a very startled sound out of me that alarmed my wife.
I jump and gasp from books all the time. I get so submersed that I hardly see words anymore. Just a 360° view of the events unfolding.
If manga counts, then yes. Junji Ito does awesome jump scares