Books like “I'm Thinking of Ending Things”

What to read after “I'm Thinking of Ending Things” by Iain Reid: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
A Head Full of Ghosts
Paul Tremblay · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
Fourteen-year-old Marjorie Barrett begins to act strangely, and her family turns first to a priest and then to a reality-television crew. Years later her younger sister tells the story of what happened in the house, though her memory is not entirely trustworthy.
2
The Push
Ashley Audrain · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
A new mother is certain something is wrong with her daughter, though everyone insists she is imagining it. Told across three generations of women, the story follows her fear and guilt as her doubts about her child harden into certainty.
3
The Last House on Needless Street
Catriona Ward · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
At the end of a quiet street live a man, his daughter and a cat, keeping to themselves. When a new neighbour comes looking into a child's long-ago disappearance, the house's careful routine bends and the story it protects begins to break apart.
4
The Wasp Factory
Iain Banks · 1984
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
On a remote Scottish island, sixteen-year-old Frank lives by strange rituals and guards family secrets. His routine shifts when his older brother escapes from a hospital and comes home, and the story Frank tells about himself begins to come apart.
5
The Couple Next Door
Shari Lapena · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
A couple leave their sleeping baby at home while they attend a dinner party next door, checking on her every half hour. They return to an empty crib. The police suspect the parents, and both of them start learning what the other has been hiding.
6
The Silence of the Lambs
Thomas Harris · 1988
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
- Psychological Thriller
- Creeping Dread
A young FBI trainee asks a brilliant imprisoned psychiatrist to help catch another serial killer who abducts women. Their bargain-driven conversations become a psychological duel in which every answer carries a price.
7
Behind Closed Doors
B. A. Paris · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
A woman marries a charming man and finds their perfect home is a prison he controls. As she learns the rules of her new life and fears for her sister, she starts looking for a way out before the arrangement closes around her.
8
Rock Paper Scissors
Alice Feeney · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
A couple whose marriage is failing take a weekend trip to a remote chapel in the Scottish countryside. Cut off and cold, they each keep a secret, and the anniversary gift they open is not what either of them expects.
9
Misery
Stephen King · 1987
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
- Psychological Thriller
- Creeping Dread
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.
10
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Lionel Shriver · 2003
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
Through letters to her estranged husband, Eva looks back on the life of their son Kevin and on the years she struggled to feel any bond with him. She tries to understand the person he became, and to face her own part in what happened.
11
Local Woman Missing
Mary Kubica · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
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.
12
The Woman in the Window
A. J. Finn · 2018
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
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.