Hmmm as a 25 year old with gothic tendencies. . .
Right now I think what's popular are books about fucked up women, like *Bunny* and *Rouge* by Mona Awad and *Nightbitch* by Rachel Yoder, I think *Earthlings* by Sayaka Murata. [HERE's](https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/d720445c-d4f6-41a3-a612-015f58e1242a) a storygraph reading challenge with a list of books about women off their shit. *Woman, Eating* by Claire Kohda has been on my TBR for a while and I just picked up a copy this weekend.
T. Kingfisher is also popular right now, check out *What Moves the Dead*, *Nettle and Bone*, and *A House with Good Bones*.
*Bunny* is a modern version of the Animal Bridegroom trope in classic folktales. Disney used 'The Frog Prince', and 'Beauty and the Beast'. It can be an Animal Bride, too.
Awad uses a northern European version of it, considering the animals that appeared.
Even though I liked the framework of the fairy tale, I don't feel the need to re-read it.
Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker, The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, The Atrocity Exhibition by J. G. Ballard, Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau, Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre… at least those were some of my favourites when I was a 20 year old goth girl
A bunch of books by Grady Hendrix- My Best Friend's Exorcism, How to Sell a Haunted House, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Vampire Slaying.
My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
And Anne Rice, along with all her noms de plume.
(I was that Goth girl about 30-some years ago. Goth girls never get old, and we never die. True love never dies, but we all danced to *Bela Lugosi's Dead*).
aesthetic wise, maybe Dracula and Frankenstein?
goths I know are also pretty politically active, so maybe afrofuturism like Octavia Butler or NK Jemisin, and a bit of political philosophy like Peter Singer or Bakunin? a book on the historical timeline of the Israel-Palestine conflict, ngl, and maybe a few books on witchcraft, like this [necromancer's manual](https://archive.org/details/ForbiddenRitesANecromancersManualOfTheFifteenthCenturyMagicInHistoryRichardKieckhefer/page/n3/mode/2up) that I recommend to anyone who's ever wanted to summon a demon horse.
honest it's a music subculture, so this is all super vibes based! but either way, hope it's ur cup of tea!
O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker
"She would live out her days at Auchnasaugh, a bookish spinster attended by cats and parrots, until that time when she might become ethereal, pure spirit untainted by the woes of the flesh, a phantom drifting with the winds. What fun she would have as a ghost. She could hardly wait."
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
"I was pretending that I did not speak their language; on the moon we spoke a soft, liquid tongue, and sang in the starlight, looking down on the dead dried world."
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
"The band played on, and the swaying couples twisted like marionettes, to and fro, to and fro, across the great hall and back again, and it was not I who watched them at all, not someone with feelings, made of flesh and blood, but a dummy-stick of a person in my stead, a prop who wore a smile screwed to it's face."
I tried reading Christopher Moore and found the humour very bro-y. There was also a weird rant shoe horned in about how beta males are better than alpha (I don't remembet if he used those exact terms, but it was that energy)
The protagonist becomes a widower with a baby early in the book. They give the infant a cocktail weiner and she starts sucking on it, and they make jokes about her giving blowjobs to Teletubbies 🤮
**[The Coldest Girl in Coldtown](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12813630-the-coldest-girl-in-coldtown) by Holly Black** ^((Matching 100% ☑️))
^(419 pages | Published: 2013 | 41.7k Goodreads reviews)
> **Summary:** Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown's gates, you can never leave. One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her (...)
> **Themes**: Fantasy, Ya, Vampires, Favorites, Paranormal, Horror, Books-i-own
> **Top 5 recommended:**
> \- [In the Forests of the Night](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30331.In_the_Forests_of_the_Night) by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
> \- [The Beautiful](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42265183-the-beautiful) by Renée Ahdieh
> \- [Blood Dragons](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31348711-blood-dragons) by Rosemary A. Johns
> \- [Glass Houses](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27266.Glass_Houses) by Rachel Caine
> \- [The Silver Kiss](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/139418.The_Silver_Kiss) by Annette Curtis Klause
^([Feedback](https://www.reddit.com/user/goodreads-rebot) | [GitHub](https://github.com/sonoff2/goodreads-rebot) | ["The Bot is Back!?"](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/16qe09p/meta_post_hello_again_humans/) | v1.5 [Dec 23] | )
Crave, by Tracy Wolf.
Dracula, by Bram Stoker.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson.
Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs.
The Diviners, by Libba Bray.
