I'm looking for a good, dark novel to read on holiday, any suggestions?

Question

Something along the lines of Donnie Darko. A male lead and that sort of vibe would be ideal, although any recommendations are welcome.

Answer 1

I like the Dresden File books.

Answer 2

Alexandra Sokoloff has written a super thriller novel which might interest you. Here is my book review:

Alexandra Sokoloff’s debut novel The Harrowing is simply jam-packed with all the things that make for a good horror story. Baird College’s creepy Mendenhall dormitory, known to its residents as The Hall, (Hell?) is the feature location, with wings that become distressingly similar once the place empties out for Thanksgiving and all the doors are closed. A stormy Thanksgiving break leaves the five main characters together in The Hall, where they quickly come to recognize the broken, empty, or lonely places in each other. Unfortunately, a malevolent spirit also recognizes those frailties, and manipulates them into releasing it from its dark realm of nothingness. The story is fast paced, but also plenty intellectual: It is filled from cover to cover with references to psychology, spiritualism, and religion that would seem out of place if the characters were not all college students. The action is not confined to The Hall, either, as the students move about over a landscape which includes a Stonehenge-like portion of the campus known as The Columns and a graveyard which holds the remains of a 1920s Baird student who had a fatal run-in with the same entity. Despite the dark nature of the conflict, Alexandra Sokoloff injects plenty of humor as well, from the main character’s wry observations about her detestable prom queen roommate to the hilarious appearance of two teen slackers at a moment of high tension. The characters are well drawn, with voices and personalities of their own, and the ending is far from predictable. Don’t wait for Hallowe’en to pick this up.

Vinny O'Neil
MURDER IN EXILE (St. Martin's Press 2006)
REDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES (St. Martin's Press July, 2007)
www.vincenthoneil.com

Answer 3

Lynn Flewelling has a dark fantasy novel out called The Bone Doll's Twin. It sort of has a male protagonist...but it's not really like Donnie Darko.

Answer 4

You might try Iain Bank's "The Wasp Factory". It has the surreal feel of Donnie Darko, interesting narrator, twisty plot, and dark subject matter. I read it several years ago and am surprised at how it continues to stick with me.

Answer 5

Andrew Vachss'...Strega and Blue Belle...
These are books two and three of the 'Burke' series.

Strega.....
Andrew Vachss' implacable private eye has a new client, Strega. She wants Burke to find an obscene photograph—and that search will take him into the ocean that flows just beneath the city, an ocean whose currents are flesh and money, the anguish of children and the pleasure of twisted adults. It is a place that Burke can visit only at the risk of his sanity and his life. But between the power of Strega and his own sense of justice, there is no turning back.

In Strega one of our most acclaimed crime writers gives us a thriller that might have been imagined by Dante. For this is a tour of hell with no stops left out, conducted by a novelist who writes with the authority of the damned.
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Blue Belle.....
Burke is one of the most cold-blooded yet strangely honorable heroes in the history of crime fiction, an outlaw who makes his living preying on the most vicious of New York City's bottom-feeders, those who thrive on the suffering of children.

In Andrew Vachss' tautly engrossing novel Burke is given a purseful of dirty money to find the infamous Ghost Van that is cutting a lethal swath among the teenage prostitutes in the 'hood. He also gets help in the form of a stripper named Belle, whose moves on the runway are outclassed only by the what she can do in a getaway car. But not even Burke is prepared for the evil that is behind the Ghost Van or for the sheer menace of its guardian, a cadaverous karate expert who enjoys killing so much that he has named himself after death.
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below is a link that takes you to am excerpt from 'Sacrifice'...another Burke novel.

Answer 6

Flowers for Algernon by Keyes
I Am Legend by Matheson
The Domination by SM Stirling

Answer 7

Try Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop. It's the first of a trilogy. It's fantasy, but it's really dark. I hope you give it a try- it's one of my favorites and I've read it at least a half dozen times

Answer 8

If you've not already done so, I would suggest reading I am legend, before the move comes out and changes the story.

Answer 9

The Beast Within by Edward Levy

Horror - The book begins in the 1920's on the farm of Henry and Sarah Scruggs. Henry is a fanatically religious man who believes that people are vile and base, and that sex, even marital sex, is repulsive and sinful. Sarah, who is much younger that Henry, disagrees. One day a traveling salesman by the name of Jimmy Connors shows up at the farm, telling them that his car broke down. Feeling unusually hospitable, Henry gives the man some dinner and lets him sleep in the barn for the night. After she thinks that her husband has fallen asleep Sarah sneaks out to the barn and is seduced by Connors. Unfortunately for the both of them, Henry catches them in the act and knocks Connors unconscious. When he awakens he finds himself chained in Henry's basement. Henry tells him that he has murdered Sarah and that he plans on keeping him prisoner for "a long time." Connors is held captive for over twenty years, and eventually the constant abuse, grotesque food, and the horror of his situation drive him to become more beast than man. He loses all memory of who he once was and is simply an animal content to live its life in bondage. But Henry dies and the creature escapes from its prison into the surrounding forest in order to avoid starvation.

It finds its way close to the home of Eli and Carolyn MacCleary, a young married couple. One night when Eli is at work Carolyn ventures outside and is knocked unconscious by the creature, which was hunting for food and became frightened at her approach. Some long forgotten instinct awakens in the beast and it rapes her. After it has finished it leaves her alone in the forest to resume its search for food. It tries to catch a snake but is bitten and dies from the serpent's venom.

Carolyn becomes pregnant from the attack, but is unaware of her rape and so assumes that the child is her husband's. The baby is born and they name him Michael. Michael is an affectionate child, but they notice strange things about him. Animals have a bizarre reaction to him, and he is intensely claustrophobic. As he begins to grow, his parents discover that when night falls a strange transformation overcomes him, as if his entire personality has changed. He slips into trances and prowls the forest, killing the animals that he comes across. Eli boards up his windows to prevent him from escaping at night, and soon thereafter Michael's "spells" seem to relent...until he hits puberty, at least.

As a teenager Michael falls in love with a girl he knows from school, but he is also afraid of hurting her because of his transformations. However, he lets his guard down and even decides that he wants to marry her. Before they can leave together, though, he kills a bully at school who tried to attack him. Wanting to get out of town as soon as possible, he and his girlfriend drive to her house to pick up some of her things. As it turns out, her house used to be the home of Henry Scruggs, and from the moment he steps in the door the beast within him (which is comprised of the emotions, senses, and savage hungers of the creature that was his biological father) springs to the surface and he is left violently insane. Instead of confining him in a mental institution, his parents decide to keep him in the house's cellar, hoping for the day that he might recover.

Others:

Psycho by Robert Bloch
The Third Man by Graham Greene
The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
Who Goes There by John W. Campbell

Answer 10

Harry Potter ...the best of all !! ...I m a total fan !!