Books like “Frankenstein in Baghdad”

What to read after “Frankenstein in Baghdad” by Ahmed Saadawi: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

About “Frankenstein in Baghdad”

Another favorite book?

Or start with a well-known book

1
Tender Is the Flesh
Agustina Bazterrica · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror” and “Satire”
After a virus makes all animal meat deadly, Argentina legalises the farming of humans for food. Marcos works the slaughter line and keeps his feelings out of it, until he is given a live woman as a gift and begins to treat her as a person.
2
Mexican Gothic
Silvia Moreno-Garcia · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror”
- Body Horror
In 1950s Mexico, socialite Noemi Taboada travels to the mountain mansion of High Place to check on her newly married cousin, who writes of ghosts and sickness. The English family that owns it is cold and strange, and the house itself seems to be listening and slowly changing her.
3
Catch-22
Joseph Heller · 1961
Similar atmosphere: “Satire”
Bombardier Yossarian wants to survive the war and go home, but every attempt to be grounded runs into a rule that answers itself: to be excused he must ask, and asking proves he is sane. Around him, officers profit and comrades die.
4
The Island of Doctor Moreau
H. G. Wells · 1896
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror”
- Body Horror
- Sympathetic Monster
Edward Prendick is rescued from a shipwreck and left on a remote island owned by the physiologist Moreau. There he finds creatures that are part human and part beast, and learns what the doctor's experiments have made of them. A story about the cruelty people allow themselves in the name of knowledge.
5
The Troop
Nick Cutter · 2014
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror”
- Body Horror
Five boys and their scoutmaster camp on a remote island for a weekend. A starving stranger arrives by boat, carrying a parasite that turns the body against itself. As the infection spreads, the small group's most immediate danger becomes one of the boys themselves.
6
A Monster Calls
Patrick Ness · 2011
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism”
- Magical Realism
Thirteen-year-old Conor is visited at night by a monster shaped like a yew tree, who promises to tell him three stories in exchange for a fourth, one Conor must tell himself. Meanwhile his mother is ill, and Conor struggles with grief, anger and guilt.
7
What Moves the Dead
T. Kingfisher · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror”
- Body Horror
Alex Easton travels to the Ushers' decaying manor to see a childhood friend who is dying. Madeline's body is changing in ways the doctors cannot explain, down to the hairs on her arms, the local hares behave strangely, and the tarn beside the house seems to be watching.
8
American Psycho
Bret Easton Ellis · 1991
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror” and “Satire”
- Body Horror
- Satire
Patrick Bateman is a wealthy Wall Street banker with a taste for designer labels, fine dining and status, and a private life of extreme violence. His narration moves between expensive restaurants and scenes of cruelty, refusing to say how much of either is real.
9
Ghost Eaters
Clay McLeod Chapman · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror”
- Body Horror
Erin is still grieving her ex-boyfriend Silas when a friend offers her Ghost, a drug that lets users see the dead. She takes it hoping for one more conversation with him, and finds the boundary between the living and the dead starting to give way around her.
10
Bunny
Mona Awad · 2019
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror” and “Satire”
- Body Horror
- Satire
Samantha dislikes the saccharine clique in her MFA writing program until she is invited to their private workshop. There the four 'Bunnies' practice a kind of creation that turns fantasy into flesh, and Samantha is drawn into their ritual world until she loses the line between delusion and reality.
11
The Only Good Indians
Stephen Graham Jones · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Body Horror”
- Body Horror
Years ago four Blackfeet men shot an elk on land they had no right to hunt. Now something is stalking them across the reservation, taking them one by one, in a story about grief, guilt and the debts that follow a person home.
12
Beloved
Toni Morrison · 1987
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism”
- Magical Realism
In 1873 Ohio, Sethe lives in a house still haunted by the daughter she lost. When a young woman who calls herself Beloved appears at the door, the family's buried past, and the cruelty of slavery, returns to claim what it is owed.