[Traci Dee]

Bridge to Terebithia
Sharp Objects
The Goats
Midnight is a Place
A Certain Slant of Light
The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane
House of Stairs
Killing Floor (particularly when Jack Reacher realizes he's been mistakenly put in with the lifers, instead of on the floor with the holding cells, and how he has to deal with it)
Born into Light
When She Was Good
The Long Walk

Great topic!

[Amaris Glass Posts: 76 Status: Offline]

Many on my list have been mentioned already, and I'm sure there are many more that are not popping up just now, but these are stories I'm pretty sure I'll never forget.

HOMECOMING
THE OUTSIDERS
INVISIBLE LISSA, Natalie Honeycutt
BLUBBER/STARRING SALLY J. FRIEDMAN AS HERSELF/TIGER EYES/DEENIE
VERONICA GANZ/AMY AND LAURA,  Marilyn Sachs

Although I'm not sure these haunt me in the way you mean, because there are some books that make me feel what mc is going through so keenly that I walk around in a haze and wonder if perhaps I am on drugs [GO ASK ALICE] or autistic [THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME] and just don't know it...but the list above haunts me in that I still remember lines from most of them, or Davey's eyes (or Sally's rose) from the cover, or think of Sammy every time I say 'good-o'...these stories have soaked into me; I can remember where I was when I read them  (or where I wasn't...first day of school in Florida with too-thick white socks and penny loafers while all the other girls wore sandals). So if that's what you mean by haunt, then, yes, these books haunt me. And thank God for it. What a gift (and what a great thread!).

[DixiesMom Posts: 180 Status: Offline WWW]

There are a number of recent books that I think, someday, will fit into this category -- but as far as the books I read when I was a teenager: Diary of Anne Frank & Go Ask Alice.
Others were quite memorable - I can even quote lines, but these two fit the haunting description.

[JFriday Posts: 555 Status: Offline]

Wuthering Heights
The Lord of the Rings
Rebecca (by de Maurier)
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

[G.R. Posts: 631 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

John Irving's The World According To Garp and A Prayer For Owen Meany -- I haven't read either in a very long time, but they were pretty unforgettable experiences.

[buglady5 Posts: 1,333 Status: Offline PATIENCE WWW]

A Prayer for Owen Meany
The Devil's Arithmetic
Rubber Houses
Flipped
Rose Blanche (a pb!!!!!)
Harry Potter 4-7
The Outsiders
Speak
Heartbeat
Charlotte's Web

[smichel]

To Kill a Mockingbird
You Can't Go Home Again
The Great Gatsby
The Giver
Out of the Dust
Rabbit Run
anything by Flannery O'Connor
The Stories of John Cheever
The Goose Girl
fairy tales

[Pons Posts: 2,507 Status: Offline]

In no particular order:

The Crystal Cave trilogy - Mary Stewart
To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee
Tess of the D'urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
A Year Down Yonder - Richard Peck
The Giver - Lois Lowry
Harry Potter (1-7) - JKR
The Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shafer and Annie Barrows

Laurel

[Heidi]

The Road. Particularly the scene in which the boy and the man flee from the terror in the basement and the man is contemplating a terrible choice he'll have to make if they are discovered. Oi. I couldn't stop thinking of my own kid in that scene.

Such a haunting novel. And so exquisitely written. I've consider it the best love story I've ever read.

Anyway ...

THE CHOCOLATE WAR by Cormier
THE HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG (by I forget)

[HelenL]

COUNTERFEIT SON by Marie Alphin
DEADLINE by Chris Crutcher
STUCK IN NEUTRAL by Terry Trueman
THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT TIME by Mark Haddon

[buglady5 Posts: 1,333 Status: Offline PATIENCE WWW]

Almost forgot -

I read Crime and Punishment my senior year of high school, and it bothered me all the way through college.


buglady

[olmue Posts: 3,456 Status: Offline WWW]

Almost forgot -

I read Crime and Punishment my senior year of high school, and it bothered me all the way through college.

Urgh, I totally agree with you! I was thinking of books that haunt in a positive way, but yeah...it was hard to get the ickyness out of my head from this one.

[KateM]

I can't remember the title, but when I can find the book wherever it is in the house. I'll edit my post and add in the title.

It was about Napoleon Bonaparte, probably the first time I'd heard of him was when I read this book, it was about when he arrived at St. Helena, written from the POV of a girl who lived on the island, it's completely fiction though, but the book has completely stuck with me since I first read it.

Because of Winn Dixie is definitely one of the books that haunts me, more so because I just love the way it was written.

