7 must-read thriller books like Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

If you liked the thriller plot in Yellowface by R.F. Kuang , here is a list of 7 books like this:

Similar categories in Kristin Hannah's The Women book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult fiction
• fiction
• adult
• book club
• audiobook

"Words were creators of worlds; you had to be careful with them."

-Kristin Hannah, The Women

"Love mattered in this ruined world, but so did honor. What was one without the other?"

-Kristin Hannah, The Women

"Love. A thing to be shouted from the rooftops, celebrated, not cultivated in secret and clipped into shape in the dark."

-Kristin Hannah, The Women

Similar categories in Amanda Peters's The Berry Pickers book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• mystery
• adult
• audiobook

Similar categories in Lisa Jewell's None of This Is True book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• fiction
• contemporary
• mystery
• thriller
• adult
• audiobook

"Acting as if there is something wrong with me, when there isn't. It's the world that's wrong, you and I both know that."

-Lisa Jewell, None of This Is True

"Being with so many people felt right, and afterward at the wake thrown by Nathan's company at a huge bar in Paddington overlooking the canal, with seats outside and bottomless champagne and a playlis…"

-Lisa Jewell, None of This Is True

Similar categories in Ashley Elston's First Lie Wins book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• fiction
• contemporary
• mystery
• thriller
• adult
• book club
• audiobook

"Blunt honesty has more value than blind worship"

-Ashley Elston, First Lie Wins

"It’s because you’re not ready to tell me the truth and I’d rather you not lie to me."

-Ashley Elston, First Lie Wins

"There’s an old saying: The first lie wins. It’s not referring to the little white kind that tumble out with no thought; it refers to the big one. The one that changes the game. The one that is delibe…"

-Ashley Elston, First Lie Wins

Similar categories in Ann Patchett's Tom Lake book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• book club
• audiobook

"You can’t pretend this [Covid] isn’t happening,"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

"In the summer the pear trees were fine. In the summer, all that is hideous about a pear tree is hidden by leaves and pears. But once those disguises were removed they were nothing but acres of murder…"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

"Hazel, listen to me. I'm going to tell you something important, you need to be brave.' I then explained to the dog how I have told myself for so many years that my career fell apart because I wasn't …"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

"It's as if someone bought all the diamonds at Tiffany's, and crushed them into dust, then spread that dust across the water so that it sifts down evenly, filtering through the shards of light that cu…"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

Similar categories in Jessica Knoll's Bright Young Women book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• fiction
• mystery
• thriller
• adult
• audiobook

"The truth is something people will go to great lengths to keep for themselves. It shouldn't feel like a gift when you get it, but it is."

-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women

"Time does not heal all wounds. Grief is just like a sink full of dirty dishes or a pile of soiled laundry. Grief is a chore you have to do, and it's a messy one, at that."

-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women

"There were men who cracked their knuckles while divulging to me what they would do to the defendant if they got the chance, thinking this was somehow reassuring for me to hear. But all it did was mak…"

-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women

"Her lips are moving silently around words I recognize. 'I carry you like my own personal Time Machine, as I put on my lipstick, smile, and head out to the party.' It's a line by one of her favourite …"

-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women

Similar categories in Alex Michaelides's The Fury book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• fiction
• contemporary
• mystery
• thriller
• adult
• audiobook

"Character is fate"

-Alex Michaelides, The Fury

"Love is mutual respect, and constancy- and friendship"

-Alex Michaelides, The Fury

"Do not despair at being different. For that very difference, initially such a source of shame, so humiliating, and painful, will one day become a badge of honor and pride"

-Alex Michaelides, The Fury

"I'd never seen Lana lose control. I won't say it wasn't frightening; but then, uncontained emotion is always distressing to be around, isn't it? Particularly when it's from someone you love."

-Alex Michaelides, The Fury

Similar categories in Britney Spears's The Woman in Me book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult
• audiobook

"I realized how powerful it can be when women defy expectations. I can make my own way in life. I can make my dreams come true."

-Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

"But then, when it came time to end the conservatorship, I realized one thing: You can’t fuck with a woman who knows how to pray. Really pray. All I did was pray."

-Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

"Later, I walked all the way home so I could take in the city, breaking one of my heels along the way. When I got to my apartment, I went to my terrace and just looked up at the stars for hours. At th…"

-Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

"Giving a person no grace in a hard time is just not nice. Especially when you can't take as good as you give. When I started to speak and throw it back at them a little, God knows they were far from …"

-Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

Similar categories in Emma Cline's The Guest book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• mystery
• thriller
• adult
• audiobook

"Younger men had to make everything mean something, had to turn every choice and preference into a referendum on their personality."

-Emma Cline, The Guest

"He assumed her attention when he spoke. He had his insecurities, his anxieties. But underlying it all was the certainty that the world would be generous in its orientation toward him."

