The Best Dang Horror Reads of 2024

Maybe it’s because stinging things are my greatest fear, but this novel scared the shit out of me. In it, Margaret, a high school student, wakes up to a text from her best friend, who’s been missing for a month and is presumed dead. Margaret follows the texts on a macabre scavenger hunt that leads her to discover that her bestie is not who she thought she was. Wasps and other insects play a huge role in this story, but I hesitate to say more. Just trust me when I say you’re in for a wild, over-the-top, absolutely terrifying ride.

When I started this one, I immediately felt I was in the midst of a fever dream. The gorgeous language kept me reading, and I wasn’t disappointed. In this haunted house tale, the Maxwells move into an upper-middle-class gated community outside Dallas, where they happen to be the only Black family. Immediately, terrible things start to happen that may or may not be otherworldly. Either way, the family matriarch refuses to be pressured into giving up their home. The three Maxwell siblings eventually flee into adulthood, leaving their parents behind. But when they learn of their parents’ death, they’re compelled to return home and make sense of what really happened. You don’t find out until the end whether the hauntings are supernatural in nature, attributable to some more rational explanation, or all in the characters’ heads. I LOVE this dynamic, and I loved this book.

In this dark, folkloric fantasy novella, Mohamed takes the fairy tale trope of two children lost in the woods and dials the horror up to 11. In this world, where a merciless tyrant has the populace on its knees, a deadly forest casts its pall. It is said that the forest is filled with ancient monsters, persistent ghosts, and other dangers; and that no one who enters it emerges alive. That is, except for one person: our protagonist, who is called upon by the hated tyrant to reenter the woods when his kids go missing. Veris is given one day to find those children and bring them back safely. Horrors ensue. What I most appreciate about this novel is how Mohamed interrogates who the true monsters actually are. Some of my favorite horror explores the wickedness of humanity.

OK. I know I said bees and wasps and stuff are my greatest fear. But you know what grosses me out the most? Eyeball stuff. This book opens with Ji-won’s mom eating fish eyes, something Kim describes in a way that is especially visceral and off-putting. But that’s not the end of it. As Ji-won grapples with the fact that her family is falling apart, she begins to dream about eyeballs, something that fills her not with disgust, but with rage and hunger. Soon she’s obsessed, and slowly losing her mind. In her unraveling, however, she finally finds the strength to do something about all the toxic men who surround her.

When I read that this book was for readers of Nightbitch and We Ride Upon Sticks, I was already sold. Then I started to read the book itself and was immediately drawn in. Angelina Sicco is sleepwalking through life in her small, conservative town when an ancient and monstrous evil is suddenly awakened that seems to feed on passion. Angelina soon realizes that the only thing that repels it is the touch of her brother’s ex-girlfriend. That’s right. The key to fighting the monster is…queer love. Equal parts sexy and scary, this book deftly places the spotlight on queer life in a small town while simultaneously bringing all the thrills.

I feel as if this one hasn’t gotten as much play, but I’m a fan. Two transgender teens run away from home, looking for a better life. Instead, they end up in a small town where the locals sacrifice young women to the monster that lives in the woods. Unfortunately for those effed-up townsfolk, they don’t fully grasp who they’ve actually sent to their death. This book is an ode to the strength of transgender youth in the face of a society that fights them at every turn.