Here are 77 books that I Was a Teenage Slasher fans have personally recommended if you like
I Was a Teenage Slasher.
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I loved this poignant, colorful, and nostalgic look at life in Mexico City during the 1940’s. A young Carlos falls in love with his best friend’s mother, the misbegotten attraction launching an emotional odyssey that sends him through a landscape of class struggle and corruption. In his search for love and truth, Carlos sees his innocence chipped away by repeated episodes of hypocrisy and moral failure, from himself and those around him. “Love is a disease where only hatred is natural.”
This landmark novella-one of the central texts of Mexican literature, is eerily relevant to our current dark times-offers a child's-eye view of a society beset by dictators, disease, and natural disasters, set in "the year of polio, foot-and-mouth disease, floods." A middle-class boy grows up in a world of children aping adults (mock wars at recess pit Arabs against Jews), where a child's left to ponder "how many evils and catastrophes we have yet to witness." When Carlos laments the cruelty and corruption, the evils of a vicious class system, his older brother answers: "So what, we are living up…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
The struggle for land grants in New Mexico is forever now also the story of Reies Tijerina, a man of many labels—activist, Chicano rights trail blazer, rabblerouser, charlatan, criminal. When the US annexed New Mexico during the Mexican-American War of 1847, this brought waves of opportunistic and unscrupulous Anglos onto lands worked and owned collectively by the resident Mexican-Americans, known then as Hispanos, on centuries old titles granted to them by Spain. In the 1960s, Tijerina, an itinerant Evangelical pastor, was transformed from preacher to crusader during his sojourns through the impoverished communities of northern New Mexico, hearing accounts of how they had been swindled and forced off their land, ownership now with the politically connected and even the Federal government. I love this account of Tijerina’s saga that includes shootouts, the kidnapping of a judge, arrests, courtroom drama, international notoriety, and of course, more backstage political maneuvering to undermine…
"In the early summer of 1967 a small band of Spanish Americans raided the courthouse in a dusty town in New Mexico to publicize their claim that much of the land in the state had been stolen from their ancestors. The author, who happened to be in New Mexico at the time, was drawn into the events and set out to discover what had happened during the raid, why it had happened, the legitimacy of the raiders' claims, and what sort of person was their leader, Reies Tijerina."--Amazon
Stephen Graham Jones creates a unique horror story through the eyes of Ricky, Gabe, Lewis and Cassidy, bound by their native American heritage find after a decade after a great Elk hunt that actions stir the spirit world.
Jones creates a relatable world with well realised characters, and the horror set pieces, while brief and visceral aren't gratuitous and propel the story to its inevitable end.
"Thrilling, literate, scary, immersive." -Stephen King
The Stoker, Mark Twain American Voice in Literature, Bradbury, Locus and Alex Award-winning, NYT-bestselling gothic horror about cultural identity, the price of tradition and revenge for fans of Adam Nevill's The Ritual.
Ricky, Gabe, Lewis and Cassidy are men bound to their heritage, bound by society, and trapped in the endless expanses of the landscape. Now, ten years after a fateful elk hunt, which remains a closely guarded secret between them, these men - and their children - must face a ferocious spirit that is coming for them, one at a time. A spirit…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
Semi-epistolary, possibly unreliable narrator, as much about growing up poor and marginalized as it is a howlingly good werewolf story. SGJ is a national treasure and must be protected at all costs.
A spellbinding and darkly humorous coming-of-age story about an unusual boy, whose family lives on the fringe of society and struggles to survive in a hostile world that shuns and fears them. He was born an outsider, like the rest of his family. Poor yet resilient, he lives in the shadows with his aunt Libby and uncle Darren, folk who stubbornly make their way in a society that does not understand or want them. They are mongrels, mixed blood, neither this nor that. The boy at the center of Mongrels must decide if he belongs on the road with his…
I’ve been fascinated by how people behave and how in-group bias can change who they are. That interest led me into computational sociology (I study human behavior for a living), with my work appearing in The New York Times, USA Today, WIRED, and more. But my deepest fascination has always been with people’s propensity for the horrific. I LOVE the liminal space where fear, secrecy, and belonging collide. Being neurodivergent, living in a small Virginia town with my wife and our neurodivergent, queer son, I see how communities can both shelter and suffocate. That tension is why I’m drawn to stories saturated in dread, beauty, and what lives in the shadows.
This is the book that taught me how powerful loneliness can be.
Every time I return to it, I feel one character’s ache settle into me, that desperate want to belong somewhere, even if it’s a house that doesn’t love you back. I recommend it because it still feels as if I’m attempting to figure out what is happening alongside the characters, the way only great writing can.
Jackson makes you realize that the scariest hauntings aren’t in the walls, they’re the ones we carry within us.
Part of a new six-volume series of the best in classic horror, selected by Academy Award-winning director of The Shape of Water Guillermo del Toro
Filmmaker and longtime horror literature fan Guillermo del Toro serves as the curator for the Penguin Horror series, a new collection of classic tales and poems by masters of the genre. Included here are some of del Toro's favorites, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Ray Russell's short story "Sardonicus," considered by Stephen King to be "perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written," to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and stories…
I’ve spent a lifetime reading horror, I was probably in third grade when I stumbled across a battered collection of short stories by Saki in the adult section of the library—where I wasn’t supposed to be. I snuck the book back to the children’s section, started reading, and I was hooked. Then it was Edgar Allan Poe, and from Poe until now, it’s been every horror novel or short story I could find. The best of them have never left me. And they make up my list, The Most Terrifying Novels You Can’t Escape From.
Like the other books on the list, The Shining felt personal, more like something that was happening to me than a story I was reading.
Like Jack, I could feel myself hanging on while the menace around me grew more real, more concrete. And more overwhelming. Even today, I can feel the terror of losing control, of becoming part of the menace, part of the threat to everything of meaning and value. Snowbound with horror, and Spring will never come.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Before Doctor Sleep, there was The Shining, a classic of modern American horror from the undisputed master, Stephen King.
Jack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he’ll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote . . . and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
My name is Mia Dalia. I write dark speculative fiction across genres. A lot of it is psychological horror, which I love! My latest novel features a rather unique haunted house and a family who spend their summer vacation there. Hauntings are a theme I have visited before in shorter forms and were very excited to explore in full. My goal here was to deconstruct the myth of an all-American happy family within the frame of a classic may-or-may-not-be-haunted house. Those who have dared to stay in Haven have been profoundly unsettled. It is a hungry house, always looking for more visitors. I hope you’ll come for a stay!
Speaking of vacations, the Rolfes, the family In this book, another beloved, if less famous, classic, do just that with their haunted house. I found this old paperback in a used bookstore ages ago and couldn’t put it down. This tale of a summer stay in a shockingly affordable (for a reason!) house in Long Island spirals out in a genuinely unsettling manner.
I can still recall the profound claustrophobia of this reading experience. Which I’d say is precisely how a novel about a place that won’t let you leave (or at least won’t let you leave the same!) ought to make you feel. The notion of a house that changes its occupants has stayed with me ever since.
Ben and Marian Rolfe are desperate to escape a stifling summer in their tiny Brooklyn apartment, so when they get the chance to rent a mansion in upstate New York for the entire summer for only $900, it’s an offer that’s too good to refuse. There’s only one catch: behind a strange and intricately carved door in a distant wing of the house lives elderly Mrs. Allardyce, and the Rolfes will be responsible for preparing her meals.
