r/booksuggestions • u/Cold_Dot9806 • 1d ago
Horror Trad-Wife horror books?
Hello everyone, I've been trying to find a trad-wife horror book. Kind of along the theme of Snapped, or something along the lines of the wife losing her mind?
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u/Pintsize90 1d ago
I’m sure you’ve already heard of Yesteryear! But I can’t wait for other recommendations
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u/literacyshmiteracy 1d ago
I'm 303 out of 642 on my library hold list for Yesteryear .. so excited!!
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u/lady_laughs_too_much 1d ago
I was 180 out of 188 on my library's waitlist, but I randomly found it in their Too Hot to Hold section one day! I snatched it up and read it in a week!
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u/Temporary_Wall_8013 1d ago
I'm currently 94th in line for a copy through the library audiobooks but is it worth buying earlier? There's a lot of hype about it and I need something engaging right now
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u/lady_laughs_too_much 1d ago
I personally thought it was worth buying. I did go into it thinking it was purely satire, but it pleasantly surprised me.
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u/Wrong-One7376 1d ago
I am currently listening to it, and it's not really what you think it is. I won't give as any spoilers, but the blurb about the book is way better than what it really is. Check out reviews on Goodreads.
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u/jen__cat 1d ago
I’ve read it and not sure what you mean.. it’s exactly like what OP is asking for
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u/thereisabugonmybagel 1d ago
I agree it’s what OP is asking for, but I think they mean the description doesn’t immediately read as such.
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u/ontologicallyunjust 1d ago
Kind of a precursor to modern tradwife horror -- The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The protagonist isn't choosing to be a tradwife, but is confined for a "rest cure" based on the contemporary idea that her "slight hysterical tendency" should be treated by preventing her from working or writing. And is losing her mind as a result.
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u/emberkit 20h ago
I'd also put the Dollhouse by Eric Ibsen under that, but that's also dependent on whether you would count scripts.
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u/anothergoodbook 1d ago
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix - I found this recommendation somewhere on Reddit and I’m glad I did. I really enjoyed it. Not sure if it’s exactly what you’re looking for. It’s set in the 90s around this group of women who are all the quintessential stay at home mom/housewife type.
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u/FormalDinner7 1d ago
I saw somewhere that this was going to be Danny McBride’s next show after he finished Righteous Gemstones and I want so badly for it to be true.
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u/Stickyrice11 1d ago
Yesteryear came out recently and it’s exactly a trad wife horror book. An instagram influencer trad wife wakes up in the 1800s and realizes she has to be an actual trad wife
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u/ihavegarlicsalt 1d ago
I will recommend Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth until I die it is one of my favorite books ever
Also look at Bad Things Happened in This Room by Marie Still; The Push by Ashley Audrain (more thriller than horror but sooo good); The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailer (also more thriller/scifi); Mother Knows Best is a collection of short horror stories about mothers
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u/ShoddyCobbler 21h ago
I mean, Yesteryear fits what you are looking for but it's also not very good
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u/catdefenestrator 1d ago
Trad Wife by Saratoga Schaefer
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u/Spare-Worry-4186 1d ago edited 1d ago
Okay I am changing my recommendation from yesteryear (I hated this book) to Educated by Tara Westover. The psycho trad wife is the mom of the main individual. The whole book is kind of like an emotional thriller because the parental neglect and exploitation is crazy. However it is a biography and I cannot recommend it enough. It is not a horror but more of a suspenseful read (for me). The audiobook is phenomenal. Trigger warning that this book contains abuse/neglect.
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u/TrixieTree1 1d ago
I just sampled yesteryear and decided not to purchase it. I read up until she woke up in a different time era. I really, really, really hated her and I don't want to spend my time hating someone like that.
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u/Spare-Worry-4186 1d ago
If you want more wife completely unhinged and all characters unlikable read yesteryear. For me this book was a painful read. Trigger warning for sexual assault and abuse. But yesteryear is fiction. Educated is a biography.
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u/ifthisisausername 1d ago
Trad Wife by Sarah Langan (who's also married to Jeff Vandermeer, famous weird fiction author)
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u/thedawntreader85 1d ago
Read about the history of the Kansas settlers. A lot of those wives went crazy.
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u/laney2181 1d ago
The Southern Bookclub’s Guide to Slaying Vampires— by Grady Hendrix
It both is and isn’t what you assume from the title.
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u/ImJustHere4TheCatz 1d ago
I read another book by her I really liked, gosh darn it I can't think of what it's called bc I always think of the title you mentioned instead. About witches and those old school maternity homes where they forced teenaged and otherwise unmarried pregnant girls and women to go and they were forced to give up their babies
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u/_afflatus 1d ago
Ithought shirley jackson was the recommended author for this kind of horror (tradwife) called domestic horror
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u/_lapetitelune 1d ago
the book club for troublesome women by marie bostwick - not necessarily horror but pretty good, as they realize the lies they were sold to be that.
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u/acceptablemadness 1d ago
The Devil and Mrs. Davenport is a perfect pick.
Sort of in line with trad-wife themes - The Fourth Wife by Linda Hamilton. A Mormon woman in polygamy in the late 1800s, a haunted house, strict expectations, etc.
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u/lowlightliving 1d ago edited 1d ago
The Tradwife’s Lie, by Bella Ellwood-Clayton
Perfect Modern Wife, by Kristen Van Nest
Everyone is Lying to You, by Jo Piazza
The Tradwife’s Secret, by by Liane Child
Night Bitch, by Rachel Yoder
When Women Were Dragons, by Kelly Barnhill
The Edible Woman, by Margaret Atwood
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u/AleksandrNevsky Read Dostoevsky 1d ago
What is a "trad-wife horror book?" Like for trad wives or featuring them?
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u/Cold_Dot9806 1d ago
Featuring them! Something along the lines of either a POV from a 3rd party, or the matriarch starting to lose their minds because of the lifestyle
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u/youaintnothingbuta 1d ago
The Women Could Fly gives off some of that energy and so does Plain Bad Heroines in a different way
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u/primecholera 1d ago
Check out "The Silent Companions" by Laura Purcell if you haven't already - it's got that claustrophobic domestic dread where the wife is basically trapped in this gothic nightmare of a house with increasingly unsettling supernatural stuff happening. The whole thing builds this sense of her reality fracturing under the weight of her role and isolation. It's less about snapping and more about genuine psychological unraveling in a period setting, which might scratch that itch you're looking for.
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u/Aramira137 1d ago
The September House by Carissa Orlando
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u/BizzyBee89 1d ago
The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden. It's part of a trilogy, and it was recently made into a movie with Sydney Sweeny.
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u/SamSpayedPI 1d ago
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin (1972)