Books like Mexican Gothic
What should you read after Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- 2020
- 320 pages
- Horror
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after Mexican Gothic
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchRebecca
Daphne du Maurier
The house every gothic since has been answering — a young woman married into a family whose real ruler has been dead for a year and still runs it.
- The house itself
- Gothic atmosphere
- A glamorous, fearless heroine
- No body horror, no fungus
Best for gothic atmosphereThe Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson
Jackson's house does the psychological version of the same job: it selects a guest, works patiently on her mind, and never once explains itself.
- Gothic atmosphere
- The house itself
- Creeping body horror
- No colonial politics
Great matchThe Little Stranger
Sarah Waters
A crumbling English house and the family going down with it, narrated by a doctor who badly wants in — the same rot, dressed as post-war class anxiety.
- The house itself
- Gothic atmosphere
- Colonial rot
- A very slow first half
Best for nineteen-fifties MexicoThe Hacienda
Isabel Cañas
Written directly downstream of Moreno-Garcia: a haunted hacienda after Mexican independence, a nervous new wife, and a priest performing exorcisms on the quiet.
- Colonial rot
- The house itself
- Nineteen-fifties Mexico
- More romance in the mix
Best for creeping body horrorAnnihilation
Jeff VanderMeer
For the fungus rather than the house: VanderMeer's zone quietly rewrites the bodies of everyone who walks into it, and nobody is going to explain why.
- Creeping body horror
- Colonial rot
- Gothic atmosphere
- No gothic trappings at all
- Tender Is the FleshWorth a look — with a warning
Tender Is the Flesh
Agustina Bazterrica
If the body horror was the draw, Bazterrica goes considerably further: an Argentina that has legalised human meat, described in flat processing-plant detail.
- Creeping body horror
- Colonial rot
- Gothic atmosphere
- Extremely graphic throughout
What should you read after Mexican Gothic?
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia 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 Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier — the house every gothic since has been answering — a young woman married into a family whose real ruler has been dead for a year and still runs it.
If what stayed with you was gothic atmosphere, read The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson instead: jackson's house does the psychological version of the same job: it selects a guest, works patiently on her mind, and never once explains itself. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters is the other strong option — a crumbling English house and the family going down with it, narrated by a doctor who badly wants in — the same rot, dressed as post-war class anxiety.
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