Is The Spooky Season Giving You Goosebumps?

Thriller and horror readers sound off in our newest survey

By Ashly Moore Sheldon • October 06, 2024

Happy October! In keeping with the season, lots of us are choosing books with a chilling quality. Whether horror, crime, mystery, or thriller, we're drawn to reads that send shivers down our spine. Our newest survey, conducted by Talker Research and commissioned by Thriftbooks, investigated all things related to the spooky genre and what we found turned into a riveting tale. Here are some of our most arresting findings.

We're pretty sure we've got the chops to be detectives.

A good mystery should offer some surprising twists and turns, but as avid suspense readers, we often get a little too good at solving the mystery in advance. And it stands to reason that these skills could apply to real life, right? More than three out of five (61%) of the readers we polled believed that they have what it takes to unravel a real-world mystery.

If you're someone who often guesses the twist in advance, here are eight recent titles that provide some satisfyingly shocking surprises.

Stay Awake by Megan Goldin—Memento meets Before I Go to Sleep.
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore—Why do the Van Laar children keep going missing?
Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane—A mother searches for her missing daughter in 1970s Boston.
All The Sinners Bleed by A. Cosby—A Black sheriff in the American South contends with racism and murder.
Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak—A nanny tries to interpret her charge's increasingly disturbing drawings.
The Child by Fiona Barton—The decades-old bones of an infant are discovered at a construction site in London.
His and Hers by Alice Feeney—Murder in a tiny British village leads a detective and a reporter down a dangerous path.
The Night Shift by Alex Finlay—A pair of Final Girls try to track down a murderer.

We're less enthusiastic about our chances in a horror scenario.

Only four in ten readers were confident that they'd be the survivors in a real-life horror story, but there was a bit of a gender divide. Men were significantly more confident in their survival skills as compared to women (51% vs. 37%).

More than half of respondents (54%) admitted to being more easily startled after reading a scary book. On average, it takes about two days for these feelings to subside. Reported after-effects of a chilling read included:

Sleeping with the lights on (33%)
Checking under the bed (21%)
Refusing to answer the door (20%)

Nonetheless, reading scary books could be good for us.

A majority of respondents (68%) said that reading frightening books has led them to adopt safer habits. These include:

Not sharing personal info with strangers (63%)
Not answering calls or texts from unfamiliar numbers (62%)
Never posting personal info on the internet (51%)

In addition to feeling more fearful after finishing a scary book, 29 percent of readers reported feeling more energized.

"It’s interesting and so relatable to see all the things we’ve done after reading a scary book," said Barbara Hagen, vice president of sales and marketing at ThriftBooks. "The scary book genre is a lot at once: Chilling, energizing and enthralling. It’s no wonder it’s such a popular genre."

Not everyone identifies as the hero.

When asked which character stereotypes they identified with, only 45 percent said they saw themselves as the hero of the story. One in four (26%) said they would be the sidekick and twelve percent said they'd likely be the victim. An audacious—and surprisingly large—subset (13%) identified themselves as the villain of the story.

And speaking of villains . . .

A majority of those polled (68%) said they can tell if someone is a bad person based simply on the vibes they give off. In this regard, women were more confident than their male counterparts (70% vs. 61%). And more than half of readers (51%) said someone in their everyday routine fit the mold of a horror villain and identified some of these suspects using the following categories:

a neighbor (44%)
a family member (31%)
a passerby (26%)
a friend (22%)
a co-worker (19%)

These findings have us looking at the world in a new way. Are there potential villains in your daily life? And while we're on the subject, here are a handful of our favorite literary villains.

Judge Holden from Blood Meridian
Hannibal Lecter from Red Dragon
Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series
Tamar from Harvest Home
Annie Wilkes from Misery
Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
O'Brien from 1984

We get a taste for fear when we're young!

On average, readers reported picking up their first hair-raising book at age twelve and 60 percent of respondents said they were immediately hooked on horror. This number trends higher with younger generations with Gen Z (73%), millennials (76%), and Gen X (72%) saying they became addicted to the genre with their initial exposure. Popular gateway scares included:

There's a reason he's called "The King of Horror."

When asked to list their favorite horror author, Stephen King won handily with 68% of the vote. Top King titles cited include:

"If you haven’t already this year, we encourage readers to pick up a scary book,” said Hagen. “Whether it’s a repeat read or a new one, there’s no better time of year to get into the genre."

Let us know about your favorite horror and thriller novels!

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Survey methodology:

Talker Research surveyed 2,000 Americans who regularly read mystery, horror, thrillers/suspense or true crime books; the survey was commissioned by ThriftBooks and administered and conducted online by Talker Research between Sept. 17 and Sept. 23, 2024.

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