Books like Bad behavior
Bad behavior by Mary Gaitskill reads as bleak, raw. These 12 books share its genome — matched by how they actually read, not just their shelf label.
What Bad behavior is like to read
A linked set of stories about urban outsiders reaching, awkwardly, for connection — bleak, unsparing, and preoccupied with desire and dislocation. Best for: readers who want raw, character-driven literary stories about downtown misfits and the ache beneath their poses.
Jesus' Son
Denis Johnson · 1992
Eleven fractured vignettes narrated from inside a haze of drugs and drift — spare, hallucinatory sentences that lurch between violence, grace, and deadpan black comedy.
The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing
Melissa Bank · 1999
Shares the vspare thread
Birds of America
Lorrie Moore · 1998
A collection of wry, closely observed stories about domestic disappointment and strained relationships, where small social rituals like a Christmas game of charades curdle into revelations.
Lust & other stories
Susan Minot · 1989
Shares the vspare thread
The Pleasures of the Damned
Charles Bukowski · 2007
An unflinching poetic meditation on life's margins—addiction, desire, alienation—delivered in Bukowski's characteristic plain-spoken, world-weary voice that finds dark humor and fleeting beauty in social wreckage.
The man who fell in love with the moon
Tom Spanbauer · 1991
Shares the vspare thread
Knockemstiff
Donald Ray Pollock · 2008
Shares the vspare thread
Rock Springs
Richard Ford · 1987
Shares the vspare thread
Between Here and the Yellow Sea
Nic Pizzolatto · 2006
Shares the vspare thread
Where I'm Calling From
Raymond Carver · 1988
Shares the vspare thread
Man Descending
Guy Vanderhaeghe · 1982
Shares the vspare thread
Winner take nothing
Ernest Hemingway · 1933
A collection of stark, minimalist stories examining human resilience and despair in the shadow of war and loss.
About Bad behavior — what the genome says
Is Bad behavior a complete story or a cliffhanger?
It's a complete, standalone-satisfying story.
Who is Bad behavior for?
readers who want raw, character-driven literary stories about downtown misfits and the ache beneath their poses
Find your next read by its genome
Tell Novelome one book you love — get recommendations tuned to your taste, including the ones other sites never surface.
Start free →More readalikes: Books like THE LET THEM THEORY · Books like EXTREME OWNERSHIP · Books like WINGS OF STARLIGHT · Books like DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK, EXPANDED EDITION · Books like I WILL TEACH YOU TO BE RICH, SECOND EDITION · Books like FAKE SKATING · Books like THE CREATIVE ACT · Books like IF ONLY I HAD TOLD HER