<span>The past perfect tense for this statement should be: “My sister looked
at many dresses before she had chosen the one.” Note that this type of tense
speaks of an action that was accomplished in the past before another event
came. It is formed with the past tense of “to have” plus verb’s past
participle.</span>
What McCracken means by <em>the thrill of the terrifying </em>is the adrenaline one feels when one is scared. She says that she likes being scared, which she rarely got the opportunity to be, given that she was always surrounded by people, and her dreams and nightmares are the only places where she could be alone, and scared if she wanted to.
