I love books where you know something feels off, but you can’t figure out what’s going on. I like the eerie atmosphere and trying to puzzle out what’s happening. Books I’ve read and enjoyed that fit this description are:
I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
Foe by Iain Reid
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward
Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente
The Ferryman by Justin Cronin
by jennygogo101
12 Comments
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
The shadow of the wind – Carlos Ruiz zafon
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. It’s about a woman who is named executor to the estate of a former lover and discovers a possible conspiracy involving a centuries-long rivalry between two secret societies of mail carriers while investigating a stamp collection that’s part of the estate. The book starts out really goofy and is all jokes but the levity slowly falls off and by like… 2/3s of the way into the book it’s a full blown paranoid, question your sanity, conspiracy mystery. Some people don’t vibe well with Pynchon’s writing but if you don’t mind some cryptic bits and the fact that it’s pretty dense it’s a wonderful book. It’s quite short too at like 150 pages.
Pretty Girls by Karen Slaughter might be good for you, it has a pretty intense plot, but there’s a good slow buildup of the suspension and eerie feeling of something just being off.
my next rec would be NOS4A2, it’s a good thriller and has a more fantastical “off” vibe, the first is much more realistic.
If you’re fine with disturbing books, Gone to See the River Man is GREAT for this, the whole time there’s this very morbid, grotesque vibe to the main character that’s almost impossible to identify until you come to the end and all the dread that’s been building up is finally explained, and it’s worse than you could have imagined
House of Leaves.
The Buried Giant
Bunny by Mona Awad
Wayward Pines trilogy.
Our Wives under the Sea by Julia Armfield
The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley
Hand up here for – The Last House on Needless Street …. I picked it up at 2 pm this afternoon and it’s 1 am where I’m at and I finally put it down .. finished.
Don’t read the afterword or the bibliography at the end fwiw. I did appreciate both but major spoilers.