But Mrs. Allardyce never seems to emerge from her room, and it soon becomes clear that something weird and terrifying is happening in…
I’m a Pushcart-nominated writer of (mostly) young adult and adult horror and suspense. I primarily write about the fear of isolated and sparsely populated places, which makes sense: I grew up in the rural hinterlands of northeast Pennsylvania, steeped in dark cornfields, eerie quiet, and weird characters. I now live in the Philadelphia area with my husband and rescue dog in a creaky, century-old house, giving myself agita about the creepy crawlspace in the basement. I’m the author of two novels: A Misfortune of Lake Monsters (YA horror, July 2024) and The Trajectory of Dreams (adult psychological suspense, 2013).
Jade, the protagonist, is just about to start college, so the “What I did on my summer vacation” essay assignments are likely far behind her, yet I found myself wondering how she would describe her summer trip to Vietnam to stay with her estranged father in his haunted and haunting French colonial villa restoration project.
Come for the colonialism and generational trauma; stay for the ghosts and the bugs and the excellent world-building around food culture (all of which are intertwined.) What makes this book so visceral for me personally is Jade’s anger at her father, so intense that it seems to permeate every inch of the house and the words on the page, and the sense of being Other in so many ways.
This is the perfect book to read on one of those stormy, sweltering summer nights when each bolt of lightning highlights the shadows lurking in the…
This house eats and is eaten . . .
"A riveting debut from a remarkable new voice! Trang Thanh Tran weaves an impressive gothic mystery in which Jade's father is determined to restore a decrepit home to its former glory and Jade is the only person who feels the soul-crushing devastation of colonialism lingering within its walls." --Angeline Boulley, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Firekeeper's Daughter
A House with a terrifying appetite haunts a broken family in this atmospheric horror, perfect for fans of Mexican Gothic.
When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam for a visit with her…
I grew up reading short stories in the annual Reader’s Digest books my parents collected, so I’ve always liked the short form. Perhaps that is why I pursued it in college, wanting to know what made them work. So I took a lot of classes in college to do just that, to dissect stories to see what made them resonate with readers. And although I’ve been trying to push myself to write longer fiction, I’ll never be able to fully abandon the short fiction. I love a story you can read in a day and think about all night.
Besides the fact that Joe Hill is one of my favorite writers at the moment, this collection is 100% solid writing. Also, one of my favorite stories, “Pop Art,” is included in the book. To me, the sense of ambiguity, of using one otherworldly concept to stand for something so plain and simple, addressing current issues through your fiction are all present in that story.
Imogene is young, beautiful, kisses like a movie star, and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead, the legendary ghost of the Rosebud Theater. Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with a head full of big ideas and a gift for getting his ass kicked. It's hard to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town. Francis is unhappy, picked on; he doesn't have a life, a hope, a chance. Francis was human once, but that's behind him now. John Finney is in trouble. The kidnapper locked him in a basement, a place stained with…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I grew up reading short stories in the annual Reader’s Digest books my parents collected, so I’ve always liked the short form. Perhaps that is why I pursued it in college, wanting to know what made them work. So I took a lot of classes in college to do just that, to dissect stories to see what made them resonate with readers. And although I’ve been trying to push myself to write longer fiction, I’ll never be able to fully abandon the short fiction. I love a story you can read in a day and think about all night.
SGJ has such a unique voice, it’s hard to deny this collection its props. Here you have a wide range of themes and unique characterization, and I think there’s a lot to be learned from a collection such as this. Dialogue, character building, tension; this is like a guide to writing good fiction.
Winner, Best Collection of the Year, This Is Horror
Nominated, Best Collection of the Year, Bram Stoker Awards
Nominated, Best Collection of the Year, Shirley Jackson Awards
The 15 stories in After the People Lights Have Gone Off, by Stephen Graham Jones, explore the horrors and fears of the supernatural and the everyday. Included are two original stories, several rarities and out-of-print narratives, as well as a few "best of the year" inclusions.
In "Thirteen", horrors lurk behind the flickering images on the big screen. "Welcome to the Reptile House" reveals the secrets that hide in our flesh. In "The…
