35+ of Your Favorite Unconventional Horror Novels
This Riot Recommendation is sponsored by My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix, from Quirk Books.
The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act…different. She’s moody. She’s irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she’s nearby. Abby’s investigation leads her to some startling discoveries—and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil? Like an unholy hybrid of Beaches and The Exorcist, My Best Friend’s Exorcism blends teen angst, adolescent drama, and unspeakable horrors into a pulse-pounding supernatural thriller.
From books to B-movies, horror has proven itself a particularly fun genre to mess with, and when you want more than just a fright it might be time to seek out the truly strange and unusual. Nothing keeps a genre fresh like the occasional oddity and everything is better in bizarro-vision. We asked you to tell us your favorite unconventional horror novels and you responded. Here are more than 35 of your favorites! House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski Demon Theory by Stephen Graham Jones Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey The Cold One by Christopher Pike The Thief of Always by Clive Barker Gerald’s Game by Stephen King Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson The Treatment by Mo Hayder Pontypool Changes Everything by Tony Burgess I Am Legend by Richard Matheson Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury Coraline by Neil Gaiman Hater by David Moody Child of Fire by Harry Connolly The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson Still Life by Joe Donnelly The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson The Exorcist by Peter Blatty Walk the Night by William Sloane The Killing Kind by John Connolly Weaveworld by Clive Barker The Secret of Crickley Hall by James Herbert The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite Bird Box by Josh Malerman Horns by Joe Hill The Rook by Daniel O’Malley Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin The Fall of the House Usher by Edgar Allan Poe The Sandman by E. T. A. Hoffman Slade House by David Mitchell The Taste of a Man by Slaveka Drakulić
The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act…different. She’s moody. She’s irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she’s nearby. Abby’s investigation leads her to some startling discoveries—and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil? Like an unholy hybrid of Beaches and The Exorcist, My Best Friend’s Exorcism blends teen angst, adolescent drama, and unspeakable horrors into a pulse-pounding supernatural thriller.
From books to B-movies, horror has proven itself a particularly fun genre to mess with, and when you want more than just a fright it might be time to seek out the truly strange and unusual. Nothing keeps a genre fresh like the occasional oddity and everything is better in bizarro-vision. We asked you to tell us your favorite unconventional horror novels and you responded. Here are more than 35 of your favorites! House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski Demon Theory by Stephen Graham Jones Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey The Cold One by Christopher Pike The Thief of Always by Clive Barker Gerald’s Game by Stephen King Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson The Treatment by Mo Hayder Pontypool Changes Everything by Tony Burgess I Am Legend by Richard Matheson Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury Coraline by Neil Gaiman Hater by David Moody Child of Fire by Harry Connolly The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson Still Life by Joe Donnelly The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson The Exorcist by Peter Blatty Walk the Night by William Sloane The Killing Kind by John Connolly Weaveworld by Clive Barker The Secret of Crickley Hall by James Herbert The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite Bird Box by Josh Malerman Horns by Joe Hill The Rook by Daniel O’Malley Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin The Fall of the House Usher by Edgar Allan Poe The Sandman by E. T. A. Hoffman Slade House by David Mitchell The Taste of a Man by Slaveka Drakulić
