Books that twist sideways

From tor.com: 8 Puzzle Box Books With Surprising Twists and Turns

Now, nothing is going to beat And All the Stars by Andrea K Höst. But sure, lay it on me: what SFF books are you thinking about that suddenly tilt the reader off the expected path?

The Magus by John Fowles

Slade House by David Mitchell

The Seventh Function of Language by Laurent Binet

Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Of these I have read only the last book. When I saw this title, I immediately said ????? because this book does not contain anything that remotely resembles a shocking plot twist. Does it? Should I doubt my memory on this point? What does the author of this post say?

The Road is not a puzzle box book. It has no place on this list. It’s a terrifying dystopic journey, a post-apocalyptic trek of father and son, seemingly the last two good people in a world of char, ash, and soot in various forms …

Oh, we have some other metaphorical kind of puzzle or plot twist! Well, that’s cheating, sorry. Having read the author’s explanation for including The Road, nope, still cheating. Click through and read the whole post if you wish, but in the meantime, what are some books that actually no kidding jerk the reader sideways into a plot twist?

Other than And All the Stars?

Well, here’s one:

Here’s part of the description:

In the French Pyrenees, a young married couple is buried under a flash avalanche while skiing. Miraculously, Jake and Zoe dig their way out from under the snow—only to discover the world they knew has been overtaken by an eerie and absolute silence. Their hotel is devoid of another living soul. Cell phones and land lines are cut off. 

The truth isn’t as shocking as the plot twist in And All the Stars, but it’s an effectively creepy story. It worked for me, anyway.

Let me see, what’s another example . . . oh, here’s one, solidly SFF rather than horror.

Sparrow’s my name. Trader. Deal-maker. Hustler, some call me. I work the Night Fair circuit, buying and selling pre-nuke videos from the world before. … But the hottest ticket of all is information on the Horsemen—the mind-control weapons that tilted the balance in the war between the Americas. That’s the prize I’m after.

But it seems I’m having trouble controlling my own mind….

What’s a really startling plot twist you can think of?

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