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Weird horror has grown in popularity over the last half decade or so, thanks in no large part to the larger growth in horror, period. There are so many ways a horror story can be told, thanks to its position as a mood, rather than a genre. While horror has plenty of tropes for readers who love a specific Thing–think haunted houses, ghosts, vampires, and so forth–the fact that horror only needs to create a feeling of fear or disgust in a reader leaves the world open to writers. This is where and how things can get real weird.
So what makes horror “weird?” Much like horror itself, that weird qualifier can mean so many different things, depending on who is doing the reading. It is, like horror, a mood, rather than a genre.
Weird can mean that there’s no creepy creature at the center of the story and instead, the vibe of the book is just odd or slightly off-putting because of something going on in the main character’s mind. Weird can mean darkly funny, too, which is what you’ll see in several of the examples below. These are stories where there is something bloody or gross or horrifying happening but your sense of dread and fear as a reader is accompanied by some laughs (comfortable or not!). Weird horror is about something being askew. Something being off. Something raising your pulse or giving you goosebumps, even if you can’t quite put your finger on it.
Good weird horror is something that you cannot look away from, no matter how hard you try to.
Something to note about horror and about weird horror in particular is that much of it comes from cross-cultural storytellers. That isn’t to say international storytelling is weird. Rather, the storytelling traditions from non-European cultures tend to have more fluidity and can defy Euro-centric writing conventions. There is less emphasis on a tidy or solid conclusion and more opportunity to wonder what did or did not happen–you see this frequently in media from the global East. You’ll also see a lot of women and queer voices represented here, for many of the same reasons. Weird horror breaks the mold.
All of that is to say that this array of weird fiction is diverse and pulls from a wide range of storytelling techniques. That makes reading these books, as creepy as some may be, an especially enjoyable experience.
One of this year’s Read Harder 2025 tasks is to pick up a work of weird horror. Because both “weird” and “horror” are up to the interpretation of the reader, those who are new to either horror or weird fiction can feel lost as to what might qualify. Find below several examples of great recent weird horror. Some of these stories will scratch the itch you may have for dark academia, some explore the hollow promises of the wellness world, and still others will have you wondering whether or not what the main character tells you is happening to them really is.
Let’s get a little weird.
Bunny by Mona Awad
Samantha is in an all-female creative writing MFA workshop at a prestigious school. She loathes the women who she calls Bunnies. These women writers are rich and perfect and always write about The Body and Deep Literary Themes, complimenting and complementing each other in as many ways as possible.
Samantha finds refuge in Ava, an art school dropout. But when Samantha receives an invitation to join the Bunnys for their “Smut Salon” via an origami swan, she attends. That’s when she falls down the most bizarre Lewis Carroll style rabbit hole..
This is a horror novel that is infused with incredible dark humor and it’s an evisceration of stuffy literary MFA programs and culture. Whether or not you’re a reader/writer, the elite culture will translate into whatever your area of expertise is, and Samantha’s perspectives of those on the top will resonate.
Don’t go in expecting for everything…or maybe anything…to make sense. Go in for a good, bizarre time. Because that’s exactly what you’re going to get.
While this is a standalone read, if you love Bunny, there’s a sequel coming out this fall called We Love You Bunny.
Chlorine by Jade Song
Ren loves to swim. Maybe “loves” isn’t the right word. She’s obsessed with swimming, and she’s worked so hard through high school to become an elite swimmer in her school. She’s at the pool all the time, and she’s endured relentless meets and drills and verbal–sometimes physical–assaults from her coach Jim, who expects the best of her, even if he doesn’t necessarily expect such of others on the team. Ren knows if she does well, she’ll get a scholarship to college and that would make everyone in her life, from Jim to her mom, and her father who is currently not even in the country, as happy as can be.
It’s a lot of pressure for a high schooler.
But Ren isn’t a high schooler. She’s a mermaid. She’s obsessed with them, and she knows that being a mermaid is her true calling. She belongs in the water. And despite the fact no one believes her, she believes in herself, and as such, slowly and painfully begins the transition from human to mermaid, culminating in a transformation that no one sees coming.
This book is a wild ride, and it’s a fascinating look at the pressures put on girls, especially girls of color, as they grow up.
Two content notes: there is body horror in this story, as well as some questionable sexual situations–all addressed as such in the narrative.
Feast While You Can by Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta
This queer horror romance has all of the weird elements to keep readers looking for something different satisfied.
