Five Spooky Book Recommendations from a Reader Who Hates Horror

A spooky image I drew myself, using several photos as reference

First off, Halloween is not my favorite holiday. (What are we celebrating, exactly? One day a year when non-cosplayers can cosplay without feeling like anyone is judging them for liking fictional characters?)

That being said, I know many people who love Halloween, including horror movies and books. I understand that horror can be cathartic in a way—viewers get to experience the fear second-hand while knowing that they are physically safe—but I still avoid it. I prefer laughing to screaming.

However. Over the past year I have ventured out of my usual genre (fantasy adventure) and tried more spooky titles—and I found some that I wholeheartedly enjoyed! So without further ado, here are the top five spooky novels that I would recommend to anyone who is in the mood to be scared (a bit) during the Halloween season!

(FYI: most of these novels do contain mild gore and some unpleasant imagery, but it's never overwhelming. Book #5 has a separate gore warning in its description.)

1. The Bone Houses, by Emily Lloyd-Jones — This is my most recent spooky read, and now one of my favorites. The Bone Houses incorporates Welsh mythology into a suspenseful adventure story, starring a young woman seeking to protect her family and a young man searching for his. The stakes are high and the action is intense, but the romance is sweet and the resolution is delightful. This novel's storyline might remind you of the premise of The Chronicles of Prydain, AKA The Black Cauldron, but Lloyd-Jones gives it an entirely new twist and a modern style that is (in my opinion) exponentially better than that old, terrifying movie adaptation.

2. The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud — This is book one in the Lockwood & Co. series, which has become my new favorite series of all time--yes, there are some gory ghosts and corpses, but the characters are so excellently written that I was hooked almost instantly.  Lucy, Lockwood, and George spout such entertaining dialogue even as they face down haunted buildings and spectral dangers. Their world is so beautifully crafted, and the whole series is brilliantly plotted so that each book builds on the previous ones and leads to a fantastically frightening conclusion. I listened to all five books over the course of two weeks and I do not regret it!

3. Elatsoe, by Darcie Little Badger — Okay, fine, this one is more fantasy than horror, but I have to say it was not what I was expecting—but in a good way! There's a lot of creepy goings-on involving magical creatures and curses. The setting is a modern United States where cultural magic exists, so we get things like fairy ring transportation and pet ghosts. Ellie, the main character, embarks on a mission to solve her cousin's murder after his ghost pays her a visit. Along the way she encounters a fabulous variety of supernatural beings and ancient magic, and while the mystery isn't too difficult to figure out, the unraveling of the gruesome details is where the real story-magic lies.

4. Ophie's Ghosts, by Justina Ireland — This book is marketed as middle grade, but I listened to it with my dad and a sister and we all enjoyed it. The main character, Ophelia, is a young black girl who discovers that she can see ghosts—and her new ability gets her tangled up in the drama of the rich, white family she works for. This novel inserts ghosts and grudges into a richly historical setting, highlighting the intersection of cultural traditions and old prejudice. For fans of supernatural mysteries, this would be a quick, enjoyable read full of fascinating details about life in the 1920s.

5. A Taste for Monsters, by Matthew J. Kirby — Another historical setting, but this time with a lot of creative additions. Set in London in the time of Jack the Ripper, this is perhaps the most gory and grisly of these five recommendations, so be warned that it's not for the faint of heart! However, I did enjoy the character development and the presence of positive messages. Evelyn, a woman down on her luck, takes a unwanted job at a hospital caring for a man with an extremely rare and unusual condition. As she learns his story, she also learns that her own disfigurement does not define her or limit her potential. If you like to see empowerment and unintentional heroism mixed in with your spine-chilling horror, then give this novel a try!

P.S. I highly recommend the audiobooks for all of these novels! Each narrator is fabulous in their own way. (I usually check out audiobooks from my local library through Overdrive!)

How to Read 30 Novels in One Semester

You enroll in a Young Adult Literature class. Your professor requires that you read thirty YA novels in under four months. About half are specifically assigned, and the other half are up to you, as long as you pick a nice variety of genres and formats.

You start out thinking it will be fun--you'll get to dive into some of the titles that have been on your TBR list for a while. Then some of those novels turn out to be over four hundred pages, and you fall behind. You skim. You don't enjoy the process as much as you thought you would. But, you press forward anyway, determined to get through the required thirty so you can get a good grade.

Partway through the semester, you discover audio books. You always knew they existed, of course, but you haven't really tried them out until now (you're really picky about the narrators' voices). Luckily you find a few that you enjoy wholeheartedly, especially since you can multi-task while listening. You wish you had tried out audio books sooner, before you spent so much time reading thousands of physical pages.

At the end of the semester, you have read twenty-nine books. (Twenty-eight, if you're not counting the one that you almost finished but not quite.) You read a YA horror novel for the first time, and several fantastic verse novels that you hadn't heard of before. You enjoyed graphic novels, and regretted your disdain for them in elementary school. You even appreciated some realistic contemporary fiction that you would usually have ignored in favor of fantasy or sci-fi. And despite not finishing all thirty books, you still get a good grade. You take a moment to be impressed with yourself, because twenty-nine books is still quite the feat.

And then you take a nice long break, because you know you can read thirty novels in the course of one semester, but you also know that it's a lot more fun to take it slowly and savor them instead of blasting through like there's no tomorrow. So you create something, pick up a new hobby, spend time with your loved ones who may have felt neglected during the times when you prioritized your novel reading. You'll return to novels when you feel like it. And when you do come back you'll remember that branching out into other genres isn't all bad and that good novels can be found in many forms.

A selection of the books I read, with some placeholders. 

I bought mostly used books from various sellers and Chegg.

Here are my top five favorite novels from that YA Lit class. Happy reading!

1. Lovely War by Julie Berry - A fantastic WWI historical fiction written as if it were narrated by a host of Greek gods and goddesses. I give this full points for uniqueness, for character development, for the romance, and for not shying away from difficult topics like sexism, racism, and violence. The resolution is perhaps a bit idealistic, but I choose to see it as hopeful.

2. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness - The main character is young, but the main idea is very deep and insanely well-developed. I didn't know if the mystery element would pay off in a satisfying way but Ness really delivered! Anyone who reads this will feel something--sadness or empathy or a renewed appreciation for life and the people around them--because of how powerfully the story is presented.

3. The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White - My first experience with YA horror! I think people who have read the original Frankenstein by Mary Shelley will appreciate this novel the most, but anyone can still enjoy it if they don't mind a bit of gore and suspense. I would also recommend the audiobook; it was very well done.

4. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson - The audiobook of this novel is also fantastic, because it is read by the author herself! She adds a lot of emotion to the story as she recounts both happy memories and difficult experiences from her childhood. The downside of listening to it is that you can't see clever formatting of the verses themselves--sometimes reading the stanzas changes how I think about meanings and emphasis.

5. The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner - This is one of the only contemporary high-school YA stories that I have liked in a long time. Three friends in a small town are figuring out what they want out of life after graduation, and how to make big decisions when faced with pressure from friends and family. One huge theme is the toxic application of religion, or the effects of toxic beliefs and people, but also how everyone can discover faith for themselves despite past negative experiences.