After
Inside the O'Briens
Lisa Genova2015
- pace
- prose
- structure
- bleakness
6 of 6 directions open
More like it
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Trail of Broken Wings
Sejal Badani2015
Three sisters return home after their abusive father falls into a coma. They confront their shared history and the secrets they kept to survive.
Same earnest register, still contemporary
pace0·prose0·bleak0
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Wish You Were Here
Jodi Picoult2022
A woman travels to the Galápagos alone during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. She experiences isolation while her boyfriend works in a hospital.
Same earnest register, still contemporary
pace+1·prose0·bleak-1
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That Summer
Jennifer Weiner2021
Two women with similar names connect after a misdirected email. Their meeting unearths a shared history involving a sexual assault decades prior.
Same earnest register, still contemporary
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My Name Is Lucy Barton
Elizabeth Strout2016
A woman hospitalized for weeks receives a visit from her estranged mother. They talk about their past and the people from their rural hometown.
earnest → tender, still contemporary
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1 more ↓ ↑
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This Close to Okay
Leesa Cross-Smith2021
A therapist stops a stranger from jumping off a bridge and takes him home. They spend a weekend together sharing their respective traumas.
earnest → tender, still contemporary
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Denser prose
earnest → sardonic
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As I Lay Dying
William Faulkner1915
The Bundren family travels by wagon to bury their matriarch. Fifteen different narrators describe the journey as the corpse decomposes.
pace0·prose+2·bleak0
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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.
pace0·prose+2·bleak0
3 more ↓ ↑
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A Brief History of Seven Killings
Marlon James2014
A large cast of characters recounts the 1976 attempt on Bob Marley's life. The narrative spans decades and moves from Jamaica to New York.
earnest → propulsive
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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.
earnest → playful
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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.
earnest → dreamlike
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To recover
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The Identicals
Elin Hilderbrand2017
Estranged identical twin sisters swap lives on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard to handle a family crisis and repair their relationship.
earnest → warm, still contemporary
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2
- pace+1prose-1bleak-2
On a Pale Horse
Piers Anthony1983
After accidentally killing the personification of Death, a man must take over the office. He navigates the bureaucracy of the afterlife.
earnest → playful
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2
3 more ↓ ↑
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Ayesha at Last
Uzma Jalaluddin2019
A modern Muslim retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in Toronto. A poet and a conservative man clash over their differing values.
earnest → playful, still contemporary
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2
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Rich People Problems
Kevin Kwan2017
An extended family gathers in Singapore as their matriarch lies dying. They scheme against one another to inherit a massive estate.
earnest → playful, still contemporary
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2
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The Sheik & the Princess in Waiting
Susan Mallery2007
A woman discovers her college romance was a legal marriage and travels to a desert kingdom to secure a divorce from a prince.
earnest → playful
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2
Faster
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Dial A for Aunties
Jesse Q. Sutanto2021
A photographer accidentally kills her blind date. Her mother and aunties help hide the body during a massive luxury wedding.
earnest → playful
pace+2·prose-1·bleak-2
- pace+1prose-1bleak-2
The Identicals
Elin Hilderbrand2017
Estranged identical twin sisters swap lives on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard to handle a family crisis and repair their relationship.
earnest → warm, still contemporary
pace+1·prose-1·bleak-2
3 more ↓ ↑
- pace+2prose0bleak0
Child 44
Tom Rob Smith2008
A Soviet security officer investigates a serial killer in a state that officially claims murder does not exist.
earnest → tense
pace+2·prose0·bleak0
- pace+2prose0bleak-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.
earnest → sardonic
pace+2·prose0·bleak-1
- pace+2prose-1bleak-2
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.
earnest → propulsive
pace+2·prose-1·bleak-2
Slower
- pace-1prose+2bleak-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.
earnest → playful
pace-1·prose+2·bleak-1
- pace-1prose+2bleak+1
Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner1936
The rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen is recounted through multiple, conflicting memories. The prose uses extremely long, complex sentences.
earnest → elegiac
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1
3 more ↓ ↑
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Umbrella
Will Self2013
A psychiatrist in 1971 treats a woman who has been catatonic for decades. The prose shifts between eras and consciousnesses without paragraph breaks.
earnest → clinical
pace-1·prose+2·bleak0
- pace-1prose+2bleak+1
Translated Accounts
James Kelman2001
Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.
earnest → bleak
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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.
earnest → elegiac
pace-1·prose+1·bleak0
Heavier
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A Little Life
Hanya Yanagihara2015
Four friends in New York over thirty years. One of them is being destroyed, and the book does not look away.
earnest → bleak, still contemporary
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The Road
Cormac McCarthy2006
A father and son walk through a landscape of ash and scavengers toward the coast. They carry only what fits in a shopping cart.
earnest → bleak
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3 more ↓ ↑
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The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead2016
Two slaves escape a Georgia plantation via a literal underground train system while being pursued by a slave catcher.
earnest → bleak
pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1
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Oryx and Crake
Margaret Atwood2003
A man survives a genetic apocalypse in a world of engineered creatures. He remembers his past with a scientist and the woman they both loved.
earnest → sardonic
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Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut1969
Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time, experiencing his life out of order, from his chaplaincy in WWII to his abduction by aliens.
earnest → sardonic
pace+1·prose0·bleak+1