[Juliarts2003@yahoo.com Posts: 1,564 Status: Offline Truth, Puffin/Speak, 1/19/2012 WWW]

Alice In Wonderland & Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass
Charlotte's Web (one reason I am a vegetarian!)
More Than Human (sci-fi - Theodore Sturgeon)
Jane Eyre
Pride & Prejudice
A Christmas Carol
mysteries - specifically, Nancy Drew, all Agatha Christie's and The Complete Sherlock Holmes
all Harry Potter

These books either gave me a love of genre, helped shape my philosophical bent, or built a world that I can't forget

[Pons Posts: 2,507 Status: Offline]

I'd like to agree with

A Christmas Carol
Pride and Prejudice

and add

all of Dick Francis's books (mysteries)

I had to read The OxBow Incident in high school and the injustice, brutality, and prejudice in it still makes me want to throw up. It obviously still haunts me, but I'm trying hard to forget. Ack! 

Laurel

[AnneN Posts: 509 Status: Offline]

I think no one has mentioned THE BORROWERS yet.  That whole series haunts me:  there's something so terribly sad about this family on its own, on the run, perhaps the last of its kind, perhaps (the frame tale sort of suggests) not even existing anymore, if the brother made the whole thing up . . . .

And of course "The Little Mermaid," which I'm afraid totally made me who I am today.

[RES]

Ooh! I love this thread. The following books had a "haunting" effect on me:

ETHAN FROME by Edith Wharton
WHAT I WAS by Meg Rosoff
WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Brontë

[JennaWren Posts: 1,781 Status: Offline WWW]

among others...

anything by Judy Blume
Speak
The Stand
A Prayer for Owen Meaney
Harry Potter 1-7
Beat the Turtle Drum by Constance Greene (I think)
If On a Winter's Night a Traveler
The Little House series

And ooh, thank you AnneN, for mentioning the Borrowers.  Sigh.

[vklibrarian]

Where the Red Fern Grows
The Great Gatsby
Native Son
Speak
Great Expectations

[Shema]

The Secret History by Donna Tart

[ccw]

The Outsiders
To Kill A Mockingbird
Walk Two Moons
A Tale of Two Cities

[Danette Posts: 1,030 Status: Offline My goal is to be of use.]

DeirdreK,

Thank you!  I just finished reading, Not the End of the World and LOVED it! I ordered it after I saw your post. I could swear I saw the maggots and smelled the animals.

Danette

[Alison]

Beat the Turtle Drum by Constance Greene (I think)

Yes! I can't believe someone else remembers that one. I actually bought a copy from an Amazon reseller a few years ago, not the most recent paperback version but a hardback with the original 70s dustjacket I remembered from my childhood library!

[rab Posts: 533 Status: Offline WWW]

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' THE YEARLING and Armstrong Sperry's CALL IT COURAGE, which my mother read aloud to my brother and me when we were in elementary school; MY FATHER'S DRAGON, which the school librarian read aloud to my class; the Little House books, which my 4th grade teacher read aloud to us in the afternoons before she got out her ukelele and had us sing along to Stephen Foster songs (this being the mostly still segregated south).

Is there something about hearing books read aloud that allows your imagination more freedom? Or pushes it to work harder? Those read-alouds are so vivid to me (although now that I think of it, maybe the pictures had something to do with it, too).

[JennaWren Posts: 1,781 Status: Offline WWW]

Ooooh, Call It Courage...also, My Brother Sam Is Dead.  Such moving works....

[fringle]

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Road by Cormac McCarthy

[froglivers]

Oooh, books I read when I was a kid... so many of them I LOVE more than the grownup stuff I gobble up these days (which I like, admire, am blown away by, but not LOVE the way I did back then)

... as for haunting...

Rosemary Sutcliffe's Mark of the Horselord. When I was eleven or so, that was so harsh and heroic. *loves*

[Angela Ackerman (aka MOMZILLA) Posts: 236 Status: Offline WWW]

The Lovely Bones

[JoS]

Well, since we are talking adult books as well as 'children's books'  - I will add The Bone People by Keri Hulme. Extremely well written and powerful story that I have never been able to forget. Haunting is the word.

[Ellie Posts: 29 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

As a kid:  My Brother Sam Is Dead because of its ending and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase because I found it thrilling.

Late in my teens:  Jane Eyre

More recently:  Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset and (even more obscure) The Third Miss Symons by F.M. Major, which consistently makes me cry.

Now after reading all your posts, I'd better check out The Book Thief!