Today I wanted to talk a bit about what got us into the horror genre as far as books go.
For me, it all started with Goosebumps. I used to beg my mom for a copy every time a new one dropped. What I couldn’t talk her into, I would borrow from friends or read from my local library. I took great pride in reading the entire original series and I still own a few of my favorite ones, such as The Ghost Next Door or One Day at Horrorland. They were just so fun and interesting to me and thrilled me in a way that no other genre of book managed to. (The Ghost Next Door gave me my absolute love of stories wherein the main character doesn’t realize they’re the ghost until the end!)
Of course, there was also the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark trilogy. I can’t tell you how many times I read those books. Between the wonderful, eerie stories, and the amazing illustrations of Stephen Gammell, it was everything my dark, weird little heart could desire. I probably could have recited some of those stories by memory alone.*
Along the way, there was also your average mix of Stephen King and Anne Rice books, but the first “grown up” book that set in stone that I was a horror fan was Wormwood by William Joseph Martin (formerly known as Poppy Z. Brite). It was a collection of weird, fantastical horror stories that just felt like coming home. Upon finishing it, I knew I had found where I belonged and where I wanted to stay and, to this day, horror makes up 99% of what I read.
What about you? What childhood or “grown up” book set you down the path to reading horror or cemented its place in your heart?
Bonus question: What was the last horror book you read? For me, it was Oracle by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. If you haven’t read it, I would totally recommend it; it’s very eerie and original.
* Shout out also to The Thief of Always by Clive Barker. That was a book that my mom read a chapter to me a night, making it so that I always looked forward to bedtime. What a beautiful, horrific little tale!
I’m right there with you. For me, it was Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (all of them) for me, especially Stephen Gammell’s work. (You’ve heard my endless rantings about how they tried changing the art for awhile there…) Thoses books, that art especially, really inspired a whole generation of horror fans, in my opinion.
I only owned a few Goosebumps books for financial reasons, but anytime I’d visit my cousins, I would devour their collection. I remember two books I got from a book fair, The Lancaster Witch and The Dollhouse Murders, that were like my pride and joy.
Horror movies got me into horror in general. It was The Exorcist at age 9 that piqued my interest and terrified me at the same time.
Later in university it was classic horror – Turn of the Screw, Frankenstein, Edgar Allan Poe.
In modern horror, Heuvelt’s Hex has scared me more than any other horror book so far. I will definitely put Oracle on my to-read list.
Hex was soooooo good. I’m normally not big on witch stories, but it was just so unique and eerie.
My goodness, those Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books were wild. The art, especially.
My attraction to horror began with the Universal Monster movies, and then the Hammer horror movies. And then the Twilight Zone and Night Gallery TV shows. I would beg my mom to let me stay up late and for her to watch them with me, and then I would be too scared to go to bed. Then in in high school, I discovered King, Poe and Lovecraft, and that was it. I was marked for life.