LitQueuelitqueue

After

The Bachelor

Carly Phillips

5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Hope Flames

    Jaci Burton2013

    A veterinarian returns to her hometown to start a practice and encounters a local police officer. A series of break-ins brings them together.

    playful → warm, still contemporary romance

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Madame Bovary

    Gustave Flaubert1856

    A doctor's wife in provincial France seeks escape from her mundane life through expensive tastes and extramarital affairs.

    playful → tense

    pace0·prose+3·bleak+2

  • 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.

    playful → epic

    pace0·prose+3·bleak+2

  • 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.

    playful → dark

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    playful → propulsive, still contemporary romance

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+1

  • 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.

    playful → propulsive

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+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.

    playful → wry

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    Same playful register

    pace-2·prose+3·bleak0

  • 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.

    Same playful register

    pace-2·prose+3·bleak+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.

    playful → elegiac

    pace-2·prose+3·bleak+3

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    playful → bleak

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+3

  • 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.

    playful → elegiac

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+3

  • 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.

    playful → elegiac

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+3