Books like “American Psycho”

What to read after “American Psycho” by Bret Easton Ellis: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Fight Club
Chuck Palahniuk · 1996
Similar atmosphere: “Satire” and “Psychological Thriller”
Insomniac and alienated, a nameless narrator meets a charismatic soap salesman named Tyler Durden and helps found an underground fight club that grows into something far larger. As the club spreads, the narrator's life and sense of self begin to come apart.
2
Misery
Stephen King · 1987
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror” and “Psychological Thriller”
- Body Horror
- Psychological Thriller
After a car crash in a snowstorm, novelist Paul Sheldon wakes in the remote home of Annie Wilkes, who calls herself his number one fan. She nurses him back to health, then learns he has killed off her favourite character, and will not let him leave until he writes her a new book.
3
The Woman in the Window
A. J. Finn · 2018
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Unreliable Narrator
Child psychologist Anna Fox lives alone, unable to leave her home, and spends her days watching her neighbours through a camera. When she sees something in the house across the street, no one believes her, and she is left to work out whether the danger is real or in her mind.
4
My Lovely Wife
Samantha Downing · 2019
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
A husband and wife in a Florida suburb look like an ordinary couple, but they share a secret pastime that has to stay hidden. As the double life grows harder to manage, the narrator finds the person he knows best is the one he trusts least.
5
A Simple Plan
Scott Smith · 1993
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Villain Protagonist
Three men find a crashed plane, a dead pilot and a bag of money in the snow. What starts as a quiet decision to keep the cash spirals into suspicion, lies and violence, as each tries to hold together a plan that keeps changing.
6
The Last Mrs. Parrish
Liv Constantine · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
An ambitious woman works her way into the life of a rich, seemingly perfect couple, planning to take the wife's place. The household she longs to join has secrets of its own, and neither woman is quite what she pretends to be.
7
The Killer Inside Me
Jim Thompson · 1952
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Deputy sheriff Lou Ford seems like an ordinary small-town man, but his mild manner hides a violence he has carried since childhood. When old secrets and a woman from his past resurface, his two selves begin to pull him toward more killing.
8
Local Woman Missing
Mary Kubica · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Unreliable Narrator
In a quiet suburb, a young mother vanishes while out running, and weeks later another woman and her six-year-old daughter disappear nearby. Eleven years on, the daughter suddenly returns, and what she brings back unsettles everyone who stayed behind.
9
Big Little Lies
Liane Moriarty · 2014
Similar atmosphere: “Satire” and “Psychological Thriller”
- Satire
- Psychological Thriller
Three mothers at a coastal school become friends while a death at a school event draws nearer. Their polished lives hide abusive marriages, old grudges and rumour, and the night of the fundraiser forces the truth into the open.
10
The Kind Worth Killing
Peter Swanson · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Unreliable Narrator
On a night flight from London to Boston, Ted tells a stranger that he wishes his cheating wife were dead. Lily calmly offers to help him plan it. As their murder scheme takes shape in Boston, each of the narrators hides a past the others know nothing about.
11
The Housemaid
Freida McFadden · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Unreliable Narrator
A woman with no money and a criminal record takes a live-in job cleaning for a wealthy family. The wife is cruel, the husband is kind, and a locked door upstairs keeps drawing her attention as the household's rules grow stranger.
12
Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Unreliable Narrator
On their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy Dunne disappears from a rented house and her husband Nick becomes the prime suspect. Two narrators tell very different versions of the same marriage.