Reviews by Category: Horror

Staff Review

The Girl From the Well

By Rin Chupeco
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by Jennifer R.
Apr 27, 2015

Okiku is a vengeance spirit. Her story is the one that inspired countless Japanese films and horror stories, and now it's her turn to tell it. Okiku spends her days traveling the world seeking out child-murders and giving them her form of justice (often involving drowning and/or the ripping off of heads). She's content with this existence until she meets Tark. The boy with the strange tattoos and the demon on his back. Tark ignites feelings that Okiku hasn't experienced in over 300 years, and she's not about to let some demon take them away so easily. 

Staff Review
Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

Through the Woods

By Emily Carroll
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by Kate M.
Dec 31, 2014

A strikingly illustrated graphic novel featuring short horror stories told in bold blacks, reds, blues and whites. The stories are ones that will stay with you. Each story felt familiar to me, probably inspired by classic fairy tales but each has its own horrific twist. One of my favorites has tones of Little Red Riding Hood, about a girl traveling through the woods to her mother’s house. Her father warns her to travel fast to avoid the wolves in the forest. She travels over hills, between the trees and safely reaches her mother’s home.

Staff Review

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

By Holly Black
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by Josh N.
Jul 3, 2014

When I was in elementary school, I read many, many books on monsters and the paranormal. Books about ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, mummies, werewolves...and vampires. Outside of books, there wasn't a lot to see with vampires at the time. You might catch classic Universal monster movies or the later, bloodier Hammer horror movies on late night TV (assuming you could convince your parents to let you stay up that late).

Staff Review

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

By Holly Black

Rated by Library Staff (not verified)
Nov 16, 2013

When seventeen-year-old Tana wakes up hungover from a wild party at a remote farmhouse, surrounded by dead classmates, she thinks things can't get any worse...until she discovers a mysterious vampire named Gavriel chained up in the same room as her bitten ex-boyfriend Aiden, who is about to turn into a full-fledged bloodsucker at any moment.

Staff Review

I Am Legend

By Richard Matheson
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by Kate M.
Jul 11, 2013

Robert is the last man in New York City after a massive epidemic that turned everyone into vampires. By day he sharpens stakes, makes runs to the abandoned grocery stores for dry goods, and maintains his generator and the protections around his house. By night they come. Crowding around the doors and windows they call to him, begging him to come outside. The loneliness is enough to drive a man insane, but to have to listen to them every night is almost too much for Robert.

Staff Review

Goodbye William Sleator

By Kate M.
Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by Kate M.
Aug 5, 2011

Earlier this week, readers everywhere were saddened to hear about the death of author William Sleator.

The Harvard graduate, and classical pianist, was well known for writing macabre and scary stories for kids and teens. His book House of Stairs was widely read and critically acclaimed book about a group of teens who are trapped in a house containing nothing but endless flights of stairs. Sleator described his books as "gleefully icky", and that they were, creepy and gross and fantastic!

Staff Review

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

By Seth Grahame Smith
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by Kate M.
Aug 11, 2009

The romantic classic with ultra violent zombie mayhem! Think, jaded boyfriend forced to read sappy, period love story by (now ex) girlfriend and wants to get back all all women for upholding unrealistic ideas romance, inspired by the original Pride and Prejudice.

Pride and Prejudice = Awesome. Zombies = Awesome. Pride and Prejudice + Zombies = Really Awesome.

Staff Review

Coraline

By Neil Gaiman
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by Kate M.
Feb 11, 2009

Coraline is already bored with her new apartment. She has explored every inch of the tiny space, until she discovers a door that wasn't there the first time she looked. The door leads Coraline to the Other World where she meets her Other Mother and Other Father, far more interesting versions of her parents with black buttons for eyes. Coraline spends the day exploring the Other World and when she is ready to leave her Other Mother offers to let Coraline stay in the Other World forever...if she sews buttons over her eyes.

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