Ranking every haunted house book I've ever read (from worst to best)

hello creeps Andy here and today I wanted to provide a full list for you ranking every Haunted House book I've ever read that I can find there might be a few that I've missed but I've looked through all of the books that I've read this year and I did a quick scan of my bookshelf and this is what I came up with so I placed them into ghost related categories and I'm gonna go through them and give you a quick synopsis of each I hope this can be helpful because even if a book is in a category that I didn't personally enjoy I'll give a quick synopsis and hopefully you know whoever thinks that that book is interesting can go and pick it up I'm hoping that this can help you you know get into the mood of spooky season and pick up some spooky haunted books I will say haunted house stories usually are not for me a lot of the ones that are really popular and that people love Ridley just didn't do anything for me I will tell you I guess my issues with some of them but um I do have a few that really blew me away and surprised me and I feel like we're different and added something to the genre and then real quick these are all places that are haunted so these aren't ghost stories these are like haunted location stories so let's just get into it my first category is Boo ring and there's only one book in this category and to be honest I do just have beef with this book this is by Henry James and it's the turn of the screw turn of the screw was first published in 1898. so it's an old guy it's about a person like a nanny who goes and watches children and thinks that the house is haunted it was made into well it was Loosely based on this and I can't remember even what the the maybe I'll just Google it Netflix show turn of the screw it wasn't called that was called something else The Haunting of Bly Manor I mean it's a story that's inspired a million different things but that's the most recent one but here's my issue with this book it's the writing it's not even that the story was necessarily bad but I cannot stand this these like long run-on stream of Consciousness type sentences it kind of reminds me of song to myself who wrote that Walt Whitman I don't know but that song song poem drives me absolutely insane because it's just a stream of Consciousness this is kind of the same thing this is one sentence the first sentence from the turn of the screw it says the story had held us round the fire sufficiently breathless but accept the obvious remark that it was gruesome as on Christmas Eve in an old house a strange tale should essentially be I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to note it as on the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child that's one sentence and that this is how the entire story is written here's the second sentence the case I may mention was that of an apparition in just such an old house as had gathered us for this occasion an appearance of a dreadful kind to a little boy sleeping in a room with his mother and waking her up in Terror of it waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothe him to sleep again but to encounter also herself before she had succeeded in doing so the same site that had shocked him like it's just absurd the way that this is written and I know you're thinking it's an old book but no I've read books from the 1800s before and they do not drive me crazy quite like Henry James does I would rather give myself a lobotomy than read this again so this is obviously personal preference and I do think it's a cool story to check out to see books that you know be gay and the horror genre in the late 1800s however the writing style just drives me absolutely nuts I'm glad that I read it don't think I'll pick up any Henry James anytime soon thank you no thank you our next category yes I wrote them on little pieces of paper so that I could remember them the next category is what would possess you to read that get it possessed because it's ghosts I'm so funny so these are books that really really are not for me and they're not books that I would necessarily recommend however I do think that they do have audiences that enjoy them and so I still wanted to include them in this one the first one is Peter Straub's ghost story and this one is maybe the only one that doesn't quite fit into the category of just a specific Place being haunted it's more people being haunted but there are definitely experiences in houses that happen that I feel like it fits into also what I'm talking about with haunted locations it's about friends that come together and they try to figure out a story that's been haunting them for a long time and it seems like a cool concept and I liked the idea they're like older gentlemen who get together and tell Ghost Stories the concept was really cool but this was just not for me and I read it actually I did a whole video on this I'll leave it linked down below because this is supposedly Stephen King's favorite horror book ever written so I was like it must be so good and maybe the issue is I just hyped it up in my head but there's a lot of odd choices that happen particularly towards the end of the book if you've read this book perhaps you will know I won't give anything away I will also say my other main issue with this book was and this is an issue that I have with a lot of haunted location books if a ghost can just like walk through walls and blow up a house and get into your mind and make you see things then there's no real basis for reality for the reader to stand on and accept these like different rules that are in the book because there are no rules you know what I mean like the ghost can essentially do anything it wants anything you can get inside your head and make you hallucinate and see things not even in a haunted place but anywhere then how is the reader to know what's real and what's actually happening in the book and so I think that a lot of the times ghost stories kind of throw me off kilter because there are no set of rules that can Define what the ghost does in the story and that kind of gets to me a little bit and maybe I overthink it too much but that definitely happened in this book I kept thinking is this really happening or is this ghost just messing with these people there are no bounds for this ghost it seems and it seems like it can do anything and then