Books Like Lights Out
by Navessa Allen
Lights Out is built on two clear engines: a tight domestic mystery and a simmering supernatural undercurrent. Navessa Allen follows a Black family back to a small Southern town after a traumatic death, and the novel alternates close third-person interior scenes with escalating outside signs that something wrong is pulsing beneath the surface—strange lights, secrets in the walls, and behavior that forces characters to reckon with inherited pain. The book's power comes from how intimate family reckonings and uncanny occurrences amplify each other rather than existing as separate thrills.
Readers who loved Lights Out usually responded to one of a few specific things: the particularity of a Black family's grief and history in a small-town setting; the slow-burn, claustrophobic mood where domestic details become ominous; or the book's insistence that psychological wounds and possible supernatural forces are entangled. Below are nine books chosen for which of those layers they share with Allen’s novel — from books that mirror the racial and intergenerational trauma to tightly wound psychological thrillers and classic Gothic houses that press in on their inhabitants.
Recommended for fans of Lights Out
The Good House
Tananarive Due
Black family, small-town supernatural dread and intergenerational trauma.
Pick this if you want another novel that centers a Black family in a small town while merging supernatural dread with inherited trauma.
Sharp Objects
Gillian Flynn
Obsessive, small-town family secrets and tense psychological unraveling.
Pick this if you loved the inward, interrogative dismantling of a family and want a book that leans harder into psychological unraveling and unreliable perception.
The Family Upstairs
Lisa Jewell
Creepy house, buried family mysteries, and mounting domestic suspense.
Pick this if the haunted-house anatomy and slowly revealed family history were the main draws; expect a house that is almost a character and domestic suspense that tightens with each chapter.
Mexican Gothic
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Gothic atmosphere, claustrophobic family secrets, and slow-building dread.
Pick this if it was the Gothic atmosphere—the sense of ancestral rot and claustrophobic dread—that hooked you; this is mood- and setting-driven in the way Lights Out becomes uncanny through place.
My Sister, the Serial Killer
Oyinkan Braithwaite
Sibling loyalty, dark humor, and tight, morally fraught dynamics.
Pick this if you were most interested in fraught sibling loyalty and moral ambiguity. Note: this one uses dark humor and brevity where Lights Out is more somber.
The Vanishing Half
Brit Bennett
Family rupture, identity and long-buried choices with powerful emotional payoff.
Pick this if you wanted deeper, literary excavation of family rupture and identity over time; this shares the weighty emotional payoff even if it isn’t supernatural.
Home Before Dark
Riley Sager
Unreliable memories, haunted house mystery, and mounting psychological tension.
Pick this if unreliable memories and a haunted-house structure were what you enjoyed; expect mounting psychological tension and revelations tied to place and past.
The Silent Patient
Alex Michaelides
Tightly wound psychological twist and claustrophobic domestic revelations.
Pick this if you like taut, twist-driven domestic revelations. It’s more clinical and puzzle-oriented than Lights Out’s blended uncanny/literary register, so this is a plot-first match.
The Devil All the Time
Donald Ray Pollock
Grim Southern Gothic interlinked lives and corrosive family violence.
Pick this if you were drawn to the grim, corrosive underside of family violence in a Southern setting. Warning: this one is darker and more violent in tone than Lights Out.
At a glance
Matches here were chosen on three axes: shared small‑town or domestic setting, the presence of supernatural or Gothic dread, and focus on family trauma or psychologically fraught sibling/parent dynamics. Percentages reflect how many of those dimensions each pick shares with Lights Out.
| Book | First published | Pages | Closest match on | Match |
|---|---|---|---|---|
The Good House Tananarive Due | 2003 | 482 | Black family + dread | 92% |
Sharp Objects Gillian Flynn | 2006 | 312 | Obsessive family secrets | 90% |
The Family Upstairs Lisa Jewell | 2019 | 464 | Creepy house secrets | 86% |
Mexican Gothic Silvia Moreno-Garcia | 2020 | 352 | Gothic claustrophobia | 85% |
My Sister, the Serial Killer Oyinkan Braithwaite | 2018 | 238 | Sibling loyalty tensions | 84% |
The Vanishing Half Brit Bennett | 2020 | 376 | Family rupture & identity | 82% |
Home Before Dark Riley Sager | 2020 | 416 | Haunted-memory mystery | 80% |
The Silent Patient Alex Michaelides | 2018 | 352 | Tight psychological twist | 78% |
The Devil All the Time Donald Ray Pollock | 2011 | 261 | Southern Gothic grit | 75% |
About Lights Out
Lights Out is a contemporary novel by Navessa Allen that centers on a Black family returning to a Southern town after a violent death and encountering supernatural disturbances alongside buried family secrets. The novel blends psychological realism about grief and inheritance with Gothic and uncanny imagery to examine intergenerational trauma.
Frequently asked questions
What other books explore Black family trauma and supernatural dread like Lights Out?+
Tananarive Due’s The Good House is the closest fit on that combination: it places a Black family at the center of small‑town supernatural dread while unpacking intergenerational trauma and history.
I liked the psychological unraveling in Lights Out—what else should I read?+
Gillan Flynn’s Sharp Objects shares the obsessive, small‑town family secrets and tense psychological implosion; it’s darker on self-harm and unreliable narration but aligns on the feeling of a family unspooling.
Are there books that match the haunted-house aspect of Lights Out?+
Yes. The Family Upstairs foregrounds a creepy house and buried familial mysteries that tighten into domestic suspense, and Mexican Gothic offers a claustrophobic, atmosphere-first family horror that leans into Gothic aesthetics.
I appreciated the sibling/loyalty dynamics; any picks focused on fraught siblings?+
My Sister, the Serial Killer examines sibling loyalty and morally fraught dynamics in a short, sharp register — it’s more satirical and less supernatural, but very much about what family protects and overlooks.
Is Lights Out more like literary family drama or a straight thriller?+
It sits between the two. If you want more literary excavation of identity and consequence, try The Vanishing Half; if you want a tighter, genre-tension read, Home Before Dark or The Silent Patient lean harder into psychological thriller beats.
More books by Navessa Allen
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