Emily has a PhD in English from the University of Southern Mississippi, MS, and she has an MFA in Creative Writing from GCSU in Milledgeville, GA, home of Flannery O’Connor. She spends her free time reading, watching horror movies and musicals, cuddling cats, Instagramming pictures of cats, and blogging/podcasting about books with the ladies over at #BookSquadGoals (www.booksquadgoals.com). She can be reached at emily.ecm@gmail.com.
It’s only November, but I’m ready to call it. These are my favorite horror books of 2024. Yes, we do have another month and a half of reading content to get through, but these books are so good that I’ve already shoved them into many reader’s hands. These books have already ascended to all-time faves. And if you’re a horror lover and you haven’t read these four books this year, it’s time to add them to your TBR! You might have trouble sleeping at night, but you won’t regret it.
Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
This book literally gave me nightmares. Horror Movie is deeply psychologically unsettling. As the reader, you are deep in the head of the main character here, which can be disorienting when your character plays a slasher in a cult horror film who can’t separate fiction from reality. Unsurprisingly, I’ve already gushed about all of these books in Read This Book because, of course, I’m trying to get as many people to read them as possible, so I will link to that recommendation here as well. Horror Movie is not only one of the best horror novels of the year, but it’s also my favorite novel of 2024.
Diavola by Jennifer Thorne
You know what you want from a haunted house novel. You want spooky things hiding in the shadows. You want weird noises. You want ghost children whispering to you at night. You want unexplained forms staring down at you from tower windows you didn’t know existed. You’ll get all of that from Diavola, along with intensely relatable family drama. Jennifer Thorne is now a must-read horror author for me. This book was so brilliant.
I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
We’ve all read slasher novels before. We’ve even read slashers from author Stephen Graham Jones. But you’ve never read anything like I Was A Teenage Slasher. This book gets you inside the brain of the flawed but somehow still sympathetic teen slasher Tolly Driver. Stephen Graham Jones also released the third novel in his Indian Lake Trilogy, The Angel of Indian Lake, earlier this year. It definitely deserves an honorable mention as one of the best of 2024.
The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim
A new horror author bombshell has entered the villa. It’s always exciting to find a new voice in horror, especially one this unique, thought-provoking, and freaking wild. Not for the faint of heart, The Eyes are the Best Part tells the story of a young woman who finds herself oddly fascinated by eating eyeballs after her father leaves her mother for another woman. If you love horror that’s not afraid of being weird, and if you love horror where despicable men get what they deserve, you’ve got to pick this one up.
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What were your favorite horror reads of 2024? Would love to hear them! You can let me know over on Instagram at emandhercat. See you for more scary things sooooon!
English (US) · 