 I am entirely under-qualified to make a video on this topic, but when has that ever stopped me? Hello friends, welcome back to my channel. My name is Megan and if you're new, today we're gonna do a video that's kind of, I see as a carry-on of my vlog where I run seven horror books in seven days. The whole point of that vlog was to help me figure out my taste in horror more because I haven't read a lot of horror. I am a bit of a beginner. I feel like that vlog was pretty successful. And now I want you to make a video of my favorite horror books as someone who hasn't read a lot of horror. So I think if you haven't read a lot of horror and you want to start this spooky season, this would be a good place to come because I haven't read a lot of horror. You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver. No authority at all. And so I think these are good, all of these books are good places to begin if you are new to the genre. This video is sponsored by Shortform, but we'll get into that a little bit later. Now I do want to preface this by saying I have had the cold from hell the past couple of days. No, I haven't had fun. I don't know if it's because we went through the past couple of years we've went through where we're not going outside as much, but I feel like when I get ill now it's like horrible. So like I lost my voice and stuff. It was not, it's not fun. So I would say I'm like probably 75% better, but if I seem a little bit low energy today, that's why. Because I am. Now these books are ranked kind of. I'm going to go through them in order of ratings. So I only gave, I've already ever given two horrors five stars. So we'll talk about them first, then we'll talk about my 4.5s and then there's a few 4s at the end. I have more 4s, but these are the top 4s if that makes sense. So within the ratings, like within the 5s, 4.5s they're not ranked, but I am going to go through them in order of rating. So that those of you who don't watch the whole video can get the best ones. Now this first one probably is my favorite horror book that I've ever read and that's because I don't know if it can really be cast as horror. Yes, these are concern and a worry. I don't know. I would say it's horror, but it's like tentatively horror. And that is Me and the Crusted Snow by Will Beekshig Rice. I loved this. I loved it so much. So this is set within an indigenous community when all the power goes out. They're disconnected from the main city and so they can't really tell what's going on. You know, cold is setting in as you can see. It's kind of set in an apocalypse. And I really loved this take on it because it's such like a quiet book. It's such a slow moving book. It's very short. And the way just the tension rose throughout the book because it's set over quite a long period of time and you know, the energy is out and there's no communication. And it's like, okay, we're on our own here. It's just a very interesting book and the ending is very interesting. And there's actually going to be a sequel to this, which I was not anticipating because the way it ends, it has kind of an open ending that I really enjoyed. Open endings are tricky, right? Because it's like one or the other. You either feel like it's done really well or you don't. And I liked how we had certain questions on what unanswered at the end of this. But then there's going to be a sequel and I'm like, but I still am excited. I still am going to read the sequel. So yeah, if you're looking for a horror that's kind of just all about underlying and easiness and tension and people turning on one another and human nature, I think this is a great pick. And then the other five stars given out, this is the first of I think maybe three books that were in that horror reading vlog. We have Come For Me With Apples by Catherine M. Valent. So this is a super short horror. Obviously I like short horror, apparently. Well, guess what people? I get excited about small things. This is all about a woman who lives in this perfect community and believes she was made for her husband. Her whole life and journey and being is to serve him and to love him and to be there for him. But then the cracks begin to show. A lot of you have told me to go watch Don't Worry, Darling, which I still haven't gone to see because I enjoyed this because it's very similar. I just want to tell you Don't Worry, Darling was for years and years, like since it got first announced, the movie I was most excited to see. And now I'm just like too scared to go watch it. But I do want to, but I don't know when that's going to happen. Maybe later this week I will go see it. I don't know. But yeah, my favourite thing about this was the twist that happened, which I obviously can't tell you about. But I loved the direction this went in. My mum just read this and she was like, I'm sorry, coming. But she always sees everything coming. So if you're someone who doesn't tend to see stuff coming, read this. I loved the direction that went in. I thought it had a really interesting take and a lot of interesting stuff to say. And another one where it's, I seem to like tension, like underlying unease. This one's a bit more like surreal though. I said when I read it, there'll be like a scene that kind of follows our rules of engagement, you know, as a society and then something will happen at the end that makes you go, um, what's going on here? This, this isn't correct. Do you know what I mean? Something that's just so absurd that completely breaks the sense of normalcy that's been built. So yes, absolutely loved this. Okay, next one to 4.5, which I have three, which is interesting because I don't give out a lot of 4.5s very often. But with horror, I seem to. So first we have a bit of a throwback, one of the kind of earliest horrors