LitQueuelitqueue

After

Room

Emma Donoghue2010

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Yellow Wife

    Sadeqa Johnson2021

    A woman is sold into a notorious Richmond slave jail and forced to become the mistress of the man who runs it. She must survive to protect her sons.

    tender → tense, still survival

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    tender → sardonic

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

    Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

    tender → bleak

    pace-2·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.

    tender → sardonic

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

To recover

tender → playful

3 more ↓

  • Tall, Tatted and Tempting

    Tammy Falkner2013

    A tattoo artist who communicates through sign language falls for a woman who enters his shop. The story follows their domestic courtship.

    Same tender register

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

  • A Veiled Deception

    Annette Blair2009

    A vintage shop owner investigates a murder during her sister's wedding preparations to clear her family's name.

    pace-1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • It Starts with Us

    Colleen Hoover2022

    A single mother navigates a new relationship with her first love while managing a jealous ex-husband. The story alternates perspectives.

    tender → earnest

    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.

    tender → 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.

    tender → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    tender → wry

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

Slower

tender → meditative, still psychological fiction

3 more ↓

  • February

    Lisa Moore2009

    A widow in Newfoundland moves between her quiet daily routines and the memory of her husband's death on a sunken oil rig decades earlier.

    tender → elegiac, still psychological fiction

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+1

  • The Wilderness

    Samantha Harvey2009

    An architect with Alzheimer's attempts to reconstruct his life story. The narrative fragments as his memory and sense of time dissolve.

    tender → elegiac, still psychological fiction

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Study for Obedience

    Sarah Bernstein2023

    A woman moves to a remote northern country to care for her brother. The local community grows hostile as she observes them.

    tender → cold, still psychological fiction

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • No Longer Human

    太宰 治2024

    A man describes his life through three notebooks, detailing his inability to connect with others and his social alienation.

    tender → bleak, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

  • The Lighthouse

    Alison Moore2012

    A recently separated man takes a walking tour of Germany while reflecting on his childhood abandonment and his failing marriage.

    tender → bleak, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

  • The White Hotel

    D. M. Thomas1981

    A woman's life is told through poems, a Freudian case study, and a narrative. It moves from her sexual fantasies to her death in the Holocaust.

    tender → dreamlike, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2