Books like “Sharp Objects”

What to read after “Sharp Objects” by Gillian Flynn: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Lionel Shriver · 2003
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
- Psychological Thriller
- 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.
2
The Woman in the Window
A. J. Finn · 2018
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- 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.
3
Dark Places
Gillian Flynn · 2009
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Years after her mother and sisters were killed and her teenage brother was convicted, Libby Day is approached by a group of true-crime enthusiasts who believe he is innocent. Short of money, she agrees to ask questions, and the answers force her to revisit what she remembers of that night.
4
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.
5
The Little Friend
Donna Tartt · 2002
Similar atmosphere: “Southern Gothic”
- Southern Gothic
- Small Town Secrets
Years after a boy was found hanged in the family garden, his younger sister sets out to learn who killed him. Her amateur sleuthing among the town's odd characters pulls her from her grieving family into a dangerous, half-understood world.
6
A Flicker in the Dark
Stacy Willingham · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
As a child she helped put her father away for killing girls. Twenty years later she is a therapist about to marry, when young women in her town begin to disappear again and the old case follows her into the present.
7
Local Woman Missing
Mary Kubica · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Twist Ending
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.
8
The Wife Upstairs
Rachel Hawkins · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Southern Gothic” and “Psychological Thriller”
A broke dog-walker in a gated Alabama neighborhood charms a recent widower whose wife drowned in a boating accident. As she settles into his grand house and hears more about the woman who came before her, the story she is being told keeps failing to add up.
9
The Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkins · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- 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
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- 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
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.
12
Sometimes I Lie
Alice Feeney · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Twist Ending
Amber Reynolds is in a coma, though she can hear the people around her and cannot move or speak. In her mind she sifts through the days before the accident and the diary entries from years earlier that do not quite match the life she thought she had.