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Books like The Mars Room
A sharp, unsentimental plunge into the absurdities and cruelties of institutional life, anchored by a fiercely observant voice. These 12 books are the closest matches in mood, pace and themes, with what each one shares with The Mars Room.
- claustrophobic
- bleak
- melancholic
- absurd
- 01
The leavers
Lisa Ko
A poignant, cross-cultural exploration of identity, loss, and the enduring, complicated ties between a mother and her son.
- 02
Notes on an Execution
Danya Kukafka
A ticking-clock thriller that subverts the serial killer narrative to focus on the women caught in his wake.
- 03
The Great Alone
Kristin Hannah
A sweeping, emotionally grueling portrait of a family unraveling in the beautiful but deadly isolation of the Alaskan wilderness.
- 04
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Ottessa Moshfegh
A pitch-black, narcotic comedy about checking out of a superficial world to find a blank-slate salvation.
- 05
The Room
Hubert Selby, Jr. · 1971
A suffocating, relentless plunge into the darkest, most depraved fantasies of an isolated and deeply fractured mind.
- 06
The Nix
Nathan Hill
A sprawling, tragicomic odyssey through American history and modern anxiety, anchored by the aching mystery of a mother's abandonment.
- 07
Eileen
Ottessa Moshfegh
A delightfully repulsive plunge into the mind of a deeply unhappy woman waiting for a spark to ignite her suffocating life.
- 08
Dept of Speculation
Jenny Offill
A glittering, fragmented mosaic of a mind unraveling under the quiet pressures of marriage, motherhood, and thwarted ambition.
- 09
All adults here
Emma Straub
A warm, wry exploration of the messy reality that no one ever really figures out how to be a grown-up.
- 10
Nightbitch
Rachel Yoder
A feral, darkly funny descent into the primal rage of modern domesticity that will make you want to bare your teeth.
- 11
School for Good Mothers
Jessamine Chan
A tense, witty, and deeply anxious exploration of the impossible standards of modern motherhood pushed to a dystopian extreme.
- 12
The Push
Ashley Audrain
A visceral, dread-soaked descent into the darkest anxieties of motherhood and the terror of not being believed.
