Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is: Recommend one horror novel for non-horror readers.
Well, I’m a non-horror reader, so I suppose I can recommend the very few horror novels I’ve read! My Stephen King reading stands only at Secret Window, Secret Garden, which I read long ago after the movie came out–I remember it being pretty good, though I thought King had a cleverer ending, only the movie told theirs better. Make of that what you will!
I’ve done a few classic horror books. I didn’t find Stoker’s Dracula very disturbing. A friend who read the book alone late at night disagreed though, so your experience may vary!
I think Frankenstein is considered very early sci fi, but if it can be considered horror, I did like that one very much–despite the fact that I hated Victor Frankenstein, the narrator. One of the cleverest things I’ve seen on Facebook was a meme reading “Knowledge is knowing that Frankenstein is not the Monster. Wisdom is knowing that Frankenstein is the monster.”
Gothic is not exactly horror (ish?) but I greatly enjoy Northanger Abbey, Austen’s gothic parody. It gets a bad rap somehow, but it’s my favorite!
And perhaps Gaston Leroux’s classic Phantom of the Opera would fall into the horror category too. An interesting read, though more interesting through the lens of the versions that came afterwards. I really wonder, had no one made the Lon Chaney silent Phantom, if Leroux’s book would have quietly sunk into obscurity. But I’m glad it didn’t!
Do you have a favorite horror read to recommend for non-horror readers like me?
Cheryl, I love Frankenstein and I don’t think Victor Frankenstein is meant to be likable! What I really love about the novel is how Mary Shelley has us questioning who is the monster?!
I took a Gothic Novel and Horror Fiction class in college. I didn’t think Dracula was scary. That one was a very fun read. Northanger Abbey is technically considered a gothic novel (even if it is a parody), love that one. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was a quick read and not really scary. I definitely do NOT recommend reading Stephen King late at night. Made that mistake when we were reading The Shining