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After

Tell Me Everything

Elizabeth Strout2024

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • Interpreter of Maladies

    Jhumpa Lahiri1999

    Nine short stories follow Indian and Indian-American characters navigating cultural displacement. They focus on domestic life and quiet crises.

    Same tender register, still literary fiction

    pace0·prose-1·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    tender → propulsive

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+2

  • Moby Dick

    Herman Melville1851

    A sailor joins a whaling voyage led by a captain seeking revenge on a specific whale. Large sections digress into the mechanics of 1850s whaling.

    tender → meditative, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Sundays at Tiffany's

    James Patterson2008

    A lonely woman is reunited with her childhood imaginary friend, who has returned to her life as a physical man.

    tender → warm

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

  • Modern Romance

    Aziz Ansari2015

    A comedian and a sociologist analyze how technology and culture have changed dating. It uses data and interviews to compare eras.

    tender → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

  • Tuesdays with Morrie

    Mitch Albom1994

    A journalist reconnects with his dying college professor for weekly lessons on life. They discuss aging, regret, and love as the professor declines.

    Same tender register

    pace0·prose-2·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+2·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.

    tender → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    tender → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • Orbital

    Samantha Harvey2024

    Six astronauts orbit Earth over twenty-four hours. The narrative focuses on their routine tasks and observations of the planet below.

    tender → meditative, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak0

  • 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.

    tender → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose0·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.

    tender → meditative, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+2

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    tender → bleak, still literary fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+2

  • 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.

    tender → bleak, still literary fiction

    pace0·prose0·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.

    tender → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+2