LitQueuelitqueue

After

Girl, Woman, Other

Bernardine Evaristo2019

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Quartet in Autumn

    Barbara Pym1977

    Four aging office workers in London face retirement and isolation. The narrative follows their quiet attempts to maintain dignity and routine.

    warm → wry, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    warm → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

  • Don Quixote

    Kathy Acker1986

    A woman undergoes an abortion and adopts the persona of Don Quixote to pursue a quest in a fragmented, postmodern landscape.

    warm → sardonic

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

  • 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.

    warm → sardonic

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

To recover

warm → playful, still contemporary

3 more ↓

  • Vampires Are Forever

    Lynsay Sands2008

    A woman suspects her business partner is a vampire after he attempts to bite her. He tries to convince her they are fated mates.

    warm → playful

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Mane Event

    Shelly Laurenston2007

    A female cop reunites with a childhood friend who is now a lion-shifter. They navigate a romantic attraction while he pursues her in New York.

    warm → playful

    pace0·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.

    warm → playful

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    warm → sardonic

    pace+1·prose0·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.

    warm → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    warm → wry

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • Blackouts

    Justin Torres2023

    A young man cares for a dying elder in a medical facility. They use a 1930s study on homosexuality to reconstruct their personal histories.

    warm → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+1

  • The Waters of Kronos

    Conrad Richter1960

    An elderly man travels back in time to his childhood Pennsylvania town, which in his present day is submerged beneath a reservoir.

    warm → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak0

  • The story of a brief marriage

    Anuk Arudpragasam2016

    Two refugees enter an arranged marriage in a Sri Lankan camp during the final days of the civil war. It focuses on the physical details of survival.

    warm → meditative, still literary fiction

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+2

Heavier

warm → bleak, still literary fiction

3 more ↓

  • The story of a brief marriage

    Anuk Arudpragasam2016

    Two refugees enter an arranged marriage in a Sri Lankan camp during the final days of the civil war. It focuses on the physical details of survival.

    warm → meditative, still literary fiction

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+2

  • A Distant Shore

    Caryl Phillips2003

    A retired teacher and an African refugee form a quiet bond in a xenophobic English village. Their past traumas emerge through alternating stories.

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

  • The Nickel Boys

    Colson Whitehead2019

    A studious black teenager in 1960s Florida is sent to a brutal reform school where physical abuse is systemic.

    warm → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2