We’ve all been there: sitting up in bed at three in the
morning, novel clutched in our hand, the words shivering through us as our
heart beats faster and faster, unable to stop reading, partly because the book
is so good that we have to find out what happens and partly because we are too
afraid to turn out the light. If you don’t know what I’m talking about,
just try reading one of the books on this list. Each one of these Truly
Terrifying YA books inspired me to pull the blanket just a little bit tighter around
me and wonder: Could there be something out there in the darkness?
What it’s about
After growing up on a commune with her
parents, Bliss is living at her grandmother’s house and attending a real school
for the first time. But a childhood spent amongst hippies is no preparation for
navigating the treacherous waters of prep school teens, and a mysterious force
that lurks at Bliss’ new school is looking to take advantage of Bliss’ trusting
nature and latent psychic ability.
Why it’s so scary
The chapters are interspersed with
disturbing diary entries from an unhinged individual attempting to practice
black magic, and the identity of the diarist is kept secret, so every time
Bliss meets a new girl you’re like, Don’t trust her, Bliss! She might be the
one with the horrific diary! Plus, the story takes place in 1969, and the
backdrop of the Manson family murders adds another layer of creepiness and lost
innocence.
What it’s about
When Evie’s childhood friend Zabet is found
murdered in the woods, she pretends that they were still close, drawing the ire
and then interest of Zabet’s actual best friend Hadley. Hadley pulls Evie into
her investigation of Zabet’s death, which quickly becomes an obsession for both
girls.
Why it’s so scary
Hadley and Zabet develop one of those
unhealthy girl friendships that will be immediately familiar to all females,
complete with unhealthy fascinations and shifting power dynamics. Those kinds
of friendships are both thrilling and frightening to be part of in real life,
even without a murder involved.
The Moth Diaries – Rachel Klein
What it’s about
In her diary, the unnamed narrator
chronicles her junior year at boarding school. The year is not going as
planned; her best friend Lucy is neglecting her in favor of the new girl
Ernessa. Soon the narrator’s resentment of Ernessa grows into a full-blown
violent paranoia, colored by her consumption of gothic novels, which further
blur her already fuzzy ability to distinguish reality and fantasy.
Why it’s so scary
The Moth Diaries is like a modern
Northanger Abbey, without the marriage at the end. But the narrator’s fantasies
are based in the dark emotional truth of adolescent girl friendships:
possessiveness, intense attachment, and irrational jealousy. This grounding in
reality makes the fantasy all the more terrifying.
What it’s about
This book is told from the point of view of
Alice, a 15-year-old girl who lives with the pedophile who kidnapped her when
she was 10. But wait: it gets worse. Now that Alice is getting “old,” he wants
to use her to help him trap his next victim.
Why it’s so scary
Did you hear the part about how she has
been living with her kidnapper who has abused her repeatedly for years? Be
forewarned that the author is very explicit about Alice’s abuse, and the result
is horrific and heartrending.
What it’s about
Chloe’s older sister
Ruby is the girl everyone in their small town wants to be or be with. But when
reality starts to twist in a dreamlike blur, Chloe wonders if Ruby is exerting
an unnatural control over the events of all their lives.
Why it’s so scary
Chloe spends the book realizing that the way she’s looked at the world is
completely wrong, that everything she thought was true may not be, and that her
sister, who she loved and worshipped unquestioningly, may not be as superhuman
as she seemed.
What it’s about
When Faye is shipped off to boarding school
for her junior year of high school, she knows it’s because her parents don’t
want to deal with her screaming nightmares, which lately have become full-on
middle-of-the-day hallucinations. But Holbrook Academy is anything but
therapeutic: the campus is surrounded by a barbed wire fence, the teachers
practice corporal punishment, and the security guards carry tasers and pepper
spray. Plus, Faye keeps waking up with red-stained hands, and strange memories
from her childhood are starting to resurface.
Why it’s so scary
Have you ever woken up with red hands and
no memories of the previous evening? Um, me neither. But I imagine it wouldn’t
be a pleasant experience.
What it’s about
When Mara wakes up in the hospital, she has
no memory of the accident that put her there, killing her best friend. Her
doctors and parents tell her that her brain is protecting her from the trauma
and she will remember when she is ready, but Mara doesn’t feel protected; she
suffers from hallucinations so intense that she convinces her family to move to
get away from the tragedy. But her hallucinations follow her, and soon Mara’s new
life in Florida is as surreal as a hallucination. Especially once her memories from
the accident start to return.
Why it’s so scary
This is another one of those books where
the character’s reality is ripped out from under her. Mara realizes that the
image she had of herself and her place in the world is wrong; her true self is
far darker than she ever could have imagined.
What it’s about
When Rory leaves Louisiana to attend
boarding school in London, she arrives to find the city gripped by a Jack theRipper copycat. Soon Rory is plunged into the center of events when she sees a
man police believe to be the killer. But there is a problem: no one else saw
him, not even Rory’s roommate, who was there at the time.
Why it’s so scary
Um, invisible killers? Horrifying. How do
you fight them? Plus, Maureen Johnson is a pro at writing and enthralling and
terrifying action.
What it’s about
When Hanna runs away to find her mother in
Portero, Texas, she doesn’t expect to find a town where ghost sightings are the
norm. Luckily, Hanna has been talking to her dead father for a while now (which
everyone said was just a hallucination), so she is prepared. But she is
completely unprepared for the full horror of the town, and the way that her
mother’s past mistakes will affect her in the future.
Why it’s so scary
When Hanna first gets to Portero, her
mother DOESN’T WANT HER. Devastating. Also, Hanna’s hallucinations may have
made her adjustment to Portero easy, but it’s never clear whether that means
she is actually talking to her dead father or whether she is actually for-real
crazy.
The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking Book 1) – Patrick Ness
What it’s about
The first book in the Chaos Walking series
introduces Todd Hewitt, who lives in an all-male town on a world where an
infection has made it so that all men can hear one another’s thoughts. When
Todd discovers a mysterious girl in the swamp, he starts to question everything
he has ever known; if the noise infection really killed all the women, as he
has been told, then why isn’t this one sick?
Why it’s so scary
Todd and the girl from the swamp are
chased from town to town by violent, angry men whose motives are unclear. Being
chased by unrelenting foes is a classic nightmare. And the bloodcurdling action
in this book (and in the series as a whole) is relentless.
What scary books have kept you reading late into the night?
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