Books like Stranger Things Happen

A delightfully off-kilter descent into a world where the mundane and the magical collide with deadpan absurdity. These 12 books are the closest matches in mood, pace and themes, with what each one shares with Stranger Things Happen.

dreamlike
eerie
surreal
off-kilter

01
Get in Trouble
Kelly Link
A darkly playful plunge into a world where suburban anxieties and teenage sleepovers collide with ghosts, superheroes, and the uncanny.
Shares:
- dreamlike
- eerie
- wry
- unsettling
02
Pretty Monsters
Kelly Link
A funny, surreal, and imaginative collection where the ordinary world hides bizarre, unsettling, and wondrous secrets.
Shares:
- eerie
- surreal
03
The Weird
Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer
A massive, labyrinthine cabinet of curiosities that will permanently tilt your perception of reality.
Shares:
- dreamlike
- surreal
- unsettling
04
Stories
Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio
A genre-defying collection of imaginative tales that uses flashes of magic to reveal the unsettling truths hidden in the everyday.
Shares:
- unsettling
05
Fragile Things
Neil Gaiman
A cabinet of curiosities where every drawer opens into a dark, dreamlike fairy tale.
Shares:
- dreamlike
- eerie
- wry
- unsettling
06
A stranger in Olondria
Sofia Samatar
A lush, dreamlike love letter to language that haunts the reader long after the final page is turned.
Shares:
- dreamlike
07
Changing planes
Úrsula K. Le Guin
A wry, imaginative travelogue through bizarre alternate realities that holds a gentle funhouse mirror up to our own world.
Shares:
- surreal
- wry
08
Six months, three days, five others
Charlie Jane Anders
A wry, offbeat collection of speculative tales that uses the bizarre to illuminate the deeply human.
Shares:
- wry
09
Stories of Your Life and Others
Ted Chiang
A collection of mind-bending thought experiments that quietly break your heart while expanding your understanding of the universe.
Feels:
- contemplative
- awe-inspiring
- melancholic
10
20th Century Ghosts
Joe Hill · 2007
A masterful blend of nostalgic Americana and creeping dread that finds the monstrous in the mundane and the heartbreaking in the horrific.
Shares:
- eerie
- unsettling
11
Pastoralia
George Saunders · 2000
A hilarious, heartbreaking funhouse mirror reflecting the soul-crushing absurdities of modern work and life.
Shares:
- surreal
- deadpan
12
In the night garden
Catherynne Valente · 2006
A lush, labyrinthine tapestry of dark fairy tales and shifting myths spun by a lonely girl with stories inked on her eyelids.
Shares:
- dreamlike

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