We Never Saw That Coming: Killer Plot Twists

I love a good twist. I love the moment when the story aligns and you can see the events through two different lenses—the lens of what you’ve assumed is happening, and the lens of what you now know is happening—and all the subtle clues and contrasts between the two become visible. It’s two stories for the price of one: the story you thought you were reading, and the second story hidden inside the first like a geode. Even when I can see the twist coming before it does, it’s still fun to watch the intersection between those two stories.
~C. A. Higgins, "It Was All a Lie: Five Books With Plot Twists that Flip Your Perception"

Do you enjoy a good plot twist?  In movies, the most famous plot twists we think of are in The Usual Suspects, Fight Club, The Sixth Sense. In books, And Then There Were None always comes up in discussion, and of course, more recently, Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. What's your favorite plot twist? We continue to be fooled by the Unreliable Narrator, and are always disappointed by what the pop culture wiki TVTropes calls the Captain Obvious Reveal - this is usually caused by heavy-handed foreshadowing, or if the reader is particularly genre-savvy.

For your reading pleasure, we've put together a list of reads recommended by various scribes of the internet for their finely tuned plot twists, which are practically guaranteed to shock! Some are more recent, some are older, and they are not all mysteries. Which ones have you read? Which ones surprised you most? If we're missing any great plot twists in our list, please let us know in the comments.

Lost Among the Living by Simone St. James

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart [YA]

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Agatha Christie 

Girl With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey 

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane  

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James  

Tell No One by Harlan Coben  

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan  

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters [audiobook, eAudiobook] 

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson  

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton 

I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh   

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks  

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón  

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story by John Berendt [eBook, eAudiobook] 

November 9 by Colleen Hoover  

The Tourist by Robert Dickinson  

The Trap by Melanie Raabe

 

Links

10 Books With Unexpected Plot Twists [Early Bird Books] 

15 Books to Read If You Love a Shocking Plot Twist [Bustle]

Gone Girl and Other Thrillers With Shocking Plot Twists [Bookish]

The 36 Books With the Biggest Plot Twists [For Reading Addicts]