with the end not paying off at all with how the rest of the story went it just didn't really make a whole lot of sense to me that is not to say that other people wouldn't enjoy this book it just was not for me the next one I think I've talked about before this is Grady Hendricks how to sell a haunted house and that's what it is it's about selling a haunted house it's these people that are trying to sell a haunted house after their parents passed away and they come to find out that the house is haunted but the thing is it's not haunted by ghosts it's haunted by dolls and so I was just totally thrown off by this book it's really really well written and I think this is my first Grady Hendrix book I read so I didn't quite understand his writing style going into it now that I know it I feel more prepared for the next book that I pick up and I do have quite a few of his books that I want to read but this one was just not at all what I thought it was and Dolls just don't scare me they don't creep me out I do not think that they're scary at all in reading the book it just felt more silly than spooky and that's totally fine and people might find that really entertaining like it is a fun light maybe introduction to horror reading book but just not at all what I expected from it our next category here is let's get this party star dead dead because they're ghosts okay basically these are books that I think I'm happy I read or were worth the read maybe weren't books for me but I think definitely well I know are books for other people and I'll just go through these really quick most of them are Darcy coats Books Okay so the first one is Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House this is about people that go and stay in a haunted house you have a doctor he's an occult scholar and he's looking for evidence of psychic phenomenon and then you have a few other people who are joining him and this is kind of another one of those books where it's a classic and it's inspired so many things that I think it's definitely worth checking out but it's also one of those where I'm like what is happening it honestly confused me reading this a little bit and I feel like I'm definitely an outlier in most people this is their favorite Shirley Jackson book and it's not that it's poorly written I love Shirley Jackson's work I prefer we have always lived in this castle that's my favorite of her work and that one is more Bound in reality and I think a little bit easier to digest this one again just like the weird stuff that the ghosts do and you know we're ramping up the horror in these books and getting more towards the books that I really really enjoyed I still enjoyed reading this one but it just wasn't quite for me I might get some people unsubscribing when I talk about this one but hell house by Richard Matheson this is another one it's almost kind of the same concept accept where there's somebody that's trying to prove that ghosts exist and so there's a few people staying in this house to kind of try to get an idea of how to produce evidence that a ghost exists in this Hell House and again it's one of those where it's just like the ghost can do anything they want they can possess you and make you do things they can make you see things they can make you hear things and it's just like then what is real and so this was another one that yeah a lot of people really enjoy and don't get me wrong I think also with these they probably were extraordinary works from their times I'm pretty sure this was published in the 70s if I'm not mistaken 71. the Shirley Jackson was published in 59 so these are definitely works that I feel like inspired the horror genre in and of themselves however in 2023 I just feel like there's better options for horror books again glad I read it um it is one that has inspired a lot of things things but it just was not for me the next three are actually Darcy Coates books which I know surprising that these ones would be in this type of category but I have a reason for each of them the first one is Craven Manor by Darcy Coates it's about a boy who gets asked to be kind of like the groundskeeper of this dilapidated Haunted Mansion but this one definitely dives into the realm of fantasy a lot more than just ghosts like there are apparitions and shape-shifters and oh and maybe even some dragons and stuff I don't quite remember but fantasy is just not for me I cannot get into it it is not for me if you do enjoy fantasy and you want something that's light horror this absolutely will be in your area but I am just not a fan of any sort of fantasy in that sense it just does not keep my attention that was probably my least favorite favorite Darcy coats not because it's a bad book because it just honestly was not for for me and same with this one the full craft goes this is where two kids go and stay with their grandparents who they've never met because their mother has gotten in a car accident I think she's in a coma or something and this one was one of the Darcy Coates books that felt very different from all other Darcy Coates books that I read her books are very fast-paced they keep you engaged every single ending of a chapter is a page Turner and this book wasn't really like that it was really really just kind of like surface level style book where not much is going on and I think that it's cool and I'm glad that I read it because I do feel like it's cool to see kind of the beginning works of a horror writer and then what they are writing currently I think that it's really cool to be able to follow her progress but this does seem like it was maybe one of her earlier works that just isn't as fully fleshed out as her other works were and then the last one in this category is the haunting of Ashburn house I have to look at the backs because there are a million Darcy Coates Haunted Books so I want to get them right this is about a girl who inherits a house from her her dead grandmother who she hasn't seen since she was a child her mother had passed away so everything's kind of skewed as to what happened in the past and who her grandmother really was this again it it's not I wouldn't say fantasy but it's definitely more on the like strange side where things pop up and do weird things and you're like it's not really a ghost story you know what I mean like there's there's a other elements in here that aren't just a typical