10 Books for Fans of Backrooms and Liminal Horror 

If you’re searching for books like Backrooms, liminal horror novels, or stories about infinite spaces and uncanny architecture, this list gathers the best titles that capture the same unsettling atmosphere as the A24 film. 

By now you’ve probably heard of Backrooms. The A24 sci-fi horror film from 20-year-old director Kane Parsons has absolutely demolished box office expectations since it dropped on May 29, 2026. Based on Parsons’ viral YouTube series and the beloved internet creepypasta, the film follows a therapist who stumbles through a hidden doorway in a furniture showroom basement and into a dimension that is endless, wrong, and oddly familiar all at once.

The film struck a nerve because it didn’t rely on monsters or jump scares. It tapped into something much more unsettling: liminal horror. The internet has already been obsessed with the eerie, gut-level wrongness of empty offices, humming fluorescent hallways, and forgotten waiting rooms that feel like places the world left behind mid-thought. Backrooms finally brought it to the big screen in a massive way.

But here’s the thing…books have been living in that headspace for a long time already. If the film left you craving more reality-bending dread and impossible architecture, these reads should be next on your list.

Best Books Like Backrooms (Liminal Horror Recommendations) 

1. Liminal: 15 Horror Stories About Infinite Spaces Edited by Blair Daniels

This anthology gathers fifteen stories centered around impossible architecture, endless rooms, distorted geography, and spaces that seem to stretch beyond the laws of reality. Each story explores a different interpretation of what it means to become trapped inside a place that shouldn’t exist.

Why Backrooms fans will love it: infinite spaces, liminal environments, reality distortion, and multiple takes on the core concepts that made Backrooms popular.

2. I Found a Lost Hallway in a Dying Mall By Ben Farthing

When an ordinary shopping mall reveals a hidden hallway that shouldn’t be there, a man discovers a sprawling nightmare hidden behind familiar architecture. What begins as curiosity becomes a journey into an impossible world.

Why Backrooms fans will love it: abandoned commercial spaces, hidden dimensions, dreamlike exploration, and creeping existential dread.

3. I Found Puppets Living in My Apartment Walls By Ben Farthing

Strange sounds coming from inside an apartment’s walls lead to a horrifying discovery. As reality begins to unravel, the protagonist finds himself trapped in a mystery that grows increasingly surreal and disturbing.

Why Backrooms fans will love it: familiar places becoming alien, escalating unreality, claustrophobic tension, and internet-horror energy.

4. I Found a Circus Tent in the Woods Behind My House By Ben Farthing

A mysterious circus tent appears in the woods, containing far more space inside than should be physically possible. Each step deeper reveals new horrors and impossible environments.

Why Backrooms fans will love it: impossible geometry, exploration horror, hidden worlds, and the feeling of stepping somewhere humans were never meant to go.

5. Discount Dan’s Backroom Bargains By James Hunter and Dakota Krout

After accidentally no-clipping into a bizarre labyrinth filled with monsters, traps, and strange merchants, Dan discovers survival depends on leveling up, making deals, and embracing the absurdity of his situation. It’s part horror, part comedy, and part LitRPG adventure.

Why Backrooms fans will love it: endless maze-like environments, noclip-style transportation, bizarre creatures, and what feels like Dungeon Crawler Carl trapped inside the Backrooms.

6. House of Leaves By Mark Z. Danielewski

A family moves into a house that is somehow larger on the inside than it is on the outside. When a dark hallway appears where none existed before, they discover an ever-expanding labyrinth hidden within their home.

Why Backrooms fans will love it: impossible architecture, endless corridors, psychological horror, and one of the most influential examples of spatial horror ever written.

7. Piranesi By Susanna Clarke

A man lives inside an enormous House composed of endless halls, statues, stairways, and oceans contained within vast chambers. As he investigates the mysteries of his world, he begins to uncover unsettling truths about his own existence.

Why Backrooms fans will love it: infinite spaces, isolation, mystery, and the dreamlike wonder that often accompanies liminal horror.

8. The Hollow Places By T. Kingfisher

After discovering a portal hidden behind a museum wall, a woman enters a strange realm filled with impossible landscapes and unsettling creatures. The further she explores, the more dangerous the world becomes.

Why Backrooms fans will love it: alternate realities, exploration horror, uncanny environments, and the feeling of crossing into a place where reality no longer follows familiar rules.

9. The Way Inn By Will Wiles

A conference attendee travels from one identical hotel to another, only to find himself trapped in a bizarre world where every hallway, ballroom, and guest room begins to blend together into an endless maze.

Why Backrooms fans will love it: liminal spaces, endless repetition, corporate surrealism, and the nightmare of becoming trapped inside a place designed to feel temporary.

10. Annihilation By Jeff VanderMeer

A team of researchers enters Area X, a mysterious region where nature and reality have become fundamentally altered. The deeper they travel, the more the landscape seems to reshape itself around them.

Why Backrooms fans will love it: environmental mystery, reality breakdown, exploration of the unknown, and the constant feeling that the world itself is becoming something alien.

Honorable Mention: There Is No Antimemetics Division By qntm

A secret organization battles threats that can erase themselves from human memory. Investigators struggle to understand dangers they literally cannot remember long enough to fight.

Why Backrooms fans will love it: internet-horror origins, existential concepts, reality-bending mysteries, and the unsettling sensation that important pieces of reality are missing.

Whether you prefer the literary labyrinths of House of Leaves, the atmospheric dread of Liminal, or the bizarre LitRPG adventures of Discount Dan, these books all capture some aspect of what makes Backrooms so effective. They remind us that sometimes the scariest monsters aren’t creatures lurking in the dark, they’re the endless hallways, empty rooms, and impossible spaces waiting just beyond the edges of reality.