Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel is the rare literary classic that still lands, provided your reader knows what they're getting into. Four strangers — an occult scholar, his stylish assistant Theodora, the house's charming heir Luke, and a deeply lonely 32-year-old woman named Eleanor — move into a Victorian mansion designed with slightly crooked angles to document supernatural activity. There are no monsters jumping out of closets and zero gore. The terror comes from watching Hill House figure out that Eleanor is the weakest link in the room and slowly peel her away from everyone else.

The main friction point for modern teens is expectation management. Because Penguin reissued this in 2018 to tie in with the hit Netflix series, plenty of high schoolers pick it up expecting the Crain family drama and jump scares. The book is a chilly, klaustrophobic psychological study with a lot of mid-century parlor conversation before the booming on the walls starts. For a teen who loves Stephen King, Gothic atmosphere, or classic English class staples like The Yellow Wallpaper, it's a landmark read — and listening to the audiobook in the dark while following the print text is a great way to catch Jackson's rhythm.