YA Scary Stories

YA Scary Stories

Like to be spooked? Here are some tales guaranteed to keep you up at night!


Compiled by:
Lizzy S.
Bent Heavens

Daniel Kraus
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Kraus)

Two years after the disappearance of her father, Liv and her friend capture an alien in the Iowa countryside, and instead of turning him over to the authorities, they choose a different path.


Blood and Salt

Kim Liggett
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Liggett)

Ash Larkin finds out her family is involved in a centuries-old saga of love and murder, alchemy and immortality when she follows her mother to an isolated settlement in the cornfields of Kansas.


The Bone Houses

Emily Lloyd-Jones
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Lloydjo)

When risen corpses called 'bone houses' threaten Ryn's village because of a decades-old curse, she teams up with a mapmaker named Ellis to solve the mystery of the curse and destroy the bone houses forever.


Broken Lands

Jonathan Maberry
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Maberry)

Ever since her mother's death, Gabriella 'Gutsy' Gomez has spent her days flying under the radar. But when her mother's undead body is returned to her doorstep from the grave and Gutsy witnesses a pack of ravagers digging up Los Muertos--her mother's name for the undead--she realizes that life finds you no matter how hard you try to hide from it.


Contagion

Erin Bowman
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Bowman)

After receiving a distress call from a drill team on a distant planet, a skeleton crew is sent into deep space to perform a standard search-and-rescue mission. When they arrive, they find the planet littered with the remains of the project including its members' dead bodies. As they try to piece together what could have possibly decimated an entire project, they discover that some things are best left buried.


Don't Tell a Soul

Kirsten Miller
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Miller)

Bram moves to the small town of Louth in order to help her uncle start his new inn, but when she discovers a legacy of silenced women tied to her new home, she sets out to investigate the truth behind the town's 'Dead Girl' myths.


Dreamfall

Amy Plum
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Plum)

Seven insomniac teenagers participate in an experimental sleep study and find themselves thrown together in a shared dreamworld where their worst nightmares come to life.


Evil Librarian

Michelle Knudsen
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Knudsen)

He is young. He is hot. He is also evil. He is ....... the librarian.


Five Midnights

Ann Davila Cardinal
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Cardina)

Lupe Dávila and Javier Utierre try to solve a series of grisly murders sweeping through Puerto Rico before the killer catches up with them.


The Girl From the Well

Rin Chupeco
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Chupeco)

Okiku has wandered the world for centuries, freeing the innocent ghosts of the murdered-dead and taking the lives of killers with the vengeance they are due, but when she meets Tark she knows the moody teen with the series of intricate tattoos is not a monster and needs to be freed from the demonic malevolence that clings to him.


The Good Demon

Jimmy Cajoleas
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Cajolea)

Clare has been miserable since her exorcism. The preacher that rid her of evil didn't understand that her demon simply known as "Her" was like a sister to Clare. Now, Clare will do almost anything to get Her back. After a chance encounter with the son of the preacher who exorcised her, Clare goes on an adventure through the dark underbelly of her small Southern town, discovering its deep-seated occult roots.


The Haunted

Danielle Vega
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Vega)

Clean slate. That's what Hendricks's parents said when they moved their family to the tiny town of Drearfield, New York. Hendricks wants to lay low and forget her dark, traumatic past. But she learns from new friends at school that Steele House––the fixer-upper her parents are so excited about––is notorious in town. Local legend says it's haunted. But Hendricks isn't sure if it's the demons of her past haunting her...or of the present.


Horrid

Katrina Leno
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Leno)

Following her father's sudden death, Jane and her mother are forced to move to the old North house in Maine, where Jane uncovers her family's disturbing secrets.


House of Hollow

Krystal Sutherland
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Sutherl)

Something happened to Iris Hollow and her two older sisters Grey and Vivi when they were children, something they can't quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats. When Grey goes missing under suspicious circumstances, it becomes apparent that the only way to save her is to decipher the mystery of what happened to them as children.


The Night Weaver

Monique Snyman
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Snyman)

Rachel Cleary lives on the outskirts of Shadow Grove, next to the creepy forest everyone pretends doesn't exist. Something is stalking the residents of Shadow Grove, changing them into brain-dead caricatures of themselves.