ghost story which isn't a bad thing but there's like I don't know it felt like kind of like a witch popping up and doing witchy things and I just wasn't that into this one as well now you guys know I love darthy coats I would never talk badly about her books those ones just weren't my favorite of her stories I still think that they were worth reading and I think every Darcy coach book is worth reading but those are just just happened to be my least favorite now let's move up to our next category which is I'd recommend to my ghoul friends cool okay these are basically books that maybe weren't my favorite ghost books ever or haunted house stories but I feel like added something different to the genre that I think are worth checking out which is I feel like hard to do in a genre that is so oversaturated the first one is Robert morosgo's burnt offerings this is about a family that goes and stays in a house for the summer and they soon find out that the house is haunted it's creepy it's fun it's very very very mild it's definitely I would say more on the level of that Shirley Jackson book than any of the other ones it's it's very mild but absolutely worth checking out I really did enjoy the read and it's one of those books when when I was reading it I was like oh yeah this is good but then it kind of stayed with me afterwards and I think that's when you know when a book's kind of struck a nerve with you and that's how I feel with this one so I definitely do think this one is worth picking up worth reading it's a slow burn I would say but I think fun the next one I just currently read and that's the house about tranto by Horace Walpole this is considered the first horror book ever ever written this guy was written in 1764 says Google so it's an old guy there are definitely silly things that happen it's about a family who lives in a castle there's this old curse or saying that goes with the castle no I guess it is kind of a curse and a giant helmet falls out of the sky and kills their son the house is haunted but it's also about Giants and all sorts of weird interesting intricate plot lines it's an interesting story a little a little strange but I still think worth reading just kind of to see where the gothic horror genre began because it started right here with this book next up in here we have the Carol haunt by Darcy Coates this is about a girl she does tours in a haunted house and she's asked to stay there for a few weeks while people again come in and try to take evidence of the Paranormal Activity that's happening in the house the house has a disturbing past with serial killers and such living there in Murder that took place in the house and things like that so um it does have a lot of I feel like those same typical tropes but Darcy Coates books have a way of like taking an ordinary Trope of a haunted house and kind of turning it on its head we haven't gotten to my favorites yet but this one I do think is worth the read the ending let me down a tad bit and if you read it I think you'll know why I don't want to give too much away but I think that if the ending was different I would have enjoyed it a lot more because I did really enjoy the story and it was really interesting the way that it was written it's a book that you're like oh I've heard that before but then you read it and you haven't heard it because Darcy clits has just her own way of telling haunted stories the next one here is dead Lake I will say for anybody who does not check the back of books deadlike is actually a novella and then there are other short stories behind it and I hate when when they do not display that on the front of the book it does say it in the back but again if you're not reading the back it should just say it loud and clear this is one of my biggest pet peeves with books and I don't know why people do it but you get to like the end of the story and you're like what else can happen and then the story ends and you feel so let down because you didn't realize that there were other short stories behind it okay maybe I'm just ranting maybe this is not my own personal issue but this is about a girl who goes to stay at her uncle's remote cabin to get some painting done when she finds that sorry this it's been a long time since I've read this one oh yes she sees a Man Out by the dock and she doesn't know what it is she doesn't know if it's like a neighbor or or a ghost or what it is um she also finds that there are missing hikers in the nearby Trail by her house so she does some work to try to figure out what's going on and let me see oh yes and then there are also the short stories behind that that are just fun and creepy as well I really did enjoy this one but it just pissed me off that I didn't know that there were short stories behind it the next one I read here was Kill Creek this is by Scott Thompson and this one again is one of those where I feel like you don't exactly know what's gonna happen and it kind of takes a story that you've heard before and kind of turned it on its head which I did enjoy the differences that this story brought it's about a few horror writers who go to stay in a haunted house but in when halfway through they leave the haunted house you're like wait but that's that's like the main event that's where everything goes down what do you mean and so it is a lot different from a typical haunted house I'm glad I read this one it wasn't my favorite haunted book that I've ever read but I do think that um there are definitely some people that would enjoy this one and then the next guy that I feel like was worth a read was Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box this is about a guy he's a collector of the Macabre so he has a cookbook for cannibals a used hangman's noose a snuff film and then he finds a heart-shaped box and a musty Dead Man's suit still inhabited by the spirit of its late owner this one I feel like is pretty fast-paced it again it wasn't my favorite haunted book I've ever read but I do think that it's worth checking out it's been a long time since I've read it and this might be my only Joe Hill novel that I've ever read full-length novel I think I've read other other short stories but I think that was the only book the last one in this category is Bentley Littles the haunted this is about a family Lee who moves into a haunted house and they are haunted by the ghosts there there were