LitQueuelitqueue

After

The Emperor's Children

Claire Messud2006

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • The Bay of Noon

    Shirley Hazzard1970

    A young Englishwoman works for NATO in post-war Naples. She navigates a complex social circle and a love triangle while observing the city.

    sardonic → elegiac, still love triangle

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    sardonic → playful

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

  • The Sound and the Fury

    William Faulkner1929

    The decline of a Southern family told through four perspectives, including a non-linear stream of consciousness from a man with a disability.

    sardonic → elegiac

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • 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.

    sardonic → dreamlike

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Beautiful Bastard

    Christina Lauren2013

    An MBA intern and her demanding media executive boss engage in a series of sexual encounters while competing at work. It is an erotic romance.

    sardonic → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Hating Game

    Sally Thorne2016

    Two executive assistants at a publishing house compete for a single promotion through a series of psychological games and mutual sabotage.

    sardonic → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Score

    Elle Kennedy2016

    A college senior has a one-night stand with a hockey player to get over a breakup. They continue the arrangement as graduation approaches.

    sardonic → playful

    pace+1·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.

    Same sardonic register

    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.

    sardonic → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    sardonic → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • Umbrella

    Will Self2013

    A psychiatrist in 1971 treats a woman who has been catatonic for decades. The prose shifts between eras and consciousnesses without paragraph breaks.

    sardonic → clinical

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

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

    sardonic → bleak

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

  • The English Patient

    Michael Ondaatje1992

    Four people shelter in a ruined Italian villa at the end of WWII. They care for a burned, anonymous man who recounts his past in the desert.

    sardonic → elegiac

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

Heavier

sardonic → bleak

3 more ↓

  • Oryx and Crake

    Margaret Atwood2003

    A man survives a genetic apocalypse in a world of engineered creatures. He remembers his past with a scientist and the woman they both loved.

    Same sardonic register

    pace+1·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.

    pace0·prose0·bleak+2

  • Slaughterhouse-Five

    Kurt Vonnegut1969

    Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time, experiencing his life out of order, from his chaplaincy in WWII to his abduction by aliens.

    Same sardonic register

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak+2