I’ve had a bit of nostalgia for my teenage years lately, from books to video games to even the good old windows 95 startup chime. Maybe it’s because the world felt safer (before 9/11!) , the internet felt fresh and exciting (pre-russia bots!) and it was pretty much a golden age of pop culture, music, and movie remakes!).
In today’s post, I’m going to focus on the suspenseful books that I loved as a teenager. maybe I’ll turn this into a series, with TV shows, movies, and video games as fodder for the future. would be a fun little distraction.
You are reading: Teenage horror books from the 2000s
Just like today, I loved a good twist on my books, and while I loved Harry Potter and all things Tolkien, my shelves were mostly filled with suspense, suspense, and horror novels. I remember poring over my scholastic book fair catalog and marking anything that had to do with ghosts, possessed dolls, zombies, murder, kidnapping, or anything even remotely paranormal.
then I grew up and started writing young adult thrillers. shocking.
These are the books that shaped my love of disturbing and twisted thrillers. I hope you have fun remembering some of these too!
pro tip for teens: if you don’t use goodreads or bookbub to keep track of your reading list, take pictures of your bookshelves right away. in fifteen years, you’ll be very happy you did. I regret not doing this!
1. the street of fear series from r.l. thorn
no kidding: r.l. stine’s cliffhanger endings inspire my own writing today. they make “just one more chapter” impossible and force you to gobble down a book in one sitting. Over 150 books made up this series, and there are too many good ones to mention them all, but I had three favorite series within a series.
the saga of the street of fear: the betrayal, the secret and the burning
This trilogy reveals the origin of the street curse of fear. It began with the feud between the Fier (later Fear) and Goode families, dating back to the era of the Salem witch trials. it’s a lot of fun (in a morbid way?) to see what horrors happened generation after generation. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend starting with these, even though they were my absolute favourites: it’s more fun if you’ve already read a lot of fear street and are curious about how evil began.
fear of street cheerleaders: the first evil, the second evil, the third evil
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In this series, sisters corky and bobbi move to scare street and join the shadyside cheerleading squad. soon after, unfortunate disasters and injuries befall the squad… and someone, or something, evil is after them. While I loved the fear street novels that were more akin to contemporary psychological thrillers (with an evil teenager as the villain), I especially enjoyed these supernatural horrors that tie into the origin story and the curse of the family of fear.
street of fear 99: the house of evil – the first horror, the second horror, the third horror
again, you have the case of a family moving into a house on the street of fear, some evil spirits haunt them, teenagers die blah blah. remember why one of the sisters looks like the ghost of little red riding hood on the cover of the third book? No. but thanks to this series, to this day I’m terrified of garbage disposals. it is not a joke. Every time I use my garbage disposal, I think of this series. spoiler alert. sorry.
2. the face on the milk carton by caroline b. cooney
In this book, Janie recognizes her childhood photo on the “lost child” panel of a milk carton. The three-year-old girl in the photo was kidnapped from a New Jersey mall 12 years ago, and Janie suspects her parents of kidnapping her. her forcing denial on her, she searches for answers and is horrified at what she finds. she’s a roller coaster of a book, and she makes you wonder what you would do if everything you thought you knew about yourself and the people you loved most was a lie. The sequel what happened to janie is great too!
3. the dollhouse murders of betty ren wright
This book was literally the reason I got rid of my childhood dollhouse. but that didn’t stop me from re-reading it a million times. Essentially, there’s an old dollhouse in Amy’s attic, and the dolls come to life at night and drop clues that could help her solve a decades-old murder mystery. but forget about toy story: the whole concept of dolls coming to life, clawing and scampering around their little house is creepy as hell.
Also, people in the 90s were really into dollhouses. there were also windows of time and when the dolls woke up. I read them both but I don’t remember them as vividly as the dollhouse murders.
4. meet me by moonlight by mary downing hahn
hey look, a vampire novel from long before vampire novels even existed! Sixteen-year-old Cynda moves in with her father, her second wife, and her young son at her secluded (and obviously haunted) bed and breakfast in Maine. One day, a handsome stranger, Vincent Morthanos, checks into the inn. Seduced by his intensity, Cynda falls in love with him before she realizes he is a vampire and has to save his family from the same fate as the girl lurking in the inn. There are also ghosts involved, so this one checks a lot of boxes.
5. the shining of stephen king
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Sure, a book is almost always better than its film adaptation. but this is the first book I’ve read after seeing the movie where I thought the book was much scarier. I’m still very disappointed that they left the hedge animals out of the movie, because that scene was one of the scariest I’ve ever read.
6. scary stories to tell in the dark by alvin schwartz
stahhp, of course I had to include this. You don’t make a list of 90’s teen horror/thriller books and you don’t mention this one. while not all tales left a lasting impression, i still terrify that one day a spider will lay eggs on my face, the eggs will hatch and there will be a bunch of little spiders scurrying all over me. no, no, no.
7. The Babysitters Club Mysteries of Ann M. martin
Were these books super scary? No. I cared about it? No. I loved seeing my favorite fictional club take on various ghostly or mysterious obstacles. I mean, if someone created a series of books about Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin solving murder mysteries, I’d be on it.
8. help me find this series!
there was a three book thriller/horror series that I loved as a teenager, but I can’t remember the title or author’s name, and apparently it was so obscure that all my google searches failed.
featured a boy protagonist whose family moves into a haunted house, and the creepiness escalates until the ghost, demonic presence or whatever traps his little sister in the attic while their parents are away. the boy goes to the attic to look for it, and there are many more rooms than could fit in the attic, house of leaves. he rescues his sister at the end of the first book, but they don’t budge (maybe his parents didn’t believe them?), so two more books of chaos ensue. each of the three covers featured the house with a pair of eyes superimposed on the house, each with a different expression (fear, sadness, anger) and each in a different neon color (blue, green, maybe red? ?).
I can’t for the life of me find this series, and I can’t remember any more details. but it would be awesome if someone knows what i’m talking about. if you do, please comment below!
this is far from a complete list. Christopher Pike is noticeably missing. uh…sorry. I never read his books as a kid, or if I did, I can’t remember! maybe he was too busy reading all the fear street books.
what were your favorite suspense novels when you were a teenager? And if you’re a teenager now, have you read any of these old books? let me know in the comments below!
full disclosure: I use affiliate links in this article, which means that I will receive a small commission from the sales that result from those link clicks at no additional cost to you. but that did not affect the books I chose to include in this list or the content of this post in any way!
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