 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to another Top 5 Friday where I discuss my favorite things in a subjective way. This is not an end-all be-all list. This is my opinion. Today we are talking about the Top 5, sorry, my Top 5 Horror Book Tropes. Let's get into it. Number 5. So at number 5, we are starting with mental illness. Anytime a book suggests that a character may be delusional or have depression, anxiety, panic attacks, any of that stuff that contributes to the horror of the book. It doesn't have to be real for me, but it has to feel real. I especially like surreal circumstances where people go off into their heads. A really, really good example of this would be Eleanor by Jason Gurley. It deals with depression. It deals with I think even a bit of postpartum from the mother's perspective. There's a lot of talk of mental illness in that one and how we cope and how we get through, but it has to do with a fictional surreal world. I remember the darkness. The darkness was palpable in this book. There was another world that had dinosaurs and meteors. It was crazy, but I absolutely loved it. Throughout the entire book you're wondering if this is actually happening to this child because for the most part it's about the girl named Eleanor. So yeah, number 5 is mental illness. Number 4. At number 4, we have stupid people. I love reading about stupid people. I was going to add this to my Top 5 Horror Movie Tropes, but I decided not to because I think I like reading about stupid people more than I like watching them. An exception to that would be like Blue Ruin and the Green Room and Murder Party. The director of those calls those films his stupid person trilogy because they make dumb decisions. Characters don't have to be smart. Not everybody is smart and when they make bad decisions based on their intelligence level, I like that even more. So yeah, number 4 is stupid people. Number 3. Number 3 is a big one. We're getting to my favorites here of course. And number 3 is small town horror. A good example of this would be Todd Keasling's Devil's Creek. Damn near anything by Stephen King, especially early Stephen King. I love it when it can be cults, it can be monsters, it can be any number of things, but it has to be in a small town, secluded, cut off from the rest of the world. Now you can have actually know what I take that back. I was gonna say you can have outside influences, but I much rather prefer the you know people being stuck in this area and not being able to go anywhere. I'm a special fan. I'm especially a fan of the the loop. Let's see here trope. I guess it is where you can't get out of the town. Kind of like in the mouth of Madness, that movie. Any book that gets you stuck somewhere. I talked about isolation and all that stuff, but it can be the entire town stuck. And if they can't get out, that's just a bigger plus. So yeah, that's number 3, small town horror. Number 2. At number 2, we have monsters. I love a good monster. One of my favorite monster writers is Hunter Shea. He's fantastic with that stuff. He doesn't get bogged down in it with too much of anything. He gets in, he gets dirty, and he gets out. His books are so much fun to read. If you have not read anything by him, or if you haven't read Creature, especially, is a really, really good one. I don't want to tell you what it's about, but if you're familiar with Hunter Shea at all, I'm pretty sure you can guess which monster he uses. They can be original monsters. They can be old school monsters. The only monsters I don't go for are your traditionals, like your vampires, your werewolves. I'm really not keen on zombies because it feels like, I don't know, it's all been done before. If I'm gonna do anything with zombies, this is gonna be a watch a movie. But yeah, number 2 certainly is monsters. I love a good creature feature. The more monsters, the better. I especially like a big group of monsters or people being turned into monsters and then the protagonist having to deal with the fact that their loved ones, their friends, their community members, whatever, have become monsters. Once again, Devil's Creek. That's by Todd Kiesling. It's a fantastic book that does that very, very well, but I'm a Stephen King fan also, so I just like monsters in general and he brings the goods. Even though he hasn't created a really good monster in a long time, his human monsters work perfectly. Number 1. At number 1, we have carnivals. Anything involving a carnival, a circus, an amusement park, any of those things. If there's monsters in there, big, big plus. If it's in a small town, big, big plus. If there's stupid people at the carnival, amazing plus. Just get everything on this list. If you throw that into a carnival setting, man, I am all about it. Books that come to mind is The Pilo Family Circus by, oh, I can never remember the dude's name. I'm so sorry. And also Geeklove, Catherine. I'm forgetting names today. I apologize. But anything set in that and it doesn't even have to be horror. Like one of my favorite books of all time is Palisades Park. I don't remember that guy's name either. I'm going completely blank here. Anyways, there's... I've always been fascinated with carnivals and circuses and amusement parks, theme parks, all that stuff. I love going to them. I love spending time there. I love the creepy feel of them. Even when you're having a good time, there's that underlying sense of disturbia. You know, there's that underlying sense that, you know, something could go wrong at any moment. And if something does, you're trapped with all these people, you know, like rides malfunctioning. You know, any of those things, the usually creepy dude that runs the ride, you know, that kind of thing. Any time you put me in a situation where people are supposed to be having fun and that fun is turning against them, I have a lot of fun with that. So yeah, carnivals are my number one and I can't think of anything else that I would rather read more than a carnival story at any given time. So there you have it. That is this week's top five Friday. Y'all like my shirt? It says, I don't give a fuck. Anyways, but let me know some of your favorite horror novel tropes down there in the doobly-doo. Let me know why you like them. Just, you don't have to do a top five. You can do one. You can do 10. You can do 20. I don't care. You can't link me to your own videos because I've turned off links. Anyways, it got ridiculous. So yeah, put your stuff down there in the doobly-doo or tell me to go check out your channel and which video to go look at. Just don't link me. But until next time, I have an E. You have an U. This has been another top five Friday. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye!