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I love fall. Everything about it from the cool air moving in and the colors of the trees to the spooky Halloween movies. So here are some of my favorite books that deliver on those Halloween vibes with unapologetic fat main characters who totally kick ass.
By Kelly DeVos
Whether by choice, through coercion or for employment, these six teens are bound for fat camp. Things go south before they even get there, and once they arrive it is a pretty quick slide into kicking zombie ass. It is fast paced and well written. There are lots of twists and turns and it often leaves you on the edge of your seat. There are characters you root for, characters who break your heart, and characters who grow in ways you hope others would. All the while, the subtextual indictments of diet culture and systemic fatphobia make this book a stand out
By C. L. Lynch
Stella Blunt is starting a new school and she is stared at and drooled over by a weird guy in her chemistry class. This starts a hilarious Twilight retelling with a fat girl feminist and a zombie twist. Overall this book is a well written zombie story, full of chainsaws and brains. But it’s also a take on a dated franchise retold with a shotgun blast of girl power. It is laugh out loud funny with Shakespearean level insults coming from the mouth of a vulgar fat girl who is making her own way in the world. These books are definitely worth a read.
Hazel is your average kid… ya know, except for the fact that she can see ghosts. When she was a kid, she saw a dark shadow figure in her grandmother’s house. She was always terrified of this entity. As life went on, she saw other ghosts in other situations but nothing like the dark shadow figure that loomed large in her memory. Now Hazel is in high school, and while she can still see and talk to ghosts, she is, for the most part, your average high school student, concerned with homework and the wrestling team. She goes to school one day thinking it will be like any other day, but the school goes on lock down. She tries to get to her little sister, worried that there’s an active shooter… but the cause of the lockdown is something no one, not even Hazel, could have imagined: zombies. Hazel is strong and smart and manages to get herself and a few girls to safety, well relative safety, she gets them to the house with the shadow figure. Now she must pick her battle: Zombies or an evil shadow entity, but she is starting to wonder if the two may be linked.
There has been a string of suicides at Milla’s school, or so the police say. One of the victims was Milla’s best friend, Riley. Milla knows Riley did not kill herself, but no one is listening to her, so Milla decides to take matters into her own hands. Riley and Milla practiced magic. Milla was never really sure if the magic was real, but desperate times call for desperate measures. In an abandoned house Milla and Riley had used as a secret hideout, she finds a creepy old grimoire. Within the dusty tome,she finds a spell for raising the dead. She doesn’t think it will actually work, so it’s quite the surprise when it brings back all three of the recently deceased girls at her school. Now Milla has to keep these girls under wraps and discover who their killer is.
Derry is a witch, but that’s not what Frank calls her; he says that’s a harmful word and that she and her eight siblings are alchemists. It’s all a rather idyllic life filled with chores, meal times and magic practice, until one of her sisters goes missing in the woods one night. From then, a darkness settles and begins closing in all around her family, and it is up to Derry to save them. All of her skills, both magical and mundane, will be pushed to their limits. Will she be able to defeat the darkness before it takes more from her family?
What is your favorite spooky read? We’d love to hear about your favorite on-theme Halloween books in the comments!