The best YA books to give you chills

I love books where the dead are part of the storyline—where they reveal something about or to the living. In The Taking of Jake Livingston, Jake is a medium who witnesses ghosts caught in death loops, all while navigating life as one of the few Black kids at his private school. One particular ghost—a boy who shot and killed kids at his high school before taking his own life—starts to haunt Jake and try to take over his body. Buckle up for hair-crawling scenes as Jake comes to better understand himself and his power.

As one of four sisters, I appreciate a good sister story because there’s always something going on under the surface. House of Hollow is no different. There’s the complicated dynamic of the three sisters—the model and fashion designer, the grunge musician, and the loner high school student—revealed when the eldest goes missing and the two younger sisters search for her. And then there’s the twist of something otherworldly—the fact that the girls disappeared for a month as children, reappearing with black eyes, white hair, mysterious scars, and the ability to entrance others with their scent and touch. I couldn’t stop turning the pages.

I get chills from some dystopian novels as easily as I do from books about the dead. In The Marrow Thieves, Native people are hunted by the Canadian government for their marrow, which contains the ability to dream—an ability that has faded as the human population has died off and the land has become uninhabitable in a not-too-distant future. The protagonist, Frenchie survives in the woods with a group of Indigenous people, learning some of his history and language from its members. Here, the at-the-edge-of-my-seat fear comes from the Recruiters—always just steps behind Frenchie, lurking in the trees or disguised as friends. 

I’m cheating a tad here because this novel is not labeled YA, but it features teenagers and young adults, significant queer representation, and a plot that teen-me would have devoured as quickly as adult-me did. In the past timeline, two students at the Brookhants School for Girls fall in love, create a secret club based on Mary MacLane’s memoir, and are stung to death by yellow jackets. The present timeline follows actresses, Harper Harper and Audrey Wells, as they film a movie based on the story of the girls—as well as the deaths that came after—at the site of the abandoned and supposedly cursed school. I was haunted by the hum of yellow jackets even after I closed the book.

I love a twist on the magical school story, and A Deadly Education delivers just that. The Scholomance in A Deadly Education is infested by grotesque monsters called mals that aim to kill the young wizards and witches within its walls and eat their magic. To graduate, the students have to hone their skills and alliances—without the aid of kindly professors—and survive. Completing the anti-Hogwarts premise, the protagonist is a prickly loner named El, whose great-great-grandmother prophesized would become an evil sorceress. She’s saved from mals by the hero of the school, Orion Lake, who she loathes. If that set-up is as delicious to you as it is to me, then you’re in for a ride.