After
Powerless
Elsie Silver2023
- pace
- prose
- structure
- bleakness
5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from
More like it
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Kissing Madeline
Lex Martin2015
A college soccer player tries to win back his childhood sweetheart after a past betrayal. The story follows their reconciliation.
Same tender register, still contemporary romance
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Seducing Cinderella
Gina L. Maxwell2012
An orthopedic surgeon asks her brother's best friend, an MMA fighter, to help her become more confident. They enter a physical arrangement.
tender → playful, still contemporary romance
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- pace0prose0bleak0
The Second We Met
Maya Hughes2019
Two college students start as rivals before becoming roommates and falling in love. It follows their relationship over a school year.
tender → warm, still contemporary romance
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- pace0prose+1bleak0
The Friend Zone
Kristen Callihan2015
A professional football player and his teammate's agent become friends while driving across the country. Their relationship shifts during the trip.
tender → playful, still contemporary romance
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1 more ↓ ↑
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Collided
Lauren Asher2020
A woman and a Formula 1 driver travel the world together to complete a list of sexual bucket-list items.
tender → playful, still contemporary romance
pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose
- pace-1prose+3bleak+1
Middlemarch
George Eliot1800
Interconnected families in a 1830s English town navigate marriage, debt, and political change. The focus is on social realism and internal life.
tender → elegiac
pace-1·prose+3·bleak+1

- pace0prose+3bleak+2
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov
A middle-aged professor documents his obsession with his twelve-year-old stepdaughter. He uses complex prose to justify his crimes.
tender → tense
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3 more ↓ ↑
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Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert1856
A doctor's wife in provincial France seeks escape from her mundane life through expensive tastes and extramarital affairs.
tender → tense
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Paradise Logic
Sophie Kemp2025
A young woman follows advice from a magazine to become a perfect partner. Her quest involves surreal jobs and messages from the beyond.
tender → epic
pace0·prose+3·bleak+2

- pace-1prose+2bleak+1
Mad Mabel
Sally Hepworth2025
An eighty-one-year-old woman with a history of killing people tries to hide her past when a curious young girl moves into the neighborhood.
tender → dark
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

Faster
- pace+1prose0bleak+1
Paper Princess
Erin Watt2016
An orphaned girl is taken in by a wealthy family with five hostile sons. She must navigate high school bullying and mansion politics.
tender → propulsive, still contemporary romance
pace+1·prose0·bleak+1

- pace+1prose0bleak0
The Professional: Part 2 (The Game Maker, #1b)
Kresley Cole
A Russian enforcer continues his pursuit of a graduate student across Europe. The focus is on their sexual power dynamic and his mafia duties.
tender → tense, still contemporary romance
pace+1·prose0·bleak0
3 more ↓ ↑
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Victory at Prescott High
C.M. Stunich
A high school girl seeks revenge against the boys who bullied her while navigating a complex relationship with all of them at once.
tender → propulsive, still contemporary romance
pace+1·prose0·bleak+1
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Burn for Me
Ilona Andrews2014
A private investigator with the ability to tell truth from lies is hired to find a fire-user. She is forced to work with a dangerous billionaire.
tender → propulsive
pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1
- pace+1prose+1bleak+1
Hounded
Kevin Hearne2011
A two-thousand-year-old Druid lives in modern Arizona and runs an occult bookshop. He must fight a vengeful Irish god who wants his sword.
tender → wry
pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1
Slower
- pace-2prose+3bleak+2
Dhalgren
Samuel R. Delany1975
An amnesiac wanderer enters Bellona, a city cut off from the world where time and geography shift. He joins a gang and writes poetry.
tender → dreamlike
pace-2·prose+3·bleak+2

- pace-2prose+3bleak0
Gödel, Escher, Bach
Douglas R. Hofstadter1979
An exploration of how cognition emerges from hidden neurological patterns. It uses math, art, and music to explain self-referential systems.
tender → playful
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3 more ↓ ↑
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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.
tender → playful
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- pace-2prose+3bleak+3
Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner1936
The rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen is recounted through multiple, conflicting memories. The prose uses extremely long, complex sentences.
tender → elegiac
pace-2·prose+3·bleak+3

- pace-2prose+3bleak+1
Either/Or
Søren Kierkegaard1992
A collection of papers presents two life philosophies: the aesthetic pursuit of pleasure and the ethical commitment to duty.
tender → meditative
pace-2·prose+3·bleak+1

Heavier
- pace0prose+1bleak+3
Bright Side
Kim Holden2014
An optimistic college student moves to Minnesota for a fresh start while hiding a terminal diagnosis from her best friend.
Same tender register, still contemporary romance
pace0·prose+1·bleak+3

- pace0prose+1bleak+3
The Last Letter
Rebecca Yarros2019
A soldier returns from war to help his deceased friend's sister raise her twins in Colorado. The story is told through letters and prose.
tender → elegiac, still contemporary romance
pace0·prose+1·bleak+3

3 more ↓ ↑
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Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë1846
Two families on the Yorkshire moors deal with the arrival and subsequent revenge of an adopted orphan. The story is told through nested narrators.
tender → bleak
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A Farewell to Arms
Ernest Hemingway1929
An American ambulance driver and a British nurse conduct a love affair during the Italian campaign of World War I.
tender → elegiac
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Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy
A country girl is sent to claim kinship with wealthy relatives. Her life is derailed by a sequence of social betrayals and rigid moral standards.
tender → elegiac
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+3
