The best YA horror novels with creepy creatures to keep you up at night

House of Hollow is a book you can smell and taste. Everyone knows the three Hollow sisters are strange. Ever since they went missing as children and then returned naked with half-moon scars at the base of their throats and no memory of what happened, something hasn’t been right. Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar, unlike her eldest sister, Grey, who wields it like a supernatural gift, drawing people to her like moths to a flame. But when Grey goes missing for the second time, and Iris starts being hunted by a horned man, memories she didn’t know she had begun to twist themselves free from her once amnesiac mind. It soon becomes clear that the trail Iris is following is leading her right back into her childhood to confront the mystery of what happened to the Hollow sisters when they were young.

When I went into this book, I sensed that Amelinda would pull zero punches. I was so right it was glorious. Skye is fed up. Fed up of being responsible for her insufferable little sister, Dierdre. Fed up with the stories, with the games, with their endless childhood fantasies. Moving halfway across the country seems like the perfect chance to start over. Finally, in this new, isolated neighbourhood, Skye is managing to fit in. Not Dierdre, though. No, Dierdre seems to be slipping more and more into a world of her own. And then one day: Dierdre vanishes. When a creature unlike anything Skye has ever seen comes scratching at her door claiming to know who took Dierdre, Skye is going to have to suspend her disbelief and re-enter a childhood of warped imagination.

One word: Mr. Jitters. After her filmmaker dad is attacked and nearly killed in New York City, Lola Nox is sent to live with the grandmother she’s never met in an eerie town called Harrow Lake, the shooting location of her dad’s most iconic horror movie. But Harrow Lake is a sinister little town full of strange legends and the locals seem determined to keep it that way. With disappearances that the police shove under the rug and now a ghostly presence that has started following her everywhere, Lola is about to meet the thing that keeps this backwater little town in its firm, creepy grip. This novel reminded me of everything brilliant in The Babadook and Mr. Jitters might even give him a run for his money. 

This one is a little bit of a cheeky pick, because, at the time of writing, it hasn’t been published yet. I was lucky enough to get an early read and I loved it. Miguela is frustrated by the tight reign her Puerto-Rican grandmother keeps on her. She is bored with going to church, going to school, being forbidden to date, or basically anything fun. So when Sam, a new gorgeous boy comes to her school and she feels an irresistible pull towards him, she doesn’t resist very hard. Until Sam learns of Sam’s family roots… and has to break up with him. But you don’t just break up with Sam without potentially apocalyptic consequences. This book reminded me of a YA Imaginary Friend by Chbosky, only funny. And why did I pick it for this creepy creature list? Well, the creatures in this one definitely freaked me out. Despite the fun of Breakup from Hell, it was definitely still shockingly devilish!  

Through the Woods is an atmospheric collection of stories in graphic novel form and delighted my creepy little heart. Not scary at all, but definitely intriguing, this collection is part ghost story and part creature feature. The illustrations were tantalising and masterful at capturing my attention. It reminds me of the way fairytales were horror stories to me when I was a child—chilling cautionary tales where little girls like me could be baked into pies and eaten or turned into feral dogs who never saw their family again. It also gives me Ito vibes in the pure weirdness of some of the stories—something that delights me to no end!