T = Terror

This post is for the book lovers who love what goes bump in the night.

I feel like horror can be broken down into its subjects: ghosts, monsters, murderers, and psychological. There may be more out there, but personally I love a good supernatural horror, something that contains ghosts or monsters. And while I have an attraction to the paranormal, the human-on-human violence that takes place in murder-horror is too rich for my blood.

As far as ghost stories go, I can recommend The Summer of Night by Dan Simmons, it is the first horror novel that truly scared me as I read it. Seriously, it contributed to a couple of sleepless nights. A group of kids go to war with an evil entity... There are a lot of people that compare it to Stephen King's It having never read It, I can't tell you whether that's an accurate comparison or not. There's also The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones, where on the anniversary of a terrible deed a group of friends fall prey to a vengeful spirit.

If monsters are more your thing, I can recommend classics like Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Dracula by Bram Stoker, both novels stood the test of time for good reason. For modern day monster books, I'd recommend World War Z by Max Brooks or The Passage by Justin Cronin; both are dystopias with death-of-civilization by monster.

I think I've only read one human-on-human horror and that was because it was written by my favorite horror novelist, John Ajvide Lindqvist. It was called Little Star, with some serious nature vs nurture vibes it's the ultimate mean-girl story and it scared the crap out of me. You'll never look at kids the same way again.

Quite frankly, I can't understand what it is in us that makes us want to be afraid. I can't speak much on the subject; I can't offer you any profound insights. My one psychology class in college didn't cover why people purposely seek out the heebie-jeebies, nor did any of my literature classes. While I wouldn't call myself a hardcore fan of horror novels, I do occasionally read them.

What's your favorite kind of horror story? Can you name a favorite horror novel?