Books like “If We Were Villains”

What to read after “If We Were Villains” by M. L. Rio: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

About “If We Were Villains”

Another favorite book?

Or start with a well-known book

1
The Secret History
Donna Tartt · 1992
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
Richard Papen leaves California for an elite Vermont college and is drawn into a tight circle of classics students taught by a charismatic professor. Accepted among them, he becomes part of a murder committed before the story begins, and of the slow unravelling that follows.
2
The Atlas Six
Olivie Blake · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
- Dark Academia
- Morally Grey Character
Six talented magicians are invited to the Alexandrian Society, a secret fellowship that guards lost knowledge. Only five can be initiated at the end of the year, and the recruits must decide how far they will go to keep their places, and whom they are willing to betray.
3
Vicious
V. E. Schwab · 2013
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
- Dark Academia
- Morally Grey Character
Victor and Eli are brilliant, lonely college roommates who turn a theory about near-death experiences into something real. Ten years later Victor leaves prison to hunt the friend who became his enemy, each armed with dangerous powers and neither willing to stop.
4
The Magicians
Lev Grossman · 2009
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
- Dark Academia
Quentin Coldwater is recruited to a hidden college of magic in upstate New York, where years of study leave him restless and still searching for meaning. When he and his friends find a way into Fillory, the enchanted land from his childhood books, its dangers turn out to be very real.
5
The Woman in the Window
A. J. Finn · 2018
Same genre: “Mystery” and “Psychological thriller”
- Unreliable Narrator
- Twist Ending
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.
6
Ninth House
Leigh Bardugo · 2019
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
- Dark Academia
- Morally Grey Character
Galaxy Stern, the lone survivor of a brutal murder, is offered a place at Yale by the secret societies that run the university's magic. Her task is to watch their rituals, but when a local girl dies, Alex must use the very power she fears to find the killer.
7
Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn · 2012
Same genre: “Mystery” and “Psychological thriller”
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.
8
A Deadly Education
Naomi Novik · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
- Dark Academia
The Scholomance is a magic school with no teachers, where students learn spells while monsters pick them off between lessons. Galadriel 'El' Higgins, feared for the dark power a prophecy says she will wield, has to survive to graduation and the hungry things waiting in the dark.
9
The Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkins · 2015
Same genre: “Mystery” and “Psychological thriller”
- Unreliable Narrator
- Twist Ending
Rachel rides the same commuter train every day and invents stories about a couple she sees from the window, until she learns the woman has vanished. Her memory of the night in question is full of gaps, and she cannot tell how much of what she believes is real.
10
Before I Go to Sleep
S. J. Watson · 2011
Same genre: “Mystery” and “Psychological thriller”
- Unreliable Narrator
- Twist Ending
Each morning Christine wakes with no memory of her life, and each day her husband explains who she is. When she starts a diary at a doctor's suggestion, she finds entries in her own hand that contradict what he tells her, and that suggest her past holds a crime.
11
The Housemaid
Freida McFadden · 2022
Same genre: “Psychological thriller”
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
My Lovely Wife
Samantha Downing · 2019
Same genre: “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.