Books like “We Need to Talk About Kevin”

What to read after “We Need to Talk About Kevin” by Lionel Shriver: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
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.
2
The Housemaid
Freida McFadden · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “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.
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
Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “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.
5
Sharp Objects
Gillian Flynn · 2006
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
- Psychological Thriller
- Creeping Dread
Reporter Camille Preaker returns to her small hometown to cover the murders of two girls. She must face her mother and half-sister, and her own memories, while the pressure of the assignment pushes her back toward the habits she has tried to leave behind.
6
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.
7
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.
8
The Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkins · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Unreliable Narrator
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.
9
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.
10
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.
11
A Flicker in the Dark
Stacy Willingham · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Unreliable Narrator
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.
12
Before I Go to Sleep
S. J. Watson · 2011
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
- Psychological Thriller
- Unreliable Narrator
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.