I want to read a creepy book. No vampires, zombies, werewolves or witches. No Stephen King. No Dean Koontz. No crime novels, psychopaths, mental hospitals and absolutely no gore or torture.
I want to be creeped out, I want to feel like somebody is watching me or I hear a noise in the corner. I want a book that will give me the heebies.
So I started my research. I hit GoodReads lists and soon discovered they are over populated by Stephen King and teen reads like Twilight. I switched to Google and found lists that had a lot of short stories, too much gore or violence and again - Stephen King.
I even desperately typed 'Books like the movie Paranormal Activity' and came up dry.
I've read two books that I thought might work but ended up sounding more like screenplays for formulated Hollywood made-for-tv movies.
Is there really nothing out there that meets my criteria?!
One book that showed up in my searches a lot was House of Leaves.
The synopsis is perfect. I saw it in a book store and it's interesting because a lot of pages are mostly blank or filled with text crossing over itself or strange photos. This one intrigues me the most so far. I have a hold on it at the library.
The only other book that sounded remotely interesting was The Haunting of Hill House.
I'm hesitating to the point of not reading it because I feel like Hollywood has ruined it for me forever. Maybe if I find a good used copy I'll buy it. Not on my radar at the moment.
I've spent hours going through lists, combing Good Reads, Google and Kobo and asking friends for recommendations. I found a woman on Good Reads who reads a lot of horror and started coming through her books. I started to think that maybe I could rely on her reports when I saw she had given this book 4 stars.
Exasperated, I closed the window.
Then I thought about this amazing guy who works in Russel's Books. He knows every author anyone asks him about, is super friendly and obviously enjoys reading a lot. I thought I'd go down there and ask him.
He wasn't working when I went in yesterday so I asked another girl for her advice. She had no idea about good horror books but said he was talking about 'Let the Right One In' the other day. We looked on his Staff Picks shelf and it was on there so I bought it.
It's vampires, but I remembered it from my searches as a possibility. Any recommendations?
2 comments:
Ok, so I like a good Gothic tale that's spooky without being a horror movie. The literary equivalent of the movie "The Others" (w Nicole Kidman) or even the "The Sixth Sense".
Today I read a book along those lines: "We Were Liars" by E. Lockhart. It's YA but I really liked it.
Try "The Thirteenth Tale" by Dianne Setterfield or "Her Fearful Symmetry" by Audrey Niffenegger.
Oh! Also "The Dinner" by Herman Koch. So super creepy. (There's a bit of gore in this.)
Okay, so The Thirteenth Tale is one of my favourite books ever. I have The Dinner on my radar for sure. I see Her Fearful Symmetry but I keep thinking 'How can she out do Time Traveller's Wife?!'
Oh - and your completely on the right track with The Others and The Sixth Sense.
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