LitQueuelitqueue

After

The Dressmaker

Beryl Bainbridge1973

5 of 6 directions open — nothing heavier

More like it

1 more ↓

  • American Pastoral

    Philip Roth1997

    A successful businessman's life collapses when his daughter commits a political bombing in the 1960s. It tracks the decay of his family and ideals.

    cold → elegiac, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    cold → dreamlike, still psychological fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak-1

  • 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.

    cold → sardonic, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak-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.

    cold → playful

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak-2

To recover

3 more ↓

  • King of Pride

    Ana Huang2023

    A buttoned-up billionaire heir falls for an impulsive bartender while trying to secure a CEO position. They navigate a forbidden workplace romance.

    cold → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-3

  • The Inspector and Mrs. Jeffries

    Emily Brightwell1993

    A Victorian housekeeper and her staff secretly solve crimes for their employer, a clueless Scotland Yard inspector.

    cold → playful

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-3

  • Dragon on a Pedestal

    Piers Anthony1983

    A three-year-old princess with the power of enhancement wanders away and befriends a giant dragon. They travel a land defined by puns.

    cold → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-3

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.

    cold → sardonic

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-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.

    cold → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-3

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    cold → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-3

Slower

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.

    cold → elegiac, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose0·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.

    cold → elegiac, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose0·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.

    Same cold register, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1