For the next seven days, we will feature a link to a blog. Each blogger will post up a discussion, or a book review, pertaining to the season. The wonderful and giddy readers will collect candy from each blogger by reading the post. In each post, the blogger has listed their favorite candy – keep track of the name for each blog! On Halloween, we will start the giveaway (two winners of awesome book packages you absolutely want!!), and the entries will be the names of each candy!
Keep an eye out for each link, and above all, stay safe and have fun! And yes, the giveaway will be International! As long as you are from a country The Book Depository ships to!
So being scared/horror is a new ballgame for me. I spent the majority of my twenty-something years avoiding any and all kind of scary movies, books, or tv shows. As I've read more books and been forced to watch more frightening fare, I've found some fun things I'd've missed.
Zombies
oooh, the undead. The alive again. The cannibalistic, mindless monsters that seem to be ever more popular in pop culture!
Books to read:
This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers (contemplative YA zombie novel)
World War Z by Max Brooks (overhyped but still worth reading)
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion (funny, weird, features a zombie-human relationship)
Feed by Mira Grant (hardhitting, visceral, suspenseful zombie novel)
Avoid: Hollowland by Amanda Hocking (boring, badly written), The Infects by Sean Beaudoin (weird, and disappointing)
Shows to watch:
The Walking Dead on AMC (gore, character drama, more gore, Daryl)
Pushing Daisies (a piemaker can touch the dead and return them to life. Not "real" zombies, but they were dead and then alive again. I'm counting it.)
Supernatural on the CW (never zombies per se, but they've dealt with all kinds of re-alive entities)
Avoid: Zombieland from Amazon (though that did NOT last very long)
Movies to view:
Shaun of the Dead (this movie is pretty much the perfect marriage of horror and humor)
Zombieland (dry, sarcastic, awesome version of a zombie apocalypse)
Dead Snow (pretty much exactly what you would expect from a Nazi zombie movie)
Avoid: World War Z (overhyped but admittedly still somehow watchable)
Vampires.
Hard enough to believe, but there are some good vampire novels/shows/movies out there. They are just really, really hard to find.
Books to read:
The Immortal Rules/The Eternity Cure by Julie Kagawa (harsh, evil vampires in a post-apocalyptic world. It can get intense!)
Blood Rights by Kristen Painter (dense evil vamp-centric worldbuilding but so interesting!)
Avoid: pretty much everything else.
Shows to watch:
The Vampire Diaries on the CW (campy fun and there are a lot of pretty people to watch)
True Blood on HBO (ridiculous, and insane and yet hard to quit)
Supernatural on the Cw (Sam and Dean have taken down a LOT of vamps over the years)
Movies to view:
The Twilight series (everyone has to at least once and make a drinking game of it!)
Avoid: so many.
Aliens/Otherwordly Beings.
Nothing scares me more than aliens, to this stay. I don't read a lot of alien/space horror because that way lies madness.
Books to read:
172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad (bit of a slow starter, but this one is pretty freaky and I didn't like reading it while I was home alone)
Midnight City by J. Barton Mitchell (not so much horror as post-apocalyptic/dystopia but there are unfriendly beings from outer space)
Shows to watch:
Defiance on Syfy (I usually fall asleep before this airs, but I'm intrigued in what I have seen)
Falling Skies on TNT (I can't even make myself watch this but it comes highly recommended by the boyfriend)
Movies to view:
Alien. (Clearly)
Altered. (An alien vs. hick movie. It is horrible and amazing.)
Other humans.
Humans are freaky. The best kind of horror is that which seems plausible, and humans visiting horrors on one another is nothing new.
Books to read:
The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman (one small town goes insane and murderous and a group of teens has to escape and/or survive)
I Hunt Killers/Game by Barry Lyga (not a typical horror, but the way Jasper was raised and the way he applies is knowledge is pretty chilling)
Unwind by Neal Shusterman (this ties back to those horrible things people to do one another that I mentioned. This book is horrific.)
Shows to watch:
Dexter on Showtime (but only really pay attention to the first five season. Then don't bother.)
Supernatural on the CW (Dude. The Benders. That's all I have to say)
Avoid: The Dome
Anyway. In my small experience, reading/watching any one of these with peanut butter M&Ms is the best way to get into a Halloween state of mind.
Happy Halloween and good luck!
Thanks for the recommendations.
ReplyDeleteSome nice recommendations there! I've really been wanting to read I Hunt Killers, and didn't realise there was a more sinister side to it! Kind of makes me even more interested in it haha
ReplyDeleteOhhh, great! I always love recommendations.
ReplyDeleteI love This is not a test and I'm currently reading Feed. I recently started in The Walking dead (finally) and it's awesome, but scary. I want to see Supernatural and I yes, the movie Zombieland is so cool. I'm still interested in World War Z.
The immortal rules <3 Haha, I think there are more interesting vampire books out there than only this one! Vampire Diaries was very good in the beginning, but it starting to get a little.. too much.
I don't read many alien books, but Midnight city sounds good.
Humans can be freaky, haha. The walking dark, Unwind, I hunt killers, all on my TBR list! And I just started Dexter. I need to get used to the way they filmed it, but I love the concept.