things that I really really enjoyed about it there's there are a few like pretty creepy scenes in this book and there are some things that I didn't absolutely love about it like the ending for how difficult it was to get rid of the ghosts and for how haunted they were and how the ghosts had attached themselves to them it just seemed like an easy way out the ending did but otherwise I felt like it did add something new to the genre and I guess that's kind of what that category is essentially is like reading something that I've never read before and so yeah I did enjoy those but let's get to my first my favorite my top category here and that of course is the Ghost with the most and these are my favorite ghost stories that I have read starting strong with The Shining by Stephen King I really don't think this book needs all that much of an introduction Jack Torrance and his family go and stay at the Overlook tell and the Overlook slowly drives him mad but yeah that book is just it's fantastic it's great I know that there are people that love the movie moral love the book more I love both and I just think of them as kind of separate entities because they are quite different from one another the next one actually that I just currently read was home before dark by Riley Sager this book I felt like added something completely new to the genre that I've never read before it's about a girl whose father just passed away they got famous when they were younger because her father wrote about her time spent at a place called Baneberry Hall and it was a house that was haunted supposedly haunted they only stayed there for a month before fleeing the place because of the ghosts there and never returned again well the girl doesn't have any memory of her time when she was a young girl staying there now that her father has passed away she's determined to return to bainberry Hall to figure out if everything her father said was a complete lie or whether there was some truth to it she finds more more than she bargained for but this book was really interesting because throughout the story of the woman who's returning to Baneberry Hall you get Snippets of the book House of Horrors that made them famous in the first place so you're almost reading two books at once but they do kind of intertwine and connect to each other it was a really interesting way of writing a book I did figure out what was going on toward the end of the book that's not really a surprise with Thrillers and it still kept me engaged the entire time and so yeah I think that that guy is definitely worth checking out my favorite two haunted house Darcy Coates books are next the first is the haunting of Blackwood house this isn't my first I think haunted book of hers that I've read and I loved this and it sounds like you've read it before it's a it's a girl she kind of has turned her back on the occult because her parents had seances and stuff when she was little but she ends up buying Blackwood house which has again a horrible past of a serial killer who lived there she kind of denies weird things things that are going on in the house but ends up to come to terms with the fact that it is haunted and so you're like oh I've heard this story before but again it's so different from other haunted house stories because of the way that Darcy Coates can just rewrite that genre so well like this is just such a typical Darcy Coates book I loved every page of this I thought it was really fun another one that blew me away this is my absolute favorite haunted house-ish story from her this is the haunting of lay Harker and this is about a woman who lives in a house and starts seeing apparitions in her home and that's kind of all I can tell you the story just takes you for a ride it's emotional it's heartbreaking at times it's creepy at times this story was so so fun and it just has everything that you could want in a book at least for me so really loved that one and my last two favorites were from Simone St James this is the Sundown Motel about a woman who goes Missing Years Later her niece comes to work at the same Motel she went missing from to try to solve the crime but the hotel is also haunted as well so a few creepy things happen but the reason I like these books is the haunted part of the story is kind of in the background and in the foreground you have more of a mystery and so it's not overpowered or overly Complicated by The Haunting story but the hauntings really enhance what you're reading and just make it creepier and more fun I think the next one is broken girls this is about a like a boarding school where girls go or went a long time ago you find out like the lore around the school and how it's haunted supposedly by this woman and then you're also you go back and forth between that and modern day to a woman who's a reporter her sister had been murdered and dropped at the remains of the school it's no longer running but you know like on the front lawn of this school so she feels very connected to the boarding school and she goes and tries to dig up the past and find out what really happened to her sister and the girls at the boarding school so there you have it that is my ranking of any haunted house story that I've read please feel free to leave your favorite haunted house type stories below or how you feel about these if you agree if you disagree it's all good art is subjective and just because I love or hate a book doesn't mean that you won't and that's the beauty of literature let me know what your favorite haunted house stories are I would love to get a list going so I can read some creepy stuff during October thank you so much for watching and I will see you soon with another horror video bye guys [Music] thank you

Channel: Anda Kent

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Keywords: Ranking every haunted house book I've ever read, horror books, hauntd house books, anda kent, best horror books, stephen king, horror book review, horror book recommendation, booktube channels, horror booktube, book recommendations, tier list, ranking horror books, every haunted house book I've read, ghost books, horror ghost books, haunted house horror books, ranking books ive read, tier ranking books, tier ranking horror books, best horror books to read, books to read

Id: AH98zJbsvio

Length: 24min 55sec (1495 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 03 2023