-Emma Cline, The Guest

"All the women in the show hated each other, hated each other so much, just so they could avoid hating their husbands. Only their little dogs, blinking from their laps, seemed real: they were the wome…"

-Emma Cline, The Guest

Similar categories in James McBride's The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• mystery
• adult
• book club
• audiobook

Similar categories in Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• book club
• audiobook

"The child inside Julia lay wide-eyed in the dark, knowing that she was Jo, but only because Sylvie was Beth."

-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

"You and your sisters have so many reference points, such a dense history," William said. "I never get used to it."

-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

"She was Julia's wild hair, she was the lake her husband had once been carried out of, and no matter what happened next, she was love."

-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

"You’re depressed, not crazy. It’s not insane to be depressed in this world. It’s more sane than being happy. I never trust those upbeat individuals who grin no matter what’s going on. Those are the o…"

-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

Similar categories in Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• book club
• audiobook

"Friendship,"

-Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

"How I will miss the horses."

-Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

"You try again. You fail better."

-Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

"There are no ghosts, but up here"

-Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Similar categories in R.F. Kuang's Yellowface book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• mystery
• thriller
• adult
• book club
• books about books
• audiobook

"The truth is fluid, there is always another way to spin the story."

-R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

"They tell authors never to look at Goodreads, but nobody follows that advice—none of us can resist the urge to know how our work is being received."

-R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

"Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, is opening doors to other lands. Writing gives you power to shape your own world when the real one hu…"

-R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

Similar categories in Emily Henry's Funny Story book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• book club
• audiobook

"No, no, no,"

-Emily Henry, Funny Story

"For a few seconds, I'm nothing but a body seeking more of his."

-Emily Henry, Funny Story

"He loves me. Present tense. And I love him. He knows me, and I see him."

-Emily Henry, Funny Story

"To him, he's the brother who ran away. To her, he's the one who stays, even when he shouldn't."

-Emily Henry, Funny Story

Similar categories in Curtis Sittenfeld's Romantic Comedy book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• audiobook

"Just to be clear,"

-Curtis Sittenfeld, Romantic Comedy

"Aren't we all performing the role of ourselves?"

-Curtis Sittenfeld, Romantic Comedy

"I don't write from a point of clarity. I write out of confusion."

-Curtis Sittenfeld, Romantic Comedy

"Isn't the goal to live with out demons, not to expect them to go away?"

-Curtis Sittenfeld, Romantic Comedy

Similar categories in Paul Murray's The Bee Sting book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• book club
• audiobook

"It is for love. You are doing this for love."

-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting

"We all have problems. But often instead of accepting the truth about ourselves, we cover it up. We try to make ourselves the way we think we’re expected to be."

-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting

"Maybe every era has an atrocity woven into its fabric. Maybe every society is complicit in terrible things and only afterwards gets around to pretending they didn’t know. When the kids ask, tell them…"

-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting

"Maybe that’s how it will go – instead of one definitive cataclysm, a series of ‘anomalies’, each time lasting longer, with the stretches of what you call normal life becoming further and further apar…"

-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting

Similar categories in Caroline O'Donoghue's The Rachel Incident book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• audiobook

"I was twenty and I needed two things: to be in love and to be taken seriously."

-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

"He was a doctor and I was supposed to take what he said seriously; but he was a dentist and my dad so I didn’t."

-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

"It's not that we weren't capable of warmth as a family. But we were regularly seduced by the concept of being wronged."

-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

"I thought of my parents as heads on Easter Island, and it took moving two miles away to realise they had been people all along."

-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

Similar categories in Emilia Hart's Weyward book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult
• fiction
• audiobook

" Altha . A strange name. Soft and yet powerful. Like an incantation."

-Emilia Hart, Weyward

"It took skill, Violet thought, to make even your handwriting look angry"

-Emilia Hart, Weyward

"She named me Altha, after all. Not Alice, meaning noble woman, nor Agnes, lamb of God. Altha. Healer."

-Emilia Hart, Weyward

"I thought he loved me for myself. But you were right. To him I am but an animal, like those he hunts and puts on display"

-Emilia Hart, Weyward

Similar categories in Jen Beagin's Big Swiss book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• audiobook

"¿Habla más de un idioma?"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"You bullied other bullies,"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"she’d always been less of a shit-talker and more of a shit-thinker"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"At least I know where the hell I am and what’s happening. Which way is north?"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

Similar categories in Dolly Alderton's Good Material book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• adult
• book club
• audiobook

"Thirty-five is the youth of middle age."

-Dolly Alderton, Good Material

"Remember, a broken heart is a jester's greatest prop."

-Dolly Alderton, Good Material

"You know how to be along without being lonely. Do you know how rare that is?"

-Dolly Alderton, Good Material

"Why is it that London always seems the most alive and full of possibility on the nights when you've got no plans?"

-Dolly Alderton, Good Material

Similar categories in Yomi Adegoke's The List book and R.F. Kuang's Yellowface

• adult fiction
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• mystery
• thriller
• adult
• audiobook

"...but she refused for love to be something that she endured. Something that took from her and made her smaller."

-Yomi Adegoke, The List