Angelina Sicco was born in a small, boring town in Italy called Cadenze. It’s hard to have much of a life here, but Angelina does what she can to keep herself entertained. One of those things? Trying to persuade hot queer women to hang with her. Another one of those things? Trying to get over her longstanding feelings for Jagvi. So when Jagvi is back in town for a short period of time, Angelina is going to go for it, despite knowing she should stay far far away from Jagvi.
But Jagvi’s return to Cadenze awakens an ancient evil and this evil is now running Angelina’s life, whether or not she wants it to. The only thing that keeps the monster at bay is Jagvi’s tough.
The problem is that the monster also feeds off passion and heartbreak. The more Jagvi tries to help Angelina, the more the evil is roused.
Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang
For readers who love dark, body-focused horror, this book is going to tick every box. The protagonist–not named, but who we know is of Asian American heritage–has just left a life of performing piano. There’s been a tragic accident and it has harmed both her mother and her father. Her parents had taught her the instrument and helped her become top-of-the-game, but now she’s roiled in guilt.
Our protagonist is then “discovered” by someone who offers her a job at a natural beauty store, Holistik. It’ll help her pay her bills, and it seems like she fits the bill for the right kind of person for the job.
But this isn’t your “average” natural beauty store. It is a front for something much more sinister and damaging, and not everyone in this story will make it to the end alive.
Fast paced, compelling, and stomach-churning, this is a book about identity, about bodily autonomy–especially for women and women of color–and it is about the lengths some will go in order to help save the ones they love the most.
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
If you haven’t yet watched the adaptation on Disney+, you will likely be eager to once you finish the book and you can’t stop asking yourself did she really turn herself into a dog? A head’s up here for animal violence, both in the book and in its adaptation.
An unnamed narrator was living the good life and cultivated a strong career in the arts before she decided to stay home to raise her newborn son. Two years into this life, though, and she’s not only feeling like she’s lost a sense of herself, she’s finding that her body is transforming from human to something much more beastly. She’s growing some new hair in unexpected places and her teeth are growing sharper and sharper.
She’s worried, and she knows she needs to keep this canine transformation quiet. But when she finds a book at the local library called A Field Guide to Magical Women: A Mythical Ethnography, she begins to wonder if she’s part of something bigger than herself. The new friends she’s made at the library, too, are perhaps guiding her toward a life she could never have imagined.
This is a wild romp, exploring some real heavy topics that those who’ve become parents may connect with a little bit more than they’d expect.
This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno
Vera and Thiago’s Chicago condo is haunted. They won’t necessarily admit to the haunted part, but they know they’ve had way more weird experiences in the condo than they should. While Thiago was not on board with Vera purchasing the Itza, billed as the most advanced smart speaker, he capitulates. But the damn thing seems to be making the weird occurrences in their condo somehow worse.
Then Vera dies, and Thiago’s world is turned completely upside down in grief. That politicians have turned his wife’s death into an opportunity to pursue their own agendas related to technology has only made it worse. Now Thiago needs to get out of town and fast.
But even as he makes a new home in rural Colorado, the things that haunted Vera and Thiago in Chicago are following him. His plans for solace–and for escape–are anything but certain.
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
When one man’s wife — who we know from the get-go is sort of your “boring, average woman” with “nothing remarkable” about her — decides she’s going to become a vegetarian, the entire family structure begins to fall apart over her choice.
Told through three short novellas, as they were originally published, Yeong-hye’s descent into strangeness is explored through the perspective of her husband, her sister’s husband/her brother-in-law, and finally, her sister. All three talk about what may have led her to make this decision and what the consequences of her choice is.
We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry
A lot of the weird horror on this list has been on the heavier side. If you’re looking for something much lighter–and something that is, at times, utterly delightful weird horror–this one’s for you.
We Ride Upon Sticks story follows a team of field hockey players in Danvers, Massachusetts, who believe they’re imbued with the power of witchcraft. It’s been bestowed upon them by Emilio Estevez (yes, that one). Each of the main characters tells one of the chapters from a third person perspective, and the book rounds back to the team revisiting one another on their hallowed ground 30 years later.
Inclusive, soaked in late-80s pop culture references, and downright hilarious at times, this is also a surprisingly thoughtful story of the power of being a teen girl, the ways our society has shifted in the last 30 years, and what it means to make your own type of power.