I read. And this is definitely like part horror. And that's the year of the witching by Alexis Henderson. I would say this book is one third horror, one third fantasy, one third historical. It's like a perfect pie chart in bed of those three. So we're following a young girl who lives in a Bethel on the fringe of Bethel, which is a cult. It's a cult, basically. No one wants to say that, but it's a cult. Stuff happened with her mother when she was younger, which means she's kind of been ostracised. And there's this whole story of kind of like the plagues that the cult went through, years and years ago the community went through to do with these witches. Then one day Emmanuel starts filling this pool to the dark wood, which surrounds the community. And I really loved this. I think it's a really successful book. I'm super excited to read House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson. But I'm going to have to get it from the US somehow because the UK cover, like UK US covers. Like just look at that for a moment and think like I'm serious. This is an attack. Life could be worse. No, not really. This is the worst. This is the worst. This is the worst. It again is slow burn, I would say eerie. But it's very feminist. It's very, you know, holding a mirror to how men abuse positions of power in society. And women are used and discarded. I don't know, I just think this book was very beautiful. This was originally supposed to have a sequel, but Alexis Henderson was like, I don't know if I can do that. And so I think it's like indefinitely on hold for now. But I'm super excited to read House of Hunger once I can work myself up to buying the US version somehow because I'm not getting the UK one. No, ma'am. Absolutely not. But before we get into the rest of the books, I want to take a quick moment to thank the sponsor of today's video, which is Shortform. Shortform is reading guides that are super powered book summaries. They are like book summaries x 10,000. They are more than you could ever imagine from a book summary. It's comprehensive coverage of all the book's key ideas picked out for you so you can digest them quicker. But it also has analysis and commentary, which is so cool. There's so many genres covered, history, politics, communication, health, economics, like anything you could imagine. And Shortform publishes new book guides every week and you as a user can vote on what books you want to get made into book guides next. I love the analysis where they connect maybe something that's said in the book to something other authors have said, you know, learning is a web, right? Ideas do not exist in isolation. So I think it's so important that when you hear an author say an idea, you hear what other people are saying and it brings in more knowledge. So to get five days of unlimited access and to get 20% off of your annual subscription, use my code shortform.com forward slash mech. I would 100% recommend you give it a go. I've really been enjoying reading sapiens by you will know a ha-ha-ri. I have never read sapiens. And like if you live in the UK, it's the kind of book that whenever you like literally step foot in public, like on the tube, someone's reading sapiens. And I've never read it, but it's basically an account of the beginning of humankind. It's multidisciplinary. It covers, you know, history, biology, economics, the way that we have developed. And what I love about shortform is it's made me even more excited to read sapiens the full book. I feel like I've digested some of the ideas. I've learned it, it's become a bit more accessible to me so that when I read the actual book, I can really understand what's going on and it's made me really excited to do so. So yeah, make sure you use my link down below at shortform.com forward slash mech to join shortform and give it a go. Okay, next of the 4.5 styles is A Wilder Girls by Rory Power. I love this. So this is like an isolated horror set on this island where there's like a school on the island and all the girls there, there's a plague essentially and it killed off a lot of the teachers especially and some of the girls, but it also made a lot of the girls mutate. So it's very body horror. They've all got kind of like mutations and strange stuff happening to them. But I love this, you know, it's a very strange book. I'm still waiting for Rory Power to like write something similar to this that like lives up to this for me. I loved the atmosphere, the isolation, the nature, like how you're subject to like nature. It feels like a movie. It feels like a real like, you know, go to the film movie. You know, there's stuff going on with the girls that kind of links into nature. It all just feels very like haunting and like vines are growing everywhere. I don't know. And I loved the aspects of survival in this. There's some really interesting chapters that are written in really interesting ways. The female friendships and relationships in this were wonderful also. So yeah, I feel like Watergirls, a lot of you have probably read it if you want to, but I think this is a wonderful place to start with horror. And then another one that I just read in that video was Horrid by Katrina Leno. I really, really enjoyed this. So in Horrid we're following a girl after her father's death. Her and her mum have to move from California to Maine and they move into her mother's old house and there's some creepy stuff going on. It's definitely like a haunted house book and it goes there. I loved this. I thought the atmosphere and it was wonderful like the rainy, dark, dreary, scary, windy, creaky house. You know what I mean? It just, the atmosphere was incredible. The tension built really well over the course of the book. It reminds me of White Smoke by Tiffany D Jackson which