What did you love about Wednesday?
Gideon the Ninth
Gideon the Ninth gives you a protagonist who never softens her edges even when everyone wants her to.
The Likeness
The Likeness puts you inside a close community investigating deaths while everyone watches you with distrust.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks shows an outsider turning boarding school hierarchies into her personal game.
6 books like Wednesday
- Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir — Wednesday thrives on a protagonist who stays caustic and uncompromising even as she solves mysteries…
- The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart — Wednesday turns boarding school politics into a strategic game where the outsider protagonist manipu…
- A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik — Wednesday drops its heroine into a school where survival depends on reading threats correctly and tr…
- The Likeness by Tana French — Wednesday investigates murders while embedded in a tight-knit community that regards her with suspic…
- Bunny by Mona Awad — Wednesday turns the politics of exclusive cliques into something genuinely strange and threatening.
- The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco — Wednesday uses its isolated institution as the setting for a murder mystery where intellectual inqui…
Picked for the feeling of Wednesday, not its genre. Each one is explained below. One show isn’t much to go on: rate four more and the books are picked for you.
Why these books
Wednesday pulls you into a boarding school where the gothic sits right next to the mundane, where murder mysteries coexist with social hierarchies, and where dry wit cuts through supernatural danger. The show treats its horror elements as texture rather than spectacle, builds mysteries that reward close attention, and lets its protagonist stay prickly and strange without softening her edges. These books offer that same mix: deadpan humor against genuine stakes, outsider protagonists who refuse to conform, and plots that layer comedy over darkness without undercutting either.
Gideon the Ninth
Wednesday thrives on a protagonist who stays caustic and uncompromising even as she solves mysteries and saves lives. Muir's novel sends a wisecracking necromancer to a crumbling gothic mansion where she must solve a locked-room murder while navigating deadly trials and ancient secrets. The voice stays sharp and funny through genuine horror. The mystery construction rewards attention to detail. The setting blends decay and grandeur in ways that feel both absurd and threatening, and the heroine never softens to meet expectations.
Read it with your book club →
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
Wednesday turns boarding school politics into a strategic game where the outsider protagonist manipulates social structures to her advantage. Lockhart's novel follows a sharp, calculating girl who infiltrates an elite boys' secret society at her prep school and uses their own systems against them. The tone stays light even as the stakes escalate. The heroine architects elaborate schemes with precision and wit. The book trusts her intelligence and refuses to punish her for being smarter than the people around her.
Read it with your book club →
A Deadly Education
Wednesday drops its heroine into a school where survival depends on reading threats correctly and trusting almost no one. Novik builds a magic academy designed to kill its students, where alliances shift constantly and the protagonist's reputation as dangerous makes her both isolated and powerful. The narrator's voice stays dry and unromantic about the violence around her. The mystery of how the school works unfolds gradually. The social dynamics feel as lethal as the monsters.
Read it with your book club →
The Likeness
Wednesday investigates murders while embedded in a tight-knit community that regards her with suspicion and fascination. French's detective goes undercover among graduate students in a isolated house, pretending to be a murder victim who looked exactly like her. The atmosphere builds through small domestic details that turn sinister. The mystery pays off meticulous observation. The tension comes from maintaining a performance while people watch for cracks, and the gothic setting becomes a character in its own right.
Read it with your book club →
Bunny
Wednesday turns the politics of exclusive cliques into something genuinely strange and threatening. Awad's novel follows an outsider at an MFA program who gets drawn into a circle of wealthy girls whose friendship rituals are both absurd and horrifying. The humor stays bone-dry as the supernatural elements escalate. The social satire never breaks the spell of mounting dread. The line between performance and reality collapses in ways that feel psychologically true even when literally impossible.
Read it with your book club →
The Name of the Rose
Wednesday uses its isolated institution as the setting for a murder mystery where intellectual inquiry and physical danger run parallel. Eco's medieval monastery becomes a locked-room puzzle where monks die according to apocalyptic patterns and the solution requires both logical deduction and historical knowledge. The detective figure stays rational in a world thick with superstition. The architecture itself holds clues. The book treats its period detail and its genre mechanics with equal seriousness, refusing to choose between literary ambition and mystery satisfaction.
Read it with your book club →Is Wednesday based on a book?
Wednesday isn’t based on a book — it’s developed from characters created by Charles Addams for The New Yorker cartoons, not a novel.
What should I read if I loved Wednesday?
Start with Gideon the Ninth, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and A Deadly Education. 6 books on this page were picked for the feeling of Wednesday, not its genre, with a reason for each.
Which book is most like Wednesday?
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. Wednesday thrives on a protagonist who stays caustic and uncompromising even as she solves mysteries and saves lives.
These are for everyone who loved Wednesday. Want books picked for you?
Someone who loved Wednesday and Star Wars: A New Hope reads different books from someone who loved Wednesday and About Time. One show isn’t much to go on. Rate four more — Wednesday already counts — and the books are picked for you.
Rate four more moviesOr read it with your book club and talk about it while you’re still reading.