9 must-read queer books like Pew by Catherine Lacey

Cover of Pew by Catherine Lacey

Pew

By: Catherine Lacey

3.70

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

In a small unnamed town in the American South, a church congregation arrives to a service and finds…

"The human mind is so easily bent, and so uneasily smoothed."

-Catherine Lacey, Pew

"Why did living feel so invisibly brief and unbearably long at once?"

-Catherine Lacey, Pew

"What a terror a body must live through. It’s a wonder there are people at all."

-Catherine Lacey, Pew

"Did you have parents or just some people who thought they should own somebody?"

-Catherine Lacey, Pew

If you liked the queer plot in Pew by Catherine Lacey , here is a list of 9 books like this:

Cover of I Who Have Never Known Men by Ros Schwartz, Jacqueline Harpman

1. I Who Have Never Known Men

By: Ros Schwartz , Jacqueline Harpman

4.22

Format: 208 pages, Paperback

"As far back as I can recall, I have been in the bunker." A young woman is kept in a cage underg… read more

Similar categories in Ros Schwartz's I Who Have Never Known Men book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • adult
  • fiction
  • novels
"Survival is never more than putting off the moment of death."

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"I thought it was unfair, and then I understood that, alone and terrified, anger was my only weapon against the horror"

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"Look at them. They’re pretending, they behave as though they still have some control over their lives and make momentous decisions about which vegetable to cook first."

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"Only now, I tell myself that what I'd felt for her, the trust that slowly built up, the constant preference for her company and the joy each time I was reunited with her after an expedition were prob…"

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

Cover of Rouge by Mona Awad

2. Rouge

By: Mona Awad

3.56

Format: 383 pages, Kindle Edition

From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lone… read more

Similar categories in Mona Awad's Rouge book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • horror
  • adult
"If I had beauty, I decided then, I would never throw it away. I would never give it up."

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"I mean, we all have our dark days. Very dark days, sometimes. When our demons come out to play. No one lives entirely in the light, right?"

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"That I can’t protect you from my terrible places that I still go, can’t help but go because no one protected me, no one saved me, no one ever held out their hand and walked me away. But I’m trying to…"

-Mona Awad, Rouge

Cover of Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

3. Our Wives Under the Sea

By: Julia Armfield

3.78

Format: 240 pages, Paperback

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep-sea mission that ende… read more

Similar categories in Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • horror
  • adult
  • queer
"El océano profundo es una casa embrujada: un lugar donde se mueven en la oscuridad cosas que no deberían existir."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"She refused almost every aspect of my help, the way women will when they've been bred to accept little more than the baset civility."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"I don't know why I expected you to read my mind,' I say, when I call back to leave her a message, 'I was just doing what I always do, assuming the world revolves around me."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"The space around us is a claw half grasped, holding tight without quite crushing, and I wish, in the idle way I always wish these days, that I felt more confident in my ability to breathe."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

Cover of Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

4. Monstrilio

By: Gerardo Sámano Córdova

4.14

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

A literary horror debut about a boy who transforms into a monster, a monster who tries to be a man,… read more

Similar categories in Gerardo Sámano Córdova's Monstrilio book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • horror
  • adult
  • queer
"The world was scary. Worse, I was scary in it."

-Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Monstrilio

"I wanted him to snap, to finally and absolutely lose it. To break. He was withering. To wither is not the same as to break; to break is to have pieces to put back together, and to wither is to dry up…"

-Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Monstrilio

Cover of The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century by Olga Ravn

5. The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

By: Olga Ravn

3.67

Format: 136 pages, Paperback

A workplace novel of the 22nd century The near-distant future. Millions of kilometres from Earth… read more

Similar categories in Olga Ravn's The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • adult
  • fiction
  • novels
"This is not a human, but a coworker."

-Olga Ravn, The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

"Cada ação encerra em si um elemento de caos."

-Olga Ravn, The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

"Tudo precisa atravessar enormes distâncias para se tornar o que é."

-Olga Ravn, The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

"Eu também tenho em mim palavras apagadas que deveria ter dito e já não sei mais o que significam."

-Olga Ravn, The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

Cover of Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh

6. Lapvona

By: Ottessa Moshfegh

3.53

Format: 313 pages, Kindle Edition

In a village in a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds h… read more

Similar categories in Ottessa Moshfegh's Lapvona book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • horror
  • adult
"But such was death - it had nothing to say."

-Ottessa Moshfegh, Lapvona

"Blood was the wine of the spirit, was it not?"

