April ScaredyKit- Possession

This month we're reading about possession. This could mean demonic or spirit possession, or alien possession. It could also mean the possession of a house or object, like a doll or piece of jewelry. So that gives us a lot of leeway in our reading.

Just a few ideas here.

Human Possession-
The Exorcist
My Best Friend's Exorcism
A Headful of Ghosts
Rosemary's Baby
Pandemonium
The Regulators
The Host
Ammie, Come Home


Location Possession- Really, more haunted house stories than you can shake a stick at. Here are just a couple.
The Amityville Horror
The Woman in Black
The Turn of the Screw


Other Possessed Stuff
Christine
Heart-Shaped Box
Help for the Haunted
The Entertainer and the Dybbuk

Tell us what you plan to read this month. And if you know a good curse removal.

I'm not exactly sure if either of these fits, but when I was looking yesterday, I came up with these:

A Barricade in Hell / Jaime Lee Moyer
Mexican Gothic / Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I haven't read either yet so I can't say for sure. At least Mexican Gothic features an evil house, though neither book has any tags of "possession", so it's a hard call. I found that the book I had purchased last month for this KIT, Elizabeth by Ken Greenhall, isn't as possess-y as I'd thought.

Mexican Gothic will fit, I just finished reading it.

>3 mstrust: I'm sure they both came up when I did a tagmash of possession and csw (I tag all my tbr books with my initials, just for this purpose).

ETA: I just did the tagmash again and it did come up with the possession tag. It's probably tiny... :-)

>4 raidergirl3: Thank you!

Sorry if it seemed like I was saying they weren't possession stories, I was just trying to help by going by the tags.

I am going to be reading A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay.

I will probably read Seed.

Maybe it's time for me to finally read Skinwalkers by Tony Hillerman.

Hopefully all the touchstones in >1 mstrust: will work some day.
>9 PaperbackPirate: Oh yeah, I happen to have Skinwalkers on the shelf too. I had been planning a re-read of The Woman in Black but I still haven't read a single Hillerman so I think I'l do that.

I found this one by searching the tag which looks promising: The Haunting of Tram Car 015

I can also recommend Joplin's Ghost about a possessed piano.

Let me also plug a few good books for this theme:

Come Closer by Sara Gran
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy - this is a possessed deer
Burnt Offerings - kind of a different haunted-house story

>6 mstrust: I know! It's ok. But it did get me to double check. I just don't always trust the tags, even. :-)

Here are a couple off the beaten path that I really enjoyed:

A good and happy child by Justin Evans
The possessors by John Christopher

I'm in!

I believe I have Rosemary's Baby (by Ira Levin) sitting on my Nook app, just waiting for me! A movie viewing may also be in order!

>14 LibraryCin: I'm glad you've found one for this challenge!
>15 SomeGuyInVirginia: Larry's here so this KIT is officially creepy!
>16 Tanya-dogearedcopy: Fantastic, both the book and movie!

Yo, I bring the creep!

I think I'm going to read My Best Friend's Exorcism, since I already have a copy.

I hope you like MBFE!

We're in Spring now, which of course brings to mind 60's horror show host Zacherley and his song about the season. It's not just me, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPS-P_JFOkU

>11 sturlington:, I'm reading The Haunting of Tram Car 015 now and really enjoying it. It's lighter than you'd expect for a 'possession' tale, and I don't know if I'd call it at all scary, but it fits the challenge and it's fun--I'm already looking forward to reading more of the author's work!

Meanwhile, I'm planning on reading The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper. I've been looking forward to trying his work for a while, and it seems to be a perfect fit.

>20 whitewavedarling: I just finished it. It's short! I'd call it a fantasy/alternate history rather than horror, although the Armenian spirit haunting the tram car does take on some frightening forms near the end. Entertaining little story.

>21 sturlington:, Yeah, I definitely wouldn't call it horror. The author has some other novellas, which I think I will read, but I'm really excited for the novel he has coming out in May (A Master of Djinn). It's in the same world/with the same ministry here, but I'm excited to see what that will look like in a full-length novel vs a novella.

>19 mstrust: Doesn't MBFE have some content that you can only access with the Kindle app? Like music and and animation and stuff? Should I read it on my phone or just plow through on my regular black and white Kindle? It's a cheapy so it doesn't have audio.

I have the physical book but I'd love to know if there's more on the Kindle version. I'd never heard that before.
Anybody able to confirm or deny?

Stopping by to offer a quick recommendation/warning: I don't get creeped out easily, but I've officially stopped reading The Demonologist at night. The book is fantastic, and I do most of my reading right before bedtime... but not with this one. It doesn't even seem like it SHOULD be that creepy... but, well, somehow, it definitely is. (I'm a little bit less than halfway through, for reference.)

That's a high recommendation round here!

>26 mstrust: LOL! Yeah, I was considering checking it out (I just have so many books already on the tbr!)

