6 unexpected horror reads for wusses to devour this Halloween

I’m generally a wuss.

I don’t like horror movies, I don’t like jump scares, I get nightmares easily. And yet I kinda like a specific type of horror novels and short stories? But only a very specific type of horror.

I like the horror that casts a new light on a side on human experience, relationships, our society or the political landscape and really makes me think. These books do exactly that.

‘Life Ceremony’ by Sayaka Murata

I know it seems weird to put Sayaka Murata on here, but these stories are horror. There’s no other way to describe them. Just weird, discomforting, stories of body horror and psychological horror.

Mixing taboo-breaking body horror with feminist revenge fables, old ladies who love each other and young women finding empathy and transformation in unlikely places, Life Ceremony is a wild ride to the outer edges of one of the most original minds in contemporary fiction.

‘Cursed Bunny’ by Bora Chung

After falling in love with ‘Life Ceremony’, I immediately went in search of more dark and twisty short stories (I even wrote a full article about how much I fell for them) and ‘Cursed Bunny’ jumped to the top of my list. It’s sounds weird as heck

Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society.

‘Wilder Girls’ by Rory Power

This YA novel is a fascinating mix of post-apocalyptic and horror, a chilling atmosphere, a serious dose of body horror and also a study of relationships blending love and friendship in a way that YA novels excel at. It’s not a book for everyone, and it has very mixed reviews, but I really enjoyed it. It’s different in a really good way.

Everyone loses something to the Tox; Hetty lost her eye, Reese's hand has changed, and Byatt just disappeared completely. It’s been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put in quarantine. The Tox turned the students strange and savage, the teachers died off one by one. Cut off from the mainland, the girls don’t dare wander past the school’s fence where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure as the Tox takes; their bodies becoming sick and foreign, things bursting out of them, bits missing.

‘A Certain Hunger’ by Chelsea G Summers

I’d say cannibalism gets an easy ‘horror’ classification, but nothing else about this book screams horror. Not the cover, the positioning of the protagonist, or the wide reception by traditionally literary circles. But women gone feral books are really doing the rounds at the moment and this is top of the pile - I’ve been saving it for spooky season and I’m so excited for it.

There is something inside Dorothy that makes her different from everybody else. Something she's finally ready to confess. But beware: her story just might make you wonder how your lover would taste sautéed with shallots and mushrooms and deglazed with a little red wine.

‘Our Wives Under the Sea’ by Julia Armfield

When I first picked this up, horror wasn’t really even a thought that crossed my mind, but after finishing it that categorisation is perfect. It’s the type of haunting, transformative body horror that really gets under your skin (sorry) while being beautiful and ethereal. I loved it, and it’s been lingering in my mind for months.

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah may have come back wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home.

‘Horrorstor’ by Grady Hendrix

I read a load of Grady Hendrix novels last October and this was my favourite by a mile. It’s set up like an IKEA furniture catalogue and while it seems unassuming, if odd, at first, it quickly becomes dark and twisty and so unsettling. I loved it and I highly recommend it.

To unravel the mystery, three employees volunteer to work a nine-hour dusk-till-dawn shift. In the dead of the night, they’ll patrol the empty showroom floor, investigate strange sights and sounds, and encounter horrors that defy the imagination.

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Written by Sophie