I thought I could handle pretty much anything, until a book I was reading detailed incest child molestation and I couldn't read anymore. As much as I love ghosts, zombies and all kinds of creepy stuff in my books and movies, it's still an escape from REAL horror. I also have a hard time if a rape is detailed (I understand being mentioned, but I swear some writers were a little too excited about it...) Anyone else have anything like this, or even types of horror you avoid like the plague?

I don't have any problems reading anything horrible as long as it's adults, but I hate reading about horrors done to children too.   I don't understand why horror authors need to go there...shock value I guess, but a book can be scary and a horror story without that, imho.

80% of the books I read are horror, but I hate detailed descriptions of torture - adults, children or animals.  I have only come across a few horror books that fall into that category - Edward Lee's Backwoods is one of them.  I was very repulsed by a rape/torture/mutilation scene of an old married couple. Also Survivor by J. F. Gonzalez - I skimmed over so many of the torture pages because I just wanted to finish it & see the outcome- but I still had to put it down many times.

I hate reading anything bad happening to young children and animals. The part with the baby in the book Survivor brought tears to my eyes and I did have to put the book down awhile. I will just very quickly skim those kind of parts. I also keep reminding myself that its only fiction and that helps me get thru it also. I still have to read it til the end.

I love anything horror!!!  Survivor was a hard one because I have children and all girls but I couldn't put it down. I was shocked and sickened by the book but it is on my keeper shelf. I won't read it again though. I think he went too far with the baby!!!  Snuff films have been around for years but you don't hear about them because...well obviously!!! I'm still shocked that anyone would write about it.

Just finished  The Haunting by Ruby Jean Jensen and Strange Deaths by John Dunning

Currently reading  The Night Stalker by Philip Carlo and This Symbiotic Fascination by Charlee Jacob

Next up Ted Dekker's Red, White and Black

Christa

Child abuse is a hard topic for me to read about. That's why I had trouble with The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum.

Also, anything where nothing but abuse and torture is shown for several chapters, with no end in sight. Survivor almost went to far in my opinion, but still I enjoyed it because it went back and forth between horror and mystery.

No - I'll read it even if I find it disturbing or if it makes me cry. It's easy to make me cry, too - I'm like the ultimate empathy generator. I also don't especially care for detailed descriptions of torture, but I'll read them. My dad had this book called "The History of Torture" which is all about the REAL stuff that humans have done to other humans, and I swear, after reading that, you won't have a problem reading any made-up crap. Reality really is worse than fiction.

I can't read torture or animal abuse.  I will immediately stop reading and never pick up that author again.  I really like ghost stories the best.  Gross doesn't do it for me, either.  I don't think I'd read Survivor if somebody paid me to!