Not Even Bones

Rebecca Schaeffer
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Schaeff)

Nita doesn't murder supernatural beings and sell their body parts on the internet--her mother does that. Nita just dissects the bodies after they've been "acquired." Until her mom brings home a live specimen and Nita decides she wants out; dissecting a scared teenage boy is a step too far. But when she decides to save her mother's victim, she ends up sold in his place--because Nita herself isn't exactly "human."


The Perfect Place to Die

Bryce Moore
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Moore)

Zuretta Palmer travels to Chicago during the 1893 World's Fair to find her missing sister, but when the police and the Pinkertons refuse to help her, Zuretta begins her own investigation by becoming a maid at the notorious Castle.


Remember Me

Chelsea Bobulski
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Bobulsk)

Nell Martin is moving again, this time to the Winslow Grand Hotel, built in 1878. As Nell is settling in, strange things begin to happen. Doors lock of their own accord, writing appears on bathroom walls-- and most horrifying of all-- visions of a dead boy permeate her waking life.


Rules for Vanishing

Kate Alice Marshall
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Marshal)

Sara's sister disappeared one year ago--and only Sara knows where she is. Becca went to find the ghost of Lucy Gallows and is trapped on the road that leads to her. In the sleepy town of Briar Glen, Lucy's road is nothing more than local lore, but Sara knows it's real, and she's going to find it.


The Sacrifice Box

Martin Stewart
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Stewart)

In the summer of 1982, five friends discover an ancient stone box hidden deep in the woods. They seal inside of it treasured objects from their childhoods, and they make a vow: Never come to the box alone. Never open it after dark. Never take back your sacrifice. Four years later, a series of strange and terrifying events begin to unfold. Someone broke the rules of the box, and now everyone has to pay.


Sawkill Girls

Claire Legrand
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Legrand)

From the New York Times bestselling author of Furyborn comes a breathtaking and spine-tingling novel about three teenage girls who face off against an insidious monster that preys upon young women.


Small Spaces

Katherine Arden
(Juvenile Fiction - J Arden)

After Ollie's school bus mysteriously breaks down on a field trip, she has to take a trip through scary woods, and must use all of her wits to survive. She must stick to small spaces.


Spirit Hunters

Ellen Oh
(Juvenile Fiction - J Oh)

Harper doesn't trust her new home from the moment she steps inside, and the rumors are that the Raine family's new house is haunted. Harper isn't sure she believes those rumors, until her younger brother, Michael, starts acting strangely.


White Smoke

Tiffany D. Jackson
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Jackson)

Believing her new home to actually be alive, especially when her brother almost dies, Marigold and her new blended family won't be safe until she brings the truth to light once and for all.


Wilder Girls

Rory Power
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Power)

It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her. It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign.


The Woods are Always Watching

Stephanie Perkins
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Perkins)

Best friends Neena and Josie spent high school as outsiders, but at least they had each other. Now, with college looming on the horizon, they have one last chance to be together—a three-day hike deep into the woods of the Pisgah National Forest. Simmering tensions lead to a detour off the trail and straight into a waking nightmare.


Graphic Novels

Abbott

Saladin Ahmed
(Graphic Novels - GN Ahmed Abbott)

While investigating police brutality and corruption in 1970s Detroit, journalist Elena Abbott uncovers supernatural forces being controlled by a secret society of the city's elite.


Basketful of Heads

Joe Hill
(Graphic Novels - GN Hill Basketful Of Heads)

June Branch visits her boyfriend, Liam, on Brody Island for a relaxing last weekend of summer. After an escaped group of criminals breaks into the house, Liam is taken by them. June grabs a strange Viking axe and flees from the intruders.


Gideon Falls, Vol. 1: The Black Barn

Jeff Lemire
(Graphic Novels - GN Gideon Falls v. 1)

The legend of the Black Barn tells of an otherworldly building that has appeared and reappeared throughout history, bringing death and madness in its wake. Now its mystery ensnares and entwines the lives of two very different men.


The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman
(Graphic Novels - GN Gaiman Graveyard Book)

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead.


The Last Halloween Vol. 1: Children

Abby Howard
(Graphic Novels - GN Last Halloween v. 1)

In a gothic adventure at the end of the world, a ten-year-old girl and a motley crew of ghouls must stop an invading horde of monsters on a fateful Halloween night.


Through the Woods

Emily Carroll
(Graphic Novels - GN Carroll Through The Woods)

A collection of five spine-tingling short stories.