7 Horror Books to Read if You Love ‘Carrie’
Remus is a writer, editor, journalist, and author with an eye for detail and an extremely active imagination. He is an enthusiast of everything to do with the graphic medium, whether it's Western comics and their adaptations or manga and anime. Remus is also the author of the sci-fantasy novel Once Upon a Time in Hyperspace and several works of short fiction in the mystery, comedy, and horror genres.
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With Mike Flanagan’s series adaptation arriving on streaming this week, Stephen King’s Carrie is once again at the top of every horror fan’s mind. The debut novel of the King of Horror, Carrie is a highly influential teen horror book that follows a friendless girl from an abusive home who discovers latent psychic abilities. In the aftermath of a cruel prank, she unleashes these powers on all the people who have made her life hell. Though it wasn’t an instant success when it first hit the shelves in 1974, the book went on to become a critical and fan favorite, launching King’s spectacularly successful career as a master of the horror genre.
Between its literary success and the multiple adaptations it has inspired, Carrie is easily one of the most iconic horror novels of the 20th century. And as an iconic novel, it has inspired several subsequent works that have expanded on its premise and themes in fascinating ways. Beyond those it inspired, the legendary coming-of-age horror story has also been compared over the years to a number of books with similar themes, including some by King himself. So, without further ado, here’s our handpicked list of horror books that we think you should have on your reading list if you’re a fan of Carrie.
1 ‘The Long Walk’ (1979)
Written by Stephen King and published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, The Long Walk is a dystopian novel set in a totalitarian USA, centered on the titular annual walking contest, in which 100 boys are forced to continuously walk at a pace of four miles per hour until all but one is dead. The survivor is promised their heart’s desire, but the chances of survival are less than slim. The novel centers on Ray Garraty, one of the contestants, and explores his experiences and those of his fellow contestants.
An exceptionally bleak teen dystopia, The Long Walk is technically the first book King wrote, though Carrie was his first novel to be published. It’s a powerful story that predates the early 21st-century rise in YA dystopias and delivers a grueling yet touching experience, exploring themes of mortality, humanity, and the psychological toll of totalitarianism. The novel got its first film adaptation in 2025, over 40 years after it was first published, with Francis Lawrence directing and Cooper Hoffman starring as Ray.
2 ‘The Weight of Blood’ (2022)
A 21st-century retelling of Carrie, The Weight of Blood is a young adult horror novel written by Tiffany D. Jackson. The narrative alternates between a present-day podcast exploring the case of a massive fire at a prom in the small Georgia town of Springville, and 2014, when the events actually took place. At the center of the story is biracial high school senior Maddy Washington. Forced to pass as white by her racist father and bullied by her classmates, Maddy discovers her innate telekinetic abilities and unleashes them on the unsuspecting town after being humiliated during prom night.
The Weight of Blood is essentially a loose remake of Carrie, using the same basic storyline and epistolary structure to explore more contemporary themes and perspectives. A story of racism, identity, and empowerment, the novel is faithful to the core of King’s original work while delivering a distinct message and reading experience. The novel earned critical acclaim at the time of its publication in 2022 and was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award; it’s an easy recommendation for any fan of Carrie, particularly if you’re interested in seeing the story expanded upon in a more contemporary context, like in Flanagan's series adaptation.
3 ‘Mary: An Awakening of Terror’ (2022)
Nat Cassidy’s Mary: An Awakening of Terror is a horror novel that follows a woman’s supernatural awakening, but unlike Carrie, Mary is a quiet, middle-aged woman grappling with the physical and psychological toll of perimenopause. Unfortunately, along with the hot flashes and body aches, she’s also been hearing voices and experiencing terrifying visions. And to make things worse, she discovers that her strange experiences may be connected to an infamous serial killer.
Often compared to Carrie by horror fans, Mary: An Awakening of Terror is a gripping work of psychological and supernatural horror. Its similarities to Carrie, however, are only surface-level, as the story progresses into a dark conspiracy involving a shadowy cult and a secret history of violence. At the time of its release in 2022, the novel was hailed as one of the best books of the year by Esquire, CrimeReads, and more, and though it’s relatively underrated, the book has proven quite popular in genre circles. It’s a great read, especially for the Halloween season, with visceral horrors and a dark sense of humor.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Is Your Biggest Horror Nightmare? Elm Street · Chucky · Scream · The Conjuring
Four horror franchises. Four completely different ways of scaring you. One waits until you fall asleep. One makes sure nobody believes you. One is already in your group of friends. And one is in the house with your family. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually watch horror, and find out which nightmare was built for you.
😴Elm Street(Freddy Krueger)
🧸Chucky(Child's Play)
📞Scream(Ghostface)
🕯️The Conjuring(The Warren Files)
01
Which horror scene makes you cover your eyes? Four classic images. One of them is worse than the others for you.
02
You are home alone and you hear a noise. First thought? Everybody has one. It arrives before you have decided anything.
03
Which horror movie rule would you break first? Everybody thinks they would survive. Almost nobody actually does.
