This Halloween season, we are striking at the heart of Millennials with our spooky recommendations. From a roundup of books for fans of The Addams Family to a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reading list you won’t want to miss, an ode to Practical Magic and even an homage to end-of-the-20th-century slashers, we’re aiming right at you 80s, 90s and early 00s babies. This era was a blend of campy serial killer thrillers, Christina Ricci-cast classics and cult favorites. And few Halloween-esque movies get more cult classic clout than Jake Gyllenhaal’s Donnie Darko. An eerie, genre-defying movie about a young man suffering from mental health issues while discovering the world of time travel, this story is in a category of its own. But if you love the interwoven themes and semi-sci-fi elements (like me), here are some reading recs that are just as twisty and peculiar.
Streetlight People by Charlene Thomas
Kady lives in a small town with two classes of people, the haves and the have-nots. She is in the latter category, her boyfriend, however, is in the former and his family cannot accept her. When her boyfriend leaves for college, a chance encounter on Halloween gives her the ability to twist time. As she tries to relive moments with Nik and evade suspicion from those who want her gone, she finds herself bending reality beyond repair and discovers that monsters may be lurking, especially within her.
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Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
This novel explores time travel through a small café in Tokyo where people can go back in time. There’s a catch though, you can only travel until the coffee goes cold. Playing with themes of time and fate and begging the question: What would you change if you could go back? This novel is a part of a 5-book with a new release hitting shelves this year.
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A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill
Haunting, eerie and unusual, A Cosmology of Monsters follows the Turner family. Just like his father, Noah Turner sees monsters. He built a haunted theme park dedicated to them that his family now runs. And while his sister claims she doesn’t see anything and his mother denies what she sees, Noah decides to invite the monsters in. With a 90s-set narrative and spine-tingling psychological elements, this novel will give you the same creepy vibes as Donnie Darko.
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House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
Though this novel has a more witchy, magical feel, the unsettling realities you’ll enter will scratch a similar itch. Three sisters disappear as children, only to reappear a month later unable to remember what happened. Soon, their dark hair turns white and their blue eyes turn black and they can’t satiate their hunger. A decade later, the youngest is trying to live a normal life and graduate while her two older sisters revel in fame. But when one of them disappears, they are confronted with both the supernatural and their past.
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When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey
A group of friends is bound together by friendship… and magic. They keep it a secret and that secret binds them. But when something goes awry at prom and a boy ends up dead, the jealousy and insecurity that complicates their group will intertwine with failed spells and dire consequences. If you’re drawn in by the surreal coming-0f-age tale in Donnie Darko, When We Were Magic will twist you up all over again.
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The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson
If you’re looking to dive back into the tantalizing twists of time travel and young outcasts, The Loop is going to channel all that energy. When a pandemic strikes a small town, the adolescent inhabitants’ minds are most affected. With mental health and time manipulation at play, there’s bound to be something for Donnie Darko fans in this acclaimed 2020 release.
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I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
Iain Reid has made a name for himself writing quiet, disturbing books that tease the mind. In his debut, I Am Thinking of Ending Things, the concept of mental health and hallucinations are in play, but there’s a detectable “offness” about the world that leads readers to a strange and punchy conclusion. Not unlike Donnie Darko, the hints throughout keep you moving forward to a place you can’t quite predict.
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How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
Charles Yu is a time travel technician operating the machine his father built. People come and go to trying to change the past. He tries to quite literally save his clients from themselves while looking for his missing father. He believes the book he left behind, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, is the key to not only finding him, but, perhaps, saving himself.
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A Song for Quiet by Cassandra Khaw
Similar to the haunting presence of “Frank”in Donnie’s life, this novella centers around Deacon, a man haunted by a sound he’s told will destroy the world if he lets it out. When a tune played on his saxophone unleashes a world of demons and monsters, he’s on the run from a dark and twisted reality. As he ventures, he encounters a runaway girl who is also hiding the seed of something terrible within her.
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House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Described as a cult classic itself, House of Leaves strikes that same chord of “too strange for mainstream” but it will find its people. This experimental and layered plot follows a prize-winning photographer’s family as they move into a house that defies physics. The inside is far bigger than the outside, filled with labyrinth’s and hidden spaces. The decent into the house is also a decent into madness and psychosis, while the book itself flip conventional typography and format on its head.
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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
If Donnie Darko is anything, it’s a rumination on the nature of the human mind and reality. So too is Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. With an ensemble cast of characters, including subterranean monsters, Murakami explores consciousness in a simultaneously serious and hilarious way.
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