Halloween Recs: Monsters, Horrors, & Other Stuff of Nightmares

This recommendation post is pretty generalized, essentially these are the horror books that have “monsters” in them or other supernatural creatures. They don’t quite fit the “zombie, ghost, or demon” bill or they may have all of them in one book so they get categorized altogether here! These are all pretty different books otherwise!

If you’re interested in any of these and want more info please click each title for my full review!

Other Halloween Rec Posts:

• Scariest Books I’ve Read
• Devils & Demons & Ghosts, Oh My!
• Double, Double Toil & Trouble (Witches)
• The Real Monsters Are Human
• Zombies & Other Infectious Creatures

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The Women in the Walls by Amy Lukavics

This is a book where I’m going to say as little as possible since there’s heave spoilers and I don’t want to ruin it! This book is about a girl whose mother died when she was little and she lives with her father, cousin, and aunt in an old Victorian mansion in the middle of the woods. Her aunt disappears one day and her cousin claims she can hear her dead mother’s voice in the attic walls, our MC finds herself confronting the legacy of the women in her family.

This is a bit slow to read bit it is short and the ending is very much worth the read. It’s pretty feminist as well with men essentially being “useless side characters” where the women hold the real power, it’s also very twisty at the end, and there’s zero romance to take away from the suspenseful plot.

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Dreamfall by Amy Plum

I was actually surprised by how horrific this book got to be, I was genuinely creeped out by some of the scenes in this one! It’s about a group of teens taking part in a sleep experiment, they all have sleeping disorders of some kind, and end up trapped in a shared dreamscape full of their nightmares.

Some of the nightmares are really terrifying and have everything from claustrophobia, clowns, and moving statues. There’s definitely something to scare everyone I think! It’s also very fast paced and has some fantastic twists.

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Black Bird of the Gallows by Meg Kassel

While this one is necessarily scary or anything I feel it’s just too unique not to mention! It’s about a main character who gets attacked by a supernatural creature and caught up in a battle of good and evil, she’s also falling in love with a new boy…a new boy who is also a harbinger of death.

This is a really interesting book since the character is quite literally a death omen and the world building and mythology are very creative. It is very romance focused but I thought the romance was done well.

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The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

I mean….it’s Neil Gaiman. The writing is fantastic and the story is very engaging, it’s about a boy who is raised in a graveyard by the inhabitants of the graveyard which include all likes of paranormal creatures such as ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and so on. It’s super cute and very mysterious at times, overall 5/5 highly recommend checking out especially to a first time Gaiman reader.

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Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

I have mentioned this in another recommendation post, the Scariest Books one, but I’m mentioning it again because it’s just that good. This is a graphic novel, horror anthology made up of several short stories. These deal with all kinds of creepies, supernatural and not, but I won’t go to far into it since I don’t want to spoil anything! These stories are super creepy though and it’s a graphic novel so it’s short and the art is amazing!

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The Locke & Key Series by Joe Hill by Gabriel Rodriguez

That’s right, I’m recommending an entire graphic novel series. Why? Because the entire series is that good and worth recommending altogether! It’s sort of a hard series to explain but I’ll do my best here.

This series tells the story of Keyhouse, a mysterious manor full of strange keys and even stranger doors that they open, transforming those who open or walk through them. The reason I include this in “horror/Halloween” recommendations is because the world is very dark and there’s definitely some very supernatural things that occur, but I don’t want to spoil anything! Also I highly recommend giving the second volume a chance even if you don’t enjoy the first one a whole lot, I didn’t either and still loved the series.

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The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

Monstrumologist = the study of monsters. So I pretty much HAD to include it in a recommendation post about monsters! This tells the story of Will Henry, an apprentice to Dr. Warthrop who studies monsters. And the monsters are very interesting and terrifying all at once. This book has a very unique feel to it, it’s very atmospheric in the eeriest way possible and also I’ve never read anything else like it. It’s a bit slowly paced at time but very much worth the read: it’s excellently written, has great characters, and is very gory (it IS horror after all).

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A Drop of Night by Stefan Bachmann

Such an underrated book! It is extremely unique and maybe even a little weird but still such an interesting reading experience I NEED to recommend it. This comes off as a mystery/thriller but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was more so YA horror than anything else. It’s about a group of teens selected to go to France and assist with an excavation of a centuries old underground palace. However, once they get there not all is as it seems. I won’t go into the details of why I included it on this specific list because I don’t want to spoil it BUT I think it’s inclusion here says enough!

Very fast paced, very weird, very terrifying. That’s it, that’s my tagline for the book!

Have you read any of these? What did you think? 
What are some of your favorite reads featuring the humans as the monsters?
Planning on reading any of these for Halloween?
Let me know in the comments!

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