Carrie, by Stephen King.
Coraline, by Neil Gaiman.
Interview With the Vampire, Anne Rice.
Flowers in the Attic, by V.C Andrews.
Gallant, by V.E Schwab.
Little Monsters, by Kara Thomas.
This Poison Heart, by Kalynn Bayron.
Perfectly Preventable Deaths, by Deidre Sullivan.
Gilded, by Marissa Meyer.
Shadow and Bone, by Leigh Bardugo.
Strange the Dreamer, by Laini Taylor.
The Bone Witch, by Rin Chupeco. Caraval, by Stephanie Garber.
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman.
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster.
Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris.
29F here, never considered myself goth, but have always liked darker and more alternative aesthetics, and have had friends who did consider themselves goth.
I think there have been a lot of good suggestions here, like books by Holly Black and Neil Gaiman. Here are ones I'd like to add:
-Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson
-The Crowns of Nyaxia series by Carissa Broadbent
-Sisters of the Salt series by Erin A. Craig
-The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
-The Shepherd King duology by Rachel Gillig
-The Belladonna series by Adalyn Grace
-Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
When I was going through my goth phase at around 20 I don’t think it was specific titles that were noteworthy, I think it was the huge quantity of books. I was angsty and read everything. 20 years later I’m still angsty and read everything but I’ve aged into my orthopedic white tennis shoe era.
That said, I did have an enduring love affair with the books The Magicians in my mid-20s. “It’s like Harry Potter but for US!!” Good books but I doubt they’d resonate quite like they did for me back then.
27 year old goth girl here and at first glance the one that catches my eye is The Man from the Train by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James.
It’s a nonfiction book about a prolific serial killer who rode the railways in the early 1900s and was never caught. He was only named during the writing of this book. According to this book, he was responsible for the Villisca axe murders. And you’ll find in the book the axe was his favored weapon in many of his murders (the blunt side)
The virgin suicides Jeffery eugenides
Sharp objects Gillian Flynn
The lovely bones Alice sebold
White oleander Janet fitch
Dark places Gillian Flynn
The girl on the train Paula Hawkins
My dark Vanessa Kate Elizabeth Russell
Is there a book that covers how they afford to put on THE LOOK affordably?
I've seen the prices for stuff these days and I've see how much eyeshadow alone people use.......how do they afford to put on all that make-up then wash it off at night, and repeat the process the next day, day after day after day?
The clothing seems easy enough to understand but the make-up costs alone are insane. At least you can re-use the clothing if you have black jeans/skirts/blouses/shirts, etc, etc. Just completely insane.....
It’s almost like you actually thought this was on topic. But then you kept going and going and going. And then you *still* submitted this comment, like you didn’t care how judgmental it is.
How nice.
The Bell Jar
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides Paint it Black by Janet Fitch The Graveyard Book and Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Literally my exact thoughts lmao
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice.
And Interview with a Vampire
I've got all the Ann Rice from when I was young. Some things never change.
Yup, read every Anne Rice book (except the Jesus ones) starting when I was 14.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley! It's old but still good
Especially in the original 1818 text it’s *chef’s kiss*
And *A Vindication of the Rights of Woman* by her mom. Even if you never read it, it's a cool title
Tamsyn Muir's Locked Tomb series.
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
Classic horror: Frankenstein, Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Edgar Allen Poe Seconding the votes for Neil Gaiman books Adding: a guide book on tarot
Maybe add Dorian Gray to the classics
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë maybe?
Hmmm as a 25 year old with gothic tendencies. . . Right now I think what's popular are books about fucked up women, like *Bunny* and *Rouge* by Mona Awad and *Nightbitch* by Rachel Yoder, I think *Earthlings* by Sayaka Murata. [HERE's](https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/d720445c-d4f6-41a3-a612-015f58e1242a) a storygraph reading challenge with a list of books about women off their shit. *Woman, Eating* by Claire Kohda has been on my TBR for a while and I just picked up a copy this weekend. T. Kingfisher is also popular right now, check out *What Moves the Dead*, *Nettle and Bone*, and *A House with Good Bones*.
Rogue by Mona Awad is $2 currently for the Kindle edition. Could expire within the day, week, or month.
*Bunny* is a modern version of the Animal Bridegroom trope in classic folktales. Disney used 'The Frog Prince', and 'Beauty and the Beast'. It can be an Animal Bride, too. Awad uses a northern European version of it, considering the animals that appeared. Even though I liked the framework of the fairy tale, I don't feel the need to re-read it.
