Friday 23 April 2010

The Horrors of Growing Up, Reading List

Growing up can be hard. Especially when there's an author out there determined to throw all sorts of horrific things your way. Here's a list of books with young protagonists, trying to grow up around events that would make others curl up and want to die.

The list includes several teen novels (I couldn't find enough in the adult horror section to fill the endcap. I also added Push by Sapphire because the protagonist's life, as told in the first few pages, horrified me).

As with my other reading lists, this one's not meant to be comprehensive, though if you can think of a book that matches the criteria feel free to leave it in the comments.

Flowers in the Attic – V.C. Andrews

Thief of Always – Clive Barker

Peter Pan – J. M. Barrie

Something Wicked This Way Comes – Ray Bradbury

Child Thief – Brom

Ender's Game – Orson Scott Card

Lost Boys – Orson Scott Card

Neverland – Douglas Clegg

The Gates – John Connolly

Coraline – Neil Gaiman

The Devouring – Simon Holt

The Reach – Nate Kenyon

The Shining – Stephen King (and a lot of other books by King)

Let the Right One In – John Lindqvist

Another Faust – Daniel Nayeri

Wishing Game – Patrick Redmond

Forest of Hands and Teeth – Carrie Ryan

Push – Sapphire

Shadows – John Saul (all John Saul books)

Cirque du Freak – Darren Shan

Unwind – Neal Shusterman

Talisman – Peter Straub & Stephen King


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about the harry potter series!

Also The Turquoise mask by phyllis A Whitney.

Peter pan seems a little tame when compared to the lost boys etc. i guess i never really thot of those pirates as bad, just annoying peter and his friends. Sort of like jeta, on clifford the big dog- she's annoying but not evil.
- karin

Jessica Strider said...

I considered putting Harry Potter up but wanted things with a more horror slant. Still, it fits. Never heard of The Turquoise Mask before. I looked it up and it's out of print. Sounds interesting though, and definitely fits the theme. As for Peter Pan, the book's a lot darker than the movies, and it goes with Brom's Child Thief, so I threw it in. I was considering Pinocchio, but I've not read that so I wasn't sure if it fit. I've heard it's pretty dark. Then again, he's not a 'real boy'...

Thanks for reading my blog!

Anonymous said...

whitney writes/ wrote romantic thrillers. the TM was the one that really scared me! Didn't read more of her stuff for a long time afterwards.

guess i'll hae to reread peter pan again.
-karin