Five Bookish Halloween Costume Ideas

Hi everyone, it’s Sabrina!  Spooky October is officially upon us – the month where we share all kinds of posts appropriate for Halloween! Today, I’m suggesting some bookish Halloween costume ideas – and seeing if you can guess which characters they represent!  When it comes to most book characters, there’s not going to be many people that recognise who you are, but the aims of these costume ideas are that a) people can tell you’re actually wearing a costume and b) if they have read the book, they will instantly know who you are.  I also think these costumes are reasonably easy to put together – so if by some chance this year you end up needing a last minute outfit for a Halloween event, these should be good!

And with that, let’s get into the post!  Don’t forget to tell me how many of the costumes you guessed right!

---

COSTUME ONE

Items: Black leather jacket, black pants, a black top and black boots. Multiple piercings (real or fake!) and black tattoos (also real or temporary), bonus points if they are three birds across your collarbone.

Click HERE to reveal the answer!

Tris from Divergent!

I really love Divergent , it’s such a classic YA dystopian that is fast paced and inspiring as well as dark and mysterious. Not only do I think this is probably one of the easiest costumes to pull off, because I’m sure most people have simple black clothes in their existing wardrobe, but it also might be recognisable by people who haven’t read the book. Though, of course, you could be any Dauntless member, not just Tris (this is a theme for all the costumes I feature in this post). Another potential perk of this costume is that it has the ability to make you feel strong and powerful – at least that’s how I feel when I wear all black!

---

COSTUME TWO

Items: A silk slip dress, a reddish-brown wig and plum lipstick. Light blue body paint and butterfly (or, ideally, moth) hair accessories.

Click HERE to reveal the answer!

Sarai from Strange The Dreamer!

Of course I had to include a costume for one of my favourite books – Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor! I absolutely adore everything about the YA fantasy duology, from the characters and plot to the setting and writing style. As with the other costumes in this list, you can tweak it to fit different characters – the moths are specific to Sarai, but, for instance, leaves or flowers would make you Sparrow. The only necessary elements for all the Godspawn are the slip dress (which is trendy at the moment, right!?) and blue body paint, which is definitely the most complicated part. I haven’t mentioned shoes here – because I don’t think the characters wear any – but I definitely suggest wearing either slippers or simple shoes.

---

COSTUME THREE

Items: Black shirt, black pants and a white cape (ie. a sheet or tablecloth). Black and white face paint, a black wig. A plastic skeleton companion and any bone-shaped accessories.

Click HERE to reveal the answer!

Harrow from Gideon the Ninth!

The Locked Tomb books are so bloody fantastic and their covers, in my opinion, are too! I’m beyond excited that a fourth book has been added to the series! The skeleton is absolutely necessary for an iconic Harrow outfit, but you could switch it for a sword and add aviator sunglasses if you’d prefer to dress as Gideon. Though the clothing isn’t difficult, I don’t consider this costume to be the easiest, because you have to do some minor face paint work – as you can see in the book cover, a skull design on the face is required. Gideon isn’t particularly good at applying the skull herself though, so if your hand isn’t all that steady, perhaps you should go for her version of the costume, lol. Also, I mentioned a black wig in the items section for Harrow, but I’m sure you could get away without it.

---

COSTUME FOUR

Items: Formal business clothes with green accents, green jewellery (specifically, jade jewellery), perhaps a knife.

Click HERE to reveal the answer!

Ayt Mada from Jade City!

I cannot praise The Green Bone Saga highly enough – it is a truly magnificent fantasy story that is concluding with Jade Legacy later this year, and I am absolutely not ready for it! I’ve labelled this costume as Ayt Madashi, but as long as you have the jade jewellery, you could be any Green Bone – or an illegal jade wearer, if you dare. Of course (fake) weapons are another recognisable element of the typical Green Bone, so you could add any number of them too. Although this costume does require some fairly specific accessories, I still think it’s simple to put together and to do it well.

---

COSTUME FIVE

Items: Dark academia inspired clothing, eg: a coat or sweater vest, a button up shirt or turtleneck, trousers or a chequered skirt.  Glasses and a copy of Julius Caesar or Macbeth or King Lear or Romeo and Juliet (or any combination of the four).  A handkerchief spotted with red dye/fake blood and a battered boat hook.

Click HERE to reveal the answer!

Oliver from If We Were Villains!

Okay, so this costume feels a bit like cheating because it is so non-specific, but it still counts! “dark academia” is such a trendy style right now, and dressing up as a character from If We Were Villains plays right into that. Like with the first costume, I think this one is pretty easy to pull off as there are elements of this style in most people’s wardrobes already. Of course not everyone is going to have a boat hook lying around, lol, but I included it anyway. The copy of King Lear (or one of the other Shakespeares) and the “blood” soaked fabric mark this as specifically from If We Were Villains, but you could easily tweak the details to make this costume more fitting for your favourite dark academia book.

---

What do you think?

Did you like these costume ideas? Did you get any right? And do you have any other bookish costume ideas to share? Let us know!

Advertisement