There is a very specific feeling Katie Dippold has been chasing her whole career. She traces it back to a haunted house on the Long Branch boardwalk in New Jersey—one she was far too young to be inside. She remembers screaming. She remembers laughing so hard she could barely breathe. She remembers those two things happening at exactly the same time.

You know the feeling. Endless fluorescent-lit corridors. Carpet that smells faintly of damp. A room that should have an exit but somehow doesn’t.

hey, bunny! let’s sulk in sad girl MFA vibes for a bit together. i promise i won’t waste your time. you wanna know what i think? one of the most challenging aspects of writing to achieve as a fiction author is the ability to immerse readers in your novel’s world. but mona awad has proven time and time again that she excels at this. she did it with bunny, and she did it again with we love you, bunny: a prequel‑sequel hybrid that’s equal parts eerie and magnetic.

If you left the cinema feeling equal parts thrilled and unsettled, you’re not alone. Curry Barker’s horror-romance became one of the breakout hits of the year, and it’s easy to see why. A hopeless romantic breaks a mysterious trinket called the One Wish Willow to win his crush’s heart, only to discover that getting exactly what you wished for can be its own kind of nightmare. What starts as a sweet, slightly awkward love story tips, scene by scene, into something much darker: