I am going to read horror books all July

The only thing I can stomach the idea of reading at the present moment is horror, which seems like an antithetical statement…but a true one nonetheless. Last month it was romance, this month it’s everything horror. I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote from Bela Lugosi and how much I love it. “It is women who love horror. Gloat over it. Feed on it. Are nourished by it. Shudder and cling and cry out-and come back for more.” Not to say that the whole vibe is gender-exclusive, because obviously not, but I still really love this. Point to the point is this: I want to be my own goth girlfriend and to get there I am going to read a bunch of horror novels next month (but absolutely no Stephen King because no). Ok. So here are the books.

Fear Street Series by R.L. Stine

If you have yet to hear of Fear Street, all you need to know is that it is a huge series of pulp fiction horror for teens by R.L. Stine, published in the 90s before Goosebumps had even hit the shelves. For some reason, my middle/jr. high school (this is about 10-14 years old here in the US) librarian had a pretty good selection of these books, with the AMAZING covers and scandalous taglines. My classmates and I would snatch them up the second someone else had checked them back in. I will always be grateful for administration never questioning 11 year olds reading books with bloody bikini tops and scalpels on the covers. Halloween Party is still my absolute favorite! Cue the autumn winds and glorious smell of the Scholastic Book Fair.

Anyway, there is going to be an entire trilogy of movies coming to Netflix in July based on Fear Street and it’s time for me to hit the ground running reading every book I can from the series. They aren’t masterpieces of literature or anything, but they are amazing if you can appreciate the campiness of it all.

Lovesickness by Junji Ito

An innocent love becomes a bloody hell in another superb collection by master of horror Junji Ito.

Junji Ito is a legendary horror manga artist who creates gross, grisly, morbid stories that are so discombobulating that I can’t look away. I’ve been slowly working through his backlist and this one finally got put on hold for me at the library. I’ll be immediately reading this once I pick it up and try not to be freaked out by the very real possibility of Rib Women coming to find me in my dreams.

 

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

I’m just going to leave the blurb here, because it sounds so amazing on it’s own.

D. W. Griffith is a sorcerer, and The Birth of a Nation is a spell that drew upon the darkest thoughts and wishes from the heart of America. Now, rising in power and prominence, the Klan has a plot to unleash Hell on Earth.

Luckily, Maryse Boudreaux has a magic sword and a head full of tales. When she’s not running bootleg whiskey through Prohibition Georgia, she’s fighting monsters she calls “Ku Kluxes.” She’s damn good at it, too. But to confront this ongoing evil, she must journey between worlds to face nightmares made flesh–and her own demons. Together with a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter, Maryse sets out to save a world from the hate that would consume it.

Goddess of Filth by V. Castro

“Five of us sat in a circle doing our best to emulate the girls in The Craft, hoping to unleash some power to take us all away from our home to the place of our dreams. But we weren’t witches. We were five Chicanas living in San Antonio, Texas, one year out of high school.”

One hot summer night, best friends Lourdes, Fernanda, Ana, Perla, and Pauline hold a séance. It’s all fun and games at first, but their tipsy laughter turns to terror when the flames burn straight through their prayer candles and Fernanda starts crawling toward her friends and chanting in Nahuatl, the language of their Aztec ancestors.

Um. Yes! I don’t even have anything to say. I just hope the book lives up to this blurb.

Some other horror books I want to read…

This post was a bit different for me, but I have been feeling a tad uninspired and horror novels made me feel excited about reading again after a month of slogginess. Do you have any good horror, thriller, etc recommendations or are they genres you tend to avoid?