Happy spooky scary skeletons season to all those who celebrate! Unfortunately, I currently feel like the world is just as spooky and anxiety-inducing as anything a horror movie or book could conjure up at the moment. And the tropes that a lot of traditional horror stories rely on feel REALLY gross right now, because they rely on racist tropes, or dug-up Native burial grounds, or outdated stereotypes about indigenous practices, or just straight-up misogyny to have a plot. And I find that lazy! If you’re going to have racism in your book, then at least have the guts to make that the scary thing! If you’re going to have a weird obsession with virginity or purity, then THAT IS THE JUMP SCARE. So with that in mind, here’s a quick roundup of some of MY favorite spooky/creepy/seasonally-appropriate books to curl up with this Halloween.

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Girls Save the World in This One, by Ash Parsons

I mean, it’s in the title. Girls do in fact save the world in this one. Also, it’s set just outside of Atlanta, which is appealing to me, as someone from just outside of Atlanta. It plays into the fun and creepy aspects of fan culture, leans into what makes shows like Supernatural and The Walking Dead so attractive, and also it’s FUN while also being adrenaline-inducing and spooky. Such a great time.

Ring Shout, by P. Djèlí Clark

I read this book in 2020, when I was in fact deeply afraid for democracy in the US (I still am!) and was having A Lot of Feelings as a historian about just how deep the roots of racism and fascist leanings run in some pockets of American culture. This book was everything I needed— it’s basically Buffy the Vampire Slayer but the vampires are more like ghouls and also they’re the KKK. Highly recommend.

Rules for Vanishing, by Kate Alice Marshall

This book is just genuinely creepy and spooky and scary. I read it when I was home alone on a dark night in college, which for the record was a TERRIBLE idea. It’s kind of like the Blair Witch Project but crossed with an excellent ghost story. I love any kind of story that clearly sets up rules and structures for the characters, so when the rules get broken you know exactly how bad the consequences will be, and you have to watch it happen anyway. This book is delightful and escapist and also kind of chilling. I loved it.

Cryer’s Cross, by Lisa McMann

Cryers Cross was one of the first horror books that I can remember seeking out as a young adult— (the others are Coraline and The Girl with All the Gifts, both of which are also on this list). It’s a pretty simple creepy ghost story— but it’s also the first book I can remember reading that intentionally dealt with the horrors of state-run indigenous boarding schools in the US. Also, I LOVE the way McMann writes about anxiety and OCD — there aren’t many books that feel true to my own experience with Mental Health Stuff, but weirdly this is one of them? In any case— my affection for this book may be partially based in nostalgia, but I stand by it.

Frankenstein , by Mary Shelley

I’m a Mary Shelley girl. I think most of y’all know that already. Also, it’s just such a neat fact that she wrote this for a spooky story contest along with Lord Byron, her husband Percy, and John William Polidori. That night resulted in Mary Shelley essentially becoming the second prominent voice in science fiction history (the first being Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who wrote The Blazing World back in 1666), and Polidori and Byron writing Vampyre, which was the jumping off point for vampire fiction from Dracula to The Vampire Diaries. But also I really genuinely love Frankenstein on its own merits— its beautiful prose, Shelley’s careful manipulation of the reader’s sympathies, the painful dynamic between radicalism and hope, between violence and shame. It’s just So Good.

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Coraline , by Neil Gaiman

I’m pretty sure this WAS the first horror book I ever read all by myself. I’m also pretty sure I checked it out from the public library after my mom told me more than once that I probably wouldn’t like it'; I’d find it too scary. Funny enough, she was sort of right— I didn’t mind Coraline all that much as a child, but it freaks me the hell out now as an adult. It’s also one of the first books that I ever really re-read and went back to, looking for symbolism and foreshadowing and all of the cool little tricks that authors can do to make you think harder about how a book is put together.

I know we all are having some Feelings about Neil Gaiman and how he conducts himself in his personal life (and how that translates to the ways that he writes about power dynamics between young women and older men in his books), but Coraline has been foundational enough to my process as a reader and a writer that I’m keeping it on my list of horror recs, at least for now.

The Girl with All the Gifts, by M.R. Carey

This one is another first for me— in this case, the first Scary Book that I ever bought with my own money. I didn’t even know if I would like it, I just knew that my high school librarian had recommended it and that it had been blurbed by other authors I liked. It was a huge break in genre for me— I was not a horror reader, I did not like books with blood, guts, or gore, and I had seen exactly two horror movies ever and didn’t like either of them. This book changed SO MUCH for me in terms of how I perceive the genre. It shifted my understanding of what horror can be, and opened up my horizons significantly as a result. Also, I’d never have picked up The Last of Us (the games or the show) without it, and I’m really grateful that I did!

Something Wicked This Way Comes , by Ray Bradbury (technically part of the Green Town trilogy)

I mean. It’s creepy as hell. It’s magical. The prose basically leaps off the page. It’s about a malevolent carnival (sort of). It’s set in late October. It’s basically the perfect Halloween book.

Rouge , by Mona Awad

Everyone talks about Bunny. Including me, I talk about it a lot. But I LOVED Rouge. Awad is so creative with how she handles her narrators— unreliability, shifting voice, introducing and removing influences from the narrator’s internal voice. It’s just so, so well done. And Rouge is especially well-executed— Awad handles grief, mental illness, the toll that beauty expectations and the price of achieving them can take on the feminine psyche, So. Well. Also, did I mention it’s spooky? Because it is.

(Also, weirdly, it reminds me of a grown-up version of the second The Name of this Book is Secret book. Probably not Awad’s intent, but here we are)

Mister Magic, by Kiersten White

On the off-chance that you’d like a little bit of religious deconstruction to go with your creepy books, Mister Magic makes this list in so many ways. It’s just escapist enough that I can stomach reading (or rereading) it in the current conditions of modern-day-America, but it’s relevant enough to turn my stomach. It helps that I already like Kiersten White’s writing (And I Darken is one of my favorite pieces of historical fiction of all time, and Paranormalcy was the book that introduced me to paranormal romance), but Mister Magic is by far the creepiest of her books and the one that leans the most into what makes actual reality so scary.

How are you planning to spend your Halloween? Personally, I will be roasting up some pumpkin seeds and watching movies on the couch while putting the finishing touches on a costume for a party I’m attending this weekend. Maybe I’ll even pick up one of these books for a reread— depends on how much sleep I want to get, I suppose.

Thanks for reading Gemma Tate- Books, Writing, and More! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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