Haunting tomes offer chills, thrills
Sometimes it’s fun to be scared when you know the monsters can’t get you.
Clearly, a lot of people feel that way, or else Stephen King wouldn’t be one of the world’s bestselling authors, killer doll Chucky wouldn’t have a new TV series and we wouldn’t be on our 12th “Halloween” movie.
Horror is a cathartic genre, a place where we can explore our deepest anxieties and traumas, relive our worst nightmares and purge ourselves of the nagging fears that could otherwise overwhelm our psyches. Plus, it’s more fun and cheaper than therapy.
This Halloween season, the staff at USA TODAY is sharing the spookiest, most spine-tingling books we’ve ever read, including one of King’s best, a demented graphic novel and a work of true crime that’s scarier than anything a novelist could dream up.
So grab a cozy blanket, fix yourself a cup of cider, sit down with one of these 12 books and prepare to have your life ruined – in a good way.
‘Leave the World Behind,’ by Rumaan Alam
Alam’s recent masterpiece in literary horror is scarier for what it doesn’t show than what it does (though what it does show is plenty scary). A comfortably middle-class family vacations at a remote rental house over a long weekend when the home’s owners show up at the door, claiming there’s been an emergency and a complete blackout in the city. The two families warily cohabitate while all around them signs multiply indicating something is grievously wrong with the world: sudden alien sounds, animals behaving strangely, a woman weeping on the side of the road, a teenager’s healthy teeth falling out. Is it war? A terrorist attack? A nuclear disaster? Sometimes it’s not knowing that’s