9 Body Horror Novels by Women about Losing Control

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Addison Rizer is a author and reader of something that may be described as bizarre, unhappy, or scary. She has an MA in Professional Writing and a BA in English. She writes for Book Riot and Publishers Weekly and is at all times searching for extra methods to gush about the books she loves. Find her revealed work or contact her on her web site or at addisonrizer at gmaildotcom.

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Body horror is a very skin-crawling sort of scariness for me. The thought of one thing that’s so yours not being yours anymore is chilling. That sense of possession and management, the inherent perception that your physique will obey you, disappears and helplessness takes its place. While I believe anybody can perceive that worry to a sure extent, I believe girls and femme-presenting folks have a specific understanding of what it means to have a physique that isn’t fairly their physique anymore.

From a younger age, girls’s our bodies are sometimes commodified and sexualized, changing into a spectacle or privilege for others to take a look at, touch upon, and contact with out permission. Many girls need to assume via how their physique will probably be perceived, what their garments and make-up and hair say about them, and who would possibly react to these issues earlier than going out into the world. Every blemish is a betrayal. Every alternative is scrutinized. With being pregnant, contraception, and puberty, irrespective of who you’re, what it’s prefer to not be in command of what your physique is doing.

If you’ll be able to relate to this sense, irrespective of who you’re, try these 9 physique horror novels written by girls.

The Low, Low Woods by Carmen Maria Machado

In a small mining city referred to as Shutter-to-Think, Pennsylvania, youngsters El and Octavia get up in a movie show with gaps of their recollections. This amnesia isn’t new: it’s a mysterious sickness affecting the ladies of the city. With twisted forest animals, dodgy folks, and a secret the city needs to maintain hidden, the pair are up towards lots to search out out what occurred to them throughout their lacking hours.

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung

This brief story assortment has some wonderful physique horror tales stuffed with gross and grotesque scenes. In one, a pregnant lady seeks out a father for her baby earlier than it’s too late. In one other, a head seems in a rest room time and again. No matter which story you begin with, Cursed Bunny is a superb assortment for horror followers.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

When Noemi will get phrase her newly-wed cousin is in bother, she doesn’t hesitate to make the journey to High Place, the place her cousin and new husband dwell. When she arrives, although, the hazard doesn’t appear so clear. With household dynamics shifting and the home inflicting nightmares every night time, Noemi begins poking into the home’s previous the place horrible secrets and techniques lie.

(*9*)

Maeve Fly by CJ Leede

Princess performer Maeve loves nothing greater than curling up with a very good guide on the finish of the day. Despite her cheery day job, Maeve has an unextinguishable rage inside. When her finest buddy’s brother involves city, he triggers one thing inside her. Something violent and bloody. Something she will’t come again from.

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

After Leah’s deep-sea mission runs practically half a yr longer than anticipated, her spouse Miri is relieved to have her again. But Leah isn’t the identical as she was. She spends hours within the rest room operating water and craves saltier and saltier drinks. And her physique isn’t the identical both. With alternating views, Miri and Leah recount their historical past, their current, and what they will do to remain collectively going ahead.

Just Like Mother by Anne Heltzel

Raised in The Mother Collective, a cult obsessive about elevating younger ladies to turn out to be the right child-bearers, Maeve and her cousin Andrea are separated after a raid sends them into foster care. Years later, Maeve is an single editor getting her life collectively. Andrea, now married to a millionaire who runs an organization geared towards household planning, presents to let Maeve transfer in to search out her footing in life. Back below the identical roof, they fall into most of the patterns ingrained into them as youngsters — patterns that may not be so wholesome in spite of everything.

Queen of Teeth by Hailey Piper

When YaYa finds enamel between her legs, she chalks it as much as the pharmaceutical experiments carried out on her and a whole bunch of different infants whereas within the womb. But quickly AlphaBeta is after her, and YaYa goes on the run with one of many firm’s scientists, Doc. As the enamel turn into one thing extra, one thing sentient, one thing that desires destruction.

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

On an island off the coast of Maine trapped on all sides by a mutilating plague, Raxter School for Girls is below quarantine. If the ladies go outdoors the varsity fence, they danger by no means coming again. With the promised remedy from the CDC nonetheless not developed, they’re on their very own. When Hetty’s finest buddy Byatt goes lacking, Hetty takes off into the unknown to search out her.

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

When 17-year-old Iris’s older sister, Grey, disappears, she’s instantly apprehensive. The final time this occurred, each of her sisters Grey and Viv returned bare, knife-clad, with no reminiscence of the place they’d been or what occurred to them. Now, Iris and Viv should work collectively to search out Grey as unusual circumstances plague them.

In the temper for extra gross horror? Check out these 13 skin-crawling physique horror books or these 8 physique possession and body-sharing horror novels!