Books like Gone Girl
What should you read after Gillian Flynn’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- Gillian Flynn
- 2012
- 432 pages
- Thriller
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after Gone Girl
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchSharp Objects
Gillian Flynn
Flynn's first and meanest: a reporter goes home to cover two child murders and cannot stop the story turning into her mother. Shorter, nastier, better written.
- A sharp, nasty voice
- No one to root for
- The mid-book twist
- Small town, no media circus
Best for a marriage dissectedFates and Furies
Lauren Groff
One marriage told twice, his half and then hers, and the second version rearranges everything you believed about the first. The Gone Girl structure, literary end.
- A marriage dissected
- Two liars narrating
- The mid-book twist
- Literary pace, not thriller
Best for a sharp, nasty voiceNotes on a Scandal
Zoë Heller
A hundred pages shorter and just as poisonous: a lonely teacher narrating her colleague's affair, and slowly giving away what she wants out of telling it.
- A sharp, nasty voice
- Two liars narrating
- No one to root for
- A scandal, not a crime plot
Great matchYou
Caroline Kepnes
Narrated throughout by a stalker convinced he is the romantic hero, and Kepnes makes the voice funny enough that you keep going against your better judgement.
- No one to root for
- A sharp, nasty voice
- The media circus
- No twist structure
Great matchThe Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkins
The one everybody read next, and for reasonable cause: three unreliable women, and a commuter's obsession with a marriage she can only see through a window.
- Two liars narrating
- A marriage dissected
- The mid-book twist
- Much less stylish prose
Worth a look — with a warningMy Dark Vanessa
Kate Elizabeth Russell
For the unreliable narration and the public storm, not for the fun: a woman defending the teacher who groomed her as the accusations pile up around them.
- Two liars narrating
- The media circus
- No one to root for
- Sustained abuse of a minor
What should you read after Gone Girl?
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn — flynn's first and meanest: a reporter goes home to cover two child murders and cannot stop the story turning into her mother. Shorter, nastier, better written.
If what stayed with you was a marriage dissected, read Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff instead: one marriage told twice, his half and then hers, and the second version rearranges everything you believed about the first. The Gone Girl structure, literary end. Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller is the other strong option — a hundred pages shorter and just as poisonous: a lonely teacher narrating her colleague's affair, and slowly giving away what she wants out of telling it.
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