House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
The synopsis from Random House:
Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth — musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies — the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.
Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices.
The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story — of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.
Why it scared the $#%!? out of me.
This book is like no book I have ever read. It’s a story inside of a story, where even the physical book its self is part of the story. I don’t really know of a better way to explain it.
There is a large following around this book, and many people, including myself, had similar experiences when reading it. I found myself almost obsessed with the need to finish this book to the point of staying up almost all night when I had to work in the morning. I had extremely strange dreams about the book while reading it, and many others in forums have claimed the same.
The book is basically about a film study of a movie that doesn’t exist and the man who finds it. The book has many main characters to follow, each with their own stories. There is Johnny Truant who finds the manuscript and edits it together. He places many of his own thoughts in the footnotes. Then you have Zampanò who is the old man who wrote the film study to begin with. There is also the Navidson family who the film was based about and the events going on in their house.
The book is structured in a way that will keep you re-reading it over and over again. Some pages have twice as many words as the next page, others only have one word per page. Some of the text is upside down, and some is formatted around the page so you have to keep turning it to follow the story. Below are some sample pages.
No book has ever effected me the way this book has. I can’t say it was really “scary” but the way it impacted me during and after I read it was. I would whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for something original to read. You can reread it over and over again trying to figure out all of the codes in the book. For example why are all of the words “House” in blue? I guarantee you haven’t read anything like this book before. You will be glad you did.
Get it Here
Novel Novice 
Wow! I’ve never heard of this but no I really need to look into it!
The only book I can think of that affected me in a similar way was Life as We Knew It. I found myself thinking about the world in chaos a lot and what I’d do to survive!
Please do. When you finish the book look it up in Google. There are tons of message boards and groups about the book, with help cracking the book codes, etc. Don’t do it before thought so you don’t read any spoilers.