Scary as Hell (write - off)

Imagine this:

Your best friend has Agoraphobia. This means that she is afraid to go outside of her apartment. Twice a week you have to drive over to her apartment, pick her up, and drag her to see her psychiatrist, Dr. Ahriman.

Imagine that during one of these sessions you experience a loss of time. From that moment on you are suddenly freaked out by knives, forks, fire pokers, your fingernails (because they are sharp), your reflection, and even some of the thoughts in your head.

This is a reality for Martie Rhodes. Martie is a successful video game designer that everyone likes. Her best friend, Susan has Agoraphobia and she has what is called Autophobia, or fear of one's self. Only, she doesn't know it yet.

Dusty Rhodes (Martie's husband) is a house painter. He is very smart and could've been a doctor himself, but chose the less stressful life. He's just had the strangest and scariest day of his life (so far).

He is painting a house when he discovers his brother, Skeet, on the roof. Skeet tells Dusty that the angels of death have instructed him to jump from the roof. Now, Skeet has a drug problem and is not always thinking clearly so Dusty tries to talk him down and find out what stew of drugs he is on that day.

Skeet ends up jumping anyway. Luckily by that time, the other workers had dragged enough mattresses out of the house to break the fall.

Dusty takes Skeet to a rehab clinic that Skeet's been admitted to twice before. Dr. Ahriman is a large contributor to this clinic.

Dusty goes to Skeet's house to gather clothing for him and notices a name scribbled on a piece of paper multiple times. Dr. Yen Lo.

He asks Skeet about Dr. Yen Lo when he returns to the hospital. Skeet replies, "I'm listening." and spouts off some Haiku. He's acting as if he's been programmed.

Dusty is tired and late coming home. When he gets there, Martie is tearing the house apart, throwing away any sharp objects she can find, and screaming at Dusty to stay away from her.

Dusty and Martie decide to go see Susan's psychiatrist, Dr. Ahriman.

Dr. Ahriman turns out to be their worst nightmare. He is a well respected doctor that is very wealthy and even has a book out. He also likes to dabble in mind control and play cruel games with people. It is revealed early on in the book that Susan never even had a phobia to begin with. She was having problems in her marriage and decided to seek counseling, when he implanted the phobia in her mind using his own concoction of drugs, a code name, and haiku.

Now, what happens when the players of the game find out what has been done to them? What happens when the doctor finds out that they know?


This book is incredible. The idea that you can be played with by someone you completely trust to help you is horrifying. It is easy to read once you are introduced to all the characters. The first few chapters of the book are all about different people and I was having a hard time putting them together. After all of the main characters were introduced, I had an easier time. In fact, I could not put this book down!

What would you do if you discovered that your doctor is completely psychotic?





This review is my contribution to the "Scary as Hell" write off hosted by Jeremy1456. Please check out his review as well as these other fine participants:

Bballin2413
Chris_Billings
ChromeKiller
Deaser26
DragonFire88
gameguy_Justin
Girl_Goddess
Jeff_Wilder78
LaughingTarget
Lisa_J
LorinSilver
MichaelHatton
OompaLoompa56
Pika312
sephiroth2000
The_Musician
Xeno3998

Thanks for reading!
-Carrie