October Horror Reading Challenge Results

My October TBR (to be read) pile

 Typically in October, our household watches a lot of horror movies. To be honest, we watch horror and thrillers all year round, but due to the Halloween season, there's always an onslaught available and we take advantage of that. We also throw in the Universal Classics in black and white for good measure. Frankenstein being my favorite.

This October, I changed it up and decided to try to read 9 horror novels instead. I originally thought 13 for obvious reasons, but remembered this year's mantra of "do less," and thought 7 sounded more reasonable, 9 if I was real lucky. I'm glad I readjusted my overly ambitious expectations, because I forgot just how busy October tends to get.

I didn't make 9, but I did finish 7 and started the 8th. There was not a bad book in the whole bunch, but the level of scary or creepy varied considerably. They all shared dark themes and loads of suspense that kept me turning pages long into the cooling nights. 

Here's a quick summary from my journal: 

And a quick list of titles and authors and my overall rating. The books ranged from fantasy to thriller to horror so much that I couldn't really rate them by "scariness" alone. 

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland (5 stars)

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline (5 stars)

Down Comes The Night by Allison Saft (4 stars)

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (5 stars)

Witches Steeped In Gold by Ciannon Smart (3 stars)

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones (5 stars)

Stolen Tongues by Felix Blackwell (3 stars)

The Near Witch by V.E. Schwab... currently reading but it promising so far! I loved the art so much I pretty much copied it to illustrate my spread in my journal.

My favorite of the bunch was House of Hollow because of the characters and overall creepy, unique world Allison Saft created. The creepiest was a toss up between The Only Good Indians and Stolen Tongues. The biggest disappointment was Stolen Tongues because despite the high level of scariness and overall good writing, I didn't like the ending. Still, it was a good enough read that I finished them all and would recommend them all.

So that's all I have for you, ghouls and goblins. Tell me, what horrors or spooks did you read this Halloween season that I missed?