Frankissstein

Fingersmith

Sarah Waters2002

A pickpocket in Victorian London joins a con man's plot to defraud an heiress by becoming her maid. The narrative shifts perspectives halfway.

playful → tense, still historical fiction

pace0·prose0·bleak0

Gravity's Rainbow

Thomas Pynchon1973

During the end of WWII, an American lieutenant's sexual encounters seem to predict where German V-2 rockets will fall. The narrative is fragmented.

playful → sardonic, still historical fiction

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

Ulysses

James Joyce1914

Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.

Same playful register

pace-2·prose+1·bleak0

Briefing for a Descent into Hell

Doris Lessing1971

A man is found wandering London and placed in a psychiatric ward. The narrative shifts between the hospital and his internal cosmic hallucinations.

playful → dreamlike

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

Mile High

Liz Tomforde2023

A professional hockey player and a flight attendant clash on the team's private plane during a season-long road trip.

pace0·prose-2·bleak-1

Behind the Net

Stephanie Archer2024

A former musician becomes the live-in assistant for a professional hockey goalie she knew in high school.

pace0·prose-2·bleak-1

She Went All the Way

Meg Cabot2002

A screenwriter and an actor survive a helicopter crash in the Alaskan wilderness and must hike to safety while being pursued by a killer.

pace0·prose-2·bleak-1

Candide

Voltaire

A naive young man travels the world while his tutor insists that everything is for the best. He encounters a series of global catastrophes.

playful → sardonic

pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown2003

A symbologist and a cryptologist flee the police while solving puzzles hidden in art. They search for a secret regarding the Holy Grail.

playful → propulsive

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

The Martian

Andy Weir2011

A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.

playful → wry

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

The English Patient

Michael Ondaatje1992

Four people shelter in a ruined Italian villa at the end of WWII. They care for a burned, anonymous man who recounts his past in the desert.

pace-2·prose0·bleak+1

Ulysses

James Joyce1914

Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.

Same playful register

pace-2·prose+1·bleak0

Lila

Marilynne Robinson2014

A woman with a traumatic, nomadic past settles in a small Iowa town and marries a minister. She struggles to reconcile her history with his faith.

playful → tender, still historical fiction

pace-2·prose0·bleak0

The Known World

Edward P. Jones2003

A black man who was once a slave becomes a slave owner in antebellum Virginia. The story follows the fallout on the plantation after his death.

playful → meditative, still historical fiction

pace-1·prose0·bleak+2

A Long Long Way

Sebastian Barry2005

A young Irishman joins the British Army to fight in the trenches of World War I while his home country moves toward rebellion.

playful → elegiac, still historical fiction

pace-1·prose0·bleak+2

Brotherless Night

V. V. Ganeshananthan2023

A young woman in Sri Lanka tries to study medicine while her brothers join militant groups during the civil war. It covers a decade of conflict.

playful → elegiac, still historical fiction

pace-1·prose0·bleak+2