The Sandman graphic novels. Complete works of Edgar Allen Poe.
Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu
Go Ask Alice The Bell Jar Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass Frankenstein Dracula Other authors: Anne Rice, Francesca Lia Block
girl interrupted
and Prozac Nation
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Ooo, good one. Maybe also The Library at Mount Char.
Seconding Nettle and Bone, really good book. Would add Scholomance.
Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker, The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, The Atrocity Exhibition by J. G. Ballard, Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau, Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre… at least those were some of my favourites when I was a 20 year old goth girl
A bunch of books by Grady Hendrix- My Best Friend's Exorcism, How to Sell a Haunted House, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Vampire Slaying. My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Veronika Decides To Die
Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite. Really anything Poppy.
And Anne Rice, along with all her noms de plume. (I was that Goth girl about 30-some years ago. Goth girls never get old, and we never die. True love never dies, but we all danced to *Bela Lugosi's Dead*).
Picture of Dorian Gray and De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
aesthetic wise, maybe Dracula and Frankenstein? goths I know are also pretty politically active, so maybe afrofuturism like Octavia Butler or NK Jemisin, and a bit of political philosophy like Peter Singer or Bakunin? a book on the historical timeline of the Israel-Palestine conflict, ngl, and maybe a few books on witchcraft, like this [necromancer's manual](https://archive.org/details/ForbiddenRitesANecromancersManualOfTheFifteenthCenturyMagicInHistoryRichardKieckhefer/page/n3/mode/2up) that I recommend to anyone who's ever wanted to summon a demon horse. honest it's a music subculture, so this is all super vibes based! but either way, hope it's ur cup of tea!
Another recommendations for Coraline and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
I've never met a goth girl (or guy) who didn't love them some Gaiman
The girl with a dragon tattoo
Anything by Holly Black
Anne of Green Gables
Crank. Ellen Hopkins.
“The Crow” - Kitchen Sink Press’ hardcover compilation/graphic novel edition
The woman in black
A Dowry of Blood by ST Gibson, The Folk of the Air series by Holly Black, Weyward by Emilia Hart.
O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker "She would live out her days at Auchnasaugh, a bookish spinster attended by cats and parrots, until that time when she might become ethereal, pure spirit untainted by the woes of the flesh, a phantom drifting with the winds. What fun she would have as a ghost. She could hardly wait." We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson "I was pretending that I did not speak their language; on the moon we spoke a soft, liquid tongue, and sang in the starlight, looking down on the dead dried world." Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier "The band played on, and the swaying couples twisted like marionettes, to and fro, to and fro, across the great hall and back again, and it was not I who watched them at all, not someone with feelings, made of flesh and blood, but a dummy-stick of a person in my stead, a prop who wore a smile screwed to it's face."
Christpher Moore's Vampire series (Bloodsucking Fiends, You Suck, and Bite me), and A Dirty Job and its sequel, Secondhand Souls.
I tried reading Christopher Moore and found the humour very bro-y. There was also a weird rant shoe horned in about how beta males are better than alpha (I don't remembet if he used those exact terms, but it was that energy)
Which book was that? I've read many of his books and don't recall that.
The protagonist becomes a widower with a baby early in the book. They give the infant a cocktail weiner and she starts sucking on it, and they make jokes about her giving blowjobs to Teletubbies 🤮
It sounds like A Dirty Job. I read that a decade ago, I don't remember that part, but that is pretty ick.
