13 Terrifying YA Books To Scare You This Halloween

So not all of us want to go out and party to our heart’s content this Halloween. Instead, we’ll be ignoring the doorbell, settling down with those fizzy Haribo sweets and escaping the outside world with a good book.

We’ve chosen some Halloween inspired YA reads guaranteed to thrill ‘n’ chill.

There’s Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins

Makani Young is still adjusting to her new life after moving to Nebraska from Hawaii. However, one by one the students begin to die in a series of gruesome murders and Makani doesn't know who's next on the list. This school year may turn out to be one to die for... literally.

Amity by Micol Ostow

When Connor's family moves to Amity, a secluded house on the peaceful banks of New England's Concord River, his nights are plagued with gore-filled dreams of demons, destruction, and revenge. Dreams he kind of likes. Dreams he could make real, with Amity's help.

Ten years later, Gwen's family moves to Amity for a fresh start. Instead, she's haunted by lurid visions, disturbing voices, and questions about her own sanity. But who would ever believe her? And what could be done if they did?

Because Amity isn't just a house. She is a living force, bent on manipulating her inhabitants to her twisted will. She will use Connor and Gwen to bring about a violent end as she's done before.

Inspired by a true-crime story, Amity spans generations to weave an overlapping, interconnected tale of terror, insanity, danger, and death.

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake

In every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born: three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. But becoming the Queen Crowned isn't solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister must fight for it, starting on the night they turn sixteen...

Final Girls by Riley Sager

FIRST THERE WERE THREE, THEN THERE WERE TWO, CAN THERE ONLY EVER BE ONE?

The media calls them the Final Girls – Quincy, Sam, Lisa – the infamous group that no one wants to be part of. The sole survivors of three separate killing sprees, they are linked by their shared trauma. But when Lisa dies in mysterious circumstances and Sam shows up unannounced on her doorstep, Quincy must admit that she doesn’t really know anything about the other Final Girls. Can she trust them? Or...
All Quincy knows is one thing: she is next.

Re-Made by Alex Scarrow

Leon and his younger sister, Grace, have recently moved to London from New York and are struggling to settle into their new school when rumours of an unidentified virus in Africa begin to fill the news. Within a week the virus hits London. The siblings witness people turning to liquid before their eyes, and they run for their lives. But the virus isn't their only enemy, and survival is just the first step…

The Call by Peadar O’Guilin

Imagine a world where you might disappear any minute, only to find yourself alone in a grey sickly land, with more horrors in it than you would ever wish to know about. And then you hear a horn and you know that whoever lives in this hell has got your scent and the hunt has already begun.

Could you survive the Call?

Spiders by Tom Hoyle

Adam may have survived once, but a cult still has him in its sights. And this time he may not escape with his life...

Abbie's dad is an undercover agent, tasked with exposing dangerous cults. He's normally able to maintain his distance, but this time Abbie's worried he's in too deep.

Megan was sure she and Adam were safe, but now he's gone missing on a school ski trip in Scotland and she's the only one who can help him...

The web is closing in around them...

And the Trees Crept In by Dawn Kurtagich                 

When Silla and Nori arrive at their aunt's home, it's immediately clear that the "blood manor" is cursed. The creaking of the house and the stillness of the woods surrounding them would be enough of a sign, but there are secrets too--the questions that Silla can't ignore: Who is the beautiful boy that's appeared from the woods? Who is the man that her little sister sees, but no one else? And why does it seem that, ever since they arrived, the trees have been creeping closer? 

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl by Paige McKenzie

Something freaky's going on with Sunshine's new house... there's the chill that wraps itself around her bones, the giggling she can hear in the dead of night, and then the strange shadows that lurk in her photographs. But the more weird stuff that happens, the less her mum believes her. . .

As things become more frightening and dangerous, and the giggles she hears turn to sobs and screams, Sunshine has no choice but to accept what she is, face the test before her and save her mother from a fate worse than death.

The Merciless by Danielle Vega

Brooklyn Stevens sits in a pool of her own blood, tied up and gagged. No one outside of these dank basement walls knows she’s here. No one can hear her scream.

Sofia Flores knows she shouldn’t have gotten involved. When she befriended Riley, Grace, and Alexis on her first day at school, she admired them, with their perfect hair and their good-girl ways. They said they wanted to save Brooklyn. They wanted to help her. Sofia didn’t realize they believed Brooklyn was possessed.

Now, Riley and the girls are performing an exorcism on Brooklyn—but their idea of an exorcism is closer to torture than salvation. All Sofia wants is to get out of this house. But there is no way out. Sofia can’t go against the other girls…unless she wants to be next.

The End Games by T Michael Martin

It happened on Halloween.

The world ended.

And a dangerous Game brought it back to life.

Seventeen-year-old Michael and his five-year-old brother, Patrick, have been battling monsters in The Game for weeks. In the rural mountains of West Virginia, armed with only their rifle and their love for each other, the brothers follow Instructions from the mysterious Game Master. They spend their days searching for survivors, their nights fighting endless hordes of “Bellows”—creatures that roam the dark, roaring for flesh. And at this Game, Michael and Patrick are very good.

But The Game is changing, and the Bellows are evolving …

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would "unwind" them

Connor's parents want to be rid of him because he's a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev's unwinding has been planned since his birth, as part of his family's strict religion. Brought together by chance, and kept together by desperation, these three unlikely companions make a harrowing cross-country journey, knowing their lives hang in the balance. If they can survive until their eighteenth birthday, they can't be harmed -- but when every piece of them, from their hands to their hearts, are wanted by a world gone mad, eighteen seems far, far away...

Blood and Salt by Kim Liggett

The last words Ash hears her mother say are, "When you fall in love, you will carve out your heart and throw it into the deepest ocean. You will be all in--blood and salt."

Determined to find her mother when she disappears, Ash follows her to Quivara, Kansas, the spiritual commune she escaped long ago. But something sinister and ancient waits among the rustling cornstalks of this village lost to time, where charming traditions have given way to a string of deaths …

As the community prepares for a ceremony five hundred years in the making, Ash fights to save her mother, her lover, and herself. She must discover the truth about Quivara before it's too late. Before she's all in--blood and salt.

Now let's all get checking out Munroe Bergdorf opening up a discussion about racism...