04
Something genuinely frightening happens. What do you do? Not in a film. In your actual living room, tonight.
05
How do you actually watch a horror film? Be honest about this one. Nobody is checking.
06
Somebody offers you serious money. Which do you still refuse? The amount does not matter. There is one on this list you are not doing.
07
Which feeling stays with you a week after the film? Good horror does not stop when the credits do.
08
Something wakes you at 3am. What is the worst possibility? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your nightmare.
The Lights Just Went Out Your Nightmare Is…
Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what it would leave behind.
Elm Street
Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever won that particular argument.
- Freddy is horror's cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
- You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your own head is where this does its damage.
- These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
- You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.
Chucky
Your nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.
- Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
- You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You know that feeling from real life too.
- The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you have met those adults.
- By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.
Scream
Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.
- Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be somebody who was at the party.
- You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the same way you watch films.
- The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
- Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.
The Conjuring
Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving.
- The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
- Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than personal, which is rarer than it sounds.
- This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
- Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one standing in the hallway.
4 ‘The Power’ (2016)
Written by Naomi Alderman, The Power is a sci-fi novel that explores an alternate timeline in which women around the world develop the ability to release electric jolts from their fingers. The story is presented as a nested narrative, following a manuscript about 21st-century history that’s submitted to the author for an early read, set 5,000 years in our relative future. A key event within this imagined history is a Cataclysm, in which one of the newly empowered women destroys all modern technology, with the novel exploring the events that led up to this disastrous incident.
Published in 2016, The Power was fairly well-received by critics and contemporary authors, earning praise for its feminist themes. While the novel’s narrative can be a bit uneven in parts, its execution is highly engaging, and it’s ultimately a thrilling read. The book uses the reversal of gender norms to deliver some keen observations on human sociology and psychology that extend beyond its surface-level apocalypse. A series adaptation developed by Alderman, Raelle Tucker, Claire Wilson, and Sarah Quintrell was released on Prime Video in 2023, with Toni Collette, Halle Bush, Auliʻi Cravalho, and more starring in key roles.
5 ‘Witchcraft for Wayward Girls’ (2025)
Written by Grady Hendrix, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is a period folk horror novel set in 1970s Florida. The book revolves around a group of pregnant teenagers who are sent to an abusive maternity home. When they discover a book on witchcraft, it sets the girls on a path of revenge and dark magic where the hope of liberation is tempered by the sinister cost of consorting with witches.
Released in 2025, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls has earned a generally favorable reception from critics and horror fans. While the book may not be quite as scary as Hendrix’s previous bestsellers, it retains the author’s dark sense of humor, which is used very effectively to balance the novel’s true horrors: the real-life maternity homes that inspired the story and the abuses they inflict upon these young girls. More than the actual supernatural elements, it’s these realities that make Witchcraft for Wayward Girls so very horrifying and lead to its most heartbreaking moments. It’s easily one of the best horror novels of the past year, and a must-read for fans of Carrie and The Craft.
6 ‘The Merciless’ (2014)
Danielle Vega’s debut novel, The Merciless, is the first book in the Young Adult novel series. The book follows teenager Sofia Flores, a military brat who arrives in a new town and befriends a trio of popular girls. When her new friends rope her in on a plan to kidnap local goth Brooklyn and perform an exorcism on her, Sofia faces a twisted choice between allowing the torture to continue or saving the girl while risking herself.
As the title suggests, The Merciless is full of intense horror and suspense, with torture scenes that are not for the weak-stomached. Though it's often compared to the teen comedy Mean Girls, The Merciless uses the same basic premise to launch a tense horror story that goes to some pretty disturbing places, particularly once the true nature of the story is revealed by its shocking twist. It might not be the best YA horror book of all time, but it’s certainly one of the better ones, making it a must-read for fans of teen horror stories.
7 ‘Firestarter’ (1980)
Stephen King’s sci-fi horror thriller novel Firestarter explores the story of Charlie McGee, a young girl with powerful pyrokinetic abilities. The novel follows Charlie and her psychic father Andy as they go on the run, trying to evade a shadowy government agency that wants to exploit their powers for their own agenda. Hunted across the country and pushed to violence, Charlie attracts the attention of an assassin who becomes obsessed with killing her.
Both Carrie and Firestarter feature young female protagonists who possess powerful and destructive abilities, but where the former is more rooted in the coming-of-age experience, Firestarter is more of a high-tension thriller. The book quickly became a bestseller upon its publication in 1980, and it went on to win several accolades, including nominations for a British Fantasy Award and a Locus Poll Award. The novel has also inspired multiple adaptations, most famously the 1984 film directed by Mark L. Lester, which stars Drew Barrymore as Charlie, and the 2022 remake by Blumhouse Productions.
Firestarter
- Release Date
- May 11, 1984
- Runtime
- 115 Minutes
- Director
- Mark L. Lester
- Writers
- Stanley Mann
-
Drew Barrymore
Andrew McGee
-
David Keith
Charlie McGee
-
Freddie Jones
Dr. Joseph Wanless
-
Heather Locklear
Vicky McGee
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.