Monthly Recommendations: Creepy Reads

This is quite possibly my favorite month of the year. I live on the Northeast of the United States and this is the time of year that the weather has finally cooled down! There is the possibility of snow, but not usually. Halloween is that glowing, lovely holiday at the end of the month and what better way to build up to that night when the veil between worlds is thinnest than reading creepy books?

I've selected a few books that I've read and some that I haven't, but look like they'd be right out of the park in terms of creepiness.

Thank you again to Trina from Between Chapters and Kayla Rayne for putting together the Goodreads group and coming up with these topics.

My first choice, and by far my favorite, is Coraline by Neil Gaiman. It has a subtle sort of creepiness. Coraline finds a portal behind a supposedly blocked off door in her new flat; it leads to a seemingly perfect world that is like hers in every way, except better. But...her "mother" has button eyes...and there's just a little something off about everything.

If you've never read this or seen the movie, I urge you to do so this month.

Asylum is somewhat like Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children in that it has the format of using prose interspersed with old photos. Dan, the MC, is going to a prep school for the summer and it turns out that his dormitory is a former mental institution. Anyone whose ever seen a horror movie knows this is the beginning of a terrifying experience that could very well destroy whatever sanity this kid had to begin with.

This book is on my list for creepy reads to catch up on this month.

Here I have a manga recommendation. This is one of the scariest things that I have ever read. I think it is worse because, being manga, it is illustrated. The contortions and the obsession that is revealed through this first volume really got under my skin.

I wouldn't read this at night if I were you.

What would a list of creepy reads be without a story by the master of creepy, Edgar Allen Poe? He has a great many stories that could be on this list, but the two that I found the strangest and the scariest are The Cask of Amontillado and The Black Cat. The guilt of man can be the most horrific thing at times, as you can see for yourself within these stories.

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