Possession by Frank Rayeski was a very short story about an exorcism on a woman in her home that had a demonic spirit within her. At the end of the story, he claimed it was his heavenly duty to do this. Nothing really to the story......... 5 pages 2 1/2 stars KAT: Scaredykit April possession (I read this for free on Booksie) Since this was so short and so bad, I hope to find another to read!

I read Skinwalkers by Tony Hillerman. There aren't any possessions in it, but there's Navajo witchcraft, manipulation and murder, so keep that in mind if you need a witchcraft/shaman book. I enjoyed the read but I'll be looking for another possession book.

I'll finally get around to reading The Good House by Tananarive Due.

Sigh...

I had two options for this. One has too many holds at the moment. The other just came for me today in the library and is waiting on the hold shelf for me. But, libraries are shutting down again (3rd wave - + lots of variant cases). Not even curbside pickup... at least for now. :-(

I will get to one of them when I get to them and I will report back then.

My library is open to holds and browsing down just the main hallway, and I was there yesterday to pick up some holds and hoped that I'd be able to grab up Mexican Gothic as a possession book. Nope.

I finished Heart-shaped Box by Joe Hill. This one is considered possession because the main character, an old heavy metal rock star, purchases a ghost (the suit of the ghost). The story is pretty creepy and I think it could be good and even better without all the incest and other sadistic and masochistic elements. Was not a book that was high on my list of books I wanted to read but it was available and met the requirements.

>32 mstrust: :-( That was one of my options, too, but a lot of holds.

I checked my library website again today, and I guess they are "re-opening" tomorrow, but just for curbside pickup. So, they must have just taken today to regroup.

I'll pick up my book on Friday (wish I didn't have to go to work in person at all, but they still have me coming in once/week; it's not work itself that worries me, but with our third wave of variants happening now, I don't drive, so I'm on public transit to/from).

I knew it would be a slim chance that it would just be sitting on the shelf. I should have thought ahead and joined the hold line. I'm sure it's long.

I have completed my read of A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay. This is a well written horror story that has the reader questioning what is happening throughout the story.

>25 whitewavedarling: I've read and liked several of Andrew Pyper's books, and I've even had the pleasure of seeing him read at some local events. The Killing Circle seems to get mixed reviews, but I found it very creepy.

I finished Mexican Gothic and enjoyed it a lot. I particularly liked the atmospheric feel (very much in the Gothic style) and the haunted house setting.

I also recently finished another book that featured possession by a spirit, The Midnight Bargain by C. L. Polk, but I don't think it counts for this challenge as it's not especially scary.

May thread is up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/331373

I am reading Haunted By the Things You Love by John Zaffis. A book about possessed dolls and other haunted items.

Mexican Gothic / Silvia Moreno-Garcia
3.25 stars

Noemi has gone to see her recently-married cousin, Catalina, who married suddenly and is now living in a remote large house with her new husband’s family. Noemi’s father is worried about some letters Catalina has written, as it sounds like she is very ill, so he wanted Noemi to go see how Catalina is doing and see if she can help. Catalina’s husband, Virgil, and his entire family is very odd, to say the least… and it seems quite apparent that they don’t want Noemi there.

The book is slow moving. I listened to the audio, which was fine, but not a whole lot happened until about the last quarter of the book. It did pick up, but not enough for me to raise my rating very much (the extra .25 is for when it finally picked up). I’ve seen this compared to “Rebecca” as a Mexican Rebecca, and Rebecca also started very slow, but there was something about the atmosphere in Rebecca and the story that had me like it better, overall. The atmosphere was done well in this one, too, but one thing I didn’t like were the odd, kind of psychedelic, dreams Noemi was having. Those were just...weird. That did put me off some. Overall, 3 stars for me is ok, and I added the little extra for the pick up at the end.

I finished My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix. I gave it 4 stars. Good horror story with a nice amount of 80s nostalgia. It was a bit more gross horror than the creepy horror that I usually prefer, but that is only personal preference. Demon possession stories are usually on the gross end of the spectrum and it is done well here.

I actually finished The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper a few weeks ago, but it took me this long to get my thoughts together for a review. (Full review written.) Suffice it to say, this is a scary one, and I absolutely loved it. After this, I'll be reading everything else Pyper has written, and anything he puts out in the future.

I finished Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin, and it was very suspenseful and creepy. Unfortunately, I've heard that the sequel, Son of Rosemary, is disappointing.

>43 mathgirl40: Disappointing is not the word. I gave it 1/2 star. I would avoid it if I were you so it won't ruin your experience of Rosemary's Baby.

>44 sturlington: Thanks for the advice. I will definitely avoid this book!

I didn't even know there was a sequel to Rosemary's Baby. I thought R'sB was an amazing work so I'm sorry the next didn't hold up. But it's sort of funny that the guy who wrote it and The Stepford Wives also wrote the plays for Critic's Choice and No Time for Sargeants.

>46 mstrust: I hadn't known that Ira Levin had written these plays. I may look for them sometime, as I've been trying to fill out my "Other formats" category, which includes plays, poetry and other formats I don't normally read.

I was surprised to see his list of work go from comedy to horror. He was a good writer no matter the genre.