9 Spooky Books I Read in May ๐ปHorror, Haunts & WTF Did I Just Read?! Book Wrap-Up โจ๐
It was a bumper month of horror and spooky books! Join me for a dive into the 9 chilling reads I tackled in May, from disturbing hauntings and gothic body horror to dark academia nightmares. Including a contender for one of my best books of 2025โฆ โจ๐
๐ค Don’t forget to like, comment & subscribe for more spooky book content every month.
๐ Need some book recommendations & frivolity?
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00:00 Intro
02:07 Fiend
05:14 Heart-Shaped Box
13:50 Bat Eater & Other Names for Cora Zeng
19:10 Tell Me What You Did
22:42 Dangerous
25:23 When The Wolf Comes Home
30:10 The Library at Hellebore
34:50 Carrion Crow
42:05 And Then There Were None
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Awesome again!โค I would definitely add one more Joe Hill to the list, my intro to him was Horns and I liked it so much more than โค๐. Much better than the movie adaptation but still pretty disturbing.
The Innocents is my favorite
So is Heart Shaped Box a NO on the animal scale?
I love you so much!!!! cough, cough I mean…..thank YOU for everything YOU do!
You hit the nail on the head with the difference between disturbing and scary. 100% agree. I prefer scary.
new to your channel. Love the books you read so I'm here for the spooky ride.
I so enjoy your reviews! Oh goodness when the wolf comes home was so freaking good, loved every wild step of it. It keeps popping into my brain, the horror was incredible and fresh and the story was so good. I can see a reread within months for this one.
That was a trip. Stay hydrated. I am off to read what youโve recommended.
Read heart shaped box many years ago and it scared the crap out of me. Not sure it would be the same for me now but at the time it gave me nightmares.
Just finished Carrion Crow from your review, was a great read. Soo bleak and depressing, I loved it ๐
The books I read in May were____๐ป
-When the wolf come home by Nat Cassidy 5โญ(Highly Recommend)๐
– It's a good life by Jerome Bixby (short story)5โญ
-Here Lies a Vengeful Bitch by Codie Crowley 3โญ
– Confessions by Kanae Minato 4โญ
-Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito 5โญ
-Mister Magic by Kiersten White 3โญ
-Intercepts by T.J. Payne 4โญ
-Bat Eater and other names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker 4โญ
This is how I felt about Black Phone by Joe Hill. I couldn't tell at the end if it stuck with me because I was scared or just disturbed.
new subscriber here, love your channel!
Just finished September House after seeing one of your videos on Saturday, here for more great recommendations โค
I love your long videos and thank you for the additional reading recs! May was more of a nonfiction month for me (surprisingly!), but as far as horror went I also listened to Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng on audiobook and I thought the narrator did a fantastic job! I also read Don't Let The Forest In by CG Drews, which I found disappointing in comparison to all the hype around it, and A Lonely Broadcast by Kel Byron which I had more fun with.
I canโt do Joe Hill books.
Just found your channel, and I love how you talk about books. I'm always looking for more content creators who read horror/thrillers. I'm going to try to get to Bat Eater this month, I keep hearing great things about it.
I want to read Heart Shaped Box but the dog warning is completely preventing me from taking the plunge!! ๐ฌ i don't want to be destroyed emotionally lol
I read Heart Shaped Box when it first came out, before I knew who Joe Hillโs father was, and my thought at the time was that this was the first Gen X horror novel. That was because the main character was a metal rock star and that he bought the suit off the internet. Plus, it just had that feel, I donโt know how to explain it. I forgot about the misogyny but, now that Iโm reminded, I grew up loving my heavy metal and glam bands, and naming the girlfriends after the states they were from felt accurate to the misogyny of those bands so it didnโt bother me because it felt authentic. Iโve read some of his graphic novel series, Locke & Key, which has a very cool haunted house concept but it just didnโt keep me wanting to read more. Iโve read most of NOS4A2 but I DNFโd it at 500ish pages because it was just too long. It started out really good, though. I felt like he was trying to mimic his dadโs big books. Thatโs when I stopped reading him.
Could you do sea horror/ sea monsters or anything set in a town/village by the sea please!!!! And ty โบ๏ธ .
I've picked up a couple books you recommended at my library and love them to pieces.
I could listen to you for hours! Youโve a lovely voice! Thank you!
Much as I love a scary book, the things that really frighten me are the disturbing books that show what humans can be capable of, and those are the books I avoid.
I prefer creepy books!โฆ๐ป๐พ
How do you read books that are not out yet? ๐ค
Love your channel – I love horror – thanks for sharing your reviews and your honesty. I could listen to you all day long but when would I have time for the books I want to read!!! ๐ Thanks for being your beautiful you!!
And Then There Were None is BRILLIANT. Absolutely loved it.
I just got Hagstone by Sinรฉad Gleeson that has great gothic, folk horror vibes. Am really interested in reading Bat Eater after your review.
N0S4A2 by Joe Hill is a FANTASTIC audiobook
Hi there, do youโฆor anyone, have any recommendations for a good steampunk type book that also has the gothic/horror vibe to it?
In case anyone else has been wondering if they should read In The Roses of Pieria, I thought I'd throw in my two cents – I did not enjoy it. It's basically just a re-writing of Sheridan LeFanu's Carmilla, but with much less skill, and a lot of sex scenes that are just filler, and don't contribute to the story (unlike, for e.g., the sex scenes in Let The Right One In).
You would love "The unexpected guest" by Agatha Christie
Ive become a fan of your channel due to your sincerity when speaking of these stories you find. I'm sorry I've never seen you before but due to my own mental failings I can't be part of tick tock and the randomness that is shown whether I consent or not. BookTube is my happy place, and I'm a hard person to pull out of her comfort zone. I'm so happy to have found you, and for you to share your sincerity/joy with us. I'd join your covern any day ๐ง(my phone still has no crow emoji) x
Thank you for these awesome videos I truly enjoy all of them! I wanted to talk about Joe Hill with you for a moment as I found that part of the video very interesting. A good friend of mine introduced Joe Hill to me through is 20th Century Ghost Stories (Short Story collection) and I was immediately hooked (one of which was adapted into the movie The Black Phone with Ethan Hawke). I tried my hand at his other books but nothing really grabbed me as much as that short story collection. I personally think Joe gets to the point faster in his stories than his dad which is a positive and a negative. I cannot tell you how many times I have skimmed over chapters of Stephen King that were just rants or descriptions of various things (looking at you The Shining) and just wished the book was trimmed down while I feel Joe tends bring the punches sooner in his books. On the flipside though I did put down Heart-Shaped Box right around page 100 (I cannot remember) when the reveal happened about where the dead man's suit came from and was like "meh the mystery is over". I did the same thing with Horns because it felt like it dragged on. I feel like Joe might have a pacing problem with his longer works but holy moly does that pay off in his short story collections. The one I have mentioned 20th Century Ghost Stories still sits on my shelf and I take it off every once in a while to reread a few of my favorite ones in there because they are WTF and really original pieces of work. So, if you haven't check out his short story collections because they really showcase what Joe Hill is capable of doing in just a few amount of pages. Also, if you do grab it read "The Black Phone", "Pop Art", "Voluntary Committal" I guarantee those stories will stick with you.