Scare Tactics: Creepy Novels That Captivate Reluctant Teen Readers
by Iva-Marie Palmer
When I hear about a teenager who “never” reads, hates reading, doesn’t like books, I have a theory about why they’re so anti-reading: they just haven’t been properly scared.
No, I don’t mean scared by teachers or parents promising they’ll never get into a good college if they don’t pick up a few good books. I mean, scared scared. Like, “Did you hear that noise?” leave-a-light-on scared.
I’ve always been a reader, but I remember the fervor with which I devoured books by the kings of teen horror, R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike. There’s nothing quite so all-consuming as being gripped by fear, and pulled into the kind of tale that compels you to keep turning pages.
Horror’s branched out since my younger days and these modern picks are sure to grab reluctant readers.
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Anna Dressed in Blood
Cas Lowood is a ghost hunter: a loner who travels the country and rids towns of ghosts. Anna is the deadly ghost of a murdered girl who kills everyone who enters the home she haunts — except for Cas. A great tale for haunted house lovers.
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The Replacement
Available from:A good, creepy tale for fantasy fans, this one is about Mackie Doyle, a changeling who was left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Changelings are supposed to die at birth, but Mackie has made it to his teens, in a town called Gentry that’s rich with underworld forces.
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Bad Girls Don’t Die
Haunted houses, creepy dolls, and little-sister possession: this book has the trifecta. Readers are polarized on the main character — some find her relatable, others whiny — but they do agree on the creepy factor being very effective.
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Ten
McNeil dips into the classics with this retelling of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Teens on a party island think they’re in for a weekend of mild debauchery, until a killer starts picking them off.
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Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Available from:Perhaps more eerie than actually scary, this one is particularly engaging for Riggs’s use of found photographs to help weave this tale of a teenage boy uncovering details about his grandfather’s mysterious childhood.
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The Long Walk
Any teens who delve into horror books are eventually going to find themselves dipping into the works of the master himself, Stephen King. This older novel, a dystopian horror tale about 100 teen boys who participate in a grueling march to the literal death, is a good introduction to his oeuvre. You’ll find this one in the adult section, and it may be most suitable to slightly older teens.
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Horns
Also written for adults, Horns is another good pick for teen boys due to the coming-of-age elements in its story of Ig, a young man who wakes up with devil horns and the ability to make people admit things they intend not to. The fast-paced supernatural thriller (now a movie starring Daniel Radcliffe) deals with bigger issues of good and evil. Plus, author Joe Hill is the son of Stephen King.
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Remember Me trilogy
A favorite for sure, Pike’s Remember Me trilogy is about a girl ghost’s quest to prove she was murdered ... and then extract revenge.
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The New Girl
Well, as long as I’m making recommendations, I can’t skip over R.L. Stine, one of the gents responsible for keeping me up way past midnight as I read paperback after paperback. Stine’s The New Girl, the first in his Fear Street series, is about a boy’s attempts to woo a ghostly girl at school — a great teen horror primer.