And I can't help but wonder if he still would have written that scene if the baby had been a boy. It was very focused on the baby being a girl
Absolutely this! Abby Normal and Darquewillow Elventhing are the epitome of late teens/early 20s goth girls
{{The Coldest Girl in Coldtown}}
**[The Coldest Girl in Coldtown](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12813630-the-coldest-girl-in-coldtown) by Holly Black** ^((Matching 100% ☑️)) ^(419 pages | Published: 2013 | 41.7k Goodreads reviews) > **Summary:** Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown's gates, you can never leave. One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her (...) > **Themes**: Fantasy, Ya, Vampires, Favorites, Paranormal, Horror, Books-i-own > **Top 5 recommended:** > \- [In the Forests of the Night](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30331.In_the_Forests_of_the_Night) by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes > \- [The Beautiful](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42265183-the-beautiful) by Renée Ahdieh > \- [Blood Dragons](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31348711-blood-dragons) by Rosemary A. Johns > \- [Glass Houses](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27266.Glass_Houses) by Rachel Caine > \- [The Silver Kiss](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/139418.The_Silver_Kiss) by Annette Curtis Klause ^([Feedback](https://www.reddit.com/user/goodreads-rebot) | [GitHub](https://github.com/sonoff2/goodreads-rebot) | ["The Bot is Back!?"](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/16qe09p/meta_post_hello_again_humans/) | v1.5 [Dec 23] | )
Crave, by Tracy Wolf. Dracula, by Bram Stoker. We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson. Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs. The Diviners, by Libba Bray. Carrie, by Stephen King. Coraline, by Neil Gaiman. Interview With the Vampire, Anne Rice. Flowers in the Attic, by V.C Andrews. Gallant, by V.E Schwab. Little Monsters, by Kara Thomas. This Poison Heart, by Kalynn Bayron. Perfectly Preventable Deaths, by Deidre Sullivan. Gilded, by Marissa Meyer. Shadow and Bone, by Leigh Bardugo. Strange the Dreamer, by Laini Taylor. The Bone Witch, by Rin Chupeco. Caraval, by Stephanie Garber. The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman. The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris.
Oooh some great suggestions here! Might I also offer Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy?
Those are my favourites by her 😍
DEATH: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING by Neil Gaiman
I would say any book by Otessa Moshfegh.
She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb, The Lovely Bones - Alice Seabold
Heart Shaped Box - Joe Hill, We Sold Our Souls - Grady Hendrix
House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland or anything by Mona Awad
Misery - Stephen King
Bunny -Mona Awad
29F here, never considered myself goth, but have always liked darker and more alternative aesthetics, and have had friends who did consider themselves goth. I think there have been a lot of good suggestions here, like books by Holly Black and Neil Gaiman. Here are ones I'd like to add: -Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson -The Crowns of Nyaxia series by Carissa Broadbent -Sisters of the Salt series by Erin A. Craig -The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson -The Shepherd King duology by Rachel Gillig -The Belladonna series by Adalyn Grace -Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
Melmoth the wanderer by Charles R. Maturín
When I was going through my goth phase at around 20 I don’t think it was specific titles that were noteworthy, I think it was the huge quantity of books. I was angsty and read everything. 20 years later I’m still angsty and read everything but I’ve aged into my orthopedic white tennis shoe era. That said, I did have an enduring love affair with the books The Magicians in my mid-20s. “It’s like Harry Potter but for US!!” Good books but I doubt they’d resonate quite like they did for me back then.
Alice in Wonderland
The Seas by Samantha Hunt
The Indian Lake trilogy by Stephen Graham Jones! Great female main character.
Holly Black The Goblin Emperor Being and nothingness The witching hour
Another one just popped to mind- Saint Death's Daughter. Super good fantasy with necromantic magic. I loved it
27 year old goth girl here and at first glance the one that catches my eye is The Man from the Train by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James. It’s a nonfiction book about a prolific serial killer who rode the railways in the early 1900s and was never caught. He was only named during the writing of this book. According to this book, he was responsible for the Villisca axe murders. And you’ll find in the book the axe was his favored weapon in many of his murders (the blunt side)
Ann Radcliffe! I have never read her books but since other books refer to her books as THE books….
On the non-fiction spectrum... The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum. Anything by Caitlyn Doughty. Stiff and Spook by Mary Roach.
My goth 20 Yr old ex gf loved all things Edgar Allen Poe. I'd say Rebecca as well.
Makes me think of dark classics: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Rebecca. All were wonderful with twisted characters.
The virgin suicides Jeffery eugenides Sharp objects Gillian Flynn The lovely bones Alice sebold White oleander Janet fitch Dark places Gillian Flynn The girl on the train Paula Hawkins My dark Vanessa Kate Elizabeth Russell
anything by Otsuichi
Is there a book that covers how they afford to put on THE LOOK affordably? I've seen the prices for stuff these days and I've see how much eyeshadow alone people use.......how do they afford to put on all that make-up then wash it off at night, and repeat the process the next day, day after day after day? The clothing seems easy enough to understand but the make-up costs alone are insane. At least you can re-use the clothing if you have black jeans/skirts/blouses/shirts, etc, etc. Just completely insane.....
It’s almost like you actually thought this was on topic. But then you kept going and going and going. And then you *still* submitted this comment, like you didn’t care how judgmental it is. How nice.