In which I am a tiny drop in the vast RA sea
I sat down to make a readalike list for Stranger Things, eventually coming up with ten accurate, thoughtful, and original matches, painstakingly whittled down from a much-larger first draft. I was quite pleased with myself. And then I saw this post, which compiles a great number of already-existing readalike lists for Stranger Things from all across the internet. This discovery took some of the wind out of my readers’ advisor’s sails, since so many of my suggestions are already among the 174 books featured elsewhere. However, I’d chosen a few titles that didn’t make it onto any other lists, so I’m adding my list to the heap with only slightly tarnished self-satisfaction.
As always, I stuck to adult fiction suggestions. If this list and that link didn’t provide you with enough reading options, feel free to consult the list I made for IT, because there’s plenty of thematic overlap between the two, but zero repeating titles.
Stranger Things Season 2 bingewatch starts Oct 27. The books you can read whenever.
Found on 17 lists (now 18), this graphic novel is THE most popular ST readalike. Set in 80’s suburbia and full of references and winky background details, it’s a coming-of-age adventure where a pack of bike-riding besties encounter monsters across time and space, defending each other and saving the world. This series publishes as volumes, which you may treat as “episodes” for structural as well as thematic congruity.
For Joyce Byers’ plotline of missing children, maternal intuition, and worlds with permeable borders: 14-year-old Tommy vanishes after spending the night in the woods with friends. Police have no leads, but spooky incidents begin to occur in the house, leaving Tommy’s mother unsure whether she’s going insane with worry, or if her missing son is trying to communicate with her. Either way she’s determined to find him.
The themes, tone, and writing style here have touchpoints to the Steves both King (The Body, IT) and Spielberg (Amazing Stories, E.T.), which mathematically = Stranger Things. Like ST, there’s an otherworldly component, but it’s not SF/horror; more dark fantasy coming-of-age where the hard realities of life like war, bigotry, and the disappearance of loved ones exist, but so does heroism and the possibility of magic.
Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone
This novel-in-stories is set in a small German village full of secrets, suspicion, and superstition. It doesn’t have the SF angle of Stranger Things, but it’s a match for horror about childhood and evil, with monsters of both the everyday and supernatural varieties. It reads like a fairytale strained through Stephen King; wonder and horror mashed together as the young friends are exposed to strange(r) things, indeed.
A funny, spookily magical small town coming-of-age story. In 1960s Long Island, two young brothers create a detailed miniature version of their neighborhood in their basement, complete with houses, woods, and people. Their little sister; she of the imaginary friends, unusual abilities and uncanny predictions, discovers and plays with this cityscape, anticipating? causing? eerily similar occurrences in the real world.
Set in 1988 and putting the F in BFF, two teen-girl besties fight the evil trying to drive a wedge between them in a demonic possession tale as old as time. Covering their friendship from 5th grade on, it’s another delicious reference-studded celebration of growing up in the 80’s, the enduring strength of friendship, loyalty, and the always-lurking presence of monsters. The power of big hair compels you to read this!
A psychologically ambiguous haunted house story à la Henry James, where grief, mental illness, dream logic and multiple POVs (including one from the house itself) combine to muddle the reader’s sense of reality. It’s all dark fabulism and ominous atmosphere, wherein ghosts may or may not occupy the walls of a house and the living may or may not be lured into their company, vanishing from the world. Y’know, like Will.
JP is 10 years old and diagnosed with Asperger’s. He doesn’t like being touched and has refused to go outside after nearly drowning in the ocean years ago. He sees monsters everywhere, and draws them constantly; an outlet for his frustration and a way to communicate with his parents and his friend Nick. And then they begin seeing his monsters out in the real world. A creepy psychological story of blurring boundaries.
A nine-year-old girl named Melanie is kidnapped, kept in a sensory deprivation chamber and subjected to invasive experiments for six years, where she will open portals to other worlds, monsters will stumble through, and all hell will break loose. This may not be high lit, but it was written in 1985, two years after Stranger Things is set, so along with the plot similarities, it gets points for temporal accord.
ANOTHER SF-laced horror story about a young girl named Melanie who is subjected to all manner of scientific experiments. However, in this one, the monsters are not in some parallel world, they are right here, named Melanie.
