{"id":75,"date":"2011-04-21T00:53:19","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T00:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=75"},"modified":"2011-04-21T00:53:19","modified_gmt":"2011-04-21T00:53:19","slug":"prom-can-be-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/prom-can-be-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"Prom Can Be Hell"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we “spring into terror” it’s time to recognize a truly special time of year- prom season.\u00a0 As anyone who survived high school can testify, it’s a dangerous (and angsty) time of year.\u00a0Even if you don’t read horror, you probably know of\u00a0 Carrie,<\/em> Stephen King’s terrifying novel, made into a movie starring Sissy Spacek.\u00a0 I read it in high school, during study hall, and just as the bell rang in the book, the bell for class dismissal rang in my classroom. I jumped right out of my chair. It’s hardly King’s scariest book, but the cruelty other girls show towards Carrie is unforgettable to me.<\/p>\n

If it were only one book, maybe I wouldn’t have seen a trend. But it’s not just one book. It’s hard to write about high school at all without some kind of\u00a0 (to paraphrase Lewis Carroll)”will he, won’t he, will he, won’t he, will he join the dance”? I don’t read a lot of adult horror (and, in spite of the number of teens who read Stephen King, he wasn’t targeting that audience with Carrie<\/em>) but there sure are a lot of YA titles that center on the prom, or some other important high school dance. I can’t say I’ve read them all, and we definitely don’t have reviews up for all of them (I have linked to the reviews for the ones we have) but especially lately there have been enough of them for me to provide you with a list of related books here, if you’d like to go beyond the classic King title.<\/p>\n

Some recent ones include:<\/p>\n

ghostgirl <\/em><\/a>by\u00a0Tonya Hurley\u00a0(centers on a Halloween dance)<\/p>\n

Hex Hall <\/em><\/a>by Rachel Hawkins<\/p>\n

Love is Hell<\/em> by Scott Westerfeld, Melissa Marr, Justine Larbalestier, and Gabrielle Zevin<\/p>\n

Never Slow Dance With A Zombie<\/em> by E. Van Lowe (features a “winter formal”)<\/p>\n

Once Dead, Twice Shy<\/em> by Kim Harrison<\/p>\n

Prom Dates from Hell<\/em> by Rosemary Clement-Moore<\/p>\n

Prom Nights from Hell<\/em> by Stephenie Meyer, Kim Harrison, Meg Cabot, and Lauren Myracle<\/p>\n

Suzi Clue: The Prom Queen Curse<\/em> by Michelle Kehm<\/p>\n

Zombie Queen of Newbery High<\/em> <\/a>by Amanda Ashby<\/p>\n

Zombies vs. Unicorns<\/em> edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier.\u00a0 “Prom Night”, by Libba Bray, is a strong finish to this fantastic anthology.<\/p>\n

And here are some oldies, including a couple by tween horrormeister R.L. Stine.<\/p>\n

Prom Dress<\/em> by Lael Littke<\/p>\n

Prom Date<\/em> by Diane Hoh<\/p>\n

Fear Street: The Prom Queen<\/em> by R.L. Stine<\/p>\n

Fear Street Seniors: Prom Date<\/em>\u00a0 by R.L. Stine<\/p>\n

If you know of any other great scary stories that take place at a school dance, leave a comment\u00a0so we can add to the list!<\/p>\n

Parents, because prom can (obviously) have all kinds of hazards (beyond the ghosts and zombies attracted to the teen dance scene), you might want to look into some prom safety tips<\/a>. And, for all you prom-goers, please don’t drink or text while driving or get in a car with someone who is, keep your cell phone charged, and stay sharp. Call your parents or 911 if things get bad. I mean, I hope you do that anyway, but please take extra care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we “spring into terror” it’s time to recognize a truly special time of year- prom season.\u00a0 As anyone who survived high school can testify, it’s a dangerous (and angsty) time of year.\u00a0Even if you don’t read horror, you probably know of\u00a0 Carrie, Stephen King’s terrifying novel, made into a movie starring Sissy Spacek.\u00a0 I<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[65,66,74,68,70,83,76,72,73,75,63,77,81,79,82,71,78,67,80,37,69,64,7],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amanda-ashby","tag-carrie","tag-e-van-lowe","tag-ghostgirl","tag-hex-hall","tag-horror-fiction","tag-kim-harrison","tag-love-is-hell-anthology","tag-never-slow-dance-with-a-zombie","tag-once-dead-twice-shy","tag-prom","tag-prom-dates-from-hell","tag-prom-night-libba-bray","tag-prom-nights-from-hell-anthology","tag-prom-safety-tips","tag-rachel-hawkins","tag-rosemary-clement-moore","tag-stephen-king","tag-suzi-clue","tag-teens","tag-tonya-hurley","tag-zombie-queen-of-newbery-high","tag-zombies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/99"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}