Horrifying Women: 7 Novels With Diabolical Villainesses
During quarantine, I found myself immersed in Misery by Stephen King after seeing Kathy Bates’s terrifying portrayal of antiheroine Annie Wilkes in the film adaptation. In some ways, horrifying women, or women villains, are horrifying because they defy convention.They seek to be seen and heard, even if it means screaming in our faces or committing crimes. Their actions may be unspeakable, awful, or deranged, but we can’t help wanting to see more, and we are drawn to knowing why. Here are a few titles that feature women who are certainly horrific, but who keep us coming back for more.
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Misery by Stephen King
King’s descriptions of Annie Wilkes are almost poetic in their disgust—“There was a feeling about her of clots and roadblocks...as if she might night have any blood vessels or even internal organs...”, “Her eyes, which appeared to move, were actually just painted on...” She is often described as an idol or statue, impenetrable and earth-shattering in her ire. Her anger is swift and violent, and maybe it is horrifying because it flies in the face of what we have come to expect from female characters.
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
From the author of Gone Girl (featuring another chilling unreliable narrator, Amy Dunne), Sharp Objects centers on a family of women who are horrifying yet also hauntingly beautiful. When a series of grisly murders occurs in a small town in Missouri, a reporter with a terrible secret returns to investigate. Her icy mother and chaotic yet beguiling younger sister haunt the pages of this short but affecting novel.
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
What if the horrifying woman isn’t really there physically, but occupies your whole reality? In this classic gothic novel, a wide-eyed young wife is swept away to a grand estate of her new husband, and the grounds are permeated with the presence of her husband’s late wife. What is so terrifying about this novel is not the villain herself, but how she reveals even after her death.
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Beset by a bleak and lonely life taking care of her increasingly unhinged father and working as a secretary at a boy’s prison, it is title character Eileen’s normalcy that makes her horrifying, and what she is willing to do to depart from that normalcy will shock you.
We Have Always Lived in the Castleby Shirley Jackson
By this list so far, you’ve probably gathered I love unsettling family sagas, murder and haunted spaces, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle provides a blueprint for that. A classic New England gothic novel of otherness, sisterhood, and distrust—the reader must ask themselves who to trust, and often their answers are wrong.
The Hole by Hye Young Pyun
Similar to Misery, a man is trapped in isolation under the care of his grieving mother-in-law, and both slip into a state of insanity. For fans of Parasite and all things body horror, check out this chilling novel by an exciting new Korean novelist.
Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel
Based on the infamous case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s murder of her abusive mother Dee Dee Blanchard, this new release is one of the most thrilling novels so far this year. Held captive by her mother as she scams hundreds of people by preying on their sympathy, Patty is eventually found guilty and spends five years in prison. The novel begins with her release and plea for her daughter, Rose Gold, to take her in. This novel will make you question where a woman’s breaking point is, and perhaps the trauma that causes her to reach a breaking point is what is truly horrifying.
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Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!