The 7 Levels of HORROR Books

The book explores the absolute alien nature and sublime terror of an ecosystem that operates completely outside of human comprehension or control. Let's just say it'll literally blow your mind.

This is a brutal gothic novel by one of the greats of the historical fiction genre. This is as gothic as it gets, and it's also as horrifying as it gets because it has nothing to do with anything supernatural.

I'm going to leave it at that because this thing is immense. It is well over a thousand pages. It is a staple of this genre.

Carmilla is one of the creepiest vampire stories ever written and it's on this list for very, very good reason.

These are the classical greats of both the gothic horror and the gothic genre. Anybody who's interested in reading gothic horror needs to start with these two.

These are the classical greats of both the gothic horror and the gothic genre. Anybody who's interested in reading gothic horror needs to start with these two.

There is some graphic details that I'm not going to explain to you, but let's just say this town gets cursed and it gets cursed real good.

I don't think I've ever read a book that held me in rapture the whole time and it just being essentially in one room with two characters. Absolutely brilliant.

This book is one of the scariest novels I've ever read and it's one of my all-time favorite Stephen King novels. You got to check Pet Sematary out. What an ending.

One of the absolute all-time goats to speculative fiction, Ray Bradbury, sucks you in with this awesome coming-of-age story, and you're not going to be able to put this book down. It's short, it's impactful, it's gripping.

When it comes to McDowell, he's not here for the shock value, he's here for the building of the suspense. So, in terms of his books, this is definitely on the more mild side.

What he wants is to have her see the unseen spiritual world and this story unravels into a cosmic folklore nightmare to haunt your dreams for a very, very long time.

I want to leave a lot of the details out because this is also one of those foundational novels to the genre of cosmic horror. We're pretty much nearly at the beginning when it comes to this genre's inception. You're in for a freaking wild ride.

The thing about The King in Yellow is you don't have to read every single short story in this collection. You really only have to read the first four. You can see why it's a staple and classic of this genre.

The atmosphere gradually turns sinister. And I'm going to leave it there because you guys are going to have to read this for yourself. It gets unhinged in a cozy sort of way.

It is completely psychological to its core, and it will have you guessing at every twist and turn. You will feel unsettled the entire time, and you will not be able to put it down once you pick it up.

It also is a fantastic look into how groupthink can slowly metastasize and destroy a community from within, where people are willing to give up certain freedoms and things in order to feel safe. This book had me guessing. It's completely underrated here on BookTube.

The story centers on this forest and to describe what this forest is like, I feel would be ruining the plot of the story, but let's just say it's a struggle between man and nature. It's quite thought-provoking, so strap in.

It was creepy from the very beginning. Just how remote this farmhouse is, how remote this community is, what's going on inside a locked room. It leaves so many things unanswered.

If there's anything that Darcy Coates is the queen at, it's making that comfortably scary atmosphere come to life. She's one of the greats at this for a reason.

This is again one of my favorite horror novels I think I've ever read. Ms. Siddons only wrote the one horror novel and it stands out amongst its peers of the haunted house genre because this is a modern house.

It's wild, it's trippy, you're going to love it.

It's psychological in all of the right way, keeping you on the edge of your seat, senses raised kind of a It's It's crazy. Just freaking read it, man.

Yeah, this book is awesome, dude. I swear. It had all the right things going for it for cosmic horror.

This book is as gothic as it gets and it is also as horrifying as it gets for this subgenre. So, enjoy.