On the Page: Frightening Favourites (Part Two)
Just in time for Hallowe’en, we present part two of the LMPR team’s favourite frightening reads.
This week we delve into different, but equally daunting, types of spooky. We explore a harrowing, mysterious murder, a dystopian future, and a terrifying narrative of mental illness.
Rachel Lowry – The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Mystery novels and ghost stories are not my typical literary choice as I am not one for being unduly frightened. That being said, one of the more harrowing tales I have read over the past few years is the critically acclaimed fictional story, The Lovely Bones.
Alice Sebold’s novel depicts the rape and murder of teenager Susie Salmon in 1973. The story follows from Susie’s vantage point in heaven as she witnesses her family and friends come to terms with their loss while subsequently trying to solve the vicious crime of her death.
Sarah Cruickshank – Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan
While not your traditional Hallowe’en-style spooky story, this is one narrative that will chill you to the bone. Suzannah Cahalan – a journalist with the New York Post – gives a first-hand account of her terrifying experience with mental illness in the riveting memoir, Brain on Fire.
Recreating memories through diary entries, hospital videos, and interviews with friends and family, this must-read chronicles Suzannah’s alarmingly rapid decline in health, to the eleventh-hour intervention that led to her recovery. A riveting read from cover to cover, this story confronts a sadly stigmatized issue in our society with honesty, compassion, and understanding.
Jesse Tanaka – 1984 by George Orwell
I love old books and movies that predict the future, especially when the futuristic date has already past and we can see just how close or far off they ended up.
Written in 1949, it’s pretty amazing to read Orwell predicted, especially with all of the mass surveillance stories in the news recently. Some things are just scarier the closer they are to reality.
Categories: MPMG