Recommendations don't necessarily need to be in a similar setting / genre as my favorites – but I am partial to a good mystery/thriller and horror. I'm really just looking for something that is well written, has a smaller cast of very fleshed out characters, and is longer than your average fiction book. I prefer intimate stories that explore the psyches of the main characters – with a touch of existentialism.
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"Night Film" by Marisha Pessl – This is my all-time favorite book because I'm a film nerd at heart, and this one focuses on an obsessive director who creates extreme horror movies that only release in underground and online clubs. I really love in-depth investigative mysteries like this.
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"Dracula" by Bram Stoker – This book got me back into reading after college and has always been special to me because of it's unique, gothic atmosphere.
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"Something Wicked this Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury – I really love coming of age stories, and this one was just so atmospheric and added the perfect amount of supernatural elements while exploring the kid's emergence into the outside world.
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"Little Heaven" (as well as all of Nick Cutter's novels) – My current favorite author. His style of writing is so poetic and grotesque in the most beautiful way while exploring the more "Lovecraft-ian" side of horror.
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"Silence of the Lambs" by Thomas Harris – One of my all-time favorite movies! I love the atmospheric, slow-burn horror elements at play behind the scenes!
Other books I DID like: "IT" by Stephen King ; "Annihilation" by Jeff VanderMeer ; "Summer of Night" and "A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons ; "Fevre Dream" by George R.R. Martin
Books I've tried that I DIDN'T like: "Dune" , "The Hollow Places" by T. Kingfisher . "Abandon" by Blake Crouch , "The Giver" by Lois Lowry , "Rooms" by James L. Rubart , "Graveyard Shift" by M.L. Rio ,
Turn-offs: Young Adult (Genre) ; any other Stephen King books besides "IT" ; poor writing ; complex magic systems
by CaptainKrakenBeard
5 Comments
Have you read the original Frankenstein? ( I know it’s not that long but you said you enjoyed Dracula)
Check out The Passage-
Red Rising was also a fun book.
Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon. One of the few books where every word is perfect IMO. It’s a coming-of-age story with elements of magical realism.
Have you read Dorothy Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries? They’re classics of the genre. They were written and set in the 1920s and 1930s. Great characters.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke has a tiny cast of characters and the psych of Piranesi is quite interesting.
Have you read any Cormac McCarthy? His writing is pretty stunning. No Country for Old Men is an approachable entry point.
Haven’t read it yet but Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones may hit the things you like, and has been getting a lot of love lately.