I did not enjoy. This is like a great haunted house book if you want a haunted house book. I feel like the, you know, events that make you think it's a haunted house build really well throughout the book. My only complaint is the ending. It has a very open ending again. Like Watergirls actually has a super open ending but in that case I think it's done well. This I feel like it didn't quite make sense. Like it didn't. It was like an abrupt ending where characters acted a certain way and I didn't feel like that had been built up sufficiently for it to be satisfying basically. So yeah if you want a haunted house mystery this is where you need to go. And then we have a few four stars. Now these obviously I gave four stars. I don't love them but I do think of them quite a bit. I think they're very good beginner horrors. So this is probably one of the first horror books I ever read and that's A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. This is the illustrated version. I'm gonna try and find actual illustrations. So yeah I would 100 recommend getting the illustrated version if you are thinking about reading this. So it's about a young boy whose mother is ill and he starts seeing a monster. A monster called basically. But this is a very emotional book. I don't know if this is technically like middle grade but it does have a young protagonist. And I feel like this is the kind of horror that is helpful for young kids to read because it deals with a lot of difficult topics. I can see why this has won so many awards. It's hard hitting emotionally. It's eerie. It's spooky. I mean the illustrated version I think just brings so much to the book. I mean like come on it's so cool. I really really loved it. I think this is super accessible to people who read all kinds of different genres. I think it's the kind of book that anyone could read. So yeah I would super recommend this. But then these aren't I mean I suppose they are horror but it's light horror again that kind of anyone can read. We have the graveyard book the graphic novel versions. We have book volume one and volume two. This is a book as well but I would recommend the graphic novel. I really enjoyed this. So this is about a young child whose I think the parents are murdered and before the assassin can murder him as well he wanders out into the graveyard and meets all the ghosts. And this guy who's like kind of a vampire we don't really know what he is. And these graphic novels follow him throughout his life on different events that happen. And each kind of chapter is a different story and they're illustrated by different people which is super cool. But I think if you're getting into horror graphic novels are a great place to start because again they're very like not gonna be super scary. So I included this because I think it's a great place for beginners as well. If you want ghosts, if you want eeriness, if you want spooky, oaky, kooky and creepy. And finally a quick honorable mention to Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendricks which I read again in that vlog. And this is like an unpopular opinion. I really enjoyed this. I do feel like the second half or the last third dragged and this book could definitely have been shorter. But in this we're following women who are in the support group and they are all Final Girls from like the 70s, 80s and 90s. They all experienced massacres and were the last girl to survive. And now in the present day it seems like someone is trying to eliminate them all and hunt them down. And it's just it's very fun. It's a very fun horror. I'm so excited to read more Grady Hendricks. I don't currently own any Grady Hendricks because at the moment when I'm buying books I'm trying to buy less and I'm trying to only buy sequels or new releases. Like I'm really trying to contain myself. But I would love to get more Grady Hendricks either Horror Store or my best friend Exorcism. I'll probably read next. Oh all the Southern Book Clubs guide to saying vampires. I think you guys told me I'd like that one more. I don't know. I do really want to read his stuff. I think this is just fun slasher horror. This is probably one of the more gory ones that is on this list. And I just loved the like the slasheriness of it. And I loved the movie references. So after every chapter there's a piece of mixed media that is somehow linked to kind of like the horror movie world because all of these women had horror movie franchises based off of them and their bassicas basically. And I loved that. I loved that little element of like flavour. I feel like Grady Hendricks is really good at that. So I feel like this might actually end up being one of the lower rated books I read from Grady Hendricks and I might prefer his other books more. So yeah just honorable mention because I feel like this might be where I go with some of the horror that I buy and read next. It's kind of like this vibe. But feel free again to recommend me any horror that you think I would enjoy based off of this list. So there we have it. That is my favourite horror books that I have read as very much a newbie in the genre. But I enjoy chatting about this and like I said if you maybe read a lot of thrillers, mysteries, you don't read a lot of horror I think all of these books would be great places to begin this spooky autumnal season because don't forget November you can still read horror. November is still kind of in that dark vibe. So yeah I hope you enjoyed this video. If you got to the end comment the scared shocked face down below. Apologies for my low energy. I feel like I'm gonna go need to take like a 10 hour nap. Thank you so much for watching and staying to the end anyways. I love you guys so much and I hope you have a good rest of your day. See you soon. Bye!