The 10 Best Books About Revenge, Ranked

You don't need anyone to explain to you why revenge is a great theme, but if you want it anyway, uh… like, it's cool to have someone strike back and get justice against someone who wronged them somehow. That is how a revenge story goes, and some of these stories are beyond old, at this stage, being in no way a new concept. It's like observing that many interesting stories are about death, or love, or something else broad. Some of the ones that are about revenge are also about death and love, for what that's worth. Some make the quest for revenge look awesome and emotionally fulfilling, while a few others show it all in a more nuanced way. What matters most, though, is that the books below are wholly or decently about revenge, and count among the best of all time, too. 10 'True Grit' (1968) True Grit - book cover - 1968 Image via Simon & Schuster One of the best Western books ever published, and one that became the basis for two great Western movies (don't call the 2010 version a remake; it's another adaptation), True Grit keeps things simple for the most part… mainly early on. There's a young girl who wants to avenge her father, but doesn't believe she can do so on her own, so she gets the help of two unlikely people to track down the man responsible for killing her father. It's an engaging trio of characters, and their dynamic throughout is what keeps True Grit interesting. And it's simple at first, but the whole nature of revenge and fighting fire with fire is explored in some slightly deeper ways later in the novel, making True Grit thematically interesting alongside also being narratively entertaining. It's the best (or West?) of both worlds. 9 'Wuthering Heights' (1847) Image via Chartwell Almost two centuries old, but still powerful, Wuthering Heights is a classic, with it having a certain power that feels surprising for something so old. There is the ability here for it to still shock, in other words, its darkness back in the 1840s would've been overwhelming, one assumes. Maybe it's a story about love, or almost, and not really in a romantic way, if that makes sense. Wuthering Heights has a bit more to do with obsession and passion, and an unhealthy kind of love, and then when bad things happen (kind of late in the novel, so maybe it's a spoiler… yes, old stories can still be spoiled), a vengeance of sorts is sought. Adaptations have failed to do the main story justice, though they are sometimes interesting, even when they tend to overplay the love story part of things while failing to make the revenge side of things hit as hard. 8 'Carrie' (1974) Image via Doubleday One of Stephen King's coming-of-age books, and his first published effort overall, Carrie is about a girl who is bullied at school, and then her home life is also defined by violence and abuse. She has strange powers she's somewhat able to control, but those other forces in her life keep pushing her, and then one prank goes too far, causing her to lash out in a pretty spectacular show of force/act of vengeance. That would be a spoiler if Carrie weren't structured in a way that tells you Carrie White will eventually destroy things and take lives with her powers, but it's getting to that point that proves intense, and then learning of the extent of her destruction. There's a lot done within a pretty slim number of pages here, making it easy to see why Carrie is considered one of King's best and most approachable novels. 7 'V for Vendetta' (1982–1989) Image via Vertigo Comics A graphic novel, yes, but a kind of book anyway, V for Vendetta takes place in a particularly awful and oppressive dystopia, with one revolutionary figure known only as 'V' being someone who seems willing to stand up to the oppressors around him. V is an anarchist, and he was formerly imprisoned and treated particularly poorly, which is what motivates him to get revenge while also starting a revolution. Or the revolution is part of his revenge, and he just has a lot planned out while being highly capable. It's not really action-packed, and V for Vendetta does want to look at this whole pursuit with some nuance, as in V isn't a true hero, but he looks like one compared to how terrible his enemies are. And there's a lot going on here beyond that, but what do you expect? It's written by Alan Moore, and if Moore wants to go into more (and Moore) places throughout one of his works, people tend to let him. It's not as sprawling as Jerusalem, Moore's more recent novel, at least. Have you seen the size and ambition of that brick-like book? 6 'Frankenstein' (1818) Image via Oxford University Press USA Before getting to talking about the revenge side of things, it has to be that Frankenstein is about as influential and important as early works of sci-fi and/or horror get. It's broadly about an experiment done to bring the dead back to life that goes wrong, with a scientist making a creature come alive from parts of dead bodies. He is the real monster, rather than the monster, and all that jazz. At least in the source material here, the monster is also pretty terrifying, but he has a reason to act like a monster, since he wants revenge for being created and for being discarded. And then the scientist hits back for being targeted, and it's this whole messy cycle between the creator and the created. Like Emily Brontë, Mary Shelley was on another level here, in terms of being forward-thinking (of course, Brontë's revenge-themed Wuthering Heights was very different from Frankenstein, but they broke ground in different ways, or broke different kinds of ground or something). 