What to Read After Big Little Lies
April 6, 2026
Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies works because of the combination: it’s funny about the social comedy of competitive parenthood and devastating about what happens behind closed doors. Finding the same balance of wit and darkness is the challenge.
More Liane Moriarty
Start here. Her other novels share the same sensibility.
The Dark Domestic Comedy Angle
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine — Gail Honeyman
Not a thriller — more literary fiction — but shares Moriarty’s interest in a specific woman’s inner life and the gap between her surface presentation and her reality. Funnier and sadder than it initially appears.
The Maid — Nita Prose
A hotel maid with difficulty reading social cues discovers a body. Shares the same quality of observing a social world from an unexpected angle, with warmth and dark comedy.
The Female Ensemble Angle
The Secret History — Donna Tartt
A classic. A group of elite students, a murder, the consequences. Told in reverse — you know who’s dead before you know why. The ensemble dynamics and the social world Tartt dissects have a similar quality to BLL, though darker and more literary.
The Dinner — Herman Koch
A dinner at a fancy restaurant where two couples discuss what their teenage sons have done. European, uncomfortable, unreliable narrators, devastating ending. Short, sharp, and disturbing.
The Thriller Angle
Gone Girl — Gillian Flynn
The domestic thriller that defined the genre. If you want to push into darker, more disturbing territory than Moriarty, Flynn is the next step.
Behind Closed Doors — B.A. Paris
The perfect marriage that isn’t. Claustrophobic and darker than Moriarty — less comedy, more dread. For BLL readers who want to push into more disturbing territory.
The Women’s Fiction Angle
Where’d You Go, Bernadette — Maria Semple
A misanthropic architect goes missing. Funny, specific, female protagonist navigating a world that doesn’t quite fit her. Epistolary structure told through documents and emails.
The Best Sequence After BLL
- Nine Perfect Strangers — the most BLL-adjacent in structure and tone
- The Husband’s Secret — shorter; good for gauging if you want more Moriarty
- Where’d You Go, Bernadette — for the comedy and the female protagonist
- The Secret History — for the dark ensemble drama, amped up
- Gone Girl — if the dark marriage at the centre of BLL is what drew you in most