Fall Fiction

A couple of years ago I ventured into the horror genre for my fall fiction reads. Here are my favorites:

The first category of horror I’ve ventured into is haunted house horror. These books are delightfully spooky without being completely terrifying. We Used To Live Here was very clever and has a surprise speculative fiction-lean. A Good House for Children builds anticipation and eeriness really well with dual timelines and the author’s use of descriptive language: “The front doors, a double behemoth of aged oak, curved upward into a graceful arch . . . they were a quirk of personality, a raised eyebrow on an otherwise serene face.” It’s the perfect gothic pick for readers whose tastes lean literary. The Haunting of Hill House is obviously an absolute classic. I was worried I’d be absolutely terrified by this novel, but I wasn’t! Shirley Jackson is undoubtedly a master of language, tension, and twists. (You’ve read her work if you ever read The Lottery in school). A Haunting on the Hill is inspired by Shirley Jackson’s novel, but for me it missed the mark. It was still a fun fall read, but I had trouble suspending my disbelief. I think a lot of that had to do with the absurdity of the visions the characters had in the house and a failure to execute language to the story’s advantage. Starling House reads extremely YA but was fun.

The next category is witches, mediums, and fortune tellers. Glass Girls is new this year, and it was thoroughly entertaining. I think the author fell into the trap of making the narrative wider rather than deeper (every character has his/her trauma but it never goes any deeper than that; the traumas create their personalities). The diction and cadence is entrancing at the beginning of this novel: girls get the gift, boys get the grave. It initially reads as the perfect pair to Practical Magic. The Fortune Seller didn’t have a lot to say but was vastly entertaining especially if you love campus novels. I really loved one character’s interpretation of the tarot cards throughout, though you wouldn’t believe the same author penned the masterpiece that was The Ballerinas. The Witches of New York has really become the it book of Halloween. This novel is more historically rooted and feels more akin to The Crucible. There were parts I was a little bored in here, and I seem to remember it being a bit didactic (I hate admitting that), but there were also plenty of rich details that made sticking out the whole book worth it. Lastly is A Discovery of Witches, which is also a vampire book. This reads like a series because it is a series, but you have to want that kind of book to get into it.

Lastly is cults and myths and the paranormal: There are three Adrienne Young novels on this list. She is a fully immersive writer if not all of her plots feel satisfying. The first novel I read by her was The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which to me was the perfect time-traveling / mysterious magic one-of-a kind book. As a reader who is primarily focused on realism, this novel was a welcome change. I sadly don’t remember the specifics of The Unmaking of June Farrow, but what I do remember was that it was well-written, had a twist I saw coming but wasn’t mad about, and was well rooted in place. The latest novel I read of hers was Spells for Forgetting, but this one leaned too YA for me. It had a really interesting mystery at its center, but there were unexplored possibilities in this book. Our Crooked Hearts was one of the weirdest books I’ve read, and I can’t even explain it to you, you’d just have to dive in. This book is YA, so if that bothers you, skip it. Lastly Just Like Mother is a book with a cult at its center, it is extremely creepy.