What to read next
10 books like Someone You Can Build a Nest In
Shesheshen's improvised bodies and reproductive instincts remain genuinely alien, while Homily's family reveals how ordinary cruelty can be harder to identify than monstrosity. If that is what you want more of after Someone You Can Build a Nest In, these recommendations preserve that appeal in different ways, without pretending every similar book offers the same experience.
Start with our Someone You Can Build a Nest In review by John Wiswell.
Choose by reading mood
Where to start
For the fastest read
Fourth Wing
BriskFor the darkest read
The Curse of Hester Gardens
Very darkFor the strongest romance
Paladin's Hope
CentralFor the easiest entry
A Sorceress Comes to Call
AccessibleThe full shortlist
Why each book belongs here
Each match is judged against Someone You Can Build a Nest In, not merely placed beside it because the books share a broad genre label.
1
Nettle & Bone
- Shared ground
- Both books build unease from a threat the characters cannot safely understand at first.
- What changes
- Nettle & Bone offers a quest-shaped found family and fairy-tale warmth; Wiswell is stranger, more romantic, and much more invested in bodily monstrosity.
- Best for
- Readers who want an adult fairy tale about sisters and found family, with gallows humor and only a light romantic element.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Gentle
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Accessible
2
Frankenstein
- Shared ground
- Both books build unease from a threat the characters cannot safely understand at first.
- What changes
- Frankenstein asks whether a rejected created being can enter human community; Shesheshen already has agency and must learn which human relationships deserve entry.
- Best for
- Readers interested in responsibility, isolation, unreliable self-justification, and Gothic philosophy more than conventional horror.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Dark
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Moderate
3
What Moves the Dead
- Shared ground
- Both books use distance, alien environments, or interstellar travel to change the scale of the conflict.
- What changes
- What Moves the Dead uses body horror for claustrophobic Gothic dread, while Someone You Can Build a Nest In turns an unsettling body into the viewpoint and the love interest.
- Best for
- Readers looking for a short Gothic retelling, fungal horror, and body unease with a practical narrator and flashes of dry humor.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Dark
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Accessible
4
A Sorceress Comes to Call
- Shared ground
- Both books build unease from a threat the characters cannot safely understand at first.
- What changes
- A Sorceress Comes to Call is less focused on romance than Someone You Can Build a Nest In. Cordelia's bodily loss of control is frightening without spectacle, while Hester's practical intelligence gives resistance a social and emotional method.
- Best for
- Readers wanting dark fairy-tale revision, coercive-control horror, older heroines, and humane humor.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Dark
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Accessible
5
The Curse of Hester Gardens
- Shared ground
- Both books build unease from a threat the characters cannot safely understand at first.
- What changes
- The Curse of Hester Gardens is less focused on romance than Someone You Can Build a Nest In. The house's unstable geography, inherited records, and buried violence create sustained unease, while the family history gives the supernatural threat emotional roots.
- Best for
- Gothic-horror readers who prefer inherited secrets, oppressive houses, family trauma, slow dread, and supernatural violence to constant jump scares.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Very dark
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Accessible
6
The Hollow Places
- Shared ground
- Both books use distance, alien environments, or interstellar travel to change the scale of the conflict.
- What changes
- The Hollow Places is less focused on romance than Someone You Can Build a Nest In. The bunkers, islands, and willows make every doorway feel like exposure, while Kara and Simon's practical bond prevents cosmic horror from becoming emotionally empty.
- Best for
- Readers new to cosmic horror who want impossible spaces, body unease, friendship, and relief from unbroken bleakness.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Dark
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Accessible
7
Paladin's Hope
- Shared ground
- Both books make attraction depend on changing judgment rather than existing apart from the plot.
- What changes
- Paladin's Hope is gentler and more romance-led than Someone You Can Build a Nest In. Piper's reading of bodies and Galen's protective instincts make them useful to each other before attraction resolves, and the underground hazards exploit both skill sets.
- Best for
- Readers wanting M/M fantasy romance, mature intimacy, forensic work, gnoles, and a claustrophobic puzzle adventure.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Gentle
- Romance Central
- Difficulty Moderate
8
House of Flame and Shadow
- Shared ground
- Both books use distance, alien environments, or interstellar travel to change the scale of the conflict.
- What changes
- House of Flame and Shadow is gentler than Someone You Can Build a Nest In. Bryce's divided location, alliance shifts, family conflict, and cross-world discoveries reward readers invested across Maas's connected universes.
- Best for
- Readers current with Crescent City and preferably the wider Maas universe, seeking romance, crossover lore, and maximalist fantasy action.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Gentle
- Romance Significant
- Difficulty Moderate
9
Alchemised
- Shared ground
- Both books make attraction depend on changing judgment rather than existing apart from the plot.
- What changes
- Alchemised has a similar overall reading load, but changes the emphasis. Helena's missing memory gives political history personal stakes, and the collision of healing, alchemy, and necromancy makes bodies both evidence and contested territory.
- Best for
- Adult dark-fantasy readers prepared for captivity, torture, war trauma, coercive intimacy, necromancy, nonlinear structure, and an exceptionally long emotional ordeal.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Dark
- Romance Significant
- Difficulty Accessible
10
Fourth Wing
- Shared ground
- Both books make attraction depend on changing judgment rather than existing apart from the plot.
- What changes
- Fourth Wing is faster and gentler than Someone You Can Build a Nest In. Violet's physical limits force adaptation, dragons make bonding consequential, and training, rivalry, and attraction produce a reliable forward engine.
- Best for
- Readers wanting dragons, lethal academy competition, disability-aware adaptation, explicit romance, and fast cliffhanger plotting.
- Pace Brisk
- Darkness Gentle
- Romance Central
- Difficulty Accessible
Side-by-side
Pace, darkness, romance, and difficulty
Use these labels as directional guidance. The individual notes above explain the tradeoffs.
| Book | Pace | Darkness | Romance | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Someone You Can Build a Nest In | Balanced | Dark | Central | Accessible |
| Nettle & Bone | Balanced | Gentle | Minimal | Accessible |
| Frankenstein | Balanced | Dark | Minimal | Moderate |
| What Moves the Dead | Balanced | Dark | Minimal | Accessible |
| A Sorceress Comes to Call | Balanced | Dark | Minimal | Accessible |
| The Curse of Hester Gardens | Balanced | Very dark | Minimal | Accessible |
| The Hollow Places | Balanced | Dark | Minimal | Accessible |
| Paladin's Hope | Balanced | Gentle | Central | Moderate |
| House of Flame and Shadow | Balanced | Gentle | Significant | Moderate |
| Alchemised | Balanced | Dark | Significant | Accessible |
| Fourth Wing | Brisk | Gentle | Central | Accessible |
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