5 'Gone Girl' (2012) Image via Crown Publishing Group Since it's a very cinematic book, or at least it's paced in a way that might feel more reminiscent of film than literature, Gone Girl did make for a good movie. Both book and movie are fairly easy to spoil, since they go on for a while before revealing what the main story is really about. If you don't want to know anything, and somehow haven't seen the movie or read the book, maybe don't read on. That's the big twist, and you do have to give it away to explain how Gone Girl most qualifies as a revenge story… but there's a bit more by way of wild things that happen beyond that point. A woman does indeed disappear, and her husband is suspected of being behind her disappearance, as a potential murderer. The woman did so to get back at him for the unhappiness in her life with him, going into hiding while making sure he'd be framed. That's the big twist, and you do have to give it away to explain how Gone Girl most qualifies as a revenge story… but there's a bit more by way of wild things that happen beyond that point, and obviously, the exploration of how far the revenge goes is a big reason why the second half of the book remains engaging, as a top-quality thriller. 4 'The Princess Bride' (1973) Image via Harcourt Brace Jovanovich One of the best books of its decade, The Princess Bride and its creativity can't really be denied, since it's a lot more than just a revenge story. Revenge is a big part of one character, and kind of the only thing that motivates him, so even if it's not all about him, he's a big enough part, and that revenge side of things is too iconic to pass up. Íñigo Montoya is that character, and his target is a man with six fingers who killed his father. You probably know the deal with this, thanks to how iconic it also is in the movie version of The Princess Bride, but the book came first, obviously. And the book is worth reading even if you've seen the film a million times, since the framing device is different, and it has some quirks that are unique to the book (like author William Goldman 'discovering' and 'abridging' a longer work he finds by an 'author' named S. Morgenstern). 3 'Murder on the Orient Express' (1934) Image via Collins Crime Club There are a few reasons someone can end up dead in an Agatha Christie mystery, with a vengeance-fueled murder being one of them. Murder on the Orient Express qualifies, because the murdered person here is on the Orient Express, and he tells detective Hercule Poirot that he's been receiving death threats. He does indeed get murdered on the Orient Express, and Poirot has to investigate whether the person behind the death threats was also behind the death… and therefore, they're likely on the train. People are confined to the train, and the train was in motion in such a way that the murderer has to be there, so it's a pretty great set-up for a murder mystery. That's not too surprising, though, because that's what Christie specialized in writing, after all. Elaborating further on the revenge angle would be saying too much, but the conclusion is ultimately a satisfying and clever one. 2 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' (2005) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo book cover Image via Norstedts Förlag It's got the word 'Girl' in the title, and it's about a woman who wants revenge. There are crime and mystery elements. There were film adaptations (at least English-language film adaptations) in the early years of the 2010s. Otherwise, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is quite different from Gone Girl. Going into what the revenge here involves gets dark, and maybe runs the risk of ruining things. So, basically, there's a journalist looking into a high-profile case, and he comes across a hacker and private investigator who's looking into the same case, but she definitely has more personal reasons, and then revenge comes into things in a pretty big, impactful, and even quite shocking way. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo does build up to some of this fairly patiently, but proves relentless, surprising, and undoubtedly thrilling by the end of it all. 1 'The Count of Monte Cristo' (1846) Image via Penguin The Count of Monte Cristo could well be the quintessential story about revenge, with its age and influence here playing a role in getting it the #1 spot. There's also the fact that it's an epic-length novel, at about 1000 pages all up, and so many of those pages deal with a quest for revenge, with the main character being wronged, having to escape imprisonment, and then becoming the titular character/figure as he goes about getting vengeance. It was initially serialized, but can now be experienced as one huge epic about a very dramatic plan for revenge being enacted. And it's also more interesting than just 'I want to kill this person because they wronged me,' because there are lots of things done to get a psychological kind of revenge before the idea of getting physical/death-related revenge feels like it's on the table. If you've read a book about revenge published post-1846, there's a good chance it took some influence from The Count of Monte Cristo in one way or another.