LitQueuelitqueue

After

The Enchanted

Rene Denfeld2014

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • 1Q84

    Haruki Murakami2011

    A woman and a man enter a parallel version of 1984 Tokyo with two moons. Their paths converge through a religious cult and a series of murders.

    Same dreamlike register, still magical realism

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

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.

    dreamlike → sardonic

    pace0·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.

    dreamlike → bleak

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Beloved

    Toni Morrison1987

    A mother in post-Civil War Ohio is haunted by the ghost of the daughter she killed to spare from slavery. The prose is dense and non-linear.

    dreamlike → elegiac, still magical realism

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Night Pleasures

    Sherrilyn Kenyon2002

    An immortal warrior and a skeptical accountant are handcuffed together while being hunted by supernatural predators.

    dreamlike → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • The Texas Ranger

    Diana Palmer2001

    A Texas Ranger and a junior investigator work a high-profile murder case. They must cooperate despite a past accusation that drove them apart.

    dreamlike → earnest

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Noble Prince

    Devney Perry2020

    A police chief takes a witness into his home to protect her from a motorcycle gang. She refuses to follow his rules despite the danger.

    dreamlike → earnest

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

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.

    dreamlike → sardonic

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

  • 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.

    dreamlike → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    dreamlike → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    dreamlike → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak0

  • 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.

    dreamlike → meditative, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

  • To the Lighthouse

    Virginia Woolf1927

    A family and their guests visit a house in the Hebrides. The narrative follows their internal thoughts over two days separated by ten years.

    dreamlike → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

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.

    dreamlike → bleak, still literary fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

  • The Underground Railroad

    Colson Whitehead2016

    Two slaves escape a Georgia plantation via a literal underground train system while being pursued by a slave catcher.

    dreamlike → bleak, still magical realism

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+1

  • 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.

    dreamlike → bleak, still literary fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1