Carrie

This is the one about the quiet girl at the back of the class, the one nobody thinks to save a seat for. Carrie White comes from a house with more rules than warmth, and school is not much kinder. Stephen King's first novel builds her out of small cruelties before it lets her power show itself, and that patience is what makes the back half land so hard.

The fear here is not jump scares. It is the slow, sick feeling of watching a crowd choose the easy target, and knowing exactly where it is all heading. Then the ground shifts, quite literally, and the book stops asking you to pity her and starts asking what you would do with that kind of power.

Read it on a night when you want horror with teeth and a conscience, the kind that lingers after the light goes off. It rewards you for paying attention early, so no skimming the first chapters to get to the good bit.