Come Closer, by Sara Gran

A short, quick-read, first-person novel narrated by a woman who gets possessed, with elements of satire and lots of relentless encroaching doom. A lot of people found it absolutely terrifying. I did not. For me, it had exactly one scary moment, when the footsteps of some unseen being approach the heroine and then stop right in front of her. But soon after we actually meet the demon, and though she increases in power from then on, she also became less scary to me.

You can read this as a straightforward story of possession, or as an unreliable narrator's account of losing her mind IF you can explain away the moment when a child also sees the demon. It's very predictable in a way that can work in horror ("No! Don't do it! Noooo!") but for me, just felt predictable. I was not that impressed, but I picked it up because so many people on social media loved it so you may too.

I don't find possession inherently scary, probably because I disbelieve in it on a much deeper level than I disbelieve in, say, werewolves. There's Jewish possession legends - the dybbuk - but this, like most modern possession narratives, comes from a very Christian perspective. There's some Christian mythology that does scare me (Hell), but in general, it's a big lift. Possession stories have to be good at the level of The Exorcist TV series to scare me. Come Closer probably works better if you do find possession inherently scary the way I find ghosts inherently scary. It's not coincidental that the one scare that worked for me was more ghost imagery than demon imagery.

Come Closer is traditionally published, but the Kindle edition has an annoying number of typos.