Read these while the simulation loads

So you’ve picked going absolutely insane as your hobby for the next few days, and in order to assist the noble task at hand, you’ve cracked open Season 7 of Black Mirror. But now, as a crazy viewer by day and deranged reader by night, you’re craving stories that scratch that same itch, off-kilter, deeply human, and just a little (okay, a lot) unhinged. Look no further: here are four books that spiral into weirdness in the most delicious ways, perfect for pairing with your next episode-induced existential crisis.

'The Hours’

Think of this book by Michael Cunningham as a Black Mirror episode where everything looks elegant and ordinary, but there's a deep, lurking dread under the surface (shouldn’t be especially hard to find in this new season). A Pulitzer-winning meditation on time, art, and despair, The Hours feels like someone took Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, dosed it with anxiety, and scattered it across three timelines. It’s quiet and gorgeous, but watch out; this book will sneak into your brain and rearrange the furniture. Unlike Black Mirror, the book isn’t sci-fi, in that it does not rely on rogue technology to build an exceptionally dark world. Instead, this recommendation is reminiscent of the show because it plays with identity, memory, the futility of resisting fate, a dread that does not leave its characters or readers and a twist at the end that makes the whole back fall into place. Also: someone bakes a cake, and it’s somehow devastating.

‘Bunny’

If Black Mirror did a sorority episode directed by David Lynch on bath salts, it’d look like Bunny. Mona Awad’s novel takes MFA girlboss energy, throws in a cult of pink-clad creatives, and spirals into body horror, bunny mutilation, and a protagonist who may or may not be hallucinating the whole thing. There’s a tension between reality and performance that Black Mirror fans will love — and a twisty sense of humour so deranged it deserves its own digital afterlife. You will never trust MFA writing workshops again. (As if you ever did.)

‘Eileen’ 

Otessa Moshfegh writes characters like Black Mirror writes futures: bleak, broken, and fascinatingly gross, and you’d know this if you’ve read her more popular book, My Year of Rest and Relaxation (bonus rec!). Eileen is trapped in a life she loathes, working in a juvenile prison and fantasising about violence, freedom, and her own body in stomach-turning ways. She’s like if an incel became self-aware and then got a noir arc. The novel’s slow burn leads to a final third so demented and unexpected it deserves its own episode. Eileen could be a minor character in a grim Black Mirror episode, and you'd want to know everything about her.

‘Paradise Rot’ 

What if fungus got sexy? And your walls started breathing? Welcome to Jenny Hval’s fever dream of a debut. A Norwegian exchange student moves into a decaying house, gets into a possibly romantic, definitely co-dependent relationship with her roommate, and things rot — literally. It's queer, sticky, and claustrophobic, with a biological weirdness that would make Black Mirror’s AI engineers squirm. Body horror meets architecture meets existential mildew. You’ve been warned.

Have something to add to the story? Share it in the comments below.