-Ottessa Moshfegh, Lapvona

"What scared her were other people and their immovable selfishness"

-Ottessa Moshfegh, Lapvona

"But Jude's piety was a kind of violent urge and not the love and peace it ought to be"

-Ottessa Moshfegh, Lapvona

Cover of Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval

7. Paradise Rot

By: Jenny Hval

3.55

Format: 160 pages, Paperback

A lyrical debut novel from a musician and artist renowned for her sharp sexual and political imager… read more

Similar categories in Jenny Hval's Paradise Rot book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • horror
  • queer
"I took a bite of a Bloody Ploughman. Even the flesh was red. 'Bloody,' Carral said. 'Nice colour,' I answered. 'It looks sinful. I bet that was the apple Eve ate, you know, in the Bible, the forbidde…"

-Jenny Hval, Paradise Rot

"I'll tell you the fairy tale of the apple. Eve ate the apple, and then Adam came and did so too. Afterwards the apple was forgotten, and it was assumed that it rolled away in the grass while Adam and…"

-Jenny Hval, Paradise Rot

Cover of Penance by Eliza  Clark

8. Penance

By: Eliza Clark

3.90

Format: 336 pages, ebook

Do you know what happened already? Did you know her? Did you see it on the internet? Did you li… read more

Similar categories in Eliza Clark's Penance book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • horror
  • adult
"Do you know what happened to her already? Did you catch it in the papers? Are you local? Did you know her? Did you see it on the internet? Did some website the trawls local news for the worst details…"

-Eliza Clark, Penance

Cover of Chlorine by Jade Song

9. Chlorine

By: Jade Song

3.72

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

In the vein of The Pisces and The Vegetarian, Chlorine is a debut novel that blurs the line between… read more

Similar categories in Jade Song's Chlorine book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • horror
  • adult
  • queer
"Nearly every human memory is corrupted by the fact that it is a memory of being human"

-Jade Song, Chlorine

"Would a mermaid who stays at home, much-loved, with two beautiful parents and loving sisters who share everything, be worth memorializing? No."

-Jade Song, Chlorine

"Humans break so easily. They break their bones, their bodies, their hearts. I, too, as a girl, once broke. My head. And when this happened, I, like many other humans, did not allow myself the time an…"

-Jade Song, Chlorine

Cover of Pew by Catherine Lacey

10. Pew

By: Catherine Lacey

3.70

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

In a small unnamed town in the American South, a church congregation arrives to a service and finds… read more

Similar categories in Catherine Lacey's Pew book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • religion
  • fiction
  • horror
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • queer
"The human mind is so easily bent, and so uneasily smoothed."

-Catherine Lacey, Pew

"Why did living feel so invisibly brief and unbearably long at once?"

-Catherine Lacey, Pew

"What a terror a body must live through. It’s a wonder there are people at all."

-Catherine Lacey, Pew

"Did you have parents or just some people who thought they should own somebody?"

-Catherine Lacey, Pew

Cover of Death Valley by Melissa Broder

11. Death Valley

By: Melissa Broder

3.49

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues her. She has… read more

Similar categories in Melissa Broder's Death Valley book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
"My body is the real problem here. If I could be bodiless - or at least, senseless - I’d be better off."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"This is the problem with human relationships: you come to a person with one feeling and they’re having another."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"I am going to die out here. I might. I could. Die. All this time I should have been practising for dying. What was I doing instead? Reading reviews for sweatpants."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"Stop placing so much value on the known, I tell myself. Fake like this is the hero’s journey. It’s good to get lost. Good for the soul. But how lost is the good amount of lost? If I die here, is that…"

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

Cover of Brutes by Dizz Tate

12. Brutes

By: Dizz Tate

3.18

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

The Virgin Suicides meets The Florida Project in this wildly original debut—a coming-of-age story a… read more

Similar categories in Dizz Tate's Brutes book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • horror
  • adult
"to be loved, was just to be watched"

-Dizz Tate, Brutes

"We feel chased. It doesn't matter if it's only by our own shadows."

-Dizz Tate, Brutes

"and now I think that to humiliate a woman is the only way some men know how to love one."

-Dizz Tate, Brutes

"To be loved was just to be watched, or in my case, to imagine you are loved is to imagine you are watched all the time."

-Dizz Tate, Brutes

Cover of Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh

13. Cursed Bread

By: Sophie Mackintosh

3.28

Format: 184 pages, Kindle Edition

From the Man Booker-nominated author of The Water Cure comes an elegant and hypnotic new novel of o… read more

Similar categories in Sophie Mackintosh's Cursed Bread book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • horror
  • adult
"Pain becomes an animal, walking at your side. Pain becomes a home you can carry with you."

-Sophie Mackintosh, Cursed Bread

"The world is only ever one breach away from being unpeeled entirely, one tragedy, one glimpse behind the curtain."

-Sophie Mackintosh, Cursed Bread

"I've been looked at in pity and in fear and I've learned that the only way to really be seen is through desire. To be looked at and found whole. Found alive."

-Sophie Mackintosh, Cursed Bread

"I don't want a book, I don't want the trouble of it, he said. I don't want to get involved, I just want to watch what's going on. I know what's going to happen and then it happens, and I can go outsi…"

-Sophie Mackintosh, Cursed Bread

Cover of Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

14. Big Swiss

By: Jen Beagin

3.68

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is … read more

Similar categories in Jen Beagin's Big Swiss book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • queer
"¿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

Cover of Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter

15. Ripe

By: Sarah Rose Etter

3.63

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley startup, Cassie finds herself trapped in a … read more

Similar categories in Sarah Rose Etter's Ripe book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
"The open office floor plan is a form of strangulation."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"Maybe there must always be two of us—our real selves and the ones we create to survive in the world as it is."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"When you're young, every part of life seems big and monumental. Once older you can see it for what it is: smaller pieces of a larger game you have no choice but to play."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"If the brain is elastic and memory is faulty, maybe all of these stories are wrong. Maybe it happened a different way altogether. Maybe I was happy and I just forget that now."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

Cover of The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

16. The Centre

By: Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

3.41

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A darkly comic, boundary-pushing debut following an adrift Pakistani translator in London who atten… read more

Similar categories in Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi's The Centre book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • horror
  • adult
Cover of Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

17. Natural Beauty

By: Ling Ling Huang

3.80

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

Sly, surprising, and razor-sharp, Natural Beauty follows a young musician into an elite, beauty-obs… read more

Similar categories in Ling Ling Huang's Natural Beauty book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • horror
  • adult
  • queer
"it is still more permitted for women to be mediocre than for them to be fat"

-Ling Ling Huang, Natural Beauty

"It’s unfortunate that I can undermine months of parental reassurance in just a few seconds, but it’s probably better for kids to learn early on that yes, monsters are real."

-Ling Ling Huang, Natural Beauty

"I had always assumed love carried itself easily through various permutations and disintegrations. Now I find myself disassociating them from the people I had known my parents to be. I can't decide wh…"

-Ling Ling Huang, Natural Beauty

Cover of The Country Will Bring Us No Peace by Matthieu Simard

18. The Country Will Bring Us No Peace

By: Matthieu Simard

3.66

Format: 128 pages, Paperback

Simon and Marie can't seem to have a baby. And so they flee the city for an idyllic village, where … read more

Similar categories in Matthieu Simard's The Country Will Bring Us No Peace book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • contemporary
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • horror
Cover of Deliver Me by Elle Nash

19. Deliver Me

By: Elle Nash

3.95

Format: 275 pages, Kindle Edition

At a meatpacking facility in the Missouri Ozarks, Dee-Dee and her co-workers kill and butcher 40,00… read more

Similar categories in Elle Nash's Deliver Me book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • horror
  • adult
  • queer
"I loved him like I loved a root canal: something painful but necessary. Like life was more painful without him."

-Elle Nash, Deliver Me

Cover of The Doloriad by Missouri Williams

20. The Doloriad

By: Missouri Williams

3.14

Format: 240 pages, Paperback

In the wake of a mysterious environmental cataclysm that has wiped out the rest of humankind, the M… read more

Similar categories in Missouri Williams's The Doloriad book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • horror
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
"...the story of the city was always a story of disintegration."

-Missouri Williams, The Doloriad

"...and one day the rain would wash them away entirely, the sounds of the dead city and her memories of them, and then the Matriarch would finally be free of it—the past and its language."

-Missouri Williams, The Doloriad

"...the way that the words hung together to produce meaning had a logic that he could not follow, and sometimes he thought that this was because they spoke in images, immediate, sensuous images, that …"

-Missouri Williams, The Doloriad

Cover of Private Rites by Julia Armfield

21. Private Rites

By: Julia Armfield

3.92

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

From the award-winning author of Our Wives Under the Sea, a speculative reimagining of King Lear, c… read more

Similar categories in Julia Armfield's Private Rites book and Catherine Lacey's Pew

  • literary fiction
  • lgbt
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • horror
  • adult
  • queer
"To be misunderstood is one thing, but the curious hostility of a sibling's approach lies less in what they miss than in the strange backdated nature of the things they choose to know. A person can be…"

-Julia Armfield, Private Rites

21 must-read fiction books like Pew by Catherine Lacey

Transform Your Habits

I Who Have Never Known Men

Ros Schwartz , Jacqueline Harpman

4.22

Transform Your Habits

Rouge

Mona Awad

3.56

Transform Your Habits

Our Wives Under the Sea

Julia Armfield

3.78

Transform Your Habits

Monstrilio

Gerardo Sámano Córdova

4.14

View all the books

21 best-selling fiction books like The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

Transform Your Habits

Rouge

Mona Awad

3.56

Transform Your Habits

My Husband

Maud Ventura

3.68

Transform Your Habits

Monstrilio

Gerardo Sámano Córdova

4.14

Transform Your Habits

Diavola

Jennifer Marie Thorne

3.95

View all the books

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