101 Horror Books to Read Before You're Murdered

by Sadie Hartmann

Stephen King has made a huge impact on my life. Of all the influential celebrities and famous people out there in the world, Stephen King is the one. My hero. Reading his books formed all of my future preferences in literature and influenced all of my biases toward very specific tropes and storytelling styles. He is the reason I gravitate toward horror centered around child protagonists: Danny from The Shining, The Loser’s Club from IT, the brothers in Eyes of the Dragon, Jake from The Dark Tower series, Jack from The Talisman, and the friend group in The Body—which was adapted into my all-time favorite movie, Stand by Me.

Nothing compares to coming-of-age horror, to growing emotionally attached to a child protagonist on their journey toward adulthood while facing impossible evil.

I don’t think a horror book’s main objective is to be scary. There are lots of other ways writers can tell stories to unsettle our souls.

I’m going to provide a more textbook explanation of paranormal, but the following traditional Scottish prayer captures my definition of what classifies as paranormal horror pretty well: “From Ghoulies and Ghoosties, long-leggety Beasties, and Things that go Bump in the Night, Good Lord, deliver us!”

Hauntings are a universally held paranormal phenomenon. It’s the belief that ghosts or spirits manifest themselves regularly, and in one location. In horror, there are two common types of houses: a “Manderley” house and a “Hill House.”

Manderley is the blueprint for stories that ask the reader, “Is it the house or the people?”

Hill House is dangerous. The house is a supernatural entity that can, if it chooses to do so, take the life of anyone that enters it. In fact, I would assume that it desires to do so. It can be said that those who sleep in its beds or wander its halls do not leave in the same condition as when they arrived.