With Halloween right around the corner, ’tis the season for spooky posts. Here are some spooky young adult books for the holiday season. They range from urban fantasy to distopian to other mysteries in between. There is nothing better than a dark night, some apple cider, and a fire to keep you warm. Oh, wait there is, and it’s doing all that with one of these books in your hands. So have fun, stay safe, and stay spooky.
The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong
Just picture yourself as the main character, a teenage girl who gets her first period and her first psychotic break on the same day. Sent to an institution for troubled teens, you start to uncover the dark past of the institution and the chilling powers everyone there seems to have. There is nothing scarier than the prospect of being experimented on and lied to. An urban fantasy trilogy for a spooky night.
Sythe by Neal Shusterman
There is no death, there is no new information to find, and an AI controls the day-to-day functioning everywhere on earth. The only thing the AI doesn’t control is death, for that there are human reapers. A select counsel was chosen to enact their personal judgment on who should and shouldn’t die, but not all of them have humanities best interest at heart. This standalone novel stares into the interworking of death selection and not everyone comes out in one piece.
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
So here’s the deal, one girl wakes up after a party surrounded by the corpses of her friends. The only way to save herself is to trust a half-mad vampire and follow him to Coldtown, a place where quarantined vampires and humans live secluded from the world. Sure this is a vampire novel, but it also examines the harm that comes from labeling a large group of people as deviant, imprisoning them, profiting from them, and then insisting that the “normal population” avoid that fate at all costs. The town is spooky, the media is spooky vampires are spooky, the main character is spooky… you get my point. It’s a beautifully written novel that you should be dying to read.
After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia
This short story collection is one of my favorites. Mostly because it deals with hard questions about what would happen in the aftermath of major change. One story deals with how a person cured of a disease that made them eat other people could survive and be reintroduced to society. In another, it is legal and in a way required for children to bring a gun to school. Other themes like what it means to be human and free. What happens in these short stories are scary because they are so plausible.
A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis
In a world where women are institutionalized to save face in society, one girl must find a way to survive and escape. She notices everything, is fiercely intelligent, and completely silent. It is later when confronted by a doctor studying criminal behavior does she speak up to get out. Now as a crime scene assistant she must find out who is killing young girls around town before she is next.
Dark Secrets 1: Legacy of Lies and Don’t Tell by Mary Claire Helldorfer
This book contains two separate mysteries that leave nothing on the table.Can they trust anyone around them? Will they find out what is happening around them before it’s too late? Can any of them survive this novel? You will have to read the books to find out more.
My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent
As a Bean Side or Banshee, she is compelled to scream for the souls of the dead. People around her school are dropping like flies and although she wants to help, she is done with being called crazy or worse, being called a liar. Unfortunately, there is no rest for the wicked and she is the only one who knows who is next. It is up to her to solve the creepiest mystery that has ever hit her town.
This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab
When you cause death by culling the souls of sinners to the surface, can you love the daughter of the biggest sinner in the city? When sins occur a monster is born. One monster just wants to live a normal life, go to school, be a good son, and avoid playing the violin around any living soul. That is becoming harder than he could have ever imagined and one girl is at the center of it all. It is a dualogy with no easy answers or happy endings, but the story can be loved nonetheless.
Croak by Gina Damico
She was just a girl with anger management problems and a weird uncle. It turns out acting, out, fighting, and being perpetually angry are merely signs that one is a grim reaper. Her uncle is the mayor of a town of reapers and to her surprise, she is a lean, mean, soul reaping machine. For the length of the novel, you would think the emotional ride would be pleasant. If your anything like me, you will be just as surprised by the emotional rollercoaster that you are about to commit to. It is an interesting urban fantasy novel that heavily contemplates